Rigged: Gloom Guitarist Danny Galoubandi

Washington DC’s Gloom coalesced like a towering slab of granite in the center of the city, laying down thick layers of foreboding on those who dare listen. The band’s new self titled EP is seeping out on the 24th of June, but the details of the source guitar rig have manifest themselves now. Here’s Danny Galoubandi:

For Gloom, I’ve really tried to pare down everything to complement the simple nature of the music. After having gone through many different gear combinations, I’ve landed on the following pieces that give me the sound I’m looking for.

Live, I play a ’91 Ibanez Universe through a beat up Marshall JCM 2000 TSL with Roland and Marshall 4×12 cabinets. Along with the Universe I have a couple more late ’90’s RG 7-strings tuned down 1 1/2 steps to G#. Ernie Ball Strings Gauges 11-58, and Ernie Ball medium celluloid picks. For pickups I use DiMarzio Blaze Customs in the bridge of the RG’s and the stock N2 in the neck. The Universe has an N2 in the neck and another one in the Bridge flipped. I’d read about swapping the neck pickup into the bridge, but didn’t discover this mod until I bought the guitar and took the pick-guard off to fix a wiring issue.

The Marshall ends up being used like a big single rather than a 3 channel amp. I leave the foot switch at home and roll back the volume knob on my guitar when I need a gritty, less distorted tone. I’m always using amp reverb and tons of mid-range.

Along with the matching Marshall 1960A, I use a Roland cabinet which is pretty much a junkyard dog / Craigslist special which had already been across the country a few times. Only two of the four speakers match, but, it has a couple neat features I like: front loaded speakers and a removable panel to make it an open-back cabinet.

I’ll usually bring two pedals with me to a show. My Boss TU-3, and a Digitech DL-8 (which is a delay and looper pedal). The Digitech is a really cool pedal; if you turn the delay tails off, it’s a true bypass. Compared to the Boss looper (which I keep at home), I prefer the operation of the Digitech. To begin the loop, step and hold, then release to close the loop. The Boss is a press-start / press-close loop, which is a little less intuitive for my taste.

It’s a pretty basic setup, but I find that the more simple I keep it, the better and easier it is for me to get what I’m looking for out of my gear.