worse . I love getting into the weeds of the nuances of gear and tone … it ’ s like a treasure hunt . The engineer / tech side of me loves it and the artsy side of me loves it . At this point , I consider myself a player and collector because the gear keeps growing . ( laughing ) So there are a lot of things to list … but usually with Bethel Music , I am rocking my 90 ’ s UK made Vox AC30 with 6402 cone G12M greenbacks and my Benson Chimera in stereo . Lovely amps that take pedals so so well .
As far as my pedalboard goes , I am running the same rig that I have been touring with for the past few years [ checkout the rundown on my YouTube channel for that . Oh and subscribe if you like . https :// www . youtube . com / c / DavidHislop
Some extra goodies I use with it here and there live or in the studio would be my Fulltone Rack Tri-Chorus , EP-3 Echoplex , 1965 Fender reverb tank , etc . It may be time for a new board soon … we will see . Guitar wise , I am playing / touring with my Veritas guitars 80 % of the time with a dose of Gretsch , Fender and some others in there as well . My custom Veritas guitars are some of my all-time favs though and they hold up on the road / fly dates so unbelievably good . Check out my Instagram for more gear goodies … it ’ s basically a gear page at this point . ( laughing ) https :// www . instagram . com / davidhislop /
[ WM ] You ’ re one of the most well-known creators for IRs and presets for Strymons , Helix , Kemper and Axe FX in the praise and worship community . When did you first get into tweaking those and what inspired you to go into that market ?
[ David ] It all started a few years ago when I made my Strymon presets that I use with Bethel Music available for others to download . Around that time , people were also asking if I would create Kemper profiles of my amps that
I tour and record with , so I decided to buy a couple of Kempers to try out and and make some profiles of my amps . I definitely consider myself a purist when it comes to gear and tone ( my first guitar amp was my Dad ’ s original 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb so I was spoiled from the start ) but this was a two-sided experiment for me with one side being making resources for fellow guitarists to use and the other side being an experiment for me to see how far I could push the Kemper to sound like my real amps .
I had never played a Kemper before I bought them and had only heard others play them but was never that impressed to be honest . But I am of the opinion that you cannot truly judge or know a piece of gear until you get your own hands on it and see what you can get out of it . The Kemper ’ s ability to capture the way I dial in my amps did impress me and was more accurate than I thought it would be . I had heard AC30 profiles before , but they weren ’ t my AC30