On Dinosaur Jr.'s powerful new album, Hand It Over, guitarist J. Mascis (deemed by some to be Generation X's only guitar hero) plays through an elaborate rig that combines vintage gear with modern technology. Mascis' neo-retro tone starts with his main axe, a stock '65 Fender Jazzmaster. His backline is a solid wall of sound made up of several vintage Marshall and Fender amplifiers that stretches out across the stage. Mascis frequently uses at least six amps at a time and sometimes even more are added, since his rack has ten separate outputs. Generally, Mascis sets his Marshalls with the tone controls on 10, Volume I set on 2, Volume II on 6, and he plugs into input I on Channel II, which is the bass channel. These raw amp sounds are embellished by Mascis' vast collection of vintage and vintage-style stompboxes, Bradshaw and Groove Tubes preamps, Bradshaw and Fender tremolo units, which are all mounted in a large modern rack. All effects and amplifiers are accessed via a Bradshaw switching system. Mascis favors .010 to .046 gauge Dean Markley strings and uses Dunlop purple Tortex picks.