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. One is an 1999 F32 and the other is an 2001 F32C. Both are Indian rosewood back and sides with a spruce top, pin-less rosewood bridge and ebony fingerboard. These are the guitars typically used for live dates. I picked up a 2005 Lowden F32 built in George's new shop in Downpatrick Northern Ireland and it's a keeper.

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). Good luck has brought me a McKinney (built by Supro) electric lap steel, an Industrial Guitar lap steel, a National New Yorker lap steel 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. In an ideal universe I would choose just a condensor mic for live dates but often I end up with the pickup alone or the pickup blended with a mic signal.

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 either a Vintech Audio 273 Mic Pre/Equalizer, a PreSonus MP20 Mic Pre or a Sound Devices 700-Series HD Recorder. 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.