this post is for the tech heads out there. i've been promising a gear blog and here it is:
GUITARS
------------
PRS Baritone - Mike Mushok signature
about half of our songs are played in drop B tuning and the best way to accomplish this is wish a baritone guitar. what makes it different you ask? not much. it's just a longer neck to properly account for thicker strings. ya know how a bass neck is way longer than a guitar? this thing is about halfway in between. 27 1/2 inches to be exact.
PRS SC-245
this guitar is in standard drop D tuning for the other half of our songs. i'm a big Les Paul fan so when we hooked up with PRS they suggested this single cut. unlike most PRS guitars, this guy is pretty heavy, just like a Les Paul. it sounds pretty good, but i think i'm going to swap out the bridge pickup for a Tremonti soon.
PRS Mira-X
This is the newest guitar i've gotten from PRS and i absolutely LOVE it. the body is made of solid african basswood which makes it extremely light. i had them put a tremonti in the bridge and it sounds ridiculous. that's kinda why i wanna replace the pickup in the SC-245. anyway, the neck pickup is wired up to be a single coil tap so the clean sound on this guy is really clear. LOVE IT. for this tour i'm only playing this guitar for the FM Static set.
Gibson Explorer
this is the money guitar right here. the old classic. i'm only playing it for one song in the set - Falls Apart because that song is in drop C, not not drop B. why don't we play it in drop B to make it easier on everybody? well, trev's vocal sounds better in that key and really, it's all about the vocals. anyway, i love this guitar and it looks pretty sweet too.
Fender GA-45SCE
This isn't an extremely high end acoustic, but it plays really well considering that fact. i'm only using it for two songs on the FM Static set.
PEDALBOARD
------------------
Most people are surprised at the simplicity of my pedalboard. most songs are pretty straightforward rock so there's not much need for crazy effects. First off, a year ago i switched to a pedaltrain pedalboard and it's completely solved one of my biggest headaches. all previous pedalboards of mine were constantly breaking and causing shorts in cables as they worked their way through airports and in bus trailers. the new pedaltrains also come with little rails so that you can mount a voodoo labs power supply underneath the board which save a good deal of space. i've had this thing over a year now and i haven't had any problems with it.
ok, so here's the pedals:
Boss TU-2 tuner pedal
Fulltone Fat Boost
Morley ABY pedal
MXR Super Comp
Line 6 DL-4
Shure PGX wireless system
Voodoo Labs power supply
AMPS
-------
i use a two amp setup where one amp is dedicated to distorted guitar and the second amp is dedicated to clean.
The distorted setup consists of a Diezel Einstein head and an Orange 4 x 12 cab with vintage 30's in it.
Diezel Einstein 50W head
it took me a while to figure out why there are dog paw prints all over the head. can't figure it out? it's a veiled back to the future reference which kinda makes it even more awesome...and also kinda gives an insight into how the designer of the amp views himself. haha
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
Fender always has a great clean tone. you kinda can't go wrong.
On the Orange cab we use two Audix i-5 dynamic mics. they're basically just like a shure 57 but they're better on the top end which makes the distortion sound like it's got more gain without actually adding more gain. on the deluxe we just use a single 57.
STRINGS
-----------
i use GHS strings exclusively. they're a great company and they've been really good to us.
For the Explorer, i use the heavyweights because i'm tuned so low on a regular scale neck. they're .11 on the high end and .70 on the low end. for the Mira-X i use regular GHS Boomers (.11 to .50) because we tune in standard E tuning. For the SC-245 i use a custom set that's .11 on the high end and .58 on the low end. the heavier string puts more tension which helps you stay in tune when really digging in to a riff. and for the PRS Baritone i use the GHS Low Tune set which is .14 on the high end and .70 on the low end. for both the single cut and baritone i also specify a wound G-string (insert obscene joke here) to help with tuning issues.
TRANSPORTATION
---------------------------
Set Carts
for those of you who have seen us in concert, you have seen our set carts with the giant TFK logo on the front. these serve another purpose beyond shameless self promotion. our tour manager, clay, had these made up and it's pretty ingenious. it's a rolling cart that has our gear strapped in and locked down. the mics and cables stay with the cart and all the guitar and pedalboard cases stay locked down. all of the sound and lights on this tour goes into a semi tractor trailer. the cart makes it easy to roll on and off stage rather than having dozens of individual road cases. it also allows for us to clear the stage quickly to get ready for the next act. a couple years ago we toured with TobyMac and we had a 3 minute change over from us to Toby. our fastest time to clear all of our gear was 2:57. that's pretty amazing.
Anyway, i think that's all. if you've got any questions, just leave a comment and i'll try to answer as best i can.
GUITARS
------------
PRS Baritone - Mike Mushok signature
about half of our songs are played in drop B tuning and the best way to accomplish this is wish a baritone guitar. what makes it different you ask? not much. it's just a longer neck to properly account for thicker strings. ya know how a bass neck is way longer than a guitar? this thing is about halfway in between. 27 1/2 inches to be exact.
PRS SC-245
this guitar is in standard drop D tuning for the other half of our songs. i'm a big Les Paul fan so when we hooked up with PRS they suggested this single cut. unlike most PRS guitars, this guy is pretty heavy, just like a Les Paul. it sounds pretty good, but i think i'm going to swap out the bridge pickup for a Tremonti soon.
PRS Mira-X
This is the newest guitar i've gotten from PRS and i absolutely LOVE it. the body is made of solid african basswood which makes it extremely light. i had them put a tremonti in the bridge and it sounds ridiculous. that's kinda why i wanna replace the pickup in the SC-245. anyway, the neck pickup is wired up to be a single coil tap so the clean sound on this guy is really clear. LOVE IT. for this tour i'm only playing this guitar for the FM Static set.
Gibson Explorer
this is the money guitar right here. the old classic. i'm only playing it for one song in the set - Falls Apart because that song is in drop C, not not drop B. why don't we play it in drop B to make it easier on everybody? well, trev's vocal sounds better in that key and really, it's all about the vocals. anyway, i love this guitar and it looks pretty sweet too.
Fender GA-45SCE
This isn't an extremely high end acoustic, but it plays really well considering that fact. i'm only using it for two songs on the FM Static set.
PEDALBOARD
------------------
Most people are surprised at the simplicity of my pedalboard. most songs are pretty straightforward rock so there's not much need for crazy effects. First off, a year ago i switched to a pedaltrain pedalboard and it's completely solved one of my biggest headaches. all previous pedalboards of mine were constantly breaking and causing shorts in cables as they worked their way through airports and in bus trailers. the new pedaltrains also come with little rails so that you can mount a voodoo labs power supply underneath the board which save a good deal of space. i've had this thing over a year now and i haven't had any problems with it.
ok, so here's the pedals:
Boss TU-2 tuner pedal
Fulltone Fat Boost
Morley ABY pedal
MXR Super Comp
Line 6 DL-4
Shure PGX wireless system
Voodoo Labs power supply
AMPS
-------
i use a two amp setup where one amp is dedicated to distorted guitar and the second amp is dedicated to clean.
The distorted setup consists of a Diezel Einstein head and an Orange 4 x 12 cab with vintage 30's in it.
Diezel Einstein 50W head
it took me a while to figure out why there are dog paw prints all over the head. can't figure it out? it's a veiled back to the future reference which kinda makes it even more awesome...and also kinda gives an insight into how the designer of the amp views himself. haha
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
Fender always has a great clean tone. you kinda can't go wrong.
On the Orange cab we use two Audix i-5 dynamic mics. they're basically just like a shure 57 but they're better on the top end which makes the distortion sound like it's got more gain without actually adding more gain. on the deluxe we just use a single 57.
STRINGS
-----------
i use GHS strings exclusively. they're a great company and they've been really good to us.
For the Explorer, i use the heavyweights because i'm tuned so low on a regular scale neck. they're .11 on the high end and .70 on the low end. for the Mira-X i use regular GHS Boomers (.11 to .50) because we tune in standard E tuning. For the SC-245 i use a custom set that's .11 on the high end and .58 on the low end. the heavier string puts more tension which helps you stay in tune when really digging in to a riff. and for the PRS Baritone i use the GHS Low Tune set which is .14 on the high end and .70 on the low end. for both the single cut and baritone i also specify a wound G-string (insert obscene joke here) to help with tuning issues.
TRANSPORTATION
---------------------------
Set Carts
for those of you who have seen us in concert, you have seen our set carts with the giant TFK logo on the front. these serve another purpose beyond shameless self promotion. our tour manager, clay, had these made up and it's pretty ingenious. it's a rolling cart that has our gear strapped in and locked down. the mics and cables stay with the cart and all the guitar and pedalboard cases stay locked down. all of the sound and lights on this tour goes into a semi tractor trailer. the cart makes it easy to roll on and off stage rather than having dozens of individual road cases. it also allows for us to clear the stage quickly to get ready for the next act. a couple years ago we toured with TobyMac and we had a 3 minute change over from us to Toby. our fastest time to clear all of our gear was 2:57. that's pretty amazing.
Anyway, i think that's all. if you've got any questions, just leave a comment and i'll try to answer as best i can.
14 comments:
well..are very great
?? not sure what that means
DUDE...pretty sweet setup. I got bored with drums and piano so I've moved to guitar myself. Rocking a partscaster right now. USACG tele-style body with fender guts and Rio Grande pickups. The amp? Yeah, I've got the old Fender twin reverb from Calvary (it still says "CTC" on the back). It blew a preamp tube, and they didn't feel like getting it fixed, so I took it off of their hands a few years back. Rocking a Strymon OB.1 compressor/clean boost, into a HBE Dos Mos for warming up the signal, a Fulltone Full Drive II and a Hartman Electronics Vintage Fuzz for the dirt, and Damage Control glass nexus and timeline for modulation/delay/ambient effects. Planning on adding another dirt pedal eventually. I talked to Paul Cochrane (the dude who makes the famous "Tim" and "Timmy" pedals) and he said he's coming out with a new pedal early next year, so I'll probably pick that one up too. Do you find yourself addicted to the acquisition of new gear, or are you pretty happy with what you've got? I've got a pretty severe case of GAS (Gear Addiction Syndrome), but I'm pretty happy with my setup now. The only thing I'm eyeballing right now is a low-power amp for church/home use, something like an Emery Superbaby with the crazy tube combo pack. So that was a long comment, perhaps unnecessarily so, but your blog looked lonely. So anywho...outstanding...I'm done now.
dude that's awesome. i didn't know you had a rig. i'm jealous of the tele. i want an american deluxe and a thinline so bad. and about the fender twin, looking back i think it's hilarious that for years nobody really bothered to play that amp because it didn't have distortion. i regularly chose my crappy peavey solid state amp over what we now know to be one of the best amps every made. hahaha
i had a bunch of pedals, but i streamlined my whole pedalboard a while back to cut down on weight for when we fly. there's so many cool boutique pedal companies out there. so much good stuff. for distortion i have a Rat, the fulltone boost, a dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, and this random rocktron distortion pedal they sent me. it's pretty cool. it's actually got a tube in it. but i mostly depend on the amp for distortion. the diezel is sick. i've also got a marshall JCM 900 and an older mesa mark III. whenever i record a band they bring their amps and my studio is just stacked full of gear. i love it. it's just us on a head trip, but hey, my ego's not gonna stroke itself. hahaha
I'm just a lame wannabe guitarist, so I didn't get any of the technical stuff but the guitars make me jealous... Only in my dreams could I have or play one of those. All i have is this little "California" guitar, and my brothers Dean V if I can manage to steal that. and I won't even go into my amp, it is too embarrassing.
haha don't be embarrassed. we all had crappy starter gear. although a Dean V is pretty cool. my first guitar cost $50 from a pawn shop and didn't even have a brand name on it. i also played a tiny little peavey special 112 solid state amp that sounded like your ears were burning
Awesome setup! I don't get all of the technical stuff, but what I did get sounds great! PRS Mira is my dream guitar. Those things are amazing.
I'm slowly building up my collection of gear. I started with an Ovation Celebrity CC-24. Its an electric acoustic and I like it. Small neck for small hands! Then I got an Epiphone SG-400. I love that thing. Its not top of the line of course but I really like how it sounds. I also have a Fender 5-string Jazz Bass. Amp-wise I have this super old Vox that I don't even know the exact model number for and then a Marshall MB15 for my bass. I'm gonna try to get a Line-6 pedal board soon.
Its pretty funny because whenever I go to concerts, my friends are pointing out the hot guys and I'm pointing out the hot guitars (along with the hot guys). haha
sweet! ya, some of the epiphone stuff are actually really good guitars. especially the les paul and SG copies. if you've got an old Vox, i'd definitely find out what model it is cause it could be worth a lot of money. an original AC-30 could be pretty a crapton of money.
also, if you like small necks, maybe try the daisey rock guitars. i'm not trying to be lame and recommend them to you because you're a girl. tricia's sister melissa is sponsored by them and has a few guitar. they actualy play pretty well and have smaller and thinner necks
Hey so when you use the Boss Tu- Tuner pedal you can use that with acoustic/electric/bass? right (I'm knew at playing guitars)..
yes, it will work for all those. it's great tuner. kind of a standard. although lately a lot of players are starting to use the Korg Pitchblack tuner or one of the planet waves strobe tuners
Hey, Nick. Thanks for sharing the gear setup on your blog. Saw you in Rochester last night and was curious. I think you should have another explorer in drop "D" for kicks! Hope to see you again next time.
sweet gear man. i had a 200 dollar ibanez but sold that and got a martin dc 16 rgte aura. i want to get a prs but dont know what kind of guitar. got any tips?
My big issue is I have 2 50 watt Ampeg Reverberockets that can be pushed to drive hard and crunchy, but I blow through tubes all too often. Upon saying this, my dad thinks I need to find a pedal to do all the work for my overdrive stuff and keep my amp from doing all the work.
But upon reading your pedal setup I've confirmed that I NEED a Diezel cause it does all the work for you apparently - but does that Full Tone "save" the tubes like I think it will since you're still driving the amp hard? Or is a Diezel really just hardcore and built to handle the constant driving? I want one so bad, haha...too bad I'll need to sell my liver to get one though :/ Ugh I hate inflation.
Hey Nick, I love all of these gear posts. I'm such a gear nerd. I've got a PRS SE Singlecut running through a Egnater Rebel 30. I'm trying to build a small pedalboard right now. Also, for church, I run my PRS through a Line 6POD X3 Live into a Roland CUBE 60. Let me know what you think. Thanks! -Josh
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