My sound I prefer an overall balanced, organic sound, reminding of smooth jazz productions, transparent, close to the listener, dynamic, fulfilling to the ear, and extended from the deepest bass to the most airy highs. I usually perform the guitars, maybe electric bass and key parts and I use sampled instruments, preset MIDI and audio tracks and synthesizers for further tracks. I especially love deep bass and the use of 5-string basses or similar synthesizers - listened to best via large speakers or additional subwoofers. I like my drum sets to sound full and heavy with deep, tight bass drums, low pitched, long and rattling snares and airy cymbals (sometimes reminding New York-style compression). Shakers, bells and other percussion may decently fill up the tracks with very high frequencies. I use equalizers usually to gently adjust certain frequencies on my tracks keeping their sound still smooth. Reverbs or other room effects are used rather decently, as well as compressors, and the limiters on loud tracks barely light up. On my guitar solos I usually aim to get a smooth, warm, sweet guitar tone out of my gear, with lots of sustain. I use a Fender Stratocaster equipped with DiMarzio HS-3 pickups (usually in neck position for solos and in bridge position for rhythms) with 0.11-strings mostly for my Rock riffs. Further, I use a Godin 5th Avenue with flat-wound 0.13-strings for jazz parts as well as a Takamine LTD 96 acoustic guitar with 0.12-strings. I generally use Dunlop 2-mm picks for a full, “round” sound, occasionally some finger picking and sometimes combinations of pick and fingers. To simulate my favorite valve amplifiers and guitar effects I use Native Instruments' Guitar Rig with which I also may record my guitars. The software I use to mix and engineer my audio and MIDI tracks is Reason. For classical instruments I used the Vienna Instruments' Special Edition software hosted in Pro Tools for a while, but since Reason supports VSTs I may produce entirely in Reason.