More details later on but here's some basic info on the gear. If there's something specific just ask below there...

THE GUITAR
The main guitar used for the whole album was the green Ben Reuter's custom guitar. All info about the guitar can be found here. http://www.guitarshredshow.com/main.html
Choose "Dungeon of Qian" from the main page.
Or from Ben Reuters site: http://www.benreuters.de/qian_eng.htm

Also seven string Qian was also in great use.

AMP
The main amp used was Hughes & Kettner Triamp. Ahh that cruchy tone, that clean tone.
Also H&K Switchblade was used, especially for that high gain action. Amps together with 4 x 12 Hughes & Kettner cabinet with vintage celestions.



FX
TC electronic G-system was the main FX machine, Delays and Echos, Phaser, Flanger (the ninjas!), Touch Wah.
Also used TC Nova delay


With the G-system you see a Morley Tripler pedal. It allows you to lead your guitar signal out to tree amps or what ever imputs. I'm a tweaker by my nature. So everytime when I recorded guitar I also recorded direct line signal aswell. It was recorded for a separate audio track. Then If I was unhappy with the recorded amplifier tone or what ever. I was able feed the direct signal back to amplifier and mic it again. This is called Re-Amping. It saved my ass a couple of times!

Some of the delays and other FX were in the FX loop of the amp. Some were added during the mix / editing. Nova delay proved to be very cool device for getting the delays and echos during the mix. It was very fun, fast and musical to be able to adjust the delay parameters like the tone and feedback real time.

STRINGS
On Qian we use Rotosound strings, the regular set of 10. These are the strings of fire!

PEDALS
Menatone bluecollar pedal was used as a booster before preamp. It give's more attack to the tone. Boosting the tone! It's not used all the time. The tone comes from the amp but when I want to get slightly more attack or go boosting I usually put this pedal on.

There's also the piece of gear that I've always had (since 1989 or something!) Ibanez Metal Charger distortion. It has 4 or those Tube Screamer circuits (= 4 times better!) It's slightly modified these days and is in use when I'm into serious metal charging!



Also in the pedal bag Zvex Fuzz Factory for the very extreme and cool Fuzzy tones. And Korg Pitch Black tuner with a cool Knight Rider 2000 kind of display FX.

MICROPHONES
Russian made Octava (MK-012), Australian Rode (NT1)and American Shure (Sm-57) were all in good use. Plenty of experimenting. Chose the microphone depending on the role of the guitar. Especially recomment checking out Octava microphone, it gives such nice flavor to the sound.



If you have any questions. Please, leave em to the next page.

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Editing and arranging the parts



All those long days in studio Mankku.