Schoeller Music Page

We have some interest in music in our household. Here is some idea of the interests and equipment that each of us has.

Dick's stuff

Dick's primary bass rig is a Schecter Stiletto Elite-4 in Black Cherry. This axe sounds and plays great. It blew the socks off of the other similarly priced basses that I tried. The opportunity to buy the Stiletto was a birthday present in 2002 from my wife, mother-in-law and parents. Thank you all!

Ever since high school, Dick has been playing basses plugged into an old Univox UB-250 amplifier. He bought this used from a friend. It has been a real work horse for over 35 years, but it is about due for retirement.

Univox is long defunct. The web site, univox.org describes the UB-250 as follows:
UB-250 ($150) - bass "piggyback" amp w/ 20 W (advertised as 50W "music power" i.e. peak), 15" speaker, 2 inputs, volume and tone, 5 transitors. (1, 2, 3) Note the "Made in U.S.A".

A Martin DC-16RGTE AURA is now Dick's primary guitar. Another birthday present, it came from The Music Emporium in Lexington, MA. It is great miked or unmiked, but he usually plays it through a Fishman Pro-EQ Platinum guitar preamp directly into the PA. The combination of the built-in microphone emulations and the preamp's equalization provides very precise control over the sound.

Dick's banjo is a hand me down from his Mom. It is a Picador, an Asian made instrument.

Also in the gear bag is some PA stuff. We have an old Peavey Unity Series 1000 12 channel mixer, an older Shure SCM268 mixer, some microphones (SM57's, an SM58, and a PG48) and a pair of Behringer Eurolive B215A powered PA speakers. When he needs it, he has a Rolls Matchbox DB25 direct box. M-Audio Audio Buddy. Add to this the a variety of microphone and instrument stands.

Besides hacking around for my own enjoyment (and the torture of his children), Dick have been playing bass and coordinating the repertoire of the Shpilkes Klezmer Band It takes a bunch of time but is well worth it. He has been using Lilypond to typeset music for the group and put it on-line where they can get it. This approach makes getting clean copies and transpositions quick and easy. It also provides generated MIDI files to get the feel of the music. The MIDIs aren't great but they can help for solo practice. You can see some examples here.

Lisa's stuff

9 May 2004 Lisa finally has a keyboard. We pitched in and got her a Yamaha P90 electronic piano. Add to this an OnStage stand and bench and Numark M20 powered DJ monitors.

Melissa's stuff

Melissa is playing a Washburn BT-2 in Sunburst. It is a reasonable sounding entry level electric guitar that she got for her birthday many moons ago.

This was picked up for Melissa to take to school, leaving Jonathan with the Fender amp they had been sharing.

For acoustic guitar She's playing a late-1970's Sigma DM-5. Sigma is Martin's entry-level import line. This is Dick's old guitar.

She also has a 1970's Sigma DM12-5. This is a 12 string with a dreadnaught body that used to be her Nana's.

Jonathan's stuff

Birthday 2005, Jonathan got a new guitar. It is an Epiphone SG in cherry. The above photo was snagged from the web. His looks slightly different than this.

The guitar gets plugged into a Fender Frontman Amp 15G practice amp. It is slightly different than the current Series II version. This was originally Melissa's amp.

Retired stuff

Jonathan and Melissa both started on a 1/2 scale Suzuki SSG-100 steel string acoustic. I believe it is roughly equivalent to the more recent Suzuki SSG-1. This guitar has a broken tuning peg knob and is currently (Feb 2006) out of service.