Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.

Rig Rundown - Minus the Bear's Dave Knudson, Jake Snider, and Cory Murchy

Premier Guitar is on location in Des Moines, Iowa, where PG's Shawn Hammond visits with guitarists Jake Snider, Dave Knudson and bassist Cory Murchy of Minus the Bear. In this segment, the guys talk about their current live setups and demonstrate the band's elaborate use of samplers.

Premier Guitar is on location in Des Moines, Iowa, where PG's Shawn Hammond visits with guitarists Jake Snider, Dave Knudson and bassist Cory Murchy of Minus the Bear. In this segment, the guys talk about their current live setups and demonstrate the band's elaborate use of samplers.



Guitars
Dave Knudson's main guitar is a goldtop PRS McCarty with low action for his tapping parts. He also takes advantage of the coil tapping for more "noisy grit." He also uses a stock PRS Custom 24, a Fender Jaguar Baritone for "Secret Country" tuned standard with a low-B string. He uses an Ibanez acoustic for "Listing."

Frontman Jake Snider's go-to is a new custom Ibanez Roadcore Classic with a Seymour Duncan mini-humbucker and SD tele-style bridge pickup. He keeps the pickup selector taped to neck-only, however. In addition to his two Roadcores, Jake uses a '90s Japanese-built Gretsch Roundup with humbucker Filter'Trons.

Bassist Cory Murchy uses a Fender Blacktop Jazz Bass with P-style pickups, and a Japanese Fender Jazz Aerodyne bass. Murchy keeps everything on, full-up with all of his gear.

Amps
Dave uses a dual-amp rig with a Mesa/Boogie Lonestar combo and Fender Twin Reverb, which he calls his "main workhorse." Both are on all the time, not in stereo. He uses a Morley A/B Box to split his signal to the amps, and another to split to a vintage Omnichord synth for one song that he doesn't play guitar on.

Jake uses a standard Vox AC30 with Celestion Alnico Blues in it through the Normal channel. He prefers the cleanliness and simplicity of the circuit.

Cory plays a Verellen Meatsmoke dubbed the "Mrch Smoke," which he says, "sounds like bass," through an Ampeg 8x10.

Effects
Dave's pedalboard is famous for its four Line 6 DL4s, used for live looping and modulating samples saved in the two Boss RC-3 pedals. He uses the Barber Tone Press to smooth out his tapping segments and uses the Line 6 M5 in place of bulkier EHX HOG and DigiTech Whammy pedals. He also uses a Boss DD-20 Giga Delay, Boss CS-3 to bring down his volume, his favorite fuzz the Z.Vex Box of Rock, a Tube Screamer, and a wah.

Jake also uses a pair of Line 6 DL4s for sampling during the show, a Vox DelayLab for everything from quick slapback to tape-style delays, a BBE Green Screamer for distortion, a homemade clean boost, an Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr. as a mute for sampling between songs, and his favorite pedal, a vintage Mu-Tron Phasor.

Cory keeps it simpler than his bandmates, using just a Greedtone Overdrive and a Tech 21 SansAmp Programmable Bass DI on his board.