Ran a rack system Sat. night

[playingdead]

Tried out the rack system on Saturday night, results were interesting. The venue is one we've played numerous times, so it was a good place for the debut. It is definitely clearer and more responsive on stage; I heard it fine and although it was very loud it was stable all night, I never had to turn it up or adjust anything; I suspect that was due to the headroom involved, because when you start turning up the Twin or the guitar volume the character of the sound seems to change as you are using the power tunes harder; the rack was just the same no matter what.

The soundguy remarked that it didn't have the "warmth" of the Twin head; I was a little worried about that, but listening to the boards it sounds nice.

It was the Resurrection Tiger into a stock Trio, Peavey Valverb tube reverb unit and a Crown XLS-402 450 watt power amp, 2 12" E120s in a Hard Truckers cabinet. Effects were the usual -- QTron, OD2-r, Octave, Phase 100, DD6 delay and Boss EQ.

Interestingly, at low volumes in my house it sounded crystal clear without a trace of dirt or overdrive; on the tapes, it has a certain amount of drive to it. Not sure if that was the louder volumes -- at home, I could only put the power amp on 2 without blowing my ears, at the venue, it was on about 4, running the JBLs harder (one of mine is suspect at the moment), or the board/microphone combo being overdriven. Hmmm.

Sample: http://www.playingdead.net/mississippitrio.mp3

[milobender]

I think it sounds great! You guys are tight. It's hard to comment without a comparison about the "warmth"... the split coils always sound a bit thin to me... how was the "feel"? Did you feel as comfortable, and was it as responsive as you were used to?

[playingdead]

That was actually our opening tune -- it's a good listener because my guitar was high in the mix, it went down a little later, probably due to my stage volume. I was a little freaked during it, just because it was so different for me; I usually ran the Twin with the bright switch on, so I traded some brightness (which cuts better onstage) for a more detailed sound. But as the night went on, I was really digging the fidelity and stability.

I am also guilty of running the tone pots on the guitar wide open all the time, which probably thins it out a little bit.

One of the biggest differences was using the OD2-r ... the pedal overdrive on top of a very clean signal made it very different, it was harder to get feedback out of it, even at high volume levels, which makes you realize just how loud Garcia was onstage with the Dead, because if he even turned toward his amp, it would feedback.

[playingdead]

[strumminsix]

I think it sounds great! Are you using any FX?

[playingdead]

On that cut, no, except maybe a little tap-tempo delay on the solos. Pretty much just straight into the Trio.

[strumminsix]

No, big picture. Do you use FX? Pedal board?

[playingdead]

Ah ...

I have a pedal board that I run mostly through the effects loop on the Tiger guitar.

Q-Tron -> OD-2r -> Phase 100 -> Octave -> DD6 delay -> Boss EQ set flat with a slight boost to bring the effects loop signal up to the non-loop signal. I also keep a Holy Grail reverb on there in case the regular reverb goes out.

I also have a Vox wah but plug the guitar directly into that.

Been thinking about a ground control system, but it's pretty daunting to wire and just more stuff to carry.

[KCJones]

Sounds real nice; I could live with that tone. I do hear the little distortion/drive you are speaking of. So many factors involved makes it hard to diagnose. It would be easy to lay blame on the soundman and the condenser mic, but thats to easy, LOL. Almost sounds like your own clean channel input volume might be a tad high, assuming you also have a master channel vol; looking at your pic, it looks like your channel 1 input gain is at 10....that's a suspect. I've had this same issue with my rig and actually had to find a sweet spot between my input volume, guitar volume, and guitar pickup height. Yep, too high of pickups on the strings can cause a harsh/spikey attack sound. As far as the lack of "warmth" the soundman was pointing out, I sort of hear that too. Its got a bit of a brittle attack sound. Although I think that the distrtion and attack sound are probably related. Also, looking at the picture, at least from the angle of the camera, it looks like both mics are pointing at the center of the speaker cone. If that's the case, that's not helping the warmth issue either. That type of mic combination requires a lot of placement experimentaion. Real nice rig man, hope it works out.

[bucketorain]

putting the EQ at the end of the chain, is that the best spot for it?

[playingdead]

Great comments ...

The EQ is at the end of the chain because it's set flat and only serves to bring up the level of the signal up to the levels of the guitar with the effects loop switched out; it more or less compensates for the signal lost going through all the pedals.

I do run the Trio wide open on both gain and volume, as per the owner's manual, which recommends setting it that way. I may experiment a bit more with it, though.

I was pretty happy overall!

[Aridity]

Playingdead,
I really like your videos and you all sound great. From listening I gather your Bob guy plays more of
a later Bob sounding rig, Closer to the late 80's 90's.is my guess.

I'm looking to get some new gear and I wanted to ask you if you could shed a little light on what he uses
for distortion, & effects,

It would really help me as I think he has done a
fine job nailing that tone.

Is he using TC elec g-force or g major - outboard compressor? tubescreamers? I see that Modulus
ax, boy that's nice!!
Thanks for any info!!

You guys rock!

Arid

[Tennessee Jedi]

Yo
This "Aridity" guy can really rock the Bob Style of guitar.
Sweet Ibanez too.

[Aridity]

Hey Jedi,
Tx for the complement and save a couple of them roses for yourself!!

Arid

[playingdead]

Playingdead,
I really like your videos and you all sound great. From listening I gather your Bob guy plays more of
a later Bob sounding rig, Closer to the late 80's 90's.is my guess.

I'm looking to get some new gear and I wanted to ask you if you could shed a little light on what he uses
for distortion, & effects,

It would really help me as I think he has done a
fine job nailing that tone.

Is he using TC elec g-force or g major - outboard compressor? tubescreamers? I see that Modulus
ax, boy that's nice!!
Thanks for any info!!

You guys rock!

Arid

He really does get a tremendous Weir tone out of his rig; besides the Modulus, which is a Genesis 2, he also has an old Ibanez Artist he just picked up, although I like the Modulus' tone better.

Over the years, he got that nasty Weir tone from the most motley collection of gear you've ever seen, it was mostly stuff you would pass over at a garage sale -- a Squier strat into a little teeny 20 watt Crate amp, an old, noisy Seymour Duncan tube amp, a collection of dilapidated DOD and Boss stomp boxes ... we used to crack up over how he could take a $200 rig and make it sound just like Weir's thousands of dollars in gear. Gearheads would come up to the stage after a set, clamoring to see his rig, and they'd be like ... WTF?

But he finally knuckled under last year, won the Modulus on eBay for $1100 or so, and now he is playing through a 50-watt Vox Valvetronix amp. He uses the onboard effects on there, and has a pedal board that has a tuner, Boss flanger, Boss digital delay, Boss overdrive and a DOD chorus, I believe. He does not have a compressor on his pedal board, but he may use one that's on the amp, I'll ask him tonight.