Richard Buckner

From Geartome

From Acoustic Guitar Magazine, April 1999, No. 76: "Richard Buckner’s hard-rockin’ urban-billy songs originate on one of two acoustic guitars and one of two electrics that he carries with him at all times. For starters, he’s got a rosewood Guild D-50 with an L.R. Baggs pickup and parametric EQ. "I also have a ’50s Gibson nylon-string with an L.R. Baggs pickup," he says. "It sounds very good; it’s a beautiful little guitar. I don’t use that as much because I’m kind of into the electric thing now. I picked up a couple of those new $250 Danelectros, and they’re amazing. I’m a big fan of the lipstick pickup, and the action’s great. It kind of makes me a better player."

For amps, Buckner is particularly fond of Fender reissues, like the Deluxe Hotrod and the Blues Junior. "I’m using two amps a lot of the time," he explains, "with a stereo tremolo pedal and a couple of Boss overdrive pedals. I haven’t found a muting tuner that I’m completely happy with, but I just picked up a Danelectric muting chromatic tuner. I wish L.R. Baggs would put a mute button on their DIs. A lot of clubs you play, the sound guys aren’t really on top of it and you have to mute the guitars or they start feeding back [when they’re not being played]. So I was thinking about calling Baggs or writing a letter because I like his product."

The rootless troubadour used medium-gauge strings until recently. "I was breaking them too much," he says. "I switched to light-gauge because they break less. It’s some weird physics thing. I don’t know how it works, but it’s true. I switch around; I was using Martins for awhile, but recently I’ve been using generic strings because I change them every night and they’re a third the price. On the classical guitar, I just use normal-tension nylon strings. On the Danelectros, I use D’Addario flat-wound jazz strings. They’re smooth and they tend to give the guitar a lot more body. For picks, I use a Dunlop .73.""