Me and my guitar: Josh Smith (Northlane)

Aussie metaller Josh Smith of Northlane knows his bespoke Jackson B7 inside out; here's his guided tour...

Jackson

"This is my favourite guitar. I was on tour with Mark [Okubo] from Veil Of Maya. I was playing a different brand of guitar and the neck broke, so I needed another guitar and Jackson were one of the only companies making the spec I wanted. Mark got me in touch with them and two days later I had a brand new B7. Ever since I've been with them."

Finish

"This one's special to me because it's been refinished in Seafoam Green by a good friend of mine in Sydney called Charles Cilia. This is the same spec as any other B7 except for the pickups, but I'll get to that later."

Pickups

"The pickups are Bare Knuckle prototypes that I'm working on with them. They're based on the Blackhawk, which we did our whole record with. They're great pickups but I'm working on something that's bit more suitable for a 27-inch scale because sometimes you can struggle with the high notes sounding a little too sharp. They're a little lower in output, but they're still being developed so I can't talk about them! [The pickups are now available and they're called Impulse - Ed]

Tuners

"I swapped the tuners out for Hipshot locking tuners, they're my favourites. I put a bone nut on it and a little foam behind it just to kill any sympathetic vibrations. Because in the tuning we play in they can be quite a problem sometimes."

Body/neck

"It's an alder body with a bolt-on maple neck. The neck on this is quite worn, which is why I love it so much. I really like a rough-feeling neck and I tend to sand my necks back a bit and get a bit of grit in them.

"It's a really solid guitar and has carbon rods in the neck, even though it's only a quartersawn one-piece it's one of the most stable guitars that I own, which is strange but I have a feeling that onepiece necks sound better so I'm really happy with it."

Strings

"For strings I have 0.012 to 0.082 Kaliums and I always use Nut Sauce on my nut and saddles, which is a tip if you're struggling with your tuning."

Controls

"I've got a 280k volume pot and a 550k tone pot for the neck and bridge, I bypass the tone and use a high value pot because the brightness works a bit better."

Northlane's third album, Node, is available now on UNFD records.