Music - Memory Lane - My old rig

5 years ago we wrapped up recording on my last project with "The Blackhole Illusion". A progressive post-rock/metal quintet with crazy guitars, crazier effects, and nutty concepts. When we started out it took a lot of time to get to the rig that I used in it's final days, and it was a long journey to get the
sound where I wanted.

Amps

My previous rig, with Rolodex, was much simpler. I had a couple of guitars, my Vox AC30, and a modest pedal board with a few drive pedals, phase, trem, delay, and a wah. Nothing crazy. But with this new band... not much of that transferred over to the new sound we were chasing. My other guitarist dropped his JCM900 in favor of a Fender Tonemaster. Really cool meaty amp with a lot of bark and deep growls. I went on a different journey...

I first tried my Orange AD30 twin combo that I was using as a backup to my AC30. A lovely amp, really a darker and grittier sounding AC30. I love that amp, it has a very unique tone. But it had no top end sparkle or cut. So it wasn't doing to
well in the mix with my mates Tonemaster. It also wasn't handling the large array of pedals I was collecting for this project very well either. So I sold it to start my amp journey.

Being primarily a "vintage tone" style guy I like a lot of open and mid range growl to my sound. I'm not a Fender amp guy, too boomy in the bottom. The first amp I tried was a Marshall 2266B 50w Vintage Modern head through a Marshall 4x12 box with Vintage Century Celestion speakers. It sounded good, but wasn't very versatile. In fact, this was probably my favorite sounding Marshall I've ever played. It was essentially a single channel amp, and the best it sounded was just cranked! The cleans weren't bad, but sounded very sterile... So I ultimately decided to move on.

I grabbed the Mesa Transatlantic TA-15 next. My idea is that through a 4x12 15w should be more than enough, especially when the 30 watts of my Orange and Vox were killing it prior. Well, I was wrong. I could not get this thing to clean up enough. It was a wicked tone, had a great sound when I could dial it in. But it just couldn't keep up with the band. Also, no FX loop was really starting to become an issue. I loved the drive tones of these amps but couldn't use my FX properly with them...

So I decided on two different routes at this point and got the band together for an amp finding field trip. This new amp must be at least a 30w Class A or 50w Class A/B amp. Preferably English voiced for that mid range bite, but also had to have a tight bottom. Clean tone that could give my AC30 a run for it's money,. If no FX loop, single channel and a drive pedal that could give me a high gain tone similar to something like a Soldano SLO100.

We tried a few amps that weekend. I was really fond of a PRS two channel 50 watt amp. It sounded really really awesome. But the guys thought it was too similar in tone to the Tonemaster as it was more american voiced for sure. I then tried a Hughes & Kettner. I don't recall which model, I really liked it. In fact I thought it was pretty close to perfect.. but the guys we're not sold on it. I think it was too glowy. It was then that we fired up a Blackstar Stage 100.

The Stage 100 was a really cool amp and became my amp for the first half of the life with this band. It had a great clean, two really awesome drive channels, and it was nice and tight. The problem was, as it aged it quickly degenerated into a pile of garbage. Not just the tone, and I tried new tubes a few times, but the reliability was really poor. I got it fixed twice and a new floor board under warranty, but I was getting increasingly frustrated with it. So without the guys knowing I went out and traded it in for an Orange Rockerverb 50.

Why didn't I do this in the first place!

The Rockerverb 50 is still in my collection today, and I almost sold it twice due to not playing, but I won't be doing that anytime soon now. The amp is solid, it's incredibly reliable. It has a clean tone that is smooth and open. It has drive channel that is thick and crunchy with a lot of mid range bite and low end bump with just enough highs to cut through the mix but not destroy your ears. It really is my perfect 2 channel amp. I have a hard time deciding which amp I like more between my AC30 and the RV50 all the time (it's always the AC30!) it's just such a cool sounding (and looking) amp. I owned one before, and don't know why I never looked at it again when it was time, but I'm glad I did. I love it so much. I guess I am an Orange guy through and through.

Guitars

So what is the story behind the guitars?

Well I started with my usual, a Gibson ES-335, a Chinese Tokai Telecaster, a Gretsch Jet Pro, and Gibson Les Paul Standard.

My Tokai Tele, which I wrote about before, was my primary guitar starting out. I love my Es-335 and used it quite a lot during the project, but with this new project a heavier sounding guitar was needed. The Es-335 was just too smooth, not enough bite and grind. The Tele was doing a great job, but it's a chore to play, quite possibly one of the worst playing and one of the best playing guitars I've had.

Then there was my Les Paul, it was heavy (a back breaking 13lbs) and it was odd that it had no sustain compare to other Pauls I've owned and it just had no top end cut, totally a mud ball of tone. I swapped in some TV Jones pickups as I loved the tone of my Gretsch, but it was a feedback machine. That solved it the majority of the tone issues, but my back was killing me. So I ordered up what became my primary guitar for the group, my PRS Custom 24.

I've wanted a PRS for a long time, I longed for one! I wanted and SG and a nice Les Paul too... but I knew that with a PRS I would get exactly what I wanted when I placed the order. Gibson is so hit and miss with quality control since the early millennium that I just couldn't trust them to deliver a great product. So I put in my order for a Custom 24, tremolo bridge (my only trem guitar), whale blue finish, and bird inlays. I skipped the 10 top and artist package. Well, the guitar is still a stunner, just beautiful.

It plays like butter, oh my god. When I picked this thing and dropped off my Les Paul for trade I never looked back. What a guitar. My fingers are weak and locking up compared to where they were flying up and down the neck 5 years ago, but I was able to drop in and play this guitar as if it were a well worn in pair of shoes (and the guitar is well worn now, showing way more gigging damage than any of my others). It sounds amazing, it plays amazing... It is silky smooth. The only guitar I've bought that I've done NO mods too.

A year later, I got my second guitar that became my other "primary" for this band. A Gibson RD Custom from 1978. I've wanted a Gibson RD since I first saw one back in the 90's. They are such a cool looking guitar and this one was a maple on maple. It had the treble booster circuit and the active EQ like the other RD's out there, but a more stripped down look. Flat frets and a super wide neck. IT cut through the mix and clanged like a Telecaster, but growled and roared like a Les Paul. It's just fucking rock and roll man.

It took a lot of modifications tho. I ripped out the stock pickups as they had this really bright and brittle sound and threw in a Seymour Duncan P-Rail in the neck (and had it mostly set on the P90 mode), and then a Gibson Dirty Fingers in the bridge. The Dirty Fingers are often considered a muddy pickup, but with this full maple body they just dominated Alas, I did have to sell it when we started to build our new home. I wish I could have sold my Les Paul instead.

Les Paul? What. Yea, while we were recording I bought another Les Paul. I always wanted a Manhattan Midnight Les Paul. I had the opportunity to buy a 2005 model with white double binding (including headstock binding) It was trimmed out like a custom, but chrome hardware and pickups like a regular Standard. But I bought the Light burst standard I sold for the PRS instead.

When the Manhattan came back in the Traditional line I had to do it. I ordered one in, played it, and it plays perfect! A little heavy in the body for balance, and my heaviest guitar overall. Not back breaking heavy like my Lightburst was, but still chunky. I have yet to gig with it, but it is all over that album along with the PRS and my ES-335. I think even the Gretsch got a showing on that record.

Pedals

What a crazy road this was... instead of going through every variation of my pedal board as that would take a century, I'll just go through it's "Final Form". 

From the guitar we go into the EB Volume Junior. The vol pedal goes out to the TC Electronics Tuner. Then main signal to a Vox Union Jack Wah pedal, to an RC Booster from Xotic FX. Down to a compressor. From the Comp we goto a Crowther Audio Hot Cake (my favorite pedal) then to a Diamond Multidrive. From there out to the amp's front end.

FX Loop out comes into the EHX POG 2 (a major component of this bands tone) and into a Diamond Trem (also a major tone device). From there it reaches the T.C. Delay pedal. I eventually swapped this out for a Vox Delay Lab while recording and during our final gigs.

 Then we jump over to board 2. Board 2 started off with a Retrosonic Phaser. From the Phaser we drill over to the Line 6 M9, down to the Dr. Scientist Tremolo, Vox Time Machine Delay, and then back to the Line 6 DL4, and finally the Maxon AD999.

Jesus that is a lot of fucking pedals. Sure there was a bit of tone suck, but all wired with George L Cables sure helped. I also was using a "Pedal Snake" for running between the amp and the board. Made setup and tear down a breeze. never should have sold that thing.

So what was going on here?! Well The Time Machine and Dr. Sci trem were both setup for a very specific song and I didn't want to mess with them at all. The AD999 was also used pretty specifically, but I played it more like an instrument than anything. It was really cool for that. The delay box on the main board with the TC Flashback/Vox Delaylab we're my main delays and backups incase the first board died. The POG became a major part of my sound in places as well, really cool sound, but took over the mix in a lot of ways. The Diamond Trem was my main trem pedal that actually saw a lot of use. I secretly love trem more than anything. The Line 6 DL4 - looping, live looping! So cool, so much fun. check out Minus the Bear for my influence with this one.

The M9 was used for a ton of different filter and wacky settings. Then various drives as I needed them, but in the end I used primarily the Hot cake and the amps distortion with the Xotic RC as a booster when needed. The Retrosonic phaser was used very minimally, even though it was a major part of my Rolodex sound profile.


So that was my rig, pretty insane. Crazy that now I just want my AC30, my wah, AD999 Delay and hot cake. I'll be happy with that.