Sonata Arctica's guitar gear info

Since the very beginning of the band Jani Liimatainen had used an Ibanez RG550, which is red and has HSS pickup configuration. The RG 550 is seen already on Tricky Means era live pictures^[1] and on 1999 Tornio gig picture below. On the Sonata Arctica book there is a black and white newspaper picture of Jani with the RG 550 from Ecliptica recording sessions, so we can assume it was also used on Ecliptica. ^[1] Jani used the Ibanez live with an exception on Tavastia 1999 he used a black Jackson (Dinky?) with blue flame paintings ^[2]. I asked Jani about the Jackson and he said it was a spare guitar borrowed from a friend.

Jani's second Ibanez guitar Streetwise RG is first seen on Picturing Europe tour pictures.^[3] For the Picturing Europe tour Jani mentions just having two guitars (Streetwise and RG 550), amp and midi controller on SA book.^[1]

Jani's live amp at the time was Line6 AX2 212 combo amp.^[4] The amp was most likely used on Ecliptica, Successor and Silence. With the Line6 having many built-in effects, his sole pedal was the Line6 Floorboard midi controller. Jani used chorus on clean sound, wah on Fade to Black on Successor and a couple of songs on Songs of Silece live album (Replica and My Land).

Jani can be seen playing the Streetwise during recording sessions of Silence too.^[5] It carried on as his main guitar for the tour with RG 550 as spare.^[6] Jani got Ibanez endorsement during Silence, thanks to promotional photos taken at Kemi Snow castle showing the Streetwise.^[1]

It's easy to assume the AX2 was used on Silence since the guitar sound has honky modelling amp esque sound especially Peacemaker b-side lead guitars. On the Japanese tour the AX2 was cut in half to make it just head without speakers.^[6] Bringing only a head on overseas tours saves freight costs and the wall of Marshall cabinets must have been rented backline for the same reason.

In the end of Silence tour 2002 he replaced the AX2 with rack system (partially visible on picture ^[7])

Perhaps the Marshall JMP-1 / 50/50 set were used on Winterheart's Guild album too? It has scooped sound and bit different from the previous album IMO. The pure Marshall sound is heard on Broken video, which is my personal favourite from SA guitar tones. The system was split into two smaller racks.

Jani got his first custom shop guitar around the Winterheart's Guild, dark red with black borders paint job.

On Reckoning Night era Jani got multiple guitars from Ibanez and for the first time he would use 7-string guitars. His first seven string was blue RG 2570 that was likely used in studio for the seven string tracks on Reckoning Night. On the picture of Reckoning Night recording sessions Jani plays the RG 1570 he had gotten. In the front there is some combo amp and midi controller, possibly Line6 AX2 and midi controller yet it wasn't necessarily used on the album. On the For Sake of Revenge the Ibanez Destroyer is tuned to b-tuning and used instead of seven string for the songs Misplaced and Blinded no more. For the old six string songs the WG custom shop RG was used and RG 2570 for songs like Don't say a Word, of which guitar solo parts use all strings. Jani wrote on old official SA forum the pickups on Ibanez Destroyer were Dimarzio Steve's Special and Air Norton.

Besides Ibanez guitars Jani also had a red Jackson RR:

Ampwise Jani switched to Mesa Triaxis preamp on Reckoning Night and susequent tour. The Mesa sound is easily to be heard on For Sake of Revenge, more low mid based sound than Marshall high mid soar. On tour he would rent a power amp, like Mesa on 2005 US tour. He also switched to use TC Electronic G Major 1 instead of more expensive G Force.

He also got Ibanez JPM100 P4 John Petrucci Signature in 2006:

Unia promotional pictures show a seven string Destroyer^[9], which was might have been put in use on the album. Elias Viljanen played instead on Unia tour due to Jani's civil service and personal problems and Elias was later chosen as the new guitarist of SA.

When Elias joined SA he used the same brands as Jani at first. For guitars he played live with an Ibanez UV777BK seven string and other Ibanez RG guitars which were custom made.

Initially Elias used Mesa Roadster amp and TC Electronic G-Major multieffect.^[10] After the G Major broke on tour in customs, he switched to use single pedals. His 2007 pedalboard had Boss NS-2 noise gate, Boss CH-1 chorus, MXR Dime Distortion, Ibanez DE7 delay and Mesa channel switch. Elias wrote:^[10]

In 2008 Elias added Morley Steve Vai Bad Horsie 2 wah and Digitech Eric Clapton Crossroads acoustic simulator and a Ibanez LU20 tuner to the pedal board.^[11] He got a G Lab controller pedal which can be programmed to simultaneously switch amp's channel and switch individual effects in its loops on and off by a press of a single button. Patches he programmed on G Lab were:

Elias used the Roadster on his 2010 solo album Fire Hearted as well. At some point he got Engl Endorsement deal and started using Engl E570 preamp. Around the time of Live in Finland DVD he quit using many effect pedals and would only use wah (Dunlop Dimebag Crybaby IIRC).

In 2012 when SA flew from Berlin to play on Tuska festival Helsinki, they arrived with most of their gear being late. The band couldn't get guitars from Ibanez distributor, so they ended up using drum techinician Masi Hukari's ESP guitars.^[1] Since then Elias has played ESP guitars. ESP has lenient endorsement deals (at least in Finland through distributor Musamaailma), even small artists can get free guitars.

Since his ESP endorsement Elias has used custom made ESP E-II M-II's, both seven and six-stringed. On his 2016 touring rig his signal goes from Sennheiser Wirelesses to Engl E570 to Carl Martin Rock Bug power amp and cab simulator. There's also TC Electronic Nova System multi effect on the video, not sure if Elias uses it's effects or if its used just as midi channel switch.^[12]