I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Gear Aquisition Syndrome is a serious disorder.... FX etc

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rickenbackerkid
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I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by rickenbackerkid »

On Friday night I was the monitor engineer for a touring Scottish band doing a combo of traditional Scottish music with some more modern stuff mixed in.

We had plenty of time for soundcheck, but due to various issues with pedalboards and guitar rigs, we got behind, the band got somewhat stressed, and it took 4-5 songs of the actual show to get the monitors right (which is basically an eternity)

The issues where basically down to overly complicated pedalboards, which went wrong.

One guy played electric and acoustic guitar. He had pedalboards for both, but he's been experimenting with monitoring the sound of his acoustic through his electric guitar amp.
This involves linking the two pedalboards together, and it caused either the electric amp to hum, or the acoustic DI to hum, or both and there was noise (not too bad luckily) from power supplies that I couldn't get rid of.

Also the same guy kept changing his own volume on the acoustic guitar. By a lot - so he'd pull it way back for reasons I can't understand, and all of the band would loose the acoustic guitar and look at me, I'd turn it up to where it should be . . . and then old mate would crank it WAY up and blow away half the stage.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM THAT GUY:
1. Keep stuff that should be seperate seperate - don't ever run a bit of acoustic into an electric guitar amp, it doesn't really make sense to do that and it makes everything too complex

2. If you're going to turn up or down on stage, wait til between a song, tell the band you're doing it, and then turn up or down JUST SLIGHTLY. That way they know what is going on and therefore won't freak out

Other guy had a really nice rig for banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar. He had a sort of A/B/C pedal to switch between inputs, and it should also switch an FX loop alongside. Buried under the main board was a series of DI's for the different instruments and also a power supply.

As soon as he started playing, it was clear that his banjo was bleeding over into his other DI's. And for some reason, when he added in FX from a Boss delay or Line6 pedal, it was creating odd gain shifts and causing feedback.

The logical fix for this guy would be to quickly bypass all the FX and plug straight into a DI . . . Easier said than done.

His pedalboard was all beautifully laid out and everything was cable tied down. Half the stuff was under the board and you couldn't even get to it. He needed various preamps to make his instruments work, and it's 'important' to his sound to use some FX on different instruments. Anyway, he got it going as he wanted in the end, but without his ABC switch and I lent him a tuner to use as a mute for one instrument

LESSONS LEARNT FROM GUY #2:
1. if you play multiple instruments, don't try to be clever with FX loops to share FX and tuners, ect. Just plug your 3 acoustic instruments into 3 tuners and then out to 3 DI's. That will work, 100% every time.

2. Neat tidy pedal boards are awesome, but if everything is packed in tight and cable tied down to kingdom come, then it's very difficult to fix on the fly. There's such a thing as built too well, like in new cars where the engine bay is beautifully laid out, but to get to the oil filter is nearly impossible.


any way, that was probably tl;dr, but it was a good example to me how technical issues make gigs harder than they need to be, and an excellent reminder that I don't need a big fancy new pedalboard

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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by Bg »

Hd500
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by rickenbackerkid »

yep, good point, Beeg. It could well be better to have a single thing doing it all than a collection of stuff and more possible points of failure.

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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by Delayman »

One of the reasons I’m looking at multi-effects is to minimise the “bad patch lead/9v connector came out/metal lead end somehow switches pedals off/power supply noise/led lights on tuner are audible through other pedals” possibilities. So many opportunities for things to go wrong
They keep telling me tone is in the fingers, but I have yet to see a "look at my fingers" thread.
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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by Lawrence »

this is absolutely why I love all-in-one solutions . Ive never had a failure in any of my steps betweem a Yamaha REX50 and my curremnt Helix!
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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by jeremyb »

rickenbackerkid wrote:yep, good point, Beeg. It could well be better to have a single thing doing it all than a collection of stuff and more possible points of failure.
None of these problems when your pedalboard is a guitar lead!
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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by Delayman »

jeremyb wrote:
rickenbackerkid wrote:yep, good point, Beeg. It could well be better to have a single thing doing it all than a collection of stuff and more possible points of failure.
None of these problems when your pedalboard is a guitar lead!
Just like you don't have car trouble if you only own a bike. But it does limit how far you can get... :lol:
They keep telling me tone is in the fingers, but I have yet to see a "look at my fingers" thread.
Lawrence wrote: Every orchestra that comes thru here is a covers band as are most of the jazz bands...

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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by hamo »

Not tl;dr at all, that was a good read.
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Re: I learnt a thing about complicated pedalboards/rigs:

Post by Bg »

rickenbackerkid wrote:yep, good point, Beeg. It could well be better to have a single thing doing it all than a collection of stuff and more possible points of failure.
Yeah I must have owned so many multifx over the last 18 years... in the journey from Pod 2.0 to Helix. Apart from the Headrush fiasco, they've never let me down. Apart from the Pod 2.0, it didn't like red wine.

I tried the pedalboard route but it never really got much hold on me, it invariably had the cheapest pedals to do the job. Daisy chains and george L patch cables, let me down plenty.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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