The instruments and gear that Harrison Wood uses.

"Below's a list of the instruments and gear I'm currently using. I'm always looking to try out new gear and keen to talk to designers and manufacturers".

Classical Double Bass Set Up
Jay Haide 'Artistique a l'Ancienne' Double Bass Model
My Jay Haide 'Artistique a l'Ancienne' double bass is a fully hand-carved solid wood bass with a graduated solid spruce top. It's backs and sides are hand-made from high quality fully seasoned flamed maple. It has a wonderful quality of tone and the workmanship is amazing for the money. Haide collaborated with master European luthiers who are known for their beautifully antiqued fine varnish techniques and although my bass looks like an old nineteenth century bass, of course it isn't (it was new). It's both beautiful tonally and visually.

Pirastro Original Flat Chrome Double Bass Strings
For classical work, I use Pirastro Original Flat Chrome medium bass stings (the ones with the violet and white spiral windings at the tailpiece end). They're a multiwire rope core steel string with chrome winding that has both a really nice warm but really powerful sound. They're a great all round orchestral string suited to normal Arco playing (as well as high power bowing) as well as orchestral Pizzicato playing. For all the older bass players out there, my Dad's told me that the Original Flat Chrome's were formally sold as Eudoxa.

Jazz & Pop Double Bass Set Up
Yamaha SLB200 Silent Series Electric Upright Double Bass
I am incredibly honoured to be playing the Yamaha SLB200 that Nathan East had. I got it through a Yamaha 'Young Artist Development Programme' and I'm thrilled to be playing it. The SLB200 is part of Yamaha's silent string series and features a Spruce and Mahogany body, height adjustable Maple bridge with both the tailpiece and tuning pegs made of high quality Ebony. The hollow body design and the fantastic internally mounted piezo pickup system (powered by a single 9V alkaline battery and lasts up to 500 hours) delivers me that beautilul solid, rich, natural sound that I've only ever heard on a true double bass. It's light (just over 7Kg) and compact with a detachable frame which makes transporting it so easy to my jazz and pop gigs.

D'Addario Helicore Pizzicato HP610 Medium Double Bass Strings
For my Jazz and Pop gigs, I use D'Addario Helicore Pizzicato HP610 Mediums (the ones with the red and gold spiral windings at the tailpiece end). They feel really smooth and silky and are easy to play under both hands. Because D'Addario have used less damping mateial round the core (a multi stranded steel) they're giving me that lovely clear bright sound when playing softly and a fabulous growly 'boiing' sound that every jazz bass player's looking for when I dig in harder. Because of the reduced dampening, I'm getting sustain to die for.

1950's Aria Double Bass
Don't know much about it really apart from who owned it

Double Bass Pick Up and Pre Amp
Fishman BP100 Pick Up
My jazz double bass pickup is a Fishman BP100. To be honest, I've had loads of problems with it (where the pick-up goes on to the bridge) but until I find another make, I'll stick with it. It's a dual element piezo ceramic pickup and takes seconds to put on. It gives a really great warm pizz sound that's both sustained and deep. I really like it apart from the fitting on to the bridge problem.

Fishman PRO EQ Platinum Bass Pre Amp
My Fishman Pro EQ platinum bass preamp goes perfectly with the BP100 pick-up. It's brilliant! It's got a five-band EQ, phase switch (for fighting feedback), Compressor, Low Cut Filter (for strong bass without boom) and an XLR DI with ground lift (and pre and post switches) for recording.

Double Bass Bits & Pieces
Double Bass Bag
I use a Tom & Will SAA-BS 7/8 premium bass bag with 25mm of padding and more importantly wheels for my Jay Haide double bass and the 3/4 version for my Aria double bass.

Double Bass Hard Case
I use a Bellolino fibreglass hard case. It's a monster (really) so I use the bag for everyday use and the case for tours (or if someone else is carrying it for me :-)

Double Bass Bow
I use a French style Bellolino AAA Pernumbuco Brazilwood Bow With White Horsehair, Ebony Frog And Solid Silver Mount

Bass Guitars
Overwater Perception Standard Deluxe 5 String Fretted Model
I got my Overwater 5 string fretted 'Perception Standard Deluxe' bass when I was about fifteen. The bass was made by Chris May in the Lake District (England) and has a walnut body, three piece maple bolt on neck, deluxe hipshot hardware and Overwater pickups with three band eq.

Overwater Progress III Deluxe 5 String Fretless Model
I got my Overwater Progress III Deluxe bass just before my 18th birthday. The bass was custom made by Chris May and the range was introduced in 1999 to celebrate his (Overwaters) 20th Anniversary although my bass was made in about 2000/1. It features an exotic wood overlaid top and veneer stringers, five piece maple through neck and Overwaters own exclusive electronics, pick-ups and hardware.

Fender Road Worn 50's Precision 4 String Fretted Model
For some pop gigs, I needed a more 'traditional' looking bass than my Overwater. A bass that looked old, so I got a Fender 'Road Worn' 50's Precision Bass in Sunburst and from a distance, it looks like an old Fender bass. It has a nitrocellulose lacquer finish on a solid Alder body, a one piece (C Shape) maple neck, a split single coil pick-up with Volume and tone control (like Precisions have), American vintage precision bridge and vintage style reverse machine heads. So what I've got is an old 50's looking, distressed aged precision bass that's actually brand new and made in the Fender factory in Ensenada, Mexico. It's very hard to make a guitar look 'convincingly' worn but this one does.

1969 Fender USA Jazz 4 String Fretted Model
I am lucky to have an original 1969 Fender USA Jazz bass. The Jazz bass model was the second model of electric bass guitar that Leo Fender created and a bit more brighter and richer in the midrange with its two single coil pickups with two pole pieces per string. The first Fender style jazz bass was introduced in 1960 (known as the Deluxe Model) and it was later renamed the 'Jazz' bass after Leo Fender redesigned the neck to make it narrower and more rounded to encourage double bass players to make the switch to electric bass guitar.

Bass Amplification
MarkBass 'Little Mark 2' Bass Head
I use an Italian made MarkBass 'Little Mark 2' (model LM2) bass head for most of my rock and pop gigs. It has about 500W output at 4 Ohms (300W at 8ohms) and a really clean post EQ balanced XLR output so I can give a feed to the sound engineers if I'm playing somewhere with a PA rig. I have it rack mounted in a rack bag and little the beauty is so light.

MarkBass Traveller 1 x 15 and 2 x10 Bass Cabs
I use MarkBass 'Traveller' 1 x 15 (TRV151P) and 2 x 10 (TRV102P8) bass cabs with my 'Little Mark 250' head. The 1x15 is a really compact 400 watt, 1 x 15" bass cab with an ultra-light neodymium speaker (the whole cab only weighs 16.9Kgs). The reason I bought the 2x10 (which is also 400 watts) was that I was only getting about 150 watts because the 1 x 15 is an 8 ohm cab so by adding the 2 x 10 I get the full 250 watts out of the head.

MarkBass 'Mini Mark' Bass Combo for small jazz gigs.
For small gigs, I use a MarkBass 'Mini Mark' bass combo. At just 9.4Kgs and less than 18" high and 9" wide, it's got to be 'the' choice for basists who want to move a tiny (high quality) combo around. It's a great little combo with 2 x 6" neodymium drivers and a piezo tweeter. Like my 'Little Mark 250' head, the Mini Mark has a really clean balanced XLR output for the sound engineer if there's a PA rig. Although some people advertise it as a 250 watt combo, it isn't really! It's a 150 watt combo that becomes a small 250 watt rig when used with an 8 ohm extension cab. I can add either of my Traveller cabs on to this too.

Keyboard Instruments
- Yamaha CVP309PM Clavinova Digital Piano
- Digiano DCL150 Digital Piano

Recording Gear
Click Here To Go To Pictures Of Equipment
Apple Mac Pro
8 core Mac Pro with 2 x 2.8GHz quad-core processors and 20 gig of (DDR2) RAM
Digidesign 003 factory
Fully integrated firewire interface and control surface with motorised faders.
Pro Tools LE8 Recording Software
Pro Tools recording software is now industry standard and in most professional studios.
MOTU 828 interface
Audio interface.
Logic Pro Software
Powerful professional music production software from Apple.
Korg D32XD
Stand-alone 24-bit audio recording digital multi-track with 16 input board and 16 simultaneous recording tracks.
2 x Focusrite OctoPre's
16 channels of award winning 'Class A' discrete Focusrite pre-amps with 16 independent Compressors/Limiters.
Samson PB10 Pro
Power Conditioner and Distribution Unit
PreSonus Central Station
A rack mounted control center for all my monitoring needs so I can control three pairs of monitors, two pairs of headphones, talkback, headphone amp as well as ins from one unit. It has a purely passive signal path so no noise, colour and distortion from amp stages and active integrated circuits.
Pair of Focal Twin 6BE 3 Way Active Monitor Speakers
These professional active near / mid field monitors are brilliant. Each monitor has 2 x BASH Technology 150 watt amps driving 2 x Focal (6W4370B) 6.5 inch woofers and a 100w amp driving the Focal (TB871) beryillium inverted dome tweeter. I also have some Spirit, Tascam and Alesis models.
LCD Monitors
1 x Samsung 24" and 1 x GNR 15".
Plug-ins
Tons of plug-ins for the software.
Microphones
Extensive range of microphones (over £8,000 worth) including:
Soundfield SPS422B (Stereo), Neumann U87's, Sennheiser's, AKG C414's etc
Studio Headphones
Beyerdynamic DT100 (closed back) for recording.
Sennheiser Professional HD650 (open back) for monotoring.
Multicore
16 Channel Whirlwind.
Cables
Vann Damme blue series studio grade custom made looms.
A big range of mic and line cables.