Looking for advice on a covers band rig...

chrishill901

Not sure where on the forum this sits really but as I'm fairly sure the solution is probably digital I've put it here!

TL:DR - need a covers band rig/all in one solution. Already own Fender FR12. Recommendations and personal experience welcomed!

I’m looking for some rig advice, hopefully from some of you seasoned cover band veterans! I’ve only ever played in originals and have recently moved over to digital. My current setup is very basically a Tonex One into a Fender FR12 running a Bogner Ecstacy ‘profile’ which is footswitchable to the same profile with a mid boost, slight volume boost and delay for solos. Guitar volume for clean. I use a couple of FX but not much as it doesn’t require it. It's no frills but sounds great.

I have just however agreed to play in a covers band covering a wide range from 70s to 00s rock. I’m trying to weigh up my gear options and wondered what kind of setups you guys use for covers bands? I’m fairly certain the Tonex One won’t work as I would only be able to switch between 2 presets which wouldn’t cover it. I did wonder about maybe picking up something like a Fender HRD and using pedals for gain instead, but then I have a perfectly good Fender FR12 so it makes sense to try use that. Then I thought maybe using a clean pedal platform profile on the tonex with pedals? But that seems like not really the point of a Tonex One. There is part of me that wants to keep both boards separate as they have different purposes too.

So, a few questions to consider. Do you tend to use different profiles/amp models for different songs to try and match their ‘sound’ or do you just opt for a good clean, crunch, and lead sound so it sounds more like you and then build around that? Or do you keep the IR consistent so it’s like using multiple heads with the same cab? I know there is no general consensus on this but I'm interested in what you all do! I’m thinking something that is all-in-one makes the most sense as there’ll be quite a few different FX demands in the set so the board could get massive otherwise. What do you guys use? I like the look of the Quad Cortex but can’t really justify that kind of money. The new Mooer GS1000Li looks like a nice alternative but won’t have great user profiles for a while being new. I’ve used Helix in the past and love the effects but am not as keen on the modelling. AxeFX looks great, an FM3 would probably be the absolute limit of the budget though. Are there any other sub-£1k options out there worth considering? Boss GT1000? Or is the traditional pedal platform amp with a couple of amp-in-a-box pedals and something like a HXFX a better solution? Any thoughts welcome

monquixote

People have all kinds of approaches, but I strongly prefer just having my clean, crunch and lead sounds rather than obsessively trying to match the sounds in covers.

When I gigged covers I had a modeller with 4 patches: Clean with compressor, edge of breakup, powerchord rhythm and full on shred and that was enough for a 2 hour set with a bit of pickup switching and a boost pedal.
I also used a clean amp with 2 drive pedals that stacked well, a compressor a delay and sometimes a mod pedal (phaser, or chorus). 

Punters don't care and won't notice, but will notice weird changes in sounds and volume levels or technical problems that result from you having hundreds of patches etc. 

ElectricXII

This is my covers band pedalboard which I use into a Vox AC15C1 or a Marshall Bluebreaker combo, depending on venue size. The drive pedal with blue knobs is a self-built clone of a Crowther Hot Cake, which I preferred to the real thing. The grey pedal, bottom row left, is a CKK Gears Compressor.

The closest I get to digital is digital pedals, like the EHX C9.

grungebob

I’d get an AB/Y pedal and a second Tonex One with a different set of tones set up in a/b mode. 

Now you have 4 sounds for hardly anything more on outlay.  The fender aby is like £39 and another tonex one is what £135?  I don’t really use much effects so can’t help there but I do have a TC prophet for delay after my own Tonex One with a Rat and a JHS screamer in front of the One. 

Works really well. 

Benz3ne

I use a Tonex One (now) for a covers band and I popped it in the 3 channel mode for my pioneering gig on Saturday with the Tonex One (herein, T1). 

Until then, I’d be using either a Blackstar ID60 TVP combo or my, now sold, Cornford Roadhouse 50 combo. 

I digress, I popped the T1 into 3-channel mode (press foot switch and Alt button together) and along with a cheap Mosky Golden Horse (Klon clone), cheap Donner Yellow Fall analogue delay and a cheap Mosky spring reverb I managed the whole night nicely enough. Our covers range from the Beatles - Lady Madonna through to Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant with the likes of Stereophonics - Dakota (granted I don’t use the phaser etc at present). 

Crowd enjoyed and it sounded big through the FR-12, I had enough scope for a nice clean, nice crunch and nice lead preset through the T1. 

I’ve since set up the ‘midi control’ pedal (take a peek at my thread on it) and that allows me to footswitch between the 20 spaces for presets per the T1. Should give me more than enough firepower to have banks that relate to individual songs. 

I’d LOVE to fiddle around with a Line 6 Helix for the flexibility on stage of toggling on/off effects and drives too but my setup works okay for me now and it kept up with some loud band mates. 

Gimme a shout if you want more info on the MIDI stuff - I don’t claim to know heaps about it but I can talk you through how it’ll benefit me in more detail, if you like? 

Benz3ne

monquixote said:

People have all kinds of approaches, but I strongly prefer just having my clean, crunch and lead sounds rather than obsessively trying to match the sounds in covers.

When I gigged covers I had a modeller with 1 patches: Clean with compressor, edge of breakup, powerchord rhythm and full on shred and that was enough for a 2 hour set with a bit of pickup switching and a boost pedal.
I also used a clean amp with 2 drive pedals that stacked well, a compressor a delay and sometimes a mod pedal (phaser, or chorus). 

Punters don't care and won't notice, but will notice weird changes in sounds and volume levels or technical problems that result from you having hundreds of patches etc. 

This is what counts. If you love the sound you’re making you’ll enjoy the set, guaranteed. 

chrishill901

Thank you for the responses so far! I strongly suspected the patch-per-song approach wouldn’t work and you’ve given me a lot to think about. Part of me would love a nice clean pedal platform valve amp to work off but the FR12 is such a great sounding and useful solution that it would make sense I find a solution that integrates with this.

I didnt know there was such a thing as 3-channel mode on the Tonex One @Benz3ne ;, I’ll have to check that out for sure! I could easily get away with clean, crunch and lead on the Tonex wired 4CM with a HXFX - this midi capability you talk of, is that compatible with the Helix so I could just use the HXFX to control the lot?

Roland

Benz3ne said:

monquixote said: Punters don't care and won't notice. 

This is what counts. If you love the sound you’re making you’ll enjoy the set, guaranteed. 

My approach is to keep it simple and consistent. Pick an IR that you like, which represents a cabinet that you like, and use it for everything. (I use a 2x12 Deluxe Reverb IR because it’s the sound in my head.) Changing IRs between songs confuses the audiences’ ears, and pisses off a soundman if you’re lucky enough to play a venue which has one. My rig is built around five sounds, which are consisted across all patches: Clean, Edge, Crunch, Solo, and an Acoustic simulation. I also use the same medium room reverb across all patches. The only thing which changes are the FX settings. 

Simplicity on stage is important. I’m using an AxeFX and FC12 pedal board. Across the bottom row the switches are labelled Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo, and Bridge/Outro. On the top row I have get-out-of-jail buttons: a 3dB mid boost in case I’m not cutting through, Chorus in case I need more zing, and song up/down. This means that I don’t have to think about which FX or amp settings are used, but it does mean that I have one patch per song. Since amps, IRs, etc are consistent there’s not any significant patch maintenance workload.

As far as choice of equipment goes I’d use something which has two outputs with separate volumes. One output goes to your FR12, and the other to the PA. With separate volumes you can adjust each independently. The last thing you want is having your FR12 too quiet/loud on stage, and not being able to adjust it without upsetting FoH. I know the FR12 has it’s a volume knob, but it might not be accessible in that gap between verse and chorus, whereas your pedal board will be.

Musicwolf

I play in two covers bands, both bands are direct to PA.  I use a Helix, in one band the other guitarist also uses a Helix and in the second band the other guitarist uses a Vox ToneLab.

I only use a small number of amps and effects but I organise things as 'one patch per song' (even though many of the patches are just copies of one another).  The backing tracks that we use trigger the patch selection using MIDI Prog Change messages.  I organise the setlist on the laptop playing the backing and the Helix jumps to the required patch as soon as the previous song has finished.

Within a song I use Snapshots to turn effects on and off and I only have the footswitches that I need (i.e. Verse, Chorus. Solo etc).  You can set this up using Command Centre.

Benz3ne

chrishill901 said:

Thank you for the responses so far! I strongly suspected the patch-per-song approach wouldn’t work and you’ve given me a lot to think about. Part of me would love a nice clean pedal platform valve amp to work off but the FR12 is such a great sounding and useful solution that it would make sense I find a solution that integrates with this.

I didnt know there was such a thing as 3-channel mode on the Tonex One @Benz3ne ;, I’ll have to check that out for sure! I could easily get away with clean, crunch and lead on the Tonex wired 4CM with a HXFX - this midi capability you talk of, is that compatible with the Helix so I could just use the HXFX to control the lot?

Very good question and I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. My gut reaction is that it wouldn’t, it’ll just be a footswitch for the Tonex presets that are loaded onto the pedal, with the Tonex then in ‘stomp mode’. Or rather, that it might be a “one or the other” situation. 

But with 4 cable method into your HXFX that should be superbly versatile anyway, even with 3 amps. 

newi123

I play in a few bands. I have a UA lion which I use very much as a pleasure platform, and a few pedals, all comfortably fitting on a pedaltrain jr.

Runs into a FR12, with an xlr from the FR12 to the pa.

Personally I can't cope with multi fx and different patches per song & this simple rig covers everything from 60s pop to more recent rock.

gjonesy

what's the rest of the band like and how are they setup?
Our keys player likes to try to get as close to the recording as possible, so has all sorts of layers etc on his workstation
As a consequence I end up using a HX stomp 4cable method (a HX FX would be just as good here) with a patch per song and snapshots
As suggested above, I run an "out" from my amp through a fixed IR to the board
All this gets me close enough live (and for the keys player not to complain) but I'm really not precious about it. If I were I'd also be getting the "right guitar" for the song. There's another thread on that and much like has been said here - get a sound youre happy with and enjoy playing.

Voxman

I gig with a Vox Tonelab SE or LE either straight through the PA or through one or two Headrush FRFR108s mounted on stands (audience facing) or on the floor if used as a monitor cab. The TLs are old tech but still sound better and more valve like than a lot of new mfx, and they have real knobs and dials for fast changes.

I like things really easy so I set each patch in song order (hence why I need patch naming) and in a 32-34 song set there's probably only 7-8 different tones, so patches are duplicated with a different name.  No tap dancing or memory needed, I just go to the next patch.  I use an external BBE Boosta Grand for a clean volume boost, and the TL control pedal to kick in eg a Tubescreamer. Works really well. 

Danny1969

With all the covers bands I work with, currently 4,  I just use a Fender amp and some pedals. 90 % of how close it sounds to the record is how close to the record you play it ... not completely in per note sense  but certainly in feel and execution. 
The setups cheap, reliable, but easy to repair if it does go wrong. But most important it sounds great. 

TTBZ

For covers (your typical pop/indie/rock cover set) in the past I've always just used a mid gain single channel amp and a few pedals. Clean up with the guitar volume, clean boost or EQ and delay in the loop for solos, bit of modulation in front and maybe an SD1 if I want more saturation for the 80s solos.

Seems like a big Tonex would do most of it if you want to stay digital and in the Tonex world. Keep your 2 Bogner presets and add a clean with compressor for anything that needs it. Maybe some modulation in front if it's a faff to switch in/out the Tonex effects, I haven't used it so not sure how it works in the real world!

chrishill901

Some brilliant responses in here, thank you so much for your input. I have much to think about. I'm glad there is no expectation to tone match - like I say I've never done this sort of thing before and have only ever had my own sound I use for everything when playing originals so I'm glad this is the approach considered best for covers too. How I get that tone I can ponder about for a while!

gjonesy said:

what's the rest of the band like and how are they setup?

There is no full band yet, we're in the process of putting it together but I very much prescribe to your philosophy and didn't really consider that the other musicians may approach it differently so this is very useful when we're looking for to bring in other musicians, thank you!

Voxman said:

I gig with a Vox Tonelab SE or LE either straight through the PA or through one or two Headrush FRFR108s mounted on stands (audience facing) or on the floor if used as a monitor cab. The TLs are old tech but still sound better and more valve like than a lot of new mfx, and they have real knobs and dials for fast changes.

I used to have a Tonelab LE a long long time ago, I just assumed those things no longer held up? To date still my favourite MFX I've owned. I would love to see you perform with that rig sometime!

willo

I have gigged a Helix and just started gigging an FM9. Play in a covers band that does everything from the 70s through to today, pop and rock. 

I started by having a 'master preset' that would cover all my core tones. The footswitches would trigger FX on and off. I stayed consistent with the amp and cab but would vary the gain levels (via pedals or the amp settings). Reverb mix was controlled by a footpedal.

I did this so that if I needed to make a change quickly at the gig, I only had to do it to one preset. Important for me when I'm in the learning phase. 

Then as I became more confident I had a few presets that each served multiple songs (I.e. a rock preset, a pop preset, a high gain preset). This allowed me to use snapshot/scene functionality. 

I'm repeating the process with the FM9 and it works well for me. 

Daiganzen

Hi, Cover Band Guy Here,

I have a rule of keep it simple stupid. The Set Up i have is a Simple Wireless into a Digitech whammy into a HX Stomp.

The HX Stomp does the rest of the work.

First i just keep to a main sound for all the songs except one and just add or change effects as needed.

Rowby1

I agree with “you only need 4 basic sounds” compressed clean, edge of break up, crunch and lead. Don’t try building a different set of patches for each song, it’s pretty pointless and makes life more difficult than it needs to be. It’s one of those “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” things. I’ve seen a number of local covers band guitarists really struggle with this exact issue recently. 

You can do it with any modelling set up but I use a conventional amp and pedalboard and it’s really simple and reliable (and easily tweaked “on the fly”).

thomasw88

Get a Fractal VP4.  Use that with your tonex in the loop with two presets (Clean,crunch)   Will cover everything you need and if you want a couple of extra pedals just add them.

By far the best solution I've found.  Been all through the modelling caboodle and decided I prefer using an amp and a few pedals but if you like the FR12 then makes sense to use that for starting off.

The VP4 sounds better than the HX FX imo. I've owned both and its not even close for me anyway.

bloodandtears

I'm another that doesn't subscribe to the 1 patch per song route....  I play my guitars through my Helix setup.. which at the core is clean, rhythm and solo...

I read here recently, the best approach to using modellers is akin to if you had your one favourite amp and pedals.... you pick on amp model you like and build your core sounds around that..  certainly in the first instance at least...