SHIFTING GEAR
RICH ECKHARDT
With nearly 40 years of experience whacking
it out on what is arguably America’s favorite
instrument, I find that there aren’t too many
surprises left, and not much impresses me
about guitars anymore. But I do have to
say that on this year’s Toby Keith tour I was
presented with an interesting challenge,
and I found a guitar that met the test and
genuinely made an impression on me and
my bandmates.
try and create an acoustic sounding patch with
my electric and switch settings back and forth
when needed. I certainly could have made the
patch change quickly enough, but the acoustic
sound would have suffered critically. My solution was to use an acoustic/electric hybrid, and
switch manually between the acoustic sound
and electric.
The Word of the Day is Hybrid
Normally with Toby I play all electric, leaving
acoustic duties to our utility player. On Toby’s
new single, “American Ride,” there is a strong
fiddle part as well as electric and acoustic
guitars. Fiddle is covered by the acoustic guy,
leaving a big hole in the guitar arrangement,
and I was left with the challenge of figuring
out how to cover both guitar parts.
by itself would be a cake walk. Where the
challenge lay for me was in doing them simultaneously. The Singlecut has a hit switch that
throws each pickup configuration (acoustic
or electric) on and off. The switch is placed
right between both volume controls and it
has to be flogged with dead on accuracy.
Using dual output jacks, I run the humbucker
side into my normal guitar rig and have it
set to kill with the most intense overdriven
tone that I’ve ever used on a country gig.
The piezo output goes into a Digi Tech Valve
FX rack unit which has a patch that I built for
my acoustic guitar that helps to bring out the
acoustic value of the PRS perfectly.
There are many ways to tackle this predicament. I could have used an acoustic fastened
to a Gracie stand and carried out the double
duty with the electric still strapped over my
shoulder. However, the switch between parts
is almost instantaneous, so even the two seconds needed to take my arms from around
the big-bodied acoustic and grab my first
chord on electric would have been too long a
pause. Another solution would have been to
There are several hybrids to choose from these
days: Taylor, Ovation, Ibanez and Michael Kelly
all make astounding hybrid axes. Many of
them are exceptional sounding, comfortable
playing instruments, and any one of them may
have done the trick in my situation. Because of
the high craftsmanship produced by the folks
at Paul Reed Smith, I knew that their Singlecut
Hollowbody would be my guitar of choice.
Their version of the hybrid comes complete
with a pair of humbuckers as well as an LR
Baggs/PRS Piezo patented pickup system
under the bridge, with real acoustic guitar
modeling onboard. The PRS hybrid gives me
a thrashing electric tone and still manages a
natural acoustic sound when I need it.
For the song in question, I will often blend
both electric and acoustic to complete the
illusion of two players. The song’s chord
progression is not complicated; either part
One of the obstacles my tech and I had to
overcome was figuring out the signal path.
Using two separate lines meant we had to
run two wireless signals from the one guitar
to the rack backstage. I have a pocket sewn
to my strap that houses my Shure UHF-R
Wireless transmitter. When I do my guitar
changes, I keep the strap with me and swap
only the guitar from song to song. We had to
make this change-over happen with two lines
going out. We found an out-of-the-way spot
on the back of this guitar where we could
velcro a transmitter and keep it plugged
into the piezo output jack. With that in place
we’re able to do our normal guitar switch and
have all bases covered and ready to rock or
acoustify the audience!
It’s a slightly complicated setup that needed
some tweaking to get right, but the end
result was worth all the vital brain power put
into pulling it off. Initially, my band mates
didn’t grasp how I was going to be able to
cop both parts so seamlessly, but I had a
pretty good idea that using this guitar would
be successful in this situation. This setup
will be a part of our show for as long as
“American Ride” stays in the set.
Rich Eckhardt
Rich Eckhardt is one of the most sought after guitarists
in Nashville. His ability to cover multiple styles has put
him on stage with singers ranging from Steven Tyler
of Aerosmith to Shania Twain. Rich is currently playing
lead guitar with Toby Keith. His new album Cottage City
Firehouse is available at his website and CDBaby.com
