John Hasbrouck started playing guitar in 1975 and since that time has taken workshops with and worked with a herd of prominent musicians and producers. He primarily plays fingerstyle and bottleneck but he has been known to pick up a mandolin or electric bass.

“In 1978 I fronted a punk band in the Chicago suburbs and went on to study classical guitar at NIU until 1981, when I discovered fingerstyle guitar through the music of John Fahey,” says Hasbrouck. “Over the years I’ve had numerous teachers and have been in workshops with Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke, Pierre Bensusan, Martin Simpson, Bob Brozman, and many others. My debut CD, Ice Cream, was cited by Acoustic Guitar Magazine as one of the ‘Top CDs of 2002′.”

In 2003 he recorded his second CD at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini behind the board.

“I’m currently writing material in DADGBD tuning for my third solo CD. I play in three bands: The Northside Southpaws, an all-left-handed, resophonic mandolin/guitar duo; Hardscrabble, a jugless jug band; and The Lawrence Peters Outfit, a honkytonk band.” says Hasbrouck.

Hasbrouck is also a collector and aficionado of acoustic guitar effects/gadgets. When you think of people who collect old effects pedals you usually conjure an image of a person most interested in screaming leads. Hasbrouck, however, is more into acoustic tone. And he noticed it first in a small way.

“I am an acoustic tone freak. The term “tone freak” is usually associated with players who are obsessed with vintage and boutique amps, but I am obsessed with acoustic guitar (and, lately, mandolin) tone. It was the major fingerstylists – Fahey, Hedges, Kottke, Bensusan – who enlightened me as to how deep one could go into acoustic tone,” says Hasbrouck. “My first acoustic ‘gadgets’ were fingerpicks. These are plastic or metal picks that you wear on the tips of your picking fingers. They create much greater volume, but they also profoundly alter your tone. The choice of material – plastic or metal – also greatly affects tone.

In 1989 Hasbrouck took another step into his tone-obsession when he purchased an Aspri Natural Acoustic Reverb Box and was blown away. He bought it completely on impulse (showing that not all impulse buying is evil). impulse and I was blown away by it.”

“The ASPRI is a rectangular plastic box that contains three springs, each about 6″ long. At one end these springs are hooked to three pieces of steel that are shaped to fit beneath and come in contact with two strings each where the strings meet the saddle. The other ends of the springs are attached to a piece of plastic used to pull the springs to tension and then hooked onto the side of the guitar near the endpin, keeping the unit in place,” says Hasbrouck. “When you pluck a string, the energy of the vibration is transmuted though the steel pieces to the taut springs, and a beautifully full, natural acoustic spring reverb is produced. This gadget was produced in Canada and is now almost impossible to find. Al Dimeola endorsed it when it came out.”

Another acoustic gadget Hasbrouck employs in his music is the Ragamaster. If you are an acoustic player and ever had a hankering to sound like Ravi Shankar this may be the effect for you.

“The Ragamaster is a truly bizarre and wonderful gadget that makes an acoustic guitar sound like a sitar. This retrofitting device that has six small steel plates which come into slight contact with the strings immediately in front of the saddle. It’s necessary to use very light strings, and the pressure of contact between the plates and the strings is adjustable,” says Hasbrouck. “It’s tough to get is set up correctly, and I’ve had the best luck when I not only used very light strings, but also tuned them down a step. But when it works, it’s really great, producing outrageously cool, sitar-like, buzzy notes with incredibly long sustain. Most fun is to use is while playing weird, quasi-Arabic scales over bass drone notes.”

Via: gearwire.com