2012 May » The Gigging Musician

More on Pedalboards (or as my friends would say, that moron and his pedalboards!)

Posted by Paul Schille at 11:28 pm Gear

May 142012

So for those of you who’ve followed this site from the beginning, you already know about my compulsive fascination with all things pedalboards. It seems that no sooner do I have one finished and working perfectly, I either start in on another one or revamp my existing setup. For the last two years we have been touring and doing a lot of bigger shows and I put together a board that would give me all the sounds I needed for any show that might come along. I also put together a smaller fly-board as we were having to fly to enough dates that I got tired of tearing apart my big board every time we traveled. As I begin to wind down the touring (I am old after all!) I thought it was time to simplify and put together one reasonably-sized board that I could actually fit in my car and carry around, and would cover most everything I have coming up this summer. I blame this craziness on John Bohlinger’s latest article in Premiere Guitar about how he was simplifying this summer too. It’s seems a lot of people are heading in this direction as I’ve seen several great new pedalboards lately and I figured, hey, why not check them out here?

Touring Board

New Board

So I’ve ditched a few things that were on my big board; the Morpheus Drop Tune, a Micro POG, the new Visual Sound Dual Tap Delay (an AMAZING sounding and functioning delay if you have the room), and a couple of others. I’ve added the new Wampler Ego Compressor (best sounding compressor I’ve ever used, period!), a Vox Time Machine delay, and an Xotic EP Booster. Still tons of variety but I can lift it now without giving myself a hernia! While I’ll have to relearn a few songs that we did in drop tuning with the Morpheus, I’m amazed at how little I seem to be missing from the bigger setup.

Another new board that I saw recently is from one of my favorite guitarists, Pete Thorn. In case you don’t know who that is, Pete plays with Chris Cornell, Don Henley, is currently touring with Melissa Etheridge, and is known for his killer tone. He also does a series a fantastic gear reviews that we feature here on TGM from time to time (great excuse to go back through some of our old articles!). He wanted an alternative to his large wet/dry/wet rig, and what he’s come up with is really, really nice! A great selection of pedals including a new Carl Martin AC-Tone prototype that I can’t wait to get my hands on (September release, $269 list), as well as the Musicom Lab EFX MKIII+ switcher which is one of the great new compact switching systems out there. Being the self-professed gear nerd that he is, Pete put together a pretty lengthy video of the new board and how everything on it works. You can check that out here:

Chris' Small Board

And the Big Board!

Another friend of mine, Chris Ward also runs two (or more) different boards depending on the gig, and I thought I’d show a couple of them here as well. Chris plays in a variety of bands in the Eugene, Oregon area including Amy Clawson & Coltrane and is well known for both his killer chops and amazing tone. He also did the recent review on the new Aguilar HALO overdrive pedal for us here at TGM. Chris uses the Voodoo Lab switching system in his big setup, but still swaps pedals back and forth between boards when changing boards which I decided I was just way too lazy to do.

It all goes to show that there are tons of ways to build your dream rig, and I believe in trying all of them before I die! Hmmm, I wonder if I could fit that Musicom Lab switcher on my new, smaller board…..

Tadalafil

How to run live backing tracks for your band with Ableton

Posted by Ray Neyens at 3:20 pm Gear, How To's, Videos

May 112012

I’ve recently had a number of fellow musicians approach me asking about how my band runs backing tracks for our live performances. I know that the use of backing tracks is a hotly debated topic in some circles of musicians, but we’ll leave that debate to another time. These days it seems to be more and more a fact of life for a lot of musicians that gig on a regular basis.

So, if you do need to use backing tracks the video above can provide an overview on one way in which to achieve success in a live environment. Our setup involves the use of a MacBook. We use the older white version as they’re cheap to find on Craigslist and are pretty durable (don’t ask about the time we were in Montana and our singer drove over the laptop with an SUV – no it didn’t survive and we ended up doing the show sans tracks that night).

For software we use Ableton Live to run the tracks. We either trigger the tracks directly from the laptop using the arrow and enter keys or we sometimes use the Novation Launchpad which has 64 small trigger pads. This works well for randomly firing off songs. We label the 64 buttons as 1 through 64 and then label all the songs with a corresponding number and assign the buttons to the proper track in Ableton. I didn’t cover this part in the video but it’s a simple midi learn function in Ableton. If needed I can probably do a follow up video on how this is done, but trust me it’s pretty quick and easy.

The cost of this kind of solution is not exactly cheap, but it’s really no more than buying a decent guitar, keyboard or other instrument. The MacBook was about $500 used on Craigslist (they can be found even cheaper these days). Ableton Live will also run on a Windows laptop, but my personal preference is to use a Mac. The full version of Ableton Live is $499, but you can get by with Ableton Intro for $99 if you’re ok with only using a stereo output (mono tracks on one side, click on the other). If you think you want a trigger input device the Novation Launchpad can be had for $127.50, or you could trigger from a keyboard, an old Trigger Finger or any other midi trigger you might have around.

Again, the use of backing tracks might not be the right path for every band (nor should it be). But if you need to use them then this is one method that I’ve found has been reliable in all kinds of venues from clubs, fairs, festivals, concerts, theater gigs and many more. The only time if failed us was when it got run over by a full size SUV and I really can’t blame it for not being up for the gig after such a traumatic event.

Do You Need a Compressor Pedal?

Posted by Paul Schille at 6:48 pm Free, Gear

May 012012

Do I need a compressor pedal? I’ve asked myself this very questions many, many times over the years, and until fairly recently the answer was always an emphatic “No.” While I’ve tried many compressors over the years, I play fairly percussively and always felt that they took away some of the natural dynamics of my playing (which of course is exactly what they’re designed to do, right?). A few years ago I started playing modern country music and it seemed that every country guitarist I saw was using a compressor on their pedalboard, sometimes even more than one pedal!

Now I’m no ace chickin’ picker, but I figured if I was going to play country I needed to find a compressor that worked for me. After trying more than a few pedals I happened onto the Barber Tone Press pedal, and the beauty of that pedal is that in addition to the regular compressor controls of Sustain, Attack, Tone, etc., it offered up a Blend knob that allowed me to add in just enough of my original, uncompressed signal that I didn’t lose all of my dynamics. Pretty cool, but I find that I still don’t turn it on all that often.

In my ongoing quest for the perfect compressor pedal I came across a great demo on YouTube of compressor pedals and how they work that I thought I’d pass along here. It’s by a guy named Just Nick for Rock’n'Roll Vintage and goes a long way towards demystifying compression, how it works, and most importantly, how to use it effectively. Great video, and make sure to check out his beautiful Nash T-63 Tele!

Being a huge Keith Urban fan and recently seeing his pedalboard and the THREE compressors he has on there, I’m going to try the Wampler Ego Compressor. It also has a Blend knob like the Barber, but has more tone shaping. If anyone out there has any thoughts on the Wampler, please drop me a line and let me know what you think. In the meantime, here is a great video of the Wampler in action.