Question Pedal Users: How do you deal with them for live performances?

[Jack FFR1846]

Here are two possible strategies for multiple flexibility with a guitar setup for cover bands.

A) Simple - amp driven
Two or three base guitar sounds, clean, semi-crunch and heavy crunch. With a two-channel amp you could get semi-crunch by just tweaking the output from your guitar. This covers a huge majority of popular music.

A possible boost switch helps for solos.

External pedals :then you turn on/off various effects, chorus, delay et rest, depending on the song. You might need to tweak the pedal settings for specific songs but that's how it goes.

Remember that few in the audience really hears all the possible nuances or what the original amp sound on the record sounds like.

B) For RP/Pod XT systems
Usually these have four presets per banks (A, B, C, D) plus turning on/off effects.
Thus, program A for clean, B for semi-crunch, C for crunch and D for solo (in case no boost button) or experimental. You could do this for multiple banks, but always in the same order so you know how to go from one sound to another.

And then enable/disable effect via the effect buttons on the floor board or unit.

This keeps your head straight. Remember, at a live situation it's tough to remember complex settings, the more simple building blocks the better.

C) Pedal-driven amp for boost/gain, good for one-channel amps

Set the amp for clean or semi-clean (those darn Marshalls...). The use a couple of distortion and overdrive pedals to control the dirt. For example a DS-1 for dirt and OS-3 for gain/boost. This gives you three possible settings from clean, semi-dirt to dirt and possible boost. Then add the other pedals as before.

D) Few pedals if none
Set the amp to really good gain/dirt setting with max volume from the guitar output on the amp itself. Then use the guitar volume knob to control from clean to crunch to solos. It helps if the volume knob is sensitive, not like most modern Ibanez guitars, argh. Also, a HSS guitar (Humbucker on bridge, single-coils in middle, neck) is good as you get more guitar sounds with such systems.

PS: I'm experimenting with MainStage/Logic to see if there's a really simple way to build a guitar structure of patches that could be driven by an ad-hoc playlist. So this is a laptop with an audio interface + MIDI foot controller.

For cover type stuff, I can see where this would work. I do want to keep things simple, if at all possible....

Something I'm going to look into (per Lou's post and a youtube vid that I saw) is the RP1000. I tried a Line 6 again and to me, it's so counterintuitive that I can't do anything. I use the laptop usb connection with my RP250 for setup and rehersal and before service literally have the sounds lined up 1-2-3-4.... I have music sheets that I make up and with only up/down pedals, put a little diagram with where each sound is.....but I can rearrange them so that what I need that day is 1-2-3..... It looks like the RP1000 has a number of presets available with the hit of a pedal with 10 presets available to hit. That would be nice to have.

Some songs I've covered: (solo at 2:24)

YouTube - Lincoln Brewster Shout For Joy

Did this one last Sunday:

YouTube - The City Harmonic - Manifesto (OFFICIAL)

I'll leave out the 8 bajillion U2ish songs I do.......

 

[ksandvik]

Usually where the bank and program step up one-at-a-time breaks down is if the playlist changes a lot, especially during a show. There's a lot of toe-dancing to get to the suddenly changed song on the playlist.

 

[ScreaminFloyd]

Hire Dallas Schoo. There is no easy answer. Thats what makes it fun. The only real advice is (A) Do as much research as you can before buying. (B) Try it out before buying. (C) Make sure you can return before Buying. (D) Get rich and Hire Dalla Schoo.
Good luck !

 

[Gio_Force_One]

what about finding a used voxtone lab alot of people love them, i had a friend and his always sounded great , the blue one seemed better then the newer one. think i was the tonelab se. it was easy to use but i still like individual pedals so i sold mine

 

[ScoobySteve]

I feel you guy's pain. I've been playing in church bands for decades (literally) and when the Nashville overproduced sound started taking over, most people don't realize there are no LESS than 3 guitars on any track. Generally, I can hear more than that.

I pretty much abandoned trying to emulate the sounds on the record, because I can't do it all. I just get the chord chart and play the way I play, filling out what needs to WITH the instruments we do have in the band. I can't tell you how many times I've been with church song leaders that want it to sound like the record, but with 3 instruments and a singer.

Granted, I don't really want to sound like the record either, because modern recording (not just Christian music) sounds to sterile to me. Hang in there, buddy.

This. I play for a rather large praise group and to recreate records faithfull we're pushing the normal durmmer, bass, acoustic, electric, and three keyboards.

I'm a fan of K.I.S.S. KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Bring back the glory of the 3 piece bands. Honestly. I'd say if you're going with multi-FX or floor based solution. I'd get a NOVA System by TC. It's cheaper than its bigger brother in the G-System, but it also has the Nova Drive in it. Top quality distortion and Overdrive settings. There's no modelling either. It's all analog circuitry, just the parameters are controlled digitally. The sound quality is top notch. It's like running a smorgasboard of pedals, but programmable to presets. If you run it in front of great clean tube amp, you can get some great results. Try one!

As long as you have a decent to good clean amp to run it into you can set presets to cover anything you need. Plus you get the pristine TC quality. I use my NOVA system for years for praise band purposes and it never let me down.

 

[Colin]

Have you considered a switching system? I use the Voodoo Lab system, it enables me to bring in and out whatever pedals I need and even switches the channels on my amp. You can program your sounds, store them and you can even name each preset.

 

[Gio_Force_One]

awesome looking setup you have there Colin , nice and clean too no wires running everywhere. it must be a hell of a lot easier to switch sounds too.

 

[Colin]

awesome looking setup you have there Colin , nice and clean too no wires running everywhere. it must be a hell of a lot easier to switch sounds too.

Thanks, I love this setup and the best part is if I have no pedals selected then it is just guitar into the amp. The signal does not go thru the pedals to get to the amp, only when I engage the pedal does it come into the chain. one button can change the amp channel and bring in 8 pedals.

 

[Colin]

I forgot to mention it also controls my fx loop and reverb as well.

 

[Gio_Force_One]

Thanks, I love this setup and the best part is if I have no pedals selected then it is just guitar into the amp. The signal does not go thru the pedals to get to the amp, only when I engage the pedal does it come into the chain. one button can change the amp channel and bring in 8 pedals.

it looks great , maybe one day I can do that. but for now I'm so used to mine that not sure if i could use anything else.

 

[Gio_Force_One]

this is the box I built for my pedals about 10 years ago and been using ever since. its empty now cause im going through it and rearranging , only thing i wish i made it bigger to hold more pedals. I want to bulid a bigger one but it took a while to finish , with doing the flames and then the 15 coats of clear I put on it. It has held up very well and has been with me 2 to 4 nights a week for 10 years playing at clubs.

 

[supadave]

Hey all, hope you don't mind me ressurecting this thread. Just call it the Easter thread....
I'm after some opinions regarding compressor/sustainer vs limiter/enhancer. I want to even out my pciked notes (not even out my tone!!!) as I am noticing a volume drop on my G and, to a lesser extent, my D string. Before jumping on a pedal-powered cure for this, I'll be getting my pups checked to see they are functioning properly, sitting right etc, but if anybody has suffered this issue and rectified it using one of the aforementioned solutions, I would love to hear their outcome. It seems there are equal arguements on both sides and almost all have been happy with th results of using those pedals. Look forward to your hearing your views.

DAMMIT! Just realised I posted this in the guitar section by accident. If you have an opinion on my little problem I would still love to hear it. Cheers.

 

[beej]

Sounds like a job for a compressor. I often use one for playing clean ... personally I like a really squishy one (Orange Squeezer), but that's probably not what you'd go for in a bass compressor.

 

[smd24fan]

Awesome rig Colin! Those Tourmaster's are great amps!

 

[peterd79]

I too play in a church band and i've been fighting this battle for a while now... i've gone the POD route and ended up going to individual pedals and then i went to a TC Electronic Nova System (easier UI than POD- but still confusing) and now i've gone back to the individual pedals. I run through a couple of amps (Orange AD30 and Peavey Classic 30) and then i have my standard pedals to shape my tone... and remember you don't have to have them all on all the time... here is my chain (PICS TO FOLLOW)

EB VP JR -> EB WAH -> HBE CPR Retro -> HBE Paradrive -> MXR Classic Distortion -> Catalinbread Super Charged Over Drive -> Lovepedal Gen 5 Echo -> Malekko Omicron Chicklet -> Fulltone Supa-Trem

MY HBE CPR Retro is always on and i used the paradrive/boost to achieve one tone and i'll use the catalinbread to achieve something a bit more gutsy - and then to add a bit of flavor here and there i'll use the Echo-trem and reverb- sparingly

i think if you take your time and research each pedal you'll save time and money by getting exactly what you're looking for. Prymaxe Vintage is a great resource and he's an EBMM player and Retailer... and lots of boutique items to choose from.

what i've learned over the years is it's worth it to spend the little bit up front for the boutique stuff as opposed to settling for some of the lowerend gear...

 

[supadave]

Cheers beej. I think I'm leaning towards a compressor as well. My amp has a built in limiter but its a bit unforgiving(as is usual with onboard limiters) and it does nothing to lift the lower signals, it just hammers the higher level signal.