So what is that thing the Doctor's holding on the cover of Hapless Fool?

It's called a cumbus (pronounced JUM-bush).

About 100 years ago, Zeynel Abidin Cumbus, in a mad desire to make Turkish classical music really loud, we suppose, invented a new instrument. It has a deep aluminum resonating chamber with a skin head like a banjo. The original version had steel strings and no frets.

Well, Doctor Oakroot found a cumbus with frets and modified it for his preferred nylon strings. The result was an awesome, nine-string sound. (The cumbus normally has 6 two string courses - like a 12-string guitar but no octave strings. Oakroot left the treble strings doubled but used single bass strings.)

He uses this instrument when playing on the street - for it's loud acoustic sound. On this CD, it's the primary instrument on Froggy Went A-Courting.

What about the other songs?

Oakroot's main axe on the rest of the CD is a Godin ACS. It's a nylon string electric guitar - using a 6 channel piezo pickup. Having a separate channel for each string allows it to drive Roland Guitar Synths.

Oakroot frequently uses the Godin plus a Roland VG-88 in live shows. The VG-88 is used primarily for changing the pitch of strings (separately) to allow open tunings at the press of a footswitch.

Hapless Fool was recorded this way, using the VG-88 to simulate an open-E tuning.

Bass parts on the CD were done either with the Godin/VG-88 combo or by using the very similar bass simulator built-in the Boss BR-8 recorder. (Some songs were recorded on the BR-8; others were recorded on the computer using the BR-8 as a preamp/signal processor/A-D converter.)

Any other instruments?

For two songs, Hapless Fool and Yellow Taxi, the Doctor was experimenting with playing over midi programmed bass and drums. He says, "it was an interesting experiment and I'm happy with how the two songs came out, but I prefer real instruments."

Drum parts were hand played on a Roland PMA-5 in some songs or played on a Mapex drum kit in others.

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