Stigsite - Steuart Liebig Official Site

Gear . . . we gotta use and we love to talk about it - - but really, after a while it's pretty boring.

I should also stress that I do NOT use this all of this stuff for every gig I do.

Some (Minim, Stigtette) are sort of like this, but add "prepared bass," which can add all sorts of different colors, textures and sounds.

And still others (Brotulid) get all of that pluslaptop sound creation that I'm starting to do

For those who are nuts enought to want to know what I used on certain recording projects (back to 1993 or so) here is an "amps and basses" page . . .

Basses
In 1985 I made the decision to play 6-string basses exclusively. This choice changed a lot of how I think about music and play it. The instrument has really allowed me to further my musicality; it allows me a lot of latitude in terms of orchestration and function - - I can be the melody instrument, play chords, the whole nine yards. My basses of choice are Fodera basses. Simply put, I believe them to be the Ferrari (or Stradivarius, if you prefer) of electric basses. At this time I have eight of their basses:

Two (fretted and fretless) I tune as a standard
6-string bass (B to C, in fourths), using roundwound strings

Two (fretted and fretless) I tune as a standard
6-string bass (B to C, in fourths), using (Thomastik-Infeld) flatwound strings

One 12-string bass (six strings in double courses, each pair is octaves) I tune as a standard
6-string bass (B to C, in fourths), using roundwound strings

Two (fretted and fretless) I tune in a solo tuning
(D to Eb, in fourths), using roundwound strings

Strings
I use Thomastik-Infeld Jazz Flatwound strings on two basses, and different sets (for different the tunings and for 12-string) of nickel roundwound strings on the others, and an old set of indeterminate origin for the low bass.

Pickups
All of my basses have Rick Turner piezo film pickups under the bridge. This arrangement gives me a very woody sound, much more so than most piezo pickup arrangements.

I've been lucky enough to have some friends who have helped me with a pickup obsession i developed a few years ago. After having a few manufacturers tell why i couldn't do something ad why i was wrong to want to do it, I hooked up with Mike Cooper at Nordstrand Guitars/Pickups. We've come up with some cool pickups that I think sounds pretty good. More on this later (with pix).

Blender
Because I don't have onboard electronics on my basses, I need to use a stand-alone blender to be able to mix the magnetic and piezo pickups. The blender I use is the Raven Labs PMB-1 (though they have apparently decided to hang it up . . . ).

Amps
As of May 2011, I hooked up with Genz Benz as an artist. I'd been using their amps for a while and have now made things "official" with them.

I'm using a Shuttlemax 12.0, a Shuttle 3.0 and the new Streamliner 600 (three preamp tubes—get pretty damned close to the sound of the old Ampeg I was carrying around at about a tenth of the wieght and three times the power.

Cabinets
I am currently using Audio Kinesis Thuderchild 112 cabinets. like em alot!

Effects Pedals
Well I use a lot - - and it's been changing . . .
here's a partial list:

Noise Swash (3MS/4MS self-oscillating fuzz/noise machine - - you can twiddle knobs and play melodies on the pedal without touching your instrument . . . yes, that's a good thing.)

Volume pedals (Boss FV60, they're, small and lightweight, probably not the "best," but pretty good.)

Fulldrive2 (Fulltone overdrive pedal, two different models, one for guitar and one for bass, having different frequency responses, they have regular and boost settings.)

Ultimate Octave (Fulltone fuzz/high-octave fuzz boost, switchable between them, can get ring mod sounds)

Supa-Trem (Fulltone tremolo pedal that can foot switch between full speed and half speeds, and between saw-tooth or square wave forms.)

VB-2 (Boss analog vibrato pedal - - why they don't do a reissue is beyond me, nothing else that I know of does what it does.)

PN-2 (Boss analog tremolo/pan pedal - - has saw-tooth or square wave forms, etc.)

BYOC VB-2 Clone - - it's cool as a complement to the Boss, with true bypass.

Delay - - Line6 DL4, which does basically the same thing, but does not have the non-double/half-time speed change feature, it also does reverse delay. Both devices do regular delay in addition to the looping features regular delay. in addition to the looping features.

PS-2, PS-3, RV-3, PN-2- - Boss pitch shift/delay pedals, and Boss reverb/delay pedal.

EQ-20 - - Boss programmable 10-band EQ.

Copilot Effects Android - - nice little ring mod pedal, a copilot Antdroid, custom hybrid Mantis/Caracol, a Planetoid and a modded Copilot Orbit.

Xotic Blender Pedal

Subdecay Prometheus