PERSONAL GEAR
“Okan Ersan’s guitar sound is deeply rooted in analog warmth, which forms the foundation of his personal tone.”
The Soul Is in the Fingers, the Gear Reflects It
This is where I record my guitars and produce all external sessions for my albums. My workflow is analog-driven, relying on tube amplifiers and pedals rather than digital plug-ins. I often use Dumble-inspired drive pedals and prefer Strymon units for effects, while the Universal Audio OX Top Box serves as my cabinet simulator.
For monitoring, I trust ATC SCM25A and Yamaha HS8 speakers, which provide both surgical accuracy and a broader listening perspective. This hybrid of tradition and innovation allows me to capture an organic sound that feels alive and authentic.
Great Tone Happens Where Fingerprints Meet Great Instruments
Technical yet musical:
I shape my sound by running my amps through the Universal Audio OX Top Box, feeding them into cab simulations that allow me to refine every frequency with surgical precision.
The result is a tone that captures the punch and warmth of tubes while offering the flexibility to explore new textures—essential for expressing the intensity, fluidity, and colors of modern jazz-fusion on stage and in the studio.
Hybrid Routing – for Live Performance
My new pedalboard configuration is designed as a hybrid live-performance system that combines analog tone, digital control, and stereo ambience.
The signal path runs through the Xotic EP Booster, voicing section, J. Rockett Audio Designs The Dude overdrive, and Tone King Imperial Preamp. The Looper Switch functions as the central control unit, allowing the different loops and MIDI functions to be managed from a single point.
The reverb and filter sections add width, movement, and spatial depth without compromising the character of the core tone. Integrating the Tone King preamp’s send/return structure also allows the drive, preamp, and ambient layers to be controlled more precisely.
The system provides separate outputs for the stage amplifier and the FOH system. This allows me to retain the direct response of the amplifier on stage while sending a balanced and controlled signal to the mixing console.
Through MIDI synchronization and expression-pedal control, preset changes and real-time parameters can be managed quickly and consistently during a performance. The main purpose of this system is to keep a complex signal path under control while preserving the guitar’s dynamics, harmonic detail, and spatial character in a live environment.
PEDALBOARD
Connection
Analogue Routing – for Recording
The studio recording architecture captures full touch dynamics, organic tube warmth, and a surgically clean frequency response that integrates seamlessly into dense mixes. The core analogue path utilises either the Vox AC30 or Mesa Boogie Mark V, driving the reactive load and dynamic speaker emulation of the Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box directly from the speaker output. This captures authentic power-amp compression, non-linear harmonic saturation, and subtle playing nuances at studio-grade signal-to-noise ratios. Line-level outputs from the OX route through an SSL SiX console for transparent preamplification and precise analogue gain staging before conversion via the Universal Audio Apollo interface. By eliminating acoustic room bleed and preserving pristine transient response, this hybrid signal chain delivers a warm, harmonically articulate guitar tone with well-defined mid-range clarity that sits naturally in a complex arrangement without unnecessary low-end buildup.
