Instruments

I play two NK Forster bouzoukis, one standard design Irish bouzouki and the other a guitar bouzouki. I also play an Eastman mandolin.

Strings &
Things

I use sets of D’Addario single strings for my bouzoukis, made up of PB045, PB034, NW018 and PL012 singles. Recently I’ve been trying out D’Addario’s new NYXL strings for the 018 and 012 strings, as they seem to last a lot longer and have fewer tuning problems.

I also use D’Addario’s NS Tri-action capo, as it’s the most consistent capo I’ve found for the bouzouki, and allows for extremely fast capo changes.

I also regularly clean my strings with GHS Fast Fret which keeps them longer and allows me to move up and down the fretboard much easier!

On my bouzoukis I use Dunlop Max Grip .60mm picks and on my mandolin I use a Blue Chip TP35.

Electronics

On each of my bouzoukis I use a single string pickup going through the second source input of a DTar Wavelength preamp. This alongside my dry bouzouki signal goes into my pedal board and into my Macbook, via a MOTU Microbook II USB interface. Using Ableton Live in conjunction with Jam Origin‘s MIDI Guitar 2 plugin and Native Instruments‘ Massive synth, I’ve created an octave effect on the notes played by the bottom string only. I also use the same software to create string pads and other effects in Ableton.