Sent to me: Monday June 29th, 1998

"ho ho...i use a custom made Japanese Fender Stratocaster with a rare locked tuning set up, which is great for downtuning. I use stainless steel strings in conjuction with metal picks/plectrums that give me the required metallicness (literally that is !). I use a normal 4 speaker Marshall Cab but its quite old...the Marshall head i use is very specific, can't get my tone with anything else, it's an ancient Marshall JCM800, and i use specific EQ setttings. I use an old Boss Heavy Metal distortion pedal again with very specific EQ settings (bass 3/4 on,treble 3/4 off) in conjuction with Boss Delay pedal, digital or analog. i generally use the delay as an sound widener; very short delay, lots of signal giving a sharp reverb style attack. I also use the delay in larger repeat settings for certain tracks...sometimes with a Cry Baby Wah Wah pedal, like the guitar break in 'wake' and the last guitar motifs in 'gift from heaven' to use modern GFlesh examples...i sometimes use a Boss pitch shifter pedal as well for split tones ,where i can split a note into 2 creating an nice ugly mesh of tone. Oh yeah, i use the bottom selector on my strat (pick ups that is) the most sharp basically....the other intengral part of my sound is the tuning of course (GFlesh sound in general) which has been for years C sharp..besides the extra tracks on 'streetcleaner' ('tiny tears' etc onwards ,the EP that never was!) where we were at B, but without having a clue how to control the tuning at the time (it was 1989!!) For the new album a lot if not all the material is in B, but this time we've got a fuckin clue, and its clear and brutal.

Thats about all the shit i can think of for now for my shit.... Ben uses a Fender Jazz Bass, with active pick ups. And also uses an old Boss Heavy metal distortion pedal but again with really specific EQ and the distortion seriously rolled of so its never fizzy in tone..for recordings he uses an Laney Cab with Laney head, but live Trace Elliot big stack size works better...we blend a mic sound of the cab with an D.I. sound both live and in the studio..he also uses specific strings which i can't remember at all at the moment and i ain't seen him for about 2 weeks so....! His EQ is pretty mad on the amp too, generally loads of Hi Middle and bass...hope this is enough of a help to people.

[If anyone is interested, I asked Justin what was being said in the Baka track off of Techno Animal Vs. Reality (a GREAT song IMO!). Here's the response from the same letter:]

Kevin murmurs throughout most of the first half of 'baka' and i do improv. Chokes and screams etc on the last half..some lines are "the heathens are rising", "war on reason", all the vocals on 'baka' were live and improv. at Avalanche. If you listen closely to the last half you will hear Kevin laughing his fuckin head off at me choking down the mic ! Theres all sorts of shit going on in that mix....

That's all for now, hope it helps somewhat!