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Gear

Details: Published: 19 May 2014

Guitars

Aristides

Aristides is a dutch guitar company building their guitars from a self-made material called Arium. Timo is one of their leading endorsers and their clinician. In 2015 Aristides made a signature Timo Somers model: the Aristides 060 Pink Summer Pearl TS.

Godin

For all his Hollowbody, Jazz and Acoustic needs Timo enjoys playing Godin guitars. Godin is Canada’s finest Electric and Acoustic guitar company.

Other Guitars

Timo already has built a vast collection of guitars over the years. The first guitar he touched was a Patrick Eggle Vienna Pro, owned by his father. Some other early guitars he played were a 1963 Fender Stratocaster and an 90’s Ibanez Prestige. His first real own guitar was an Ibanez K-7. Over the years he has collected a lot of different guitars, going from Ibanez to Gibson to Fender till a range of different brands, ending with Aristides. Here’s an impression from his collection of his own guitars and guitars he inherited from his dad.

Amps

Mesa/Boogie

Mesa/Boogie based in California USA is one of the leading guitar amp companies in the world. They’ve been building the finest guitar amps now for nearly 50 years. Timo endorses their fine amps, using the Dual Rectifier for most of his work (as he has been doing since his 15th birthday). He also uses several of their overdrive and EQ pedals.

Other amps

When Timo started playing guitar he started playing on a small Marshall combo with a TS 808 in front. Later he used guitar modelers present in Korg recording gear, Line 6 Podxt, Line 6 podfarm and Guitar Rig. His first own amp was a Line 6 Spider II combo. His first real amp was a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier he got when he started playing with Vengeance. He never touched another amp for years, making the Dual Rectifier one of his favorite amps ever (providing it has a TS 808 in front!). He also inherited dad’s dear Marshall 6100LM Anniversary, which he played on different occasions. He occasionally used the rectifier and the marshall in stereo (both on). Later, wanting to try different amps, he discovered the Koch Powertone III. The Koch reminded him a lot of his marshall/rectifier combo, mixing modern balls and old soul. For about a year or 2 he played and loved the Powertone III, but the rectifier tone was always spooking in his mind. When he got the opportunity to get on board with the Mesa/Boogie team, he could not refuse and started playing his first love again.

Marshall 6100LM Anniversary
Kemper Profiling Amp
Koch Superlead Pre-Amp
Guitar Rig 5
Zoom G5
Roland Microcube
Line 6 Spider II
PodXt

Effects

Live, effectwise Timo was (and still is) a man of ease. Playing with only a Delay(/reverb) and a TS 808 for years. In the studio he was a little bit more experimental, liking spacy, big sounds. More recently, Timo has found renewed interest in effects. While still rather basic, he now has a collection of different 19 inch units and stompboxes. He endorses and loves Wampler (Clarksdale overdrive, Triple Wreck distortion), EBS (Red Label series, ValveDrive, WahOne), Palmer (DI’s, auto-wah, timepressor), Taurus (octaver, chorus, delay/reverb), Ogre, OneControl (Buffer, Boost, Overdrive), Zoom (G5 multi FX).

Strings

Timo uses Dunlop Super Bright strings . His string gauges differ depending on the guitar, tuning and music. He mostly uses 0.10 – 0.52 sets on his Aristides guitars. When playing 7 string, his gauge usually is 0.10 – 0.52 with a 0.65 as a low A (his tuning being one step down). For his 8 string Aristides 080S he uses 0.10-0.52 with an extra 0.62 and 0.80. The scale length being 26.5-28.0 (fanned frets).

Picks

In his years of playing Timo found out that, unlike most other ‘fast’ guitar players, he likes his picks to be thick, rather big and stiff as hell. (Excuse the language ;)). He found a company called Timber Tones who don’t only make picks exactly like that, but also make them from a very big range of materials, thus greatly influencing the sound. When playing harder kinds of music he used their Jazzy Tones Max pick, for his soloing and other styles he also used their Clear Horn Funk Tones, Groove Tones Mini and the Tribal Tones. In 2014 Timber Tones released the Timo Somers Signature Pick . The pick is based on a pink Jazzy Tones Max pick but with a laser etched logo and grip-waves making the pick way more grippy and also a bit lighter and thus easier to play and (to his ears) even better sounding. Timo now exclusively uses his sig pick.

Cables

Timo uses Spectraflex cables for all his wiring. They look funky and sound pristine. He uses the X-Flex, N-Flex, Fatso-Flex, Pedal cables, Hyperflex Quad speaker cables and Baldee series microphone cables.

Isolation Cabinet

When Timo can’t record with the volume on 11 (and actually also when he can) he uses the Box of Doom isolation cabinet for recording guitars. It’s loaded with a V30 speaker and 3 microphones. (Heil PR30B, Shure SM57, Shure MD421).