Mike Marchant (Lightning Cult - songwriter, guitarist and electronics dude / also of Steady Circuits)
SPB: Tell us about your guitar/synth setup.
Marchant: I’ve used the same guitar setup for many years. It’s simple, and it sounds great. I use a Fender Telecaster and a Vox AC15 amplifier. I like low-wattage tube amps, because I can turn them up loud and break them up without destroying my ears. In between the guitar and amp, I use an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, a Boss Digital Delay, and an Electro-Harmonix Crayon overdrive. The AC15’s tremolo is beautiful, so that’s usually on at a low-depth setting. Sometimes I’ll use a Fender Deluxe for more volume or heavy reverb. I also use an Epiphone Sheraton semi-hollowbody on occasion—usually for clean rhythm guitars.
My synth setup is similarly utilitarian. I use a Moog Sub Phatty for leads, basses, and lots of drum and percussion sounds. I use a Behringer Deepmind 12 for pads and ambient sounds. I also have a Korg Minilogue, which I use mostly for textural sounds. I’ll treat them lightly with delay and saturate them a bit on the way in, and then I don’t really need to do any processing after that. I have a few soft synths too, but I use them primarily for effects—I prefer the warmth and tactility of analog synths. Software is convenient and flexible, but hardware synths inspire me to spend more time and energy playing and creating sounds. My goal is always to create a patch that makes me want to sit and play the keyboard. When I succeed, those patches turn into melodies and chord progressions, and then into songs.
My projects live at www.cloudcommandsound.com.
