Dead Leaf Echo wants you to gaze at your shoes. The New York City-based band plays a floating, pretty addendum to those vaguely ethereal, vaguely rock acts of the 1990s. Earlier, Gearwire spoke to them about guitars, basses and effects. We talk more with them on live versus studio gear and some other topics. First we deal with how their live gear differs from what they use in the studio.

"It's still a lot of the same gear just to a much lesser degree. Of course we don't own over half of the equipment used on Pale Fire. It's either owned by the studio (we tracked this album at The Bunker in Brooklyn. Great Studio with a nice mix of analog and digital formats) or loaned out to us by friends," says LG, the enigmatically named vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player. "The Studio actually had an Italia 12 as well but with different pickups. Ours has these P-60-esque pickups while the the studio had one with P-90-esque, so it was great getting different tones from those two guitars. There was a Seafoam Green 59' Reissue Jazzmaster that I split most of the six-string duties between that and my Tele. There's a great Roland Space Echo there that we got to use, some great loop stations, a huge plate reverb [and] an amazing '68 Fender Super Reverb that I used for most of the clean tones. I did bring in my AC15 to get all the sounds that really break-up. I've used that amp on both of our records (Pale Fire and Faint Violet Whiff) for all the distortion. We've actually never used any pedal or outboard distortion ever."

Bassist Michael Di Lalla chimes in when the discussion turns to how important gear is in their music.

"Once the song is there then the rest is just trial and error. Finding the right sound for the part being played," says Di Lalla. "This can take a while. Experimenting is key -- especially in pre-production."

LG takes the approach many professionals do -- a sort of middle road. Gear helps, but is not what makes the music; the player makes the music.

"Of course it's important in some respects, not to make music though. The gear should never be about that really," says LG. "It's true that you do need a certain setup to get the effect your going for, but never make it about the gear then your losing site of what this is all about: making great music."

When asked about any gear they use in ways outside the norm -- or outside the intent of the manufacturer LG has one quick answer.

"Weight Lifting! Those Fender twins weigh about 80 pounds each. They go great with stairs!" he says.

And LG has always been a Fender guy -- amps and guitars.

"I've always been obsessed with Fender, so I've always had that around. You have to take the time to find out what works for your style the best. If I stopped using something, it was either out of hindrance or because it broke," says LG. "My first guitar was a Godin, but then I switched shortly after that to a 69' Reissue Fender Mustang -- cool looking guitar, horrible bridge, tuning nightmare -- you have to mod it. I sold it for more than I paid for it though. That kid really wanted to look like Cobain."

Nonetheless LG has aspirations to get his own 12-string Rickenbacker.

"Any one out there wanna give one up for the greater good?" he asks.

The band is planning to do some more recording at The Bunker.

"We always get really great sounds there. Especially drums," says Di Lalla. "John Davis is the owner and head engineer; great guy to work with and he really knows how to get the best sounds out of that room."

The band is also touring the East Coast and will be playing at Metro Gallery in Baltimore with Thrushes. A U.K. tour is planned for the fall.