Gear
Bass, Guitars & Rigs
Five Ibanez BTB five-strings, custom Ibanez RG seven-strings, 916 pickups, and the rigs they run through.
Side stage — racks, both laptops, the case wall, and whichever bass is next up.
Scroll
Gear
Five Ibanez BTB five-strings, custom Ibanez RG seven-strings, 916 pickups, and the rigs they run through.
Side stage — racks, both laptops, the case wall, and whichever bass is next up.
ScrollFive Ibanez BTB five-strings. Every one of them runs custom Dean BTB P/J passive pickups from 916 Pickups and a Neck Illusions fretboard. Two are BTB 845 DTLs with sequential serial numbers — 13 on rosewood, 14 on ebony.
The Ampeg 8×10 rig.
The Orange cab rig.
First Europe run with Prong, 2023. Two EBS TD650s for power, the Axe-Fx II XL+ as the main rig with an Axe-Fx II as backup, Shure GLXD+ wireless, Orange 4×10, and the Ibanez BTB with Plan 916 custom P/J pickups.
The production world from the Nita Strauss years — wireless and in-ear racks, playback, spares, every case labeled. This is the other half of the job.
Black.
Orange.
Ibanez BTB 845 DTL with a rosewood Neck Illusions board. I call this one 13.
Ibanez BTB 845 DTL with an ebony Neck Illusions board. 14 — sequential serial number to 13.
The silver, on the bench between shows.
Ernie Ball throughout — 2850 Super Long Scale Slinky Bass 5s, 45–130, on the basses. 2222 on six-string guitar, 2624 on the sevens and eights, 2228 on the Ibanez RGD baritone. Photo: Ana Massard.
Ten years of prototyping with 916 Pickups in Sacramento. The bass set — a passive P/J built for the BTB, engraved with the D3AN mark — is in every one of my five-strings, and 916 sells it as the P/J Ibanez BTB 5 String. On guitar I run the Miner set, my signature humbucker, in 6, 7 and 8-string. Low output on purpose — the gain comes from the amp, not the pickup.
Neo J BTB 5 bridge, out of the paraffin.
Neo P soap bars. U.S. materials, silver-solder joints.
Wound to spec and labeled by hand — 13.2K to 13.5K.
Custom D3AN fretboard wraps from Neck Illusions, cut with my mark and made to protect the board.
Custom Dunlop Tortex 1.0mm, two designs: the D3AN mark and the Prong pick.
Boss DD-20, RV-6 and PS-5 · MXR Carbon Copy and Dyna Comp · ISP Decimator · Ibanez TS808 · Gamechanger Plasma Coil · Shure wireless.
Daisy, on the tracks in Fairmount, Indiana — James Dean's home town. Every sticker on her is somewhere I went or somebody I met.
On stage. Photo: Marjorie Halle.
Backstage portrait. Photo: Ana Massard.
Live, 2017. Photo: David Rubene / TwinCities Media.
A broken neck, end of its road. Reposted from @zakialinj.
I run my own Neural Amp Modeler captures — the Axe-Fx II XL+ bass packs are free to download. Darkglass pedals have been on my board since 2022.
The rack, backstage.
Custom Ibanez RG seven-strings, all loaded with 916 pickups. The Batmobile and the Riddler are custom builds and mods by 916 Pickups.
The 1966 Batmobile — custom build and mod by 916 Pickups. Bat inlays, red pinstripe, switches marked MONITOR, ROCKETS, SMOKE and SLICER.
The Riddler — custom build and mod by 916 Pickups.
Custom Ibanez RGs.
Riddler detail — matched hardware and 916 pickups throughout.
Between takes.
Carvin TS100 and the Axe-Fx rack, Darkness Descends years.
The Riddler, before and after. Same guitar — stripped to bare wood on the left, rebuilt by 916 Pickups on the right with the question-mark finish, purple hardware and a 916 headstock.
Darkglass Alpha·Omega 900. Alpha·Omega engine on the front end, six-band graphic, 900 watts in a head that fits in a backpack.
Two Alpha·Omega Ultras — one on the board, one in the spares case. Same engine as the 900 in pedal form.
My heads stacked in with Redshift Recording’s.
My first guitar: a $79 damaged-display Ibanez, bought at 13. Small photo, day one. Large photo, today.
Matching eight-strings from the Darkness Descends years.
With Steve Boyer and Jason Corsaro, who produced Last of a Dying Breed.
In Darkness Descends I played six-, seven-, and eight-string guitars, and bass on several recordings. Setups, rewiring, and repairs happen at my own bench. Students' guitars included.
The whole MONO kit — Dual Bass and Dual Guitar bags, the Fly backpacks, and the camo. Everything I own travels in these. Hard cases from Ultra Case handle the rest.
Photography on this page: Ana Massard, Marjorie Halle (@marjohalle). Repost credited to @zakialinj. Everything else is mine or unattributed.