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Rig Rundown: Arielle

Inspired by the lutherie skills of Brian May and the tonal essence of Eric Johnson, this self-proclaimed “classic-folk rocker” shows off her acoustic and electric setups.

Arielle was on the Billboard Charts last year in 11 categories for 8 weeks–an impressive accomplishment for a guitar-centric artist today. It was even more impressive because she managed to achieve this as an independent artist. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with Arielle before her Nashville gig at the Basement.

Arielle’s No. 1 is a guitar she personally built from scratch with her friend Patrick Yates in 2007. She has dubbed this one “Two Tone” because the two knobs are individual tone controls. The guitar is loaded with Burns Brian May Tri-Sonic pickups and strung with Ernie Ball .009–.042 strings. Arielle recently announced a partnership with Brian May and BMG guitars to release a signature model in 2020.

Next up is Arielle’s “Arrow,” a tobacco burst version of Two Tone built by Brian Nutter of Nutter guitars. It also features Burns Brian May Tri-Sonic pickups.

For Strat tones Arielle goes with “Rune,” a prototype of the Fender Eric Johnson Thinline model. The f-hole is in a slightly different place than the final production model.

When Arielle needs a proper semi-hollow model, she reaches for this stock 2009 Gibson ES-339.

Arielle’s acoustic is this Martin D-28 strung with Ernie Ball Earthwood 80/20 .011–.052 strings.

Arielle’s amp setup is a two-headed monster. She uses a Blankenship Fat Boy with Sour Cream and a Divided by 13 RSA 31.

Arielle runs separate pedalboards for her acoustic and electric rigs. Both were built by Dave Philips at L.A. Sound Design. Her acoustic board features a custom interface, L.R. Baggs Session DI, Electro-Harmonix MEL9, Neo Instruments Mini Vent II, TC Electronic Flashback, and a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb (not pictured). The interface sets up a wet/dry/wet feed to FOH. Arielle can turn the wet pedals on or off with the interface and the L.R. Baggs DI sends a dry signal to FOH. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 supplies the juice.

On Arielle’s electric board she runs two chains, one for clean tones and the other for lead. The clean chain starts with a Dunlop Cry Baby wah, a Harman Compressor, a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus+ Pitch Modulator + Flanger, and a Catalinbread Echorec. For her lead tones it splits after the wah and heads to a Crispy Cream Treble Booster, an Analog Man Beano Boost, a Fulltone OCD, a J. Rockett Animal, an MXR Smart Gate, a Boss volume pedal, and a TC Electronic Flashback Delay. The two chains share the volume and wah. A Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus 2 and a Pedal Power ISO 5 supplies the juice.

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