Hey guys, I frequent this side of the website often and thought I'd contribute what we've pieced together as a band so far. Many of the ideas for gear and routing methods I found from recommendations on this forum. I'll be as thorough as possible while explaining our setup but can't possibly cover everything, so feel free to ask any questions and I'll be happy to shed some light.
1st off I should say I play guitar in a progressive heavy metal band and as complicated as some of this stuff may look I see rigs like these becoming more and more common in the scene (you'll see all this in something the size of an iPad one day). Everything besides the drummer for outputting live sound is included in this one rack.
• We use an Axe FX II and an Axe FX Ultra for lead and rhythm guitar. Patches are set up for clean/lead/rhythm and other effects. I'll explain how we change patches on the fly later. Our signal from the Axes are sent to two different locations. 1 output from each Axe is sent to an ART SLA - 2 poweramp (2 channels) which in turn powers our mesa cabinets (cab simulators are turned off in this instance on the Axe). The other set of outs have cab simulators on and are being sent through the Axe's balanced direct outs to the FOH, or live sound board. This gives us the benefit of having a clear stage volume with our cabs and a full range tone for the audience to hear through the PA (2 separate tones going at once). You can maybe see how we set up our patches for tone splitting in the image below. 1 row uses cab simulators another does not, we then hard pan the 2 rows in "page right" so there is no bleed through between the two sends.
• Next we have the bass rig, which is ran solely off of one pedal, the Electroharmonix Big Muff Bass Delux. This pedal has a gate, blend, and high pass/lowpass filter knobs so we can get exactly the bass tone we're looking for. 1 out from the pedal is being sent to a crown 1000 watt power amp into an Ampeg 8x10 cab. The other out is a direct balanced going straight to the sound board.
• I play guitar and sing in the band, one thing that I've found to be very difficult while performing on stage is being able to hit high vocal melodies against a wall of sound. I've tried many different processors and methods before winding up with the Voicelive Rack by TC Helicon. The unit is an all in one vocal preamp with effects/gate/compression/ and eq and has made a dramatic difference. We even use the unit to help play harmonies by sending MIDI information from our MBP, recreating sounds from the album that would otherwise be impossible to perform live, more on that later.
• This brings us to the In Ear Set Up which takes an out from the AXE II, 2 outs from the Voicelive Rack (wet and dry) and a click track mixed with our songs and is sent to a Behringer XENYX Mixer. This mixer allows the drummer and I to get exactly what we want in our in ears. I prefer guitar, vocals, and click and our drummer prefers just the click. My in ears are attached to a shure wireless pack and our drummer gets his signal from the phones out jack on the mixer. It is important to mix your click tracks in mono during this process so that sound comes out of both ears/speakers.
• The most important part of any setup similar to this one is the computer running it all. We use a Mac Book Pro 2.7 GHz Core i7 with SSD drive. The laptop runs our click tracks, midi patches, backing tracks, and guides harmonies, it may even be used to run a light show. We use Pro Tools to set backing tracks where the mixes are presented in mono sources. Our left track has the click and song mixed together and our right track has just the backing tracks (this is sent to FOH through a DI Box). We then set up midi lanes to trigger patch changes for the two Axe units (volume swells, pedals on/off, fade ins/fade outs are all possible). This means no more bringing pedal boards to shows! We use the FCB1010s in the practice space for writing and improvisation. We have also been able to program harmony control using midi notes in PT to communicate with the voicelive rack. This works as if someone was playing a piano where only the left hand notes added harmony to your leads (right hand). After careful mixing and steady control this can become a powerful tool.
• The larger mixer seen below is used to mix sound within our practice space. If there's one thing we've all learned from being in a band it's that frequencies matter more than volume at times and that by learning your instruments frequency range you will find exactly where you should belong in a mix. We use Alto active PAs in the practice space which have turned out to be great.
• Last but not least, the instruments... I switch between a Schecter Damien C-7 and Hellraiser C-7 both with Floyd Rose. Our other guitar player uses an Agile 7-string and bass is now an Ibanez SR505. We all use Line 6 G30 wireless systems to send signal to our units. You can get a better look at those guitars in our music video down below and if you found any of this info helpful it would sure be nice if you could like our page!
Cheers,
- Cory
A Distant Calm - Facebook
1st off I should say I play guitar in a progressive heavy metal band and as complicated as some of this stuff may look I see rigs like these becoming more and more common in the scene (you'll see all this in something the size of an iPad one day). Everything besides the drummer for outputting live sound is included in this one rack.
• We use an Axe FX II and an Axe FX Ultra for lead and rhythm guitar. Patches are set up for clean/lead/rhythm and other effects. I'll explain how we change patches on the fly later. Our signal from the Axes are sent to two different locations. 1 output from each Axe is sent to an ART SLA - 2 poweramp (2 channels) which in turn powers our mesa cabinets (cab simulators are turned off in this instance on the Axe). The other set of outs have cab simulators on and are being sent through the Axe's balanced direct outs to the FOH, or live sound board. This gives us the benefit of having a clear stage volume with our cabs and a full range tone for the audience to hear through the PA (2 separate tones going at once). You can maybe see how we set up our patches for tone splitting in the image below. 1 row uses cab simulators another does not, we then hard pan the 2 rows in "page right" so there is no bleed through between the two sends.
• Next we have the bass rig, which is ran solely off of one pedal, the Electroharmonix Big Muff Bass Delux. This pedal has a gate, blend, and high pass/lowpass filter knobs so we can get exactly the bass tone we're looking for. 1 out from the pedal is being sent to a crown 1000 watt power amp into an Ampeg 8x10 cab. The other out is a direct balanced going straight to the sound board.
• I play guitar and sing in the band, one thing that I've found to be very difficult while performing on stage is being able to hit high vocal melodies against a wall of sound. I've tried many different processors and methods before winding up with the Voicelive Rack by TC Helicon. The unit is an all in one vocal preamp with effects/gate/compression/ and eq and has made a dramatic difference. We even use the unit to help play harmonies by sending MIDI information from our MBP, recreating sounds from the album that would otherwise be impossible to perform live, more on that later.
• This brings us to the In Ear Set Up which takes an out from the AXE II, 2 outs from the Voicelive Rack (wet and dry) and a click track mixed with our songs and is sent to a Behringer XENYX Mixer. This mixer allows the drummer and I to get exactly what we want in our in ears. I prefer guitar, vocals, and click and our drummer prefers just the click. My in ears are attached to a shure wireless pack and our drummer gets his signal from the phones out jack on the mixer. It is important to mix your click tracks in mono during this process so that sound comes out of both ears/speakers.
• The most important part of any setup similar to this one is the computer running it all. We use a Mac Book Pro 2.7 GHz Core i7 with SSD drive. The laptop runs our click tracks, midi patches, backing tracks, and guides harmonies, it may even be used to run a light show. We use Pro Tools to set backing tracks where the mixes are presented in mono sources. Our left track has the click and song mixed together and our right track has just the backing tracks (this is sent to FOH through a DI Box). We then set up midi lanes to trigger patch changes for the two Axe units (volume swells, pedals on/off, fade ins/fade outs are all possible). This means no more bringing pedal boards to shows! We use the FCB1010s in the practice space for writing and improvisation. We have also been able to program harmony control using midi notes in PT to communicate with the voicelive rack. This works as if someone was playing a piano where only the left hand notes added harmony to your leads (right hand). After careful mixing and steady control this can become a powerful tool.
• The larger mixer seen below is used to mix sound within our practice space. If there's one thing we've all learned from being in a band it's that frequencies matter more than volume at times and that by learning your instruments frequency range you will find exactly where you should belong in a mix. We use Alto active PAs in the practice space which have turned out to be great.
• Last but not least, the instruments... I switch between a Schecter Damien C-7 and Hellraiser C-7 both with Floyd Rose. Our other guitar player uses an Agile 7-string and bass is now an Ibanez SR505. We all use Line 6 G30 wireless systems to send signal to our units. You can get a better look at those guitars in our music video down below and if you found any of this info helpful it would sure be nice if you could like our page!
Cheers,
- Cory
A Distant Calm - Facebook
