Rigged: Foreseen Guitarist Erkka Korpi

Somewhere in a secluded rehearsal spot in Helsinki, Finland the retro alchemists in Foreseen were refining their Slayer-thrash-meets-punk-attitude formula for the release of their very appropriately titled LP, Helsinki Savagery. The record comes to fruition on November 11th through 20 Buck Spin (with a vinyl release to follow in partnership with Take it Back), so the time was ripe to investigate the ingredients added to the mixture, resulting in the nasty guitar tone that spews outward and straight towards your ears.

Hi, my name is Erkka Korpi and i play guitar in Foreseen. Im going to tell you a little about my live rig that I’m currently using. I try to keep things simple and don’t use a lot of tricks, just a basic great sound and a little something to go with it.

I’ll start with guitars: my current main guitar is a 1985 Gibson Flying V. I just bought this and I’m really digging it; it looks great and sounds great. Everything is stock the way it came out from the factory and it has the Dirty Fingers pickups. I’m using either D’addario or GHS Boomers strings in 10-52 gauge, depending which brand is available in my local guitar shop.
The backup that I have is a 1989 Charvel 650xl with the same strings as the Gibson. This one also is stock from the factory and it’s a proper workhorse.

Next are my pedals. We don’t use wireless units so the signal goes from my guitar to the pedals and to the amp with cables. First one is the MXR Noise Clamp to get rid of the extra noise, then to Boss SD-1 which acts as a boost, then to Boss TU-2 tuner and last to Dunlop 535Q wah (not in picture). I also have a couple of pedals in the loop of the amp: Ibanez  DE7 delay and a MXR 108 EQ pedal. The delay is just something I picked up years ago and it gets the job done. The EQ my secret weapon, this paired with the amp and I can fit the sound to every situation and every venue. Try it if you don’t believe me. It really works.

And last the amp and the cab. I use Marshall JCM 900 Dual Reverb model and a standard Marshall 1960 cab. The amp is really overlooked and is in a shadow of its older brother JCM800, but I love this amp and I get everything I need from it.

Alright that’s all, I’m a simple guy when it comes to gear. The faster we can set up our shit the better.