| While recording GTR, Steve Hackett used Marshall 50 and 100 watt amps for heavier-sounding guitar, and he employed a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus for the cleaner textures. He sent some of his guitars and all synthesizers direct into the mixing console. | |
 | Steve has a custom blue Schecter with built-in Roland G-707 electronics. This maple necked guitar has a combination of two Bill Lawrence single-coils and a bridge-position Seymour Duncan humbucker. Hackett tends to use the middle and back pickups for the most part, because of the emphasis they add to harmonics |
| The Schecter is outfitted with a Kahler tremolo. He says that the tremolo takes away some of the sustain, but he has found that playing through a Boss Heavy Metal pedal and a combination of 50-watt and 100-watt Marshalls in the studio offsets the effect. "The Heavy Metal pedal actually sounds like a Marshall," he states, "so onstage I plug into the clean channel to boost the guitar". Onstage he uses basically the same amp setup, although he employs two JC-120s for his synthesizer setup, which consists of a Roland GR-300 and a GR-700 (which are sometimes linked together). The Pete Cornish pedalboard that has been with him for several years has been modified to include the Heavy Metal pedal, and he has replaced his Echoplex with a Roland SDE-3000 digital delay. A Yamaha REV7 is the source of his reverb. | |
| Despite enjoying his Schecter, and before that an Ovation UK2, Steve's favourite guitar remains his '57 gold-top Gibson Les Paul. In the studio, he uses a Yairi nylon-string, but for GTR he also selected an Ovation nylon-string that allowed him to send his signal in stereo. He plays an Ovation steel-string, as well. One guitar that Steve will be taking on the road is a custom Strat-type made by English luthier Roger Griffin. It has a maple neck and a pair of humbuckers. "It's almost a cross between a Gibson and a Strat," Hackett explains "It's strange, though, because it tends to perform very well live - it blows your socks off - but whenever I try to record it, it doesn't work". | 
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