This article series is about the tools of popular guitarists. What are their favorite guitars and how is it related to them? This time with József „Jozzy“ Takács (The Hellfreaks).
When you start guitar playing and do you remember your first guitar?
I’ve started playing the guitar at the age of 12 and my first guitar was actually my younger brother’s Cremona acoustic guitar which was probably the cheapest guitar that was possible to buy at that time. My actual first guitar came at the age of 14 and that was a Chinese strat copy called Flash which was also the cheapest in the store but still it was good enough to develop as a guitar player.
What are your influences and which guitar players are your faves?
I’ve been influenced by many guitar players of many genres. I’ve been listening to Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Slash, Brian May, Mark Knopfler, Shadows, John Frusciante, David Gilmour, Dave Navarro, John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Django Reinhardt, Pat Metheny, Tom Morello, Fredrik Thordendal, Scott Henderson, Robben Ford, John Scofield, Tibor Tátrai, Miklós Felkai, Nuno Bettencourt, Dimebag and many others.
How many guitars do you own and what are your favorite models?
I have about 13 guitars now, 4 acoustic guitars, 2 basses, 4 seven string guitars and 3 six string guitars. My main guitar is currently a guitar that I just call as „Blacky“ and which is a slightly modified 7 string Ibanez AZ24047 because of it’s versatility, responsivity, powerful sound and good built quality.
What do you think makes the perfect guitar and amp?
From guitar perspective, I’m fond of such guitars which are working well in many styles. I tend to gravitate towards guitars with passive HSS pick up set up, I like 24 frets, 7 strings and use the floating tremolo bridge. I like amps with high gain and best would be with inbuilt IRs but at the moment I’m using mainly digital equipments.
How do you feel about the question of modeler or tube amp?
In 2015. I decided switching to digital guitar equipments because that has provided to me the biggest flexibility with the least compromise. I’m living in a house where I cannot afford using loud amps when recording at home or practicing and also when being on the road using the available space efficiently in the tour bus is a key factor. I think that currently the best possible result from sound and flexibility perspective can be a small boutique tube head combined with Impulse responses and digital effects but at this point I’m using a fully digital floor multi-effect that serves well both on stage and studio while being portable easily even on an airplane. All in all, I very much like tube amps and good cabs, but at the moment I’m using digital equipment because flexibility and efficiency is a key factor at this stage of my life.
Which guitars and amps were used on the new album or for recordings?
At the time of recording Pitch Black Sunset album, my main guitar was a modified 7 string Agile Telecaster, with which we have recorded many riffs to the album. I remember using some of Gabi’s guitars as well which was a Fender Telecaster. We’ve been using also Gabi’s Fender Strat, Gibson Les Paul Junior and Gibson SG for some of the songs. My solos were recorded mostly with my Ibanez Jake Bowen signature 7 string guitar. From amplification perspective we have used some of the Neural DSP plugins, since basically we’ve recorded the album in Gabi’s home studio.
When you only can choose one guitar, which one will you take?
That would be my Blacky Ibanez AZ24047, because of it’s versatility, powerful sound and good quality.
