Rig Rundown: Nick Raskulinecz

Nick Raskulinecz was in the middle of moving his SSL 6000 console from Franklin, Tennessee, to Nashville and the new home of his Rock Falcon Studio when senior editor Ted Drozdowski and the Rig Rundown crew caught up with the much-in-demand producer. The space, just off Music Row, was built in 1968 and has been owned by Roy Orbison and Ronnie Milsap. Since Raskulinecz—who’s produced Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains, Rush, Coheed and Cambria, the Deftones, Mastodon, Beartooth, and a host of other seriously rocking bands—moved in, there’s been some ass-kicking going on within its walls. He’d just wrapped back-to-back albums by Korn and Halestorm before our visit.

Everybody geeked out hard on Nick’s extensive collection of absolutely badass vintage and modern amps, guitars that have appeared on many of the albums he’s produced, plus a few of his favorite stomps and go-to microphones. And there were plenty more amps that didn’t make it out of the isolation rooms where they’re stored, along with enough pedals stashed away to fill another Rig Rundown. But take a look at what we did see—and try to keep your skull glued on!

To borrow from Shakespeare, who was a big Black Sabbath fan, these Laney Klipps are “such stuff as dreams are made on.” The top one’s 60 watts and the bottom is a 100-watt version akin to a Marshall plexi. “They have this Klipp circuit on them, and it’s almost like a super fuzz pedal,” Nick explains. “You click that in and add the volume of it into your drive tone. The story I heard is that Tony Iommi used these on a couple Sabbath albums.”

This 1968 Orange OR100 is a beast that’s typically used for layering. When snarling guitars are panned left and right in the mix, Nick uses it for a clean, fat, low-end sound that comes right up the middle. It was bought at a guitar show in L.A. almost 20 years ago and had a volume knob mod “to give it some gain,” Nick says. “It didn’t work. You have to turn it up so loud for it start breaking up.”

“You can get three or four completely different sounds out of that amp—from modern high gain to … put in it plexi mode and you’re fuckin’ Jimi Hendrix all of a sudden,” Nick says of his Bogner Ecstasy.

Alex Lifeson fell in love with Nick’s late ’80s Marshall 2550, which he played through for much of the Snakes & Arrows album that Raskulinecz produced in 2006. So much that Lifeson teamed up with Mojotone to craft his similar Lerxst signature model. This one’s a gift from Lifeson.

This Marshall head—the Snakes & Arrows veteran—might be wearing black, but inside it’s a Silver Jubilee—a 2550 from the late ’80s. It was bought at an L.A. guitar shop, because Nick couldn’t afford an actual Silver Jubilee at the time. That’s called “Slash inflation.”

A mighty 8-watter, this Masco is from the 1940s—just two tubes, a transformer, an 8-inch speaker, and mojo. It’s the sort of amp that might have originally been sold with a lap steel. “It has one setting,” Nick says. “On.”

This Hiwatt Lead 30 has a lot of headroom but distorts at low volume. Nick says the amp’s distinctly British tone, with the volume at 1 o’clock and the master volume at 9 o’clock, sounds like “a really jangly AC30.” He especially likes running it through a vintage Marshall 4x12 with 25-watt Greenbacks.

This early-’60s 3-pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom SG was made for versatile tones and is a total rock ‘n’ roll machine, so it’s a favorite at Rock Falcon Studio.

“Definitely the sound of Black Flag,” is how Nick describes this Lucite Dan Armstrong/Ampeg guitar, which was designed for interchangeable pickups. Right now it’s got an Armstrong version of a P-90.

Hey, it’s Nashville. Having at least one Telecaster is a requirement for residency. Of course, there are several Teles at Rock Falcon, but this one’s a Fender ’63 reissue Nick scored at Guitar Center when he also bought a Marshall combo there.

There’s an Evertune Bridge on this Les Paul Jr. reissue. It’s a replacement for the original wraparound tailpiece, which never quite kept the guitar in tune. With the Evertune in place, it’s become one of Nick’s favorites for sessions.

Nick’s serious guitar collecting started with this ’80s Les Paul Standard he bought new while still living in Knoxville, Tennessee, his hometown. It’s got a heavy midrange tone with a lot of bite and is on the Foo Fighters “All My Life” and many other recordings.

This Gibson Les Paul Custom is dryer and darker and has a bigger bottom end than Nick’s Standard. And the patina looks like the result of a thousand smoky club gigs.

There’s also a baritone Les Paul among Nick’s pack of Gibsons. “A lot of the bands I record with do super-low tuning, and it’s easy to keep this in tune and it sounds really good,” he notes.

The custom gold finish on Nick’s Gibson ES-335 makes it stand out on the rack. Note the felt between the bridge and tailpiece, to dampen the strings.

This EVH Striped Series 5150 was an anniversary gift from Nick’s wife. He got her flowers.

Lzzy Hale gave Nick this Gibson Explorer—one of her signature model Gibsons—after production wrapped on Halestorm’s 2018 album, Vicious. It’s got a solid mahogany body and a ’57 Classic pickup on the bridge with a ’57 Classic Plus in the neck slot.

The oldest guitar in Nick’s collection is this all-stock 1963 Gibson SG, with a barking P-90. “This is all over those Alice in Chains records: Black Gives Way to Blue, Dinosaurs, and the last one we just made (Rainier Fog). Jerry [Cantrell] likes this guitar a lot.”

Nick’s late ’70s Gibson RD Artist sports a pair of Seymour Duncan pickups—a Distortion in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck—along with new electronics to replace the original compression circuit from this experimental, short-lived model.

Nick has a favorite setting for this handwired Marshall combo reissue from 1985: “On, and all the way up.” It’s the amp he bought at Guitar Center when he picked up his blue reissue Tele.

This 1965 Vox AC30 has been one of Nick’s sidekicks for years. One speaker is original and one is re-coned, so he enjoys miking them both up for sonic contrast.

Here’s an SS-100, Friedman’s Steve Stevens model, with two 100-watt EL84-powered channels. Nick acquired it, along with his Bogner Ecstasy, in a trade for some gear he wanted to divest.

Nick describes his 180-watt Diezel Herbert as having “mind-bending amounts of gain and sheer sizzle.” This model has three independent channels and mid cut, a “deep” function that lends more girth and tone shaping on the low end, and MIDI controllability that allows for channel switching and programming.

The Astronomer by Matthews Effects is a dual-reverb that provides trails and other harmonic happiness. It’s on both the Korn and Halestorm albums Nick recently wrapped. “I just got this recently, so I haven’t had time to put it on everything yet,” he jokes.

When it’s time to put a little chaos in the game, Nick occasionally reaches for this Boss SL-20 Slicer. He uses it for creating pulsating grooves, stuttering melodies, and more, with panning capability, too.

A few of Nick’s favorite pedals—an Electro-Harmonix Snyth Engine, a vintage TS808 Tube Screamer, and a Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz—keep this 15-inch-speaker-equipped, mid-’60s Supro company. The amp looks and sounds like a relative of the Supro Jimmy Page reputedly used on Led Zeppelin’s debut album. At Rock Falcon, it’s mostly employed for layering tones.

This Shure SM7 has been on all the cabinets in Rock Falcon and plenty of other studios over its decades of life. Typically, it’s paired with another mike to help diversify the sounds that get tracked. Often that second mike is a Neumann U 87.

Another star of Rock Falcon is this Neumann U 87, which Nick uses for more medium- and lower-level amp settings. But it’s not his favorite microphone. Scan these stills to find its larger-diaphragm cousin for that.

This Neumann U 47 FET is Nick’s favorite guitar microphone. “These mikes can handle so much volume and they’ve got such a giant bandwidth that they sound great in front of guitar cabinets,” he says. “Most of the time you don’t even need EQ.”