Mark Crombie GEAR SELECTION
A Guitar Player's Gear:
"An expensive amp is as good as the guitarist playing through it; an expensive guitar will not only speed up your progress as a guitar player, it will make that experience more enjoyable and cause you to have more pride in the instrument you play.
...you don’t need expensive gear to be a great musician. But let’s face it: we all take pleasure in the constant improvement of our rigs, and cool gear is one of the unique perks of being a guitar player in the modern world." - Tyler Larson / guitarworld.com/
Chosen Brands and Endorsements
Guitars
Amps
Strings
Picks
Pedals
Additional Products Welcomed:
For Merchandisers and Manufacturers, please contact Mark for product trials, endorsements and testimonials.
Mark Crombie Gear Testimonials:
Guitars
Ibanez RG321 MH
This is by far my favorite guitar ever. Purchased in 2004 from Musician’s Friend. I play it ALL the time. Replaced the stock pick ups with a Seymour Duncan JB and ’59 set when I first got it. It is so musical and really sits well in a live or studio mix. It has the most comfortable and slick neck that I have ever played on and the 5 way pick up selection lets you get anything from liquid leads tones to metal rhythm, edge of break up country sounds to that Nile Rodgers strat tone on every great R&B song ever. You can see from the area around the pick ups that it has been played. I love it and I hope it stays with me forever.
PRS CE24 Blackout
This is the “Les Paul” ish version of the Ibanez guitar. Purchased new in 2016 from Sweetwater Music. If I’m not playing the Ibanez then the PRS is in my hands. I like it for single guitar band work. It has a bit thicker tone than the Ibanez but still gets all the sounds I need from Country to Pop to Metal to R&B – its all there. 5 way switch lets you split the pick up coils if needed – and those PRS pick ups are sooo cool. Very detailed and expressive, makes you really “play” the notes to get your sounds. The neck is slim and quick just like the Ibanez. For most shows you will see me play one or the other and usually have the other guitar in the stand ready to go for that special song or if I get crazy and break a string…
GODIN A6
This is an electric acoustic guitar that really sounds like a studio quality mic’d up acoustic when played on acoustic shows. The cool thing is that the neck is very reminiscent of the PRS CE24 and the playing action is close to an electric guitar feel. This is a hand saver when playing as many 4 hour acoustic sets as I do each year with SwoleMates. There is an active EQ section on the face of the guitar and it really lets you dial in that studio acoustic tone in any room. I love the way this guitar plays and it opens the world up to making any song an acoustic duo song… If you see a SwoleMates show – this is the guitar I play and you could hear us do anything from Hotel California and Maggie May to This is How we Do it and No Diggity – or anything in between.
Fender Standard Strat
This may not look like anything but a standard fender strat. In my collection it may be the most special guitar I own. My Dad bought this for me in 2010 a few months after my Grandmother had passed away. They were both huge music fans and had the biggest influences on my early listening. Probably both the most encouraging, loving, caring, humorous and humble people you would ever meet. I don’t play this as much as I should but it sits within arms reach in my living room and I always get a good vibes when glancing up and looking at it.
Jackson DK2
This guitar is just fun!!! Very Similar to the Ibanez but has the Floyd Rose Tremolo bridge system on it. I keep it tuned ½ half step down with 10 to 46 gage Ernie Ball Slinky Strings. It is rock solid when it comes to tuning and when I want to play Van Halen, or Satriani stuff – it is the go-to!! I will take it out for Rock and Metal gigs all the time. My best stage memory with it is playing Rare Hare in the spring of 2019 – Mean Streak from Y&T (one of my favorite bands) with Kris Vox, Kurt Olson, Dave Marshall and Jack Gibson (kind of a supergroup if you know those names – those guys were great to me and still good friends today)
BlueRidge 160 CE Acoustic
Another acoustic / electric – in a much more traditional acoustic body style than the Godin. This guitar simply sounds great just by itself. Purchased in 2015 from Shiloh Music in Mount Juliet TN and set up by Mr. Jay himself!! It plays so easy and is great for chord and singe line work. A very balanced and detailed tone. One of my favorite things to do is pick this one up – tune it weird (like DADGAD or some Jimmy Page craziness) and find new chord shapes etc. Inspiring for song writing or just playing for me..
Amps
Kemper Profiling Amp
This is the rack mounted version with the 600 watt power amp. Super flexible in that you can run it direct to front of house, through a mic’d cab or both at the same time. I typically run it direct to FOH and use a 4x12 or 1x12 cab on stage depending on venue so I get that real guitar amp feel as well. The profiles I run are a Matchless Chieftain for clean and edge of break up and a Marshall JVM 410 model of the crunch and lead channel with varying degrees of gain. The Kemper footswitch allows seamless channel switching and lets you customize the effects that can be turned on and off on each channel. I usually run an OD pedal, Phasor, and two delays (maybe a chorus on clean) on each patch with one delay set with higher gain to boost solos. I love the convenience of this system and I have played it almost exclusively wherever I go the last 5 years. The effects may not be as good as high end individual pedals or the Fractal Audio stuff but I always get compliments on my tone – so it must be pretty good.. 😊
Peavey JSX
I have always been a tube amp fan and a Joe Satriani fan – so when I decided I wanted a tube amp again – it was a natural for me to check EBAY and REVERB and see if I could find one of these in great shape and at a steal. I did… Im not gonna say how much I paid – they went for almost $2000 new. This guy was WAY less than half that and almost never played… It has all the sounds in it from clean to liquid lead and everywhere in between. An OD boost pedal in front and a delay and reverb in the effects loop and you can play anything you can think of with this amp. I pair it with a Marshall 4X12 cab and use it when I play rock and metal shows on the bigger stages in Nashville or any outdoor gig – SUPER FUN!!!!
Hughes and Kettner Black Spirit 200
This is a solid-state pedal board amp. It is 200 watts and is as loud as you would ever need to play a stadium show or as quiet as you need for living room practice (you can switch the wattage from 200 to 20 to 2 watts. It has 4 channels – clean, crunch, lead, Ultra.. each does what you would expect and then some. I love running the clean channel wide open with the built in boost (gets Van Halen 1 tone almost exactly) then using the guitar volume control to get anything from pristine clean to edge of break up etc.. It also has built in effects where you can set a modulation effect (Phase, Chorus, Flange, Trem) and reverb and delay (up to 2 full seconds). The effects are great and really for what this is – it’s a complete solution that sounds great. It has built in cab sims – so you can run direct to front of house or use a cab or both. Very flexible and I think a great substitute for all in one solution like the Kemper. You will probably see me out with this board on downtown gigs more often than not.
Guitar Pedals
OverDrive and Distortion –
Since becoming a diehard Kemper player I have really dialed back on my OD and Distortion pedals. At times I may have had 20 to 30 in my possession. The keepers for me at this point are:
EVH OD –
I love this pedal – it is basically the blue channel on the EVH 5150 amp series. It has a built-in noise gate and a boost that pushes the midrange. You can do anything from pushed clean to full on metal assault with this pedal and the built in EQ. Put it in front of a clean tube amp with a bit of delay and you are in lead guitar heaven!!
Boss SD-1
The super overdrive – everybody has one of these I think – its best to push a dirty channel on a tube amp – bumps the mids, makes a solo jump, cuts some bass so you fit the right part of the mix.. IT just works!
Golden Plexi
This was a find – kind of a hot-rodded Marshall JCM 800 in a tiny box. You can run it that way on a clean channel and get 80’s hair metal for days. I like to use it on low gain settings and get that pushed clean country lead tone that is all over country radio these days. Some would use the Nobels ODR-1 for that – I like this little guy because its different but the same…
DigiTech Bad Monkey
Cool name, sick green color, what else could you ask for. I my own Bad Monkey pedal is special. The EQ controls on it are out of this world – the range of each control is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Even in other Bad Monkey pedals – I’ve opened it and I think I know why this one does what it does. If I ever come out with my own line of pedals – the “special” in this pedal will be the basis for a solo boost pedal with delay. I like this one with a little bit of a crunchy sound on the JSX to get from Angus Young to George Lynch type tones. I don’t even mess with the gain to do it. Its all in the EQ…
Mod and Delay Pedals
Again, with the Kemper I can get ANY sound I need from amps to effects and all the combinations so I don’t have a ton of pedals in this range either. Just some basics…
MXR Phase 90
I like Van Halen – so I have this pedal. When its on my board I over use it. Like on everything…
Zoom CDR – Chorus, Reverb, Delay
This pedal is cool and does exactly what the name suggests. It will store up to 50 of your own creations from 70 on board mod, delay and reverb effects. It truly has everything in it from classic rock and country effects to something you could use as a basis for a small worship team type pedal board.
I run it in the loop of the JSX amp with its built in noise gate, analog delay and hall reverb. It has a compressor with a boost feature that I switch on for solos. With the built in A/B effect switching I can bump up the overall output, delay and reverb and really get my lead lines to jump out with it.
Keely Delay
This pedal has 8 different delay and reverb types along with a combination delay/reverb setting. IT SOUNDS GREAT. Just not as flexible as the CDR pedal and you need a gate and boost to go with it. I’m all about talking less stuff with me when I gig – so I really don’t use this much on my live board. It is great for studio work – super quiet, adds to your tone and just makes playing a joy…
And finally –
The SLASH WAH
Yup – I love this and when I take it with me for gigs, I over use it too… You can’t help it. It’s there – it sounds really cool and it’s bright red with a blue LED that lights up when its on… Why wouldn’t you just have it on all the time???
Picks and Strings
I like what I like – so here is what I like for picks and strings
Picks
Clayton USA – triangle shape 1.0mm
Maybe thicker than a lot of people use but I think I get better tone and attack with these. Also helps with my muting technique when playing single notes – I use both my palm and my thumb to mute the strings below the string I’m picking. The triangle shape lets you do this better than any others. I also think the material Clayton uses produces a very balanced tone. The pearloid type material some makers use tends to be more mid-rangey.. and not in a musical way.
Strings
For Electric guitars I like Ernie Ball Strings – either the 9 through 42 or 10 through 46 depending on the guitar and how I am feeling. These pink and green packages are all over my house. Junk drawer, nightstand drawer, top dresser drawer, and in all my gig bags.
For the Godin Guitar – it takes a special set of 12 to 52 strings made by Godin (or for Godin) exclusively. It’s a hybrid of electric and acoustic and it is what sounds best. The G string is wound like a jazz set but the core is a little different to optimize the piezo under bridge pickup tone. I have tried other light gage acoustic strings on it but nothing works as well as the actual Godin set.
For Acoustic guitar I like the Elixer Phosphor Bronze 13 through 53 nanoweb strings. They last forever and they really just sound the best out of everything I have tried. The polyweb strings are very good too but have a more mod range sound to me that the nanoweb. Nanowebs are VERY balanced sounding.