I spent some time this weekend working on my guitar synth setup, which I’m planning to bring into play with The Preons. It will allow me to drive some additional tones from the guitar platform, and since I’ll be using my Strat with the synth pickup, I will also have a great electric guitar to add to our existing mayhem. We are working on a few songs that I really want to take solos on, and this will let me pull up some bass sounds underneath the guitar patches. Plus I’ll have the ability to play some skronky synth parts.
Of course, this nearly doubles the amount of stuff I need to haul to gigs… fretted bass, fretless bass, guitar synth controller, guitar synth module, effect processor pedal, amp + cabinet…. sheesh… between Brad and I we’re a mobile pawn shop.
Looks like I’ve sold one my guitars… my trusty Jackson is currently on extended test-drive with a friend who is delighted with it. This guitar is a classic shred machine with reverse pointy headstock, Duncan humbuckers and a Floyd Rose trem tailpiece / locking nut. I originally purchased the guitar for use in Vital Idol, the Billy Idol tribute in which I played. It was perfect for that purpose and delivered beautifully on those awesome Steve Stevens tones.
I knew I’d eventually sell this one since it’s really not something I continue to use on a daily basis. A friend of mine has been very interested in the guitar since I first mentioned I might let it go. Based on his feedback it appears he’s planning to buy it. I’m always happy to see musical equipment get into the hand of people who are truly excited to have it, and there is something freeing about liquidating surplus stuff. I’m making him a deal on it, mostly because he’s a good guy and also because I can see he’s going to put it to great use. Fly! Be free! Rock on!
My Behringer bass amp (BXL300A) seems to be on its way out. Fortunately it’s not my gig amp; the trusty Ashdown half-stack is awesome sounding. But I use the Behringer as a practice amp and it resides at our rehearsal space. I don’t feel I’ve abused it particularly, and it isn’t like it’s been moved around all that much. It’s developed an unpleasant distortion that doesn’t seem to be affected by any amp settings, and that’s making for big dissatisfaction from me. I doubt it’s the speaker distorting. My guess is that something in the preamp side of the of the circuit is clipping, but nothing inside this amp is user-serviceable. I’ll keep it around until I can figure out what to do next. Feh. I
My trusty Stewart power amp sounds amazingly good. It’s a reference-quality studio amp and delivers a very clean 60 watts to my 8-Ohm speakers. The issue of late is that I’m playing bigger venues and could use a little more oomph. The logical step would be to find a bigger power amp. I’ve started to look into the 300 watt amps made by Crest, Crown and QSC; all three manufacturers have amps in this range that cost pretty much the same. I’m pretty sure I can find one that is under 20 pounds and is designed to withstand the rigors of road life. All that remains is do the research on lab results and figure out what to sell in order to make the purchase.
Over the past few months I’ve been toying with the idea of acquiring a custom bass instrument for myself. I am pretty pleased with my 5 string, and I’ll probably keep it since it’s a Tony Levin signature model. But I think it’s possible to put something together that would be sort of an ultimate fretted bass for my needs.
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Rehearsing with The Preons is always fun. Everybody shows up in a good mood, and we usually wind up spinning out some improvised sections within our songs. Last night we rolled through our usual live set (although in a random order) along with some of the new material we’re preparing for the next recording. Based on discussions last night, it appears we’ll be heading into the recording studio in March to begin laying down new tracks. This will coincide with the release party for the current CD “Starshine In The Devil Woods”. While I don’t appear on this release, I really like the music and am pleased at how well we play this material live. The previous bassist did an excellent job of composing lyrical melodic lines, and it’s given me a great foundation for understanding the style of the band.
Another change from last night was that I forgot to bring my custom earplugs *doh!* and wasn’t sure I wanted to stand right next to the drum set during rehearsal. So I moved out into the main part of the room with Josh and Brad. To my surprise, it actually sounds very good out there and is much easier to hear my vocals in the monitors. Since the volume level is lower in this part of the room, I’m thinking I might just permanently migrate. Sorry Janey. I’ll come visit your side of the room once in a while.
The more we work on new material, I come to realize how much I would like to get a six-string (or maybe eight-string) bass. I really want the extended range of such an instrument, and may need to pursue a custom construction to get a satisfactory configuration. Some of the bass necks and bodies available from Warmoth are probably adaptable to an 8 string setup. They seem to enjoy custom projects, so when I get ready to actually consider such a purchase I might approach them for an estimate.
Yesterday I posted a diagram of my guitar rig. After a bit of minor tweaking last night, I finished the new configuration of my bass rig, which is shown below. Click the diagram for a larger view.
It incorporates many of the same components as the guitar setup, which is by design. This way I can actually leave the whole combined rig in a single rack and simply repatch when switching instruments. It will also allow for full-range amplification of instruments such as Chapman Stick. If I wind up doing more full-range work, I could add a crossover in the rack to appropriately split my signal between the guitar and bass cabinets.
The final touch on this rig would be the inclusion of intelligent routing for the signal path. This probably isn’t necessary at this point, but I’m considering it as a nerd project. My G-Force will do some great signal management, and it’s possible I could accomplish this routing without any additional hardware. And yes, it all still fits in my car!
As a follow-up to my recent article about rewiring my rack, I’ve finished assembling a new snake to connect between my rack and floor pedal. It contains three 1/4″ unbalanced guitar cables and a 2 conductor power cable that will eventually provide remote DC for my floor pedal. I need to do some testing to determine the correct DC power supply that will provide the necessary voltage / amperage via the 30 foot cable run. It took me a few hours to put it together, using loops of heat-shrink tubing. As much as I love duct tape, it’s the wrong tool for building cable snakes. Ditto for cable ties, which always catch on each other and often have sharp edges. Heat-shrink tubing doesn’t leave adhesive residue, is very low-profile and if you ever need to repair any of the cables, you just snip the loops to separate the cables. The resultant snake is easy to handle and coils neatly.
My guitar setup is fairly straight forward. Click the image below for a larger view.
I have 2 transmitters for my Audio Technica wireless system, so both my main guitar and my backup guitar are ready for action. The good news is that I can select from hundreds of channels, so I can always find a clear frequency at any venue. The bad news is that my UHF wireless setup transmits within the soon-to-be-auctioned 700MHz frequency band, and I’m not certain what will happen once that part of the spectrum is sold. Quite a lot of professional wireless equipment runs in this part of the spectrum. Chances are the music industry will need to find a new place to broadcast our signals.
The big excitement of yesterday was the purchase of a new Rock N Roller R8 equipment cart, which neatly transports my entire rig in a single trip. This will make my load-in much easier, and will be especially important when I’m moving my own gear. I’ve noticed that it sits pretty level in “cart” mode, so I may even set up my guitar rig right on top of it when I need to move it onto the stage for quick change-over between bands.
I put a little time into rewiring my gear rack for the upcoming 80s Invasion gig. I’m using a shorter signal path these days, and I wanted to rebuild my patch panel to make setup easier at gigs. The most important change to the interior of my rack was going through all the wiring and replacing the patch cables. In the previous configuration I had a rack-mounted POD Pro, but I’ve replaced it with the floorboard version (POD XT Live). I built two sets of StarQuad wired cables with Neutrik plugs for the internal routing. I also assembled a new rear panel, which I punched with three 1/4″ interconnects, a MIDI connector, and an XLR. In order to streamline my setup / teardown time, I’ve built a new snake to connect between the rack and pedalboard. Next up: find a new handtruck / cart to move my gear around.
As I wrote in my post “The Bass Gods Smileth“, I recently acquired an Ashdown MAG 300 bass head. It’s a great bass amp and I’m really happy with it. The only minor concern was that it was missing a knob. No big deal really, since I figured I could just order one from the manufacturer. I contacted Ashdown via email and received a very quick reply. Impressive, since they’re located in Essex, UK. I explained my situation and the service manager said he would just mail me the knob. From the UK. For free. And he did! That is amazing customer support. I’m impressed with this kind of policy. It seems most companies have lost the ability to recognize the long-term value of solid customer service. It makes the difference between being a loyal customer and being a shopper.
I’ve done a lot of shopping this holiday season, and most of the customer service I’ve experienced has been deplorable. Cashiers carrying on cell phone conversations while working at the register. Disinterested / aloof salespeople, ignoring obvious customer support opportunities in the store and clearly telegraphing their annoyance at being on the job. And no authority… there is a near-total lack of empowerment to make good customer support decisions. It doesn’t matter how much the managers care or how hard they work if the line employees don’t internalize these values as well, and that won’t happen if those employees don’t feel like they’re invested in the outcome. Simply put, there are businesses on the “naughty” list and I won’t be in much of a hurry to return to them. And there are some businesses like Ashdown, who make the “nice” list. I’m officially a loyal customer.
