Michael Hedges - Guitars

Guitars

Hedges regularly used the following instruments:

• 1971 Martin D-28 guitar (nicknamed "Barbara") with a combination of a Sunrise S-1 magnetic pickup and FRAP contact pickup under the treble strings
• A 1978 Ken DuBourg custom made steel string guitar (stolen and returned many years later)
• A custom 1980s Takamine guitar with his name on the headstock
• Lowden L-250 guitars
• Martin J-65M guitars
• 1920s Dyer harp guitar configured with a FRAP/autoharp pickup combo / reconfigured with Sunrise S-1 and two Barcus Berry magnetic pickups for the sub-basses (glued straight to the body)
• Steve Klein electric harp guitar with a Steinberger TransTrem bridge
• circa 1913 black Knutsen harp guitar (often incorrectly referred to as a Dyer) with a FRAP/autoharp pickup combo—and rattlesnake tail wedged under the sub-basses at headstock

Hedges was left-handed but played right-handed guitars. Hedges would experiment with different pick-ups, effects and gain structures to achieve a different and unique sound for every song. Making full use of his equipment, Hedges was also able to precisely equalize the live sound from his instruments within the concert hall in which he was performing. He used state-of-the-art equipment such as Sunrise magnetic soundhole pickups, the piezo-crystal F.R.A.P. (Flat Response Audio Pickup) and later, Trance Audio soundboard transducers.