1958 Gibson Les Paul Junior, goldtop ’ 68 Gibson Les Paul Standard,
’ 72 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe with Bigsby, ’ 74 Gibson EDS-1275, ’ 82
Gibson ES-335 reissue, 2011 Gibson Custom Shop ’ 55 Les Paul
reissue with original ’ 55 pickups, ’ 96 Rickenbacker 660-12, ’ 83
Rickenbacker 330, ’ 56 goldtop Gibson Les Paul Standard with PAFs,
’ 55 Gibson EM- 150 mandolin, ’ 48 Martin 000-18, ’08 Martin D-18V
with D-TAR Multi-Source pickup driving D-TAR Solstice preamp, ’ 56
Gibson EM- 150 Mandolin, ’07 Collings/Nugget Tim O’Brien signature
mandolin
Amps
’ 69 Marshall plexi driving a vintage 8x10 cab, 1959 Fender Deluxe,
’ 62 Fender Tremolux, ’ 63 Vox AC10 Twin, ’ 60 C.F. Martin/DeArmond
R15, ’ 69 Marshall 1959 Super Lead driving two 1960 4x12 cabs, two
2010 Vox AC30HW2Xs
Effects
’60s Vox wah, ’ 68 Fuzz Face, vintage “triangle” Big Muff, Univox
Super-Fuzz, Vox Tonebender, Colorsound Tonebender MKIII, Kay
fuzz, Maxon overdrive, Diamond Pedals Memory Lane 2, Ibanez
AD- 80 analog delay, MXR Phase 100, Boss DC- 2 Dimension C chorus, Z.Vex Fuzz Probe, Z.Vex Ringtone, Kaden Effects Flutter Tone,
RonSound Trem-o-matic, Analog Man SunLion fuzz booster, Vox
wah, SIB EchoDrive
Stings, Picks, and Accessories
D’Addario EXL140 electric strings, D’Addario EJ16 acoustic
strings, D’Addario EJ70 mandolin strings, . 73 mm In Tune GrippX-XB picks, Planet Waves bottleneck slide, Peterson StroboStomp,
Evidence Audio cables
but it can get really loud [laughs]. So, in an effort to bring down
stage volume, I got the Underground 30.
Al, let’s go back to your AC30s for a second. Are they vintage or
current models?
Schnier: Well, it’s funny, because I had two vintage AC30s on the
road for a while—one of which I’ve had for years. It’s been my baby,
my go-to amp. And then I got a second one, and I was very hesitant to bring them out on the road for a long time. Finally, I was
just like, “Y’know what, these amps have been around for almost
50 years at this point”—they’re early-’60s AC30s, and they’re still
rocking hard—so I was, like, “I’m taking these out on the road.
They’re going to be fine. The worst that could happen is we’ll have
to replace some tubes or some speakers or whatever.” And that was
the case. I never even blew a speaker in either of them. I had a few
tubes go down occasionally, but that’ll happen with new-old-stock
[NOS] tubes.
But then, on a whim, I decided to try one of the new Hand-Wired AC30s. After they put out the most recent version, I read a
review and I saw a picture of the turret board, and it just seemed
like they’d finally gotten it right. So they shipped one to me, and
I brought it to soundcheck one day. It was still in the cardboard
box, and we popped the staples on the box, put it up onstage, and
I played it during soundcheck. We tried to match it very closely
to my main amp, sonically, and it sounded great during soundcheck. I was, like, “Let’s just go with it tonight and see how it
goes.” All night long, I kept looking back at it, because I couldn’t
believe how good this brand-new amp with brand-new tubes and
brand-new Celestion speakers sounded, and how close it sounded
to the vintage amp. I was floored. Shortly after that, I contacted
Vox and I was, like, “Can I get another one of these?” I sent both
my vintage amps home, and I’ve been playing those new Hand-Wired amps ever since.
Are you still using the stock new tubes they came with, or have
you switched to new-old-stock (NOS)?
Schnier: You know, it’s funny—I immediately brought out some
vintage speakers and some new-old-stock tubes, and I was going to
retool one of those amps to get it closer to vintage specs and make
it even better than it was. But the amp was so good that I didn’t
want to mess with it. I mess around with my gear quite a bit, and I
had a few hours before soundcheck one day, and I was, like, “Okay,
today’s the day I’m going to take this amp apart and do all this
work to it.” But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because it sounded
good as is. I was afraid that it would actually sound worse somehow. I played the amp for over a year, as is, with all the stock parts
until one of my preamp tubes died. So I was, like, “All right, now’s
the time.” So now that amp has one vintage speaker and a bunch
of new-old-stock tubes. The other one I left totally stock. I figured,
this way, I’ll have one that’s sort of old reliable, and the other one
with vintage stuff in it. We mic the vintage speaker onstage now,
but whether it makes a difference or not, I can’t really tell because
the other speakers are broken in and sound great.
So you didn’t notice much difference in tone with the NOS tubes?
Schnier: As soon as I changed out the tubes, there was definitely
a difference. But I’d been playing those new production tubes for
