Tony Reed

Pictured and mentioned in this May 17, 2021 The Sleeping Shaman interview.

I always love reading your liner notes and posts on social media about the backstories on songs and how they are recorded, so let’s get started, what amps are you currently using?

I find that my 1969 Laney Supergroup is the amp I go to in the studio the most. That’s the one that gives me all the range of sound that I personally like and if I do want to use a pedal, which is not typical for me, that’ll take them well. I have a 1980 Hiwatt DR103, it sounded brutal, but sometimes taking those older amplifiers out on tour is not the best idea because they can blow transformers. Those old amplifiers don’t get that nice gain until they’re turned all the way up, so if you tour for five weeks with the amp turned all the way up every night, when you got something that’s 40 to 50 years old, you’re going to be blowing transformers left and right. In the studio it’s usually the Laney or the Hiwatt, or this amp from the 70s I have that’s called Risson that I toured with a few years ago. I also have a clone of the preamp built by Ben Verellen to use in Europe as the tone is so unique.

Pictured and mentioned in this May 17, 2021 The Sleeping Shaman interview.

I always love reading your liner notes and posts on social media about the backstories on songs and how they are recorded, so let’s get started, what amps are you currently using?

I find that my 1969 Laney Supergroup is the amp I go to in the studio the most. That’s the one that gives me all the range of sound that I personally like and if I do want to use a pedal, which is not typical for me, that’ll take them well. I have a 1980 Hiwatt DR103, it sounded brutal, but sometimes taking those older amplifiers out on tour is not the best idea because they can blow transformers. Those old amplifiers don’t get that nice gain until they’re turned all the way up, so if you tour for five weeks with the amp turned all the way up every night, when you got something that’s 40 to 50 years old, you’re going to be blowing transformers left and right. In the studio it’s usually the Laney or the Hiwatt, or this amp from the 70s I have that’s called Risson that I toured with a few years ago. I also have a clone of the preamp built by Ben Verellen to use in Europe as the tone is so unique.

He uses an old and rusty ESP LTD Viper 400 with Guild HB-1 pickups with Mos Generator and Pentagram , plugged into Rola Lead 100HW amplifier . No pedals .