What's your ideal sound/effects setup for live gigs?

stratman3142

Hopefully this is a slightly different spin on the type of question that has been asked previously. If not, I'm going to play the "sorry I'm a newbie" card again.

Over the years I've used setups ranging from pedals, multi-fx units, rack gear and various combinations of these. However, there's always an ideal set of the sound/effects I aim for. Sometimes I have to make compromises, but this is my ideal setup, without giving actual product names.

In sequence:
1) Tuner
2) Compressor
3) Wah (actually combined with the Volume Pedal, but at this point in the chain when selected)
4) Overdrive*
5) Distortion (a higher level of distortion than the overdrive)*
6) Noise Gate
7) Volume Pedal
8) Slap (86ms)
9) Delay (306ms)
10) Chorus
11) Boost (set depending on the gig, but usually 6dB to take all sounds to lead level)
12) Semi boost (set to 3dB to give things a slight lift or for background fills)
13) Reverb
14) Clean amplifier

*Edit: 4) and 5) are actually the other way around, which I spotted when it was pointed out by Phil_aka_Pip

For some songs, I engage the Boost(s) and Overdrive and ride the guitar volume to go from low crunch to lead (i.e. the old way). On rare occasions I might use an octaver, whammy pedal and intelligent harmoniser.

Without giving actual product names, what's your optimum sound/effects set up for live gigs, either as individual sounds or presets.

PolarityMan

My ideal setup would be someone else handling changes except for way and whammy obviously, don't care what gear as long as it's halfway decent I can prob get close enough to my sounds

Danny1969

I generally just need an amp with clean and dirty and I then just use a GT10 in the loop for delays and Tuner. I haven't worked in a band without someone mixing it for 20 odd years so don't tend to use a boost for solo's

I vary the gain on the amp a lot by manually changing it on a song per song basis. Kings of Leon need less gain than Van Halen for example so it needs to be an amp that responds well to gain changes. Most valve amps do 

Phil_aka_Pip

Not quite as extensive as yours, but it is of similar construction. Signal goes from right to left.

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb376/musophilr/PedalboardMkIV.jpg

Main diffferences My equivalents of your 4 & 5 are reversed, ie the low distortion follows the high distortion. Not saying yours is wrong, but I like mine this way round enough to recommend you to try it.

slacker

I have trouble with big boards and usually gravitate towards a tuner, overdrive and delay. All the rest I get from the guitar knobs or adjusting the delay time with my foot.

stratman3142

@PolarityMan and @Danny1969
So do you rely on the soundman? Although I do some gigs where I'm mic'd, I've not had the luxury of a regular fulltime soundman.

@Phil_aka_Pip
You're correct. I wrote the order of 4) and 5) incorrectly. I've edited my OP. When stacking it sounds better to me to have the low drive after the high drive. But I don't stack with my current setup because the distortion is pretty full on as it is.

@slacker
In the band I play for, the other guitarist uses the guitar knob approach, but what he calls clean I would call crunch. He gets a great sound that way and our sounds compliment each other.

slacker

stratman3142 said:

@slacker
In the band I play for, the other guitarist uses the guitar knob approach, but what he calls clean I would call crunch. He gets a great sound that way and our sounds compliment each other.

I tend to run the amp so that it's clean when I play soft and crunch when I dig in. I then use an overdrive on top of that and turn down for some cleaner sounds. It gives me control from the guitar or my hands. 

kennedydream1980

My Pedalboard goes, Tuner - Wah - Compressor in the front of the amp.

Chorus - Delay - Volume boost pedal in the loop.

That's all I need for all of the gigs I do.

My amp is a Koch Studiotone XL combo, which is a 3 channel amp. (Clean, OD & OD+).

The compressor is on for all clean parts and usually off for rhythm parts with overdrive. I have the OD channel set up for a nice medium gain crunch with the volume on the guitar full up, I can then vary the amount of gain using the volume on the guitar.

I can then kick in the the compressor on this channel to boost the gain, giving me a lovely Lead tone, I can also switch in the OD+ channel on the amp to add even more gain if needed.

Chorus and delay come in and out depending on the song, and the boost pedal for a slight volume boost on lead parts.

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr6/kennedydream/Pedalboard%20Feb2016_2.jpg

Danny1969

stratman3142 said:

@PolarityMan and @Danny1969
So do you rely on the soundman? Although I do some gigs where I'm mic'd, I've not had the luxury of a regular fulltime soundman.


Yeah in all the bands I'm in, even the lowest one doing shitty £250 gigs has a full time soundman who knows the songs and he mix's us via an Ipad out front. He gets paid to do that and set the PA up and I think it's worth the money

Cirrus

I guess by this point I must have my ideal rig, or I'm a masochist. So mine is;

Wireless -> Tuner -> Compressor -> OD -> Dist -> Swiss Army Knife multieffects -> Analogue Delay-> Clean/ Dirty channel switching amp with solo boost -> Digital Delay in loop

Catthan

I have a Joyo loop switcher and I'm running amp ch. and fx combinations from that.

The only pedals that sit outside the switcher are an MXR 10-band EQ and an EP booster which are always on in the amp's loop.

On the front but not trough the JOYO are a RC booster and a wah. Those 2 I don't use for all gigs, just keep them in the bag.

Switcher: comp., slap, trem, chorus, dual delay

Then I have a clean and a dirty bank programmed in the swticher.

Clean bank:

Amp's clean channel

Comp on

Slap on

Then I engage diff. combinations of trem, chorus and dual delay via the 4 bank loops.

Dirty bank:

Amp's dirty channel

Comp off

slap off (not because I don't want it but 'cause it's clipping. Maybe I should add it in the front)

and engage diff. fx (chorus, trem, dual delay) combinations via the 4 bank loops.

My "ideal" setup would be to run 4 amp heads (fender, vox, plexi and Boogie Mk) through 2 or 3 cabs plus some fancy rack fx vie a suitable control system. Imagine that..