Fotis Tzanakis (The Contenders – guitar)
SPB: Can you walk us through your guitar gear?
Tzanakis: Here's a more detailed way of how I come to the sound for my guitar playing for Contenders: I play a Peerless solid body. I treat recordings and gigs quite differently when it comes to how my guitar will sound.
Both at recordings and gigs I aim to keep my sound as simple as possible. This means no effect pedals. I tend to record with a Fender Twin Reverb '65 reissue. It is a very "classic" amp that comes the closest to the sound I want to approach with my songs. When it comes to gigs, given the fact that we very rarely tour outside of Athens, Greece, I opt to choose the amp I'll play keeping the space we'll be playing in mind.
Now as far as how I go approaching the sound is this: Having the role of the rhythm guitarist in the band I want my guitar to have more mids and less bass, but not to the point it sounds "too thin." So I usually set treble: 3.5, middle, 6,, bass: 4,5, reverb: 2. These settings work for me on Fender Twin Reverb '65 but they might slightly vary. Then I also play with knobs of my guitar to add a little more details.
