Looking for advice on a covers band rig...

YellowLedBetterMan

Currently, my live rig is a Tonex one, a TS Mini, a cheap Rat clone, a Walrus Audio Julia and a Sonicake Levitate. I set the Tonex One to a clean channel on A and a crunchy channel on B, whatever I'm feeling on that given day. Then use the TS and rat-alike to add more gain/boost if needed.

There's not one person (myself included) that will turn around and say "your dirty channel should've been a cranked AC30 for that Kings of Leon song and you were clearly using a crunchy Bassman patch with a Tubescreamer into it". If it sounds close enough, don't worry about it.

TeleMaster

I'd just get a HXFX. Sounds great, not complex, easy to use on the go and has FX return and amp control. Get a looper switcher if you're using more than a few pedals. Tap dancing in a small area is an unnecessary nightmare. 

topdog91

I suggest doing a search as you'll find lots of discussions on this and get "nicely" paralysed by analysis.

My recent thread specifically asking about going to digital when I was perfectly happy with my amp and pedals tone: https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/276235/i-can-feel-the-dark-side-calling-help/

If you do go amp and pedals, stacking drives (and having a compressor before and a clean boost after) lets you call up a wide variety of dirt levels.

It also depends what you're playing. We do 60s-current, ages 8-88 so I need the most flexibility I can get in the amp / pedals paradigm (and as you see, many digital peeps don't recommend different amp sims between songs), and I "need" an HSS guitar to go from funk to crunch. If (say) you're doing 70s rock only, you will have different needs.

Ultimately the most important thing is to learn the songs well.

EricTheWeary

bloodandtears said:

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...

Going back a few years Pete Thorn did a thing about why people hate modellers (or something like that). IIRC his basic advice was day one recreate your existing familiar signal chain and then refine that. Once you are happy with that start slowly adding in the extra stuff. There is that tendency to create something too complex, with too big a learning curve. And Pete these days pretty much earns his living from fancy schmanzy covers and he has a lot of pedals but it’s still one amp (last time I looked) so it’s all variations on a theme. 

YellowLedBetterMan

Fwiw, my cousin has been in a covers band for 10 years and done maybe 500 shows with just a telecaster, a snark headstock tuner, a blues driver and a Blackstar HT40. He said to me about a year ago he was pissed off he "had to complicate the set up" by adding an MXR Phase 90 to do the intro to Dakota by Stereophonics.

Simplicity really is bliss.

monquixote

EricTheWeary said:

bloodandtears said:

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...

Going back a few years Pete Thorn did a thing about why people hate modellers (or something like that). IIRC his basic advice was day one recreate your existing familiar signal chain and then refine that. Once you are happy with that start slowly adding in the extra stuff. There is that tendency to create something too complex, with too big a learning curve. And Pete these days pretty much earns his living from fancy schmanzy covers and he has a lot of pedals but it’s still one amp (last time I looked) so it’s all variations on a theme. 

This, all day long.

A lot of people thing the point of modellers is that you can have every song with a different amp, but mostly you don't want that at all. 

The advantage is light weight, consistent and silent stage. I've only ever used 1-2 models for gigs. 

flying_pie

I moved away from modelling because of the options paralysis.

4 tones is all you need. Perhaps the odd specific effect like, for example flanger and delay if you're doing She Sells Sanctuary, but I reckon you would get away without the flanger unless you're a Cult tribute act.

Punters don't care about precise tone, and sometimes a slightly different approach works better - we cover And She Was by Talking Heads and it sounds great with a crunchy tone rather than clean which makes it a bit twee.

These days I just use a Friedman IR-J as a 4 channel DI amp with an EQ in the loop for solo boosts, a virtually always on reverb and occasional delay. If I was to return to using a modeller these days I'd probably go with a Tonex or Boss IR thing and a couple of pedals to keep it simple

Lestratcaster

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

topdog91

Lestratcaster said:

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

Username checks out, but who wants to swap guitars several times in the middle of the set?

grungebob

^

I don’t like swapping guitars even if I break string! 

If I pick up a guitar it’s the one I play until it’s time to stop. 

Lestratcaster

topdog91 said:

Lestratcaster said:

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

Username checks out, but who wants to swap guitars several times in the middle of the set?

Only takes a few seconds. Mute tuner unplug and swap. Unmute and rock!

topdog91

Lestratcaster said:

topdog91 said:

Lestratcaster said:

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

Username checks out, but who wants to swap guitars several times in the middle of the set?

Only takes a few seconds. Mute tuner unplug and swap. Unmute and rock!

The same few seconds it takes for the dancing crowd to go back to their seats...

EricTheWeary

topdog91 said:

Lestratcaster said:

topdog91 said:

Lestratcaster said:

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

Username checks out, but who wants to swap guitars several times in the middle of the set?

Only takes a few seconds. Mute tuner unplug and swap. Unmute and rock!

The same few seconds it takes for the dancing crowd to go back to their seats...

If we are talking 'from punter's point of view' it's a more minimal difference than turning off (or on) an overdrive pedal. 

Roland

Rowby1 said:

… 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. ..

bloodandtears said:

I'm another that doesn't subscribe to the 1 patch per song route....

This depends on what you’re doing. With some covers band set lists it’s unnecessary. However this afternoon I’ve built two patches for a disco band. One drop tunes for a bass solo, and the other uses a rotary for organ simulation. 

CaseOfAce

Lestratcaster said:

topdog91 said:

Lestratcaster said:

I don't play in a cover's band but if I did I'd get the main sounds like a clean crunch and overdrive, then use 2 different guitars (Strat and Les Paul) to mix the sounds, i.e if its Sweet Child O Mine I'll play the Les Paul, if its a Clapton tune or Under The Bridge or whatever I'll use the strat.

A Marshall JCM800 type sound should get you most of the rock sounds you need, and a Fender for the cleans.

Username checks out, but who wants to swap guitars several times in the middle of the set?

Only takes a few seconds. Mute tuner unplug and swap. Unmute and rock!

you'll also have to take account of the sudden volume drop going from humbuckers to single coils and back again.

I'm firmly of the school of using one guitar the whole night unless I (infrequently) break a string. It interrupts the flow of the set unplugging and space is frequently at a premium - there's barely room to swing a cat in some places - let alone fumble around in the dark whilst the rest of the band look at you wondering what the hell you are doing.

As regards the OPs question I keep it simple. Hot Rod Deluxe channel switcher amp - clean, dirty (and more dirt) with a boost pedal for leads. Swirly box goes in the effects loop - Plethora X3 - which gives me more time based / modulation options than I'll ever need - but nice to have them on tap.

I take the bare minimum of gear - every single item I carry is either in use or a possible spare.

And apropos of nothing gear is the easy part of gigging. Commitment / turning up consistently and knuckling down / learning the parts / practicing at home and rehearsing with (frustrating) bandmates is the hard part - let alone the tear down, drive home in the early hours etc...

JMS96

I tried the patch per song thing and it didn't work. You can't really equalise level easily between patches and you're always going to want to tweak something in a room - which you cannot do with 30 patches.

My setup was a PT Nano + with a HX Stomp and separate 2/3 drives. I'd set up the Stomp with a couple of patches that allowed me to stomp on the few pedals that needed stomping in a song, and the drives to do the clean/crunch/lead thing.

Voxman

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!

Built like a tank. I have two TLLE's (one as a back-up, but never needed it). Here's a couple of gig clips with the TLLE going through a single Headrush FRFR108 (sorry, the person who phone-videod kept turning/switching the phone on/off)

Sultans of swing

Another brick in the wall


And here's one with the TLSE straight through FOH
Honky Tonky Women