Richard Hoover and I designed it together over the phone and fax, sending pictures and sketches and scribbles back and forth. Before acquiring his custom guitar, Cormier primarily played a Santa Cruz Tony Rice model, which he still uses on some occasions. He uses L.R. Baggs, Martin Thinline, and TrueTone amplification systems in his instruments. So I switched to a Martin Thinline pickup and kept the Baggs electronics. My Rice model has a TrueTone M7 in it, which is a pair of mics and a transducer that attaches to the bridge plate, and the Gibson has all Baggs.
Every guitar is different.
Cormier uses a Boss equalizer pedal for the Tony Rice and a Trace Elliot eight-band graphic EQ for the custom Santa Cruz. It's deeper than a regular fiddle. It just sounds like a big bear. His main ax since 1992 has been a Fender acoustic. I guess I could look inside some day and find out.