Abysmal Crucifix — The Gear Page
Girth McDürchstein
For this album, I made extensive use of my G&L Legacy Special. In all my years of playing, and of all the guitars I've picked up in those years, the Legacy Special is the only one with the dynamic range, sustain, and control that I require to run the gamut from searing solos to tender ballads. They tend to be pricey, but they're well worth the money, if only for the supercharged Power Blade humbucking pickup. With its Butterscotch Blonde finish and black pickguard, my Legacy Special not only plays beautifully — it's beautiful.
I use D'Addario strings, specifically electric XL super lights and acoustic EJ16 lights, for personal reasons known only to me and my former drummer, Robin Kelley.
They have an exceptional, ringing jangle to them that I can't replicate using any other string, acoustic or electric.
With regard to effects pedals, I only use a few. The DOD FX59 Thrashmaster, which DOD unfortunately discontinued several years ago, is the essential distortion pedal for getting what is often referred to as the "classic" Abysmal sound. Don't let the hot-pink paint job fool you — inside this pretty box rages the heart of a beast. Its bass crunches, its highs squelch, and it produces feedback if you crank the volume knob any higher than 3.
I have tinkered with other distortion pedals and so-called "fuzzboxes," a few of which appear on The Hedge (the most notably example is the Danelectro Fabtone, itself a beast masquerading as a "classic '60s fuzz" pedal). But nothing compares, for soloing or power chords, with the Thrashmaster.
I also make frequent use of Jim Dunlop's Crybaby wah-wah pedal, made famous by Jimi Hendrix and used the world over to create wild tones. I've tried several other wah-wah pedals over the years, and even some variations on the expression pedal (the Rotovibe, the Digidesign Whammy), but none compare to the sound of the original Crybaby.
Sometimes I need to take it down a few notches. On every album, you need a track, somewhere in the middle, to just cool it down. Then you rev it back up and make the listener explode by the last song. On The Hedge, we have many "cool-down" tracks scattered throughout. For them, I use my Aria AW75 dreadnought. It's relatively inexpensive, and it packs one hell of an acoustic punch.For studio recordings, the Aria is my acoustic of choice; live, however, I tend to favor Ovation acoustic-electrics. I do miss the unmatched strength of the Aria in every live performance.
And speaking of live performances, everything we use is miked by Shure. We only use amplification by Kustom, notably the Kustom Quad Stacks for our guitars and the Groove Bass for our basses. We try to carry this sound over to the studio, where, again, we only use Shure mics to record our Kustom amplifiers. It's a harmonious sonic marriage with which I would never dare tamper.— Girth McDürchstein
Little Riffs Nicky
Hey cats, Riffs here. Live or dead, I'll take the Epiphone 1958 Korina Explorer reissue over any electric guitar currently manufactured. She roars like a banshee, and she loves like a sailor.
I would talk more about the variety of effects and amps I prefer to use, including the Ibanez Tube Screamer and Mesa/Boogie amps, but my coconspirator, Girth, has forbidden me from using anything that strays away from his own preferences. I'm okay with this. Really, I am. The Thrashmaster sounds all right. The distortion isn't oversaturated at all, and I love getting all that feedback.
— Riffs
Mikey Parker
I used to play this old bass my ma bought me from Sears when I was 13. I played that fucker for years, almost a decade even, and I just loved that sound it'd get. It was so fat, so tight, but so crazily... I don't even know how to describe it, man, but it fucking... to me, in my head, it sounds to me the way wood paneling looks, if that makes any fucking sense.
So naturally, fucking Girth makes me get rid of the goddamn thing. Makes me spend fifteen hundred fucking dollars on a new G&L Asat bass. He loves G&L, he thinks they sound great, he signed an exclusivity contract, what-fucking-ever. Exclusivity my fucking ass; why does Riffs get to play a fucking Epiphone? And so fucking Girth, when I put up a shitfit about the goddamn bass, he fucking smashes my goddamn Sears bass that my ma bought me. So I fucking set his '72 Fender Wildwood on fire, and fucking Girth, he thinks that's cool. What the fuck, man?
And then there's the strings. Fucking yeah, Girth, I love the way those fucking D'Addario bass strings have a hollow fucking bottom. I love how they reverberate against the fretboard. What the fuck, man, why can't I use my own goddamn strings? They're strings, for fuck's sake, just 'cause some girl he used to fuck loooooved D'Addario strings (and she's a fucking drummer, what does she know?!) means we all have to use them, for now and forever. What the fuck, man?
— Mikey
Jam Malone
Yamaha S-90
I had to fight for days with Girth to let me use an organ bank at the end of "Guilt Trip." All the man wants are strings that sound like an old Mellotron. In fact, this board doesn't even have that kind of sound to it, so I spent a few weeks sampling an old, barely functional Mellotron I have, analyzing the waveform, and creating my own Mellotron string bank. I hope you folks like it. He also wanted a bit more layering on "The Love Song of Gregor Samsa," arguably the most important track on the record, so I put in some "choir aahs" on top of the 'tron strings.
Later in the recording process, Girth hit me up for some instrumentals. "We need an overture," he said, "and I know what I should be." He knew what it should be — the first bit of his guitar solo on "Love Song" — but he was clueless as to how he wanted to sound. I played with it for weeks, testing different banks, adding different interpretations of the basic "Love Song" chord structure, before I finally hit on this one.
Personally, I think "Rhapsody in Gregor Samsa" is a beautiful, beautiful piece of music, if I may pat myself on the back a bit. For "The End of the Maze," I composed a brief segue from the final D major chord that concludes "Guilt Trip" to its relative minor key, b minor. I really enjoy that key change. For that track, I just used a Fender Rhodes bank. I think it sounds fairly convincing; even if it doesn't, it has a nice warmth.
Boss DR-880 Dr. Rhythm Station
When I started playing with this machine at the store, I fell in love. I've never been big on percussion, but its less the hollow thudding than the people who attempt to perform with these instruments. Rhythm is precise, calculating, and overall, perfect. Humans cannot accomplish this perfect; computers can, which is why I tend to favor computer-programmed rhythms. Yes, I also love the feel of the keys beneath my fingers, but I find myself driven insane by my lack of precision, lack of perfection. I'm a fan of sequencing with computers, and when Girth announced that that asshole, Tommy Janofsky, would not be returning to Abysmal Crucifix for this album and that Girth would need assistance from me to create electronic drums, I was elated.
For most songs, I tried as hard as possible to accurately recreate drum sounds. I recorded digital samples and inputted them into the system; only occasionally would I use the factory default sample banks. What I accomplished — for the percussion, at any rate — is perfect rhythm. I will always be happy with the way the drums sound on this record.
— Jam