Julia Kosterova: Lâg Guitars and Hughes & Kettner artist talks to Shreddelicious

Julia Kosterova at NAMM 2013 - Jim Belmont

Julia Kosterova: Lâg Guitars and Hughes & Kettner artist talks about guitar and her new album

[Julia Kosterova] I love gear, testing, experimenting etc. However, making music and working on my playing technique is on the first place. For a long time good instruments and gear had been a dream and that was holding me back, putting certain limits on my learning more technically advanced stuff, but it was great for developing an ability to make it all sound OK no matter what. I also had time to play / test some great guitars and gear and experiment with the sound. At this point I prefer keeping it as simple and straightforward as possible both live and recording. It may change if it is required by the music and I let the hi-tech part of me go wild, but in any case, a good instrument and a good tube head are the core.

My main instrument is 7-string Lâg Guitars from France (mahogany body, maple neck with ebony fingerboard, 27 frets, reversed headstock, Floyd Rose). It's great both on hi-gain and clean - with a coil splitting switch for sparkling clean tone.

I use a little monster Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 18 Head in the studio and TM18 or TM36 live. Great amps, both on hi-gain and clean. Red Box (speaker emulation) output is a great feature in the home studio so I can record any time of day and night directly into Pro Tools, and is often helpful live. Power attenuator is also very handy for practicing and recording, providing great tone from the cab at a reasonable volume. TM18 Head is perfect 'cabin luggage' size and easy to carry around.

Full interview http://www.shreddelicious.com/2013/05/julia-kosterova-lag-guitars-and-hughes.html