My (main) guitars
I proudly use guitars made by German luthiers. Of course I also use classics like a Les Paul, a Stratocaster, a Tele but more than half of my recordings happen on the following guitars:
Nik Huber Orca
I believe this model is called Orca 59. This guitar has sound chambers and therefore is pretty lightweight with a faster attack. I bought it used from a dear friend and replaced the original frets with large 6100s. The pickups in this guitar are Kloppmanns and the set is the slightly hotter set Mr Kloppmann offers which is a 60 in the bridge and the 59 model in the neck. This guitar is all over "My life above the 12th fret". Songs on which it is heavily featured - solo and rhythm - are: Shattered Truth, Emotional Cruelty, Farewell, Conditional Love, Mental Reset plus Calmly Angered to name a few.
Andreas Lang Guitars
Andreas Lang looks after my guitars since day one...he runs a small guitar service shop close to my home. He has not built hundreds of guitars but every guitar he does build is special and unique. 100% handmade from the best sounding materials Andreas can get. Again quite a huge neck, with 6105 frets. Super resonant with long sustain but also twang. They say a good Les Paul sounds like a Tele on steroids, well this guitar is an example of that. Used on the following songs: Childhood Memories, Weirdly good, Avalon - rhythm, Rubicon - all clean guitars, every time you hear that 80s super clean a la Landau, Huff, Thompson it is this guitar. I like to pair that Tele with my Rockman. Also when I play rock rhythms with a dropped D tuning, or AC-DCish rhythms. The lead guitars on Pride (surf guitar sound) is this Tele.....
I love to pair that guitar with any Vox-style amplifier, even a simple cowboy C chord sounds like "money"! Well lets make that at least a Cadd9 ok?
Andreas Schindehütte Zeitgeist
Although I know Andreas in person as he recently refretted my 63 Strat as well as the Nik Huber Orca, I did buy this guitar not directly from him and honestly speaking my first impulse to buy this guitar came from the fantastic look of it. I saw it on the internet @ Lead-guitars. Deep in my heart I guess I am a hippie with a punk attitude...
After I got the guitar I was amazed how Tele-like it actually sounded and how easy it was to play, compared to a regular Tele (remember I own a CS Nocaster with the largest neck ever and that Lang Tele). It has twang and bite but not with ear-piercing highs and a very tight, not too big bottom end...still talking about that guitar guys!!! This guitar is 100% on "Shattered Truth", the rhythms on "Shadow of Illusion".
Andreas Cuntz CWG 23
Andreas Cuntz actually was in the same luthier class Andreas Lang attended. Again a very gifted luthier from my area here in Germany and probably known more by his endorsers Mikes Dawes, Petteri Sariola or Alex Auer. My search for an acoustic steel string ended when I got the CWG23. I am an electric player through and through and so I struggled with string gauge and playing action on steel string acoustics. Of course you can lower the action and you can play thinner strings but that all costs you tone. With the CWG I can use 12 or 13 gauge strings and still feel like I do not have to fight (too hard) - the sound is awesome though. Every time you hear a steel string on one of my songs it is this guitar. I once did an alternative version on manuelmeints song "Lockdown" I think they called it "campfire mix"....all the instruments you hear on that song is this guitar...yes, bass, drums, keyboard sounds...everything!
https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/track/1vdXgWNdPdbunX3RVsmFm0?si=35ed811a0b774493