Akira Takasaki gear thread

Cenotaph

Cenotaph

Active member
Any fans? Wondering what amp and pickups he was using during Thunder in the East era specifically. Marshall i'm guessing? Any particular mods? Did some research and info is scattered all over the board and what he was using.
 
Love Akira! Still play “We could be together“, “Heavy Chains”, “Let it go” etc., on guitar all of the time. I saw them on this tour when they opened for Motley Crue. Akira had Marshalls on stage at the time but I wasn’t close enough to make out anything else being used. I’m pretty sure his Marshall’s were Jose modded but someone more knowledgeable will hopefully chime in.
 
Love, love, love him. I saw them open for AC/DC on the Who Made Who tour. Saw Akira play at the ESP booth at NAMM a while back. There had to be 500 people crammed in there and he received a huge hero's welcome. He just noodled a bit through a JCM 800. I still regularly play their stuff and especially the first part of the solo from Crazy Doctor.
 
Huge Loudness/Akira fan, still gets regular play for me. This video was a few years ago, but he talks about it a little, he said he used a Marshall 1987 but not clear if that was on Thunder or not.

I'd love to know more about his gear as well beyond his Killer Guitars. Not sure if he still uses Friedman BE100 today.

 
That’s awesome, he always had his own thing going on and his tone was so good in that era especially. Almost has a Warren Demartini thing going on tone wise. You’re in Love from Ratt nails that brown sound thing but with his own twist and that’s kinda the vibe I get on Thunder in the East too.
 
SoooRad said:
I actually was right in the edge of diving into some AT gear recently.

The tones on Thunder in the East and Lightning Strikes are top shelf heavy rock tones.



That pedal would be real interesting if it weren’t so hard to find
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I'm not much for distorted tones but you sounded great
 
NorCal_Val said:
Lee Jackson amps during "Thunder In The East" era.(either modded Marshalls or the Metaltronix amps)
I'd swear when I saw Loudness open for Queensryche, on the "Rage For Order" tour, Akira had Metaltronx
cabs on stage. Of course, that was 37 years ago...
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No, Lee Jackson was Lightning Strikes. Pretty sure it was Jose Marshalls on Thunder. ESP LH200 pickups in his random star ESPs at the time. He also had several distortion and overdrive pedals built into a rack that he switched between. An L series Fender strat made an appearance on some songs too. His Blackmore influence shines brightly on Thunder, killer, killer album, playing, and tone on that.
 
I'm not much help but I saw them with Stryper and TNT back in the day and he had 3 full Boogie stacks. Cabs had the metal grate on the front so this had to be late 80s. His sound was crushing!! It really was unreal how great his rig sounded that night. His sound was so much better than Ronnies and Oz and Michaels... I dont think he used Boogies very long cause I dont see mention of them very often, if ever.
 
phil b said:
I'm not much help but I saw them with Stryper and TNT back in the day and he had 3 full Boogie stacks. Cabs had the metal grate on the front so this had to be late 80s. His sound was crushing!! It really was unreal how great his rig sounded that night. His sound was so much better than Ronnies and Oz and Michaels... I dont think he used Boogies very long cause I dont see mention of them very often, if ever.
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thats crazy, never saw him with Boogies, thats cool. I'll have to look for some footage.
 
I used to have two of the Pirate models he played from Killer guitars in the 90's. I thought they kicked ass.
Seriously, they should import them more to the States. Super hard to get them here.
 
phil b said:
I'm not much help but I saw them with Stryper and TNT back in the day and he had 3 full Boogie stacks. Cabs had the metal grate on the front so this had to be late 80s. His sound was crushing!! It really was unreal how great his rig sounded that night. His sound was so much better than Ronnies and Oz and Michaels... I dont think he used Boogies very long cause I dont see mention of them very often, if ever.
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I saw that same tour in Dayton Oh…that rack with the lights was taller than him I think!
They were great as was TNT. He was using Boogies like you said.
Saw Loudness in a small club in Detroit about ten years ago or more. He used two DSL half stacks and a Boss ME5 type pedal….I thinknhe got all the tones from the pedal. He plays LOUD!!!
 
Loudness kicks ass.

Thunder in the East is a classic.

You can hear in that Friedman amp vid he is choking up on the pick. My guess heavy pick and hard picking on rhythm
 
Greazygeo said:
I saw that same tour in Dayton Oh…that rack with the lights was taller than him I think!
They were great as was TNT. He was using Boogies like you said.
Saw Loudness in a small club in Detroit about ten years ago or more. He used two DSL half stacks and a Boss ME5 type pedal….I thinknhe got all the tones from the pedal. He plays LOUD!!!
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Oh yea!! That rack he had was HUGE!!!! I just remember up until that point I had heard some good live sound, but never had heard anything so massive like that. When he did those dive bombs the whole place just shook. That one night had a major influence on my using racks from that point on. LOL
 
If someone told me this was recorded in 1986 I’d believe them . Highly recommend if your a fan
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Saw them in the UK in 1986 supporting Saxon. Akira definitely had a Mesa Boogie (Mk II or Mk III head) and a Marshall of some type, double stacked.
 
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