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Anders Osborne invited PG’s John Bohlinger to soundcheck at his tour’s first stop at Nashville’s City Winery in early February and shows off his louder-than-a-jumbo-jet amps, bastardized, funky guitars and a handful of stomps that power his travelling mojo.
“Blackie” is pieced together from a 1968 Fender body with an unknown neck—Osborne’s tech thinks it’s from MIJ Fender—that has an ebony board with jumbo frets. The neck and bridge pickups are original ’68s, but the center pickup is a Seymour Duncan 'Lil Screamin Demon. Blackie is generally set to open-D tuning and is strung with custom D'Addario set: .013, .018, .024 (wound), .034, .044, .054.
“Greenie” is a 1985 Fender ’62 Stratocaster Reissue loaded with a RS Guitarworks vintage wiring harness (pots & switch jack) and was upgraded with a Seymour Duncan Five-Two pickup in the neck position. Greenie is tuned standard with a custom D'Addario set: .011, .016, .022 (wound), .032, .042, .052.
“Cherry” is a 1972 Gibson ES-335 with a Bigsby roller bridge, is tuned to standard, and outfitted with D'Addario EXL-115 .011–.049 strings.
“Goldie” is a 2013 Gibson Historic 1956 Reissue that’s also tuned to standard and is strung with with D'Addario EXL-115 .011–.049 strings.
The bluesman's lone T-style is a custom handmade axe that was built by Delaney Guitars.
Osborne uses a Tonebone Radial JX-2 to selected and combine his arsenal of amps to fit the song.His #1 is a signature Category 5 VOW—Voice of the Wetlands—combo that cranks out an earsplitting 120 watts. It features 4–6L6 power tubes and is loaded with four Jensen 10-inch Neo speakers. The second amp is an ’80s JCM 800 100-watt (4xEL34) head that has four El34s that was supercharged with Voodoo Amps’ Anders Orborne Mod. (It’s the company’s Platinum Mod with an addition of a front-panel mounted bottom control.) All the heads run into a Category 5 4x12 closed back with four 80-watt Celestions wired at 4 ohms.
The third amp of the trifecta is a signature Category 5 VOW 50-watt head that is powered by two EL34s.
Osborne signal path starts with a ¼ cable from his guitar into his TC Polytune tuner. From there it hits his Dunlop Crybaby classic w/Fasel Inductor. Next it hits a Road Rage true-bypass loop switcher that routes that signal like this: Electro-Harmonix Micro Q-Tron, Boss OC-2 Octave, Boss/DS-1 Distortion, Walrus Audio Voyager, Xotic AC Plus, Mojo Hand Fx Nebula IV, Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere MK II, Mojo Hand Fx Recoil, Boss DD-3 Digital Delay, Mojo Hand Fx Colossus Fuzz, Lovepedal Babyface Tremolo, and Analog Man Sun Face Fuzz.
Two Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus units provide the juice. Everything rests on a Pedaltrain PT-Pro board. He uses Planet Waves Solderless Cables make all pedalboard connections and a Planet Waves Classic Series Instrument cable runs from the guitar to the pedalboard and from the Radial JX-2 to the amps and to and from a Radial Headbone VT Amp Head switcher that lives on top of the Marshall.
Thanks to tech Phillip Frank for help with the details.
John Bohlinger is a Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist best known for leading the band on NBC's Nashville Star, serving as music director for the CMT Awards and specials on PBS and GAC, and of course for his appearances in PG Rig Rundown, Review Demo, Axes & Artifacts, and What Bohlinger Plays videos.
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