Guitars are like vitamins; the more you have the better you feel. In general I feel pretty good.

I own two Lowdens that are my main instruments. Both Lowdens were purchased used so I'm not sure what year they are but they appear to be late '90's. One is an F32 and the other is an F32C. Both are Indian rosewood back and sides with a spruce top, pin-less rosewood bridge and ebony fingerboard. These are the guitars heard on "finally home" and typically used for live dates. I just picked up a 2005 Lowden F32 built in George's new shop in Downpatrick Northern Ireland and yes, I'm still smiling. Can't wait to record it.

I have a 1998 Martin SP000C16R that shows up from time to time both in the studio and on stage, a wonderful instrument. The acoustics are strung with Elixir Nanoweb Mediums (013 - .056) and I use Sunrise pickups when playing live. Capos are Shubb and Kyser (LOVE the Kyser Drop-D). I also own a 2001 National Resophonic Style 1 Tricone. I put a Highlander Magnophonic pickup in it for stage use. I've owned some Nationals from the 1930's and IMHO the new instruments coming from National Resophonic are every bit as good as the originals. Good luck has brought me a McKinney (built by Supro) electric lap steel, an Industrial Guitar lap steel, a couple of older Gibson jazz boxes and a Gold Tone Weissenborn copy. There are several electrics from my early days scattered in my collection as well as a bass.

You would think that it's a piece-of-cake to perform with an acoustic guitar. I'm a big fan of the "less is more" philosophy but somehow it never seems to work out that way. The Sunrise pickups are outstanding in terms of output, gain before feedback and reliability but as we all know, a magnetic pickup just doesn't sound like an acoustic guitar. If it's a job that I'm driving to I'll use a Rane AP 13 Acoustic Processor (pre-amp/equalizer) and a Lexicon MPX 1 for a bit of reverb. It sounds nice mixed with a mic. I recently purchased a TC Electronic G-Natural processor that I'm hoping to use to replace the Rane/Lexicon rack. The TC is much smaller and lighter than my rack and you can mix the mic in from the stage. I keep an LR Bags Para Acoustic D.I. in my gig bag as a back up. My signal chain is guitar > Boss TU 2 Chromatic Tuner > Rane AP 13 or LR Baggs Para D.I. > House System mixed with a mic.

For recording I'm a huge fan of Schoeps. My current set-up is (2) Schoeps CMC641's (CMC6 body with MK41 Super-cardioid capsules) into a Vintech Audio 273 Mic Pre/Equalizer. Mics are five to eight inches out from the guitar with one pointed down and right towards the treble side of the bridge and the other pointed at the neck/body joint up the neck toward the headstock. It's not traditional stereo mic placement and summed to mono it's a train wreck but, it works well for CD, broadcast and downloads.