After having been asked so many times about my tone and setup, I figured I’d give a rundown of my guitar rig.
The Pedals:
The “anchor” of my board is a Boss ME-50 I know a lot of people are biased against multi-effects units, but my ME-50 has proven itself year after year, gig after gig. I'm called upon to have a huge variety of tones available for our live shows. The ME-50 allows me to quickly change my tones and effects without a lot of pedalboard tap dancing. The default setting of the unit doesn't produce inspiring tones, but if you take the time to dial in the settings to really work with your set up, it's a great piece of equipment. I have found the Blues Driver setting to be particularly responsive to picking dynamics, and can clean up the tone a lot by dialing back the guitar’s volume, or picking more softly.
I use the Blues Driver and Guv’Ner settings for my base tones, and go from there. In addition to the effects of the ME-50, I have a Dunlop original wah, and a modified (added true bypass, bypassed the buffer stage, replaced the pot with a Hot Pots with the sweep set to favor the highs) Vox V847A reissue wah. The Dunlop gives me a Hendrix feel, and the modified Vox gives me a great Tony Iommi sound.
I use the MXR Phase 90 set for a subtle phase effect. It has a slight dB boost, so I like to kick it in for some of my solos. The Boss AW-3 is a touch sensitive auto-wah, that I use sparingly. It has some cool envelope sounds, but I prefer the control of using the manual wahs. Finally, the Ibanez digital delay has proven to be a reliable workhorse. It's been on my board for many a year, and has never let me down. I use the echo setting for cool, quick slapbacks, and the delay setting for long swelling delays.
The Amp:
I play through an all tube (6L6) Peavey Prowler. The drive channel is muddy, so I use it for a fast cutoff switch. The clean channel, however, is amazing. Great sparkling cleans, and lost of headroom. I drive the front end hard, and get great natural compression for fantastic sustain. I can get it to break up, but tend to get the majority of the overdrive from my pedals.
The Guitars:
In front of everything is my Japanese made Ibanez S series, and a Fender Strat loaded with Seymour Duncan single coil sized humbuckers. JB Jr. in the bridge, Duckbucker in the middle, and a Little '59 at the neck. I use a Jay Turser telecaster for a couple of rock & roll songs that I do in open G tuning. My Ibanez Artcore archtop doesn’t see much stage time, but is one of my “go to” guitars in the studio. I can get great musical feedback from it, even at lower gain settings, which makes it an ideal guitar for tracking solos. It’s tone is simply amazing.
I also have a low end Glen Burton strat copy that has proven itself to be a great reliable guitar. It used to see a lot of stage time, but over the years the songs I played on it have all been co-opted by the S series. It still finds it’s way to every gig as my backup guitar, and I know it won’t let me down.
The Pedals:
The “anchor” of my board is a Boss ME-50 I know a lot of people are biased against multi-effects units, but my ME-50 has proven itself year after year, gig after gig. I'm called upon to have a huge variety of tones available for our live shows. The ME-50 allows me to quickly change my tones and effects without a lot of pedalboard tap dancing. The default setting of the unit doesn't produce inspiring tones, but if you take the time to dial in the settings to really work with your set up, it's a great piece of equipment. I have found the Blues Driver setting to be particularly responsive to picking dynamics, and can clean up the tone a lot by dialing back the guitar’s volume, or picking more softly.
I use the Blues Driver and Guv’Ner settings for my base tones, and go from there. In addition to the effects of the ME-50, I have a Dunlop original wah, and a modified (added true bypass, bypassed the buffer stage, replaced the pot with a Hot Pots with the sweep set to favor the highs) Vox V847A reissue wah. The Dunlop gives me a Hendrix feel, and the modified Vox gives me a great Tony Iommi sound.
I use the MXR Phase 90 set for a subtle phase effect. It has a slight dB boost, so I like to kick it in for some of my solos. The Boss AW-3 is a touch sensitive auto-wah, that I use sparingly. It has some cool envelope sounds, but I prefer the control of using the manual wahs. Finally, the Ibanez digital delay has proven to be a reliable workhorse. It's been on my board for many a year, and has never let me down. I use the echo setting for cool, quick slapbacks, and the delay setting for long swelling delays.
The Amp:
I play through an all tube (6L6) Peavey Prowler. The drive channel is muddy, so I use it for a fast cutoff switch. The clean channel, however, is amazing. Great sparkling cleans, and lost of headroom. I drive the front end hard, and get great natural compression for fantastic sustain. I can get it to break up, but tend to get the majority of the overdrive from my pedals.
The Guitars:
In front of everything is my Japanese made Ibanez S series, and a Fender Strat loaded with Seymour Duncan single coil sized humbuckers. JB Jr. in the bridge, Duckbucker in the middle, and a Little '59 at the neck. I use a Jay Turser telecaster for a couple of rock & roll songs that I do in open G tuning. My Ibanez Artcore archtop doesn’t see much stage time, but is one of my “go to” guitars in the studio. I can get great musical feedback from it, even at lower gain settings, which makes it an ideal guitar for tracking solos. It’s tone is simply amazing.
I also have a low end Glen Burton strat copy that has proven itself to be a great reliable guitar. It used to see a lot of stage time, but over the years the songs I played on it have all been co-opted by the S series. It still finds it’s way to every gig as my backup guitar, and I know it won’t let me down.