Equipment
Guitars
The Maverick Chaos II is my guitar of choice for recording and practising. One of the reasons for this is that the fretboard is very flat when compared to other guitars, such as the Fender Stratocaster. The flat fretboard style is more typical of modern metal music guitars, such as the Ibanez models, BC Rich and the Gibson Explorer. This assists greatly as it forces me to concentrate on careful fretting, otherwise fret buzz or dead notes will occur, particularly when playing chords; also, it encourages a playing style typical of the metal genre.
My model has 24 frets, a five way switch and a tremolo bar. I'm not a frequent user of the tremolo bar, although I find it useful for creating an uneasy, unsettled mood, by constantly depressing and releasing it, taking the notes in and out of tune. The organic nature of doing this by hand is much preferable to the precise, measured result a machine effect will always produce. I tend to use the various 5-way settings when practising, so the subtlety is appreciated, but when recording, they are only used on special effects: my staple sound is produced by recording two guitar parts, panned fully to either side, and one at the highest tone setting and the other at the lowest. You can hear this clearly on Wasteland when listening with headphones.
My other guitar is an Epiphone SG, which has a rounder fretboard, and as a result is easier to play. This is perfect for just jamming or a quick practice, but it doesn't push you to fret as accurately as the Maverick, so I don't use it for intense, performance-focused practice. It doesn't have a tremolo bar, so it's much faster to tune, so I've experimented more with different tuning on this guitar. Plus, it's so much lighter than the thick-bodied Maverick, so it's ideal for performing.
Amplifier
I started out learning guitar with a small Zoom Fire-15 modelling amp, which was a great amp with plenty of effects and several sounds to try. Eventually, though, I realised when trying to emulate other guitarists that I couldn't get the sound I wanted without upgrading to a more professional amp. This led to what I'm using now: a Line 6 Flextone III. This amp is awesome, because It emulates sounds from a huge range of classic and contemporary amps, providing you with a tool suitable for any style, sound and genre. Also, the effects are of a high quality, and there's also a large choice of cab dynamics. Basically, there are plenty of options and the capacity to tweak every relevant aspect of the sound, but without getting bogged down in technical sound formation charts etc. It's a powerful amp, although when recording I tend to keep the volume low; far from driving the amp, I prefer the richer tone that is produced at lower volume, where the midrange and cutting treble hasn't quite kicked in. This adds to the 'scooped' metal sound - high treble and bass, but no midrange. That preference is also reflected in the way I set the tone dials.
The way I eventually arrived at the sound I have now came from listening to Zakk Wylde playing on Ozzy records. Knowing I had to try out his sound, I read his amp setup on the Internet, which persuaded me to take the midrange out completely, whereas previously the dial was at 4, and to spend more time with the Marshall JCM 800 sound, which is what I now mainly use for recording. Previously, I'd been favouring the Mesa Boogie amps, common to nu-metal, but hadn't quite driven the sound I wanted out of them. I have now accomplished this, and they do make it onto a couple of tracks, but the Marshall is more versatile and remains weapon of choice.
Strings
My strings are Ernie Ball, which were recommended to me along with Pro Arte D'Addario. I've used a light gauge set for recording so far, but I'm thinking of changing this in the future, as I can't properly down tune with my current set (I'm not sure that I want to, but I've never properly tried low tuning, and I really like the sound of Slipknot and SOAD, so maybe this will take my sound to another level). I have tried Rotosound, but can't recommend them, as they broke under punishment after only a few weeks. I should mention that, during heavy sections of music, I strum both hard and deep into the strings - I can't do this over the pickups, because the plectrum hits them. This means I have to choose durable strings, or play less vigourously, which I don't want to do, because the power picking adds a deliberate depth and sharpness to the sound (and occasionally a percussive noise of the plectrum hitting the strings).
Plectrums
Jim Dunlop Plectrums are the ones I go for, the extremely wide and sturdy purple ones known as 'Big Stubby'. The guage is 2.0mm. I prefer them because they're easier to grip when punishing the strings, as occasionally I do. I've tried several other types, and I can work with all guages, but they have to be reasonably rigid, because I deliberately use forceful strumming, to bend the strings slightly on impact, which adds bass and makes for a fuller sound, which flexible plectrums can't achieve; they bend over or snap.
Keyboards
The keyboard I've used briefly is a Yamaha PSR 200 from the 1990s. I waded through every single sound, or 'voice', to get the most fitting sound for the tracks where it appears. I wanted the keyboard on partly as a trial, and partly to add depth and another dimension to the sound.
Drum and Bass Machine
I use a BOSS DR-880 Drum Machine for nearly all drums and bass guitar parts, although the drumming on Wasteland is actually a preset pattern on the BOSS Recording Machine. Although I'm neither a drummer nor bass guitarist, I've spent a lot of time choosing the sounds for these instruments carefully, which often vary slightly between songs. Because drumming stands out in the mix, the sound of the bass drum, snare, hi-hat, etc. were all chosen carefully from a bank of presets, then manipulated further using the sound controls. Each sound was compared to a variety of bands, to guage which would fit best into the songs.
With regards to writing drums and bass parts, the bass more or less follows the guitar (I wanted it more varied, but haven't yet accomplished this whilst ensuring it still compliments the guitar part), while for drums I basically choose a predefined beat, then amend it accordingly to fit the song. With one or two songs I have written the part from scratch. One thing that continues to please me is how each final song is so much greater than the sum of its parts: although the guitar, bass and drums each sound powerful, putting them together makes a more dynamic end result. The bass notes sounding with the bass drum makes the drum seem more powerful, as well as adding power to the guitar, which is another reason I opted to have the bass follow the guitars so closely.
Recording
The recording machine is an 8-track BOSS BR-900. I use this for capturing recordings, applying effects, editing and mixing the tracks and mastering the recording. It has a total of 64 virtual tracks to record to, but you can only listen to 8 at once. Its range of effects is surprisingly varied, and I'm still discovering more functionality. Physical recording machines are not as intuitive to use as sequencer software, but I didn't have any high quality digital mics to record directly into the computer, so opting for a physical recorder simplified the recording process.
Microphone
I use an Audio Technica MB-4k Condenser Mic for everything - vocals, guitars, keyboards - except the drum machine which is recorded via direct injection over audio leads. When recording guitar, I place the microphone directly in front of the amp, usually no more than two inches from it, which gives the sound its powerful presence. Varying the distance is a very effective way to alter the presence of the sound, much better than using effects. However, with the mic several inches away, a huge reverb effect quickly develops.
Software
Steinberg's Cubasis and Sony's ACID Music Studio are the software I currently use: Cubasis is mainly for creating electronic tracks, some of which I may release in the future, while ACID is used to throw together a rough version of a song quickly, to test what it sounds like, and most importantly to work on song construction - how many verses, song length, which fills and how many - before recording a polished version on the BOSS recorder. ACID's quantize function is really useful, as it enables you to fix a take where a couple of notes were off-beat, which can otherwise be a real pain if you don't notice until revisiting material weeks later that you were just off the beat. ACID is very easy to use to fit recordings together, so is great for demos. I could use either program for tidying up recordings, but I don't actually spend much time on this, I'd rather do another take and get it right, so I use the BOSS. What I do like about Cubasis is the selection of Virtual Instruments you can use to write some electronic music, but the selection is quite basic.
As mentioned before, I don't have a good quality digital mic for entering the tracks; I use an Olympus voice recorder, as it's quick and easy to use, perfect for capturing a new idea you've just thought of, or for recording tracks quickly for a rough version, where you only need a general idea of what it will sound like.