Aaron Marshall’s time playing axes from PRS, Suhr, and Aristides has afforded him some serious R&D time. He’s now working with Mayones—custom builder from Poland—to hopefully design a dream sig model. The above is an early-stage prototype for Aaron that starts with Mayones’ Regius Core body. (The Core models come with a carved top while the standard Regius has a slab-style body.) The body wings are mahogany that are sandwiched between an 11-ply, neck-through design that uses primarily maple. The other wood stringers are made from mahogany and amazakoe. And because Aaron is a touring pro, they included carbon-fiber reinforcements in the necks so that baby is sturdy. The fretboard is ebony, the entire guitar is decked out with black pearloid, it has a Schaller 3-way pickup selector (bridge, inner coils, neck), a set of Bare Knuckles (Holy Diver in the bridge and Emerald in the neck), and a Gotoh 510 trem. All his guitars take D’Addario NYXL strings that are gauged .009–.046 and he plays in standard tuning.
Here’s a spitting image of the beautiful green prototype that has a 7th string, stunning purple finish, swamp ash body wings instead of mahogany, and because Aaron Marshall doesn’t prefer trems on extended-range instruments, it has a Schaller Hannes bridge. For this one, he’s using a custom hybrid set of D’Addario NYXLs that include .009-.013-.016-.030-.042-.052-.068.
Joining the band earlier this year to help out for a run of dates in India, Travis Levrier (Scale the Summit, Entheos) scored this Charvel Custom Shop USA Select DK24 HH 2PT CM with Seymour Duncan Pegasus and Sentient Humbuckers.
For 7-string songs, Travis Levrier rocks this old-school Jackson Custom Shop beast that also has Seymour Duncan Pegasus and Sentient Humbuckers.
Holding down bass onstage for Intervals since 2017, Jacob Umansky goes hard in the paint with a custom Dingwall Z3. The one-of-a-kind 6-string bass features a custom “sexy-storm-trooper” finish on the sandblasted ash body and has Dingwall pickups with Darkglass electronics under the hood.
Got 15 minutes? Then you probably have enough time to set up a Intervals show. Much of that swiftness is thanks to the processing and programming power inside the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III. Before a given tour, Aaron spends weeks setting up not only the tones for each patch, for each portion of a song, but he has things meticulously set that he theoretically can play a full show without hitting his foot controller after the first note. The III is brought to life by a Seymour Duncan PowerStage 700.
The aforementioned “lifeline”—a Fractal FC-12 that guides the Axe-Fx III each night.
While the band all use in-ear monitors, Aaron Marshall does have a Mesa/Boogie 4x12 for stage volume and feedback manipulation.
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Knowing the style of heavy music Adam Christianson and the rest of Architects play would lead you to believe his main influence for his signature LSL Bari Bone T-style would be Jim Root of Slipknot but pump the brakes. The native Canuck actually is a staunch Merle Haggard fan. Furthermore, his T-style is a 24-fret, 27.5"-scale baritone to compensate for the band’s low tunings and the saggy string tension. The tonewoods include a roasted ash body with a roasted maple neck. This one is loaded with a set of Bare Knuckle Ragnarok pickups and sees action during songs tuned down to F#. He picks with Dunlop Jazz IIIs, and all of his guitars implement sets of custom-gauged D’Addario strings. For F# guitars, he uses .011–.015–.020w–.030–.042–.072 and for G# he swaps the 6th string for a .070, and for C# he uses a .060.
Here is the original prototype of Adam Christianson’s signature LSL Bari Bone that has a slightly different neck profile, only 22 frets, an alder body, and Bare Knuckle Impulse pickups.
This is Adam Christianson’s main G# ride and it’s a Mayones Setius. Like the others, it has a set of Bare Knuckles, but its body wood is mahogany for a darker, robust tone.
This is the first custom baritone that Adam Christianson received from Mayones. It is a Regius model that has a 11-ply, neck-through design.
During this U.S. run of dates, Architects’ second guitarist Josh Middleton stayed back in the U.K. to welcome his first child into the world, so his tech Martyn Evans filled in using Josh’s gear. Above is Josh’s main F# machine—an ESP LTD MH-401B FM that is completely stock aside from the Fishman Fluence Modern pickups. Like Adam’s guitars, Josh/Martyn use custom-gauged sets of D’Addario. For F# they use .011–.015–.019–.032–.044–.072, for G# guitars they go with a .070 on the 6th string, and for C# guitars they use a .060. (Josh became the band’s full-time replacement in 2017 following the untimely death of cofounding guitarist Tom Searle in 2016.)
For G# duties, Josh Middleton and Martyn Evans depend on this ESP Horizon E-II that has been upgraded with a pair of the Fishman Fluence Killswitch Engage pickups.
To honor their fallen brother and cofounding member, Tom Searle, the band busted out his ESP Horizon.
Bassist Alex “Ali” Dean got introduced to Dingwall basses by friend and fellow low-end bruiser Adam “Nolly” Getgood of Periphery. One of his go-to live basses is this Dingwall Super P that can handles both G# and F# songs.
The ying to Alex Dean’s Dingwall P’s yang is this Dingwall D-Bird that also handles G# and F# songs. Both basses use custom-gauged D’Addario strings that run .050–.070–.090–.145. The Super P uses Long Scales while the D-Bird above rocks Super Long Scales.
And Alex Dean’s Fender Deluxe Active P bass handles C# songs and is equipped with D’Addario strings gauged .050–.125.
Everyone in the band trusts their live tone to the Kemper Profiler amp. Alex Dean also sends a direct signal to FOH via the Avalon U5 DI and gets some filth thanks to the Darkglass MTB7K Microtubes B7K Ultra Overdrive (not pictured).
Out onstage, Adam Christianson cooks with a few extra spices that live on his board including some Strymons (TimeLine, BigSky, and Mobius), Maxon OD-9, an ISP Decimator kills any unwanted noise, the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner keeps everything in check, and the RJM Mastermind PBC is the brains of the operation.
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