how do you configure your live rig (mono, wdw, etc)?

[mentoneman]

I totally agree that around these parts anyway running stereo is a total waste of time. That being said I only do it for myself. For purely selfish reasons. It sounds great to me on stage with 2 halfstacks sitting behind me. I used to put one on my side and one on my bass players side to get that stereo spread but ya know screw it. It looks cool having 2 half stacks side by side. And let's face it part of what we do in playing live is looking cool whether this might be considered shallow or not. I'm still young enough and physically fit enough to load two halfstacks in and out of my ride and in and out of a club at 3am. I've spent the money on the stuff might as well use it. I downsized for awhile and went with just a head and 2x12 cab. Sounded great. Easy in and easy out. But no wow factor on stage. I don't know. Something changed my mind over the last couple of years. I'm kind of like screw it. Let's put on a rock show. Nothing says rock like half stacks for sure. The stereo part is strictly for my own enjoyment. The more I enjoy it the more I hopefully look like I'm enjoying it and that translates to the crowd enjoying it. But I'm an idiot for doing it for sure. It sounds no different out front than if I'm running my amp and a 2x12. But I'm also the guy bringing 6 guitars with me to the show. I play in an Ozzy tribute. I've got 2 white halfstacks and several Ozzy type guitars. How can I not bring all of it to the show? I do it cause I love it. Might as well go the extra mile and bring the gear right? Oh my aching back. LOL!

hey thats a great reason to throw down the toys-
it makes you happy

when i was younger i was way into tweaking and geeking on my rigs but now its all about a balance of consistant good tone and ease of setup and best results at foh position, and w/d does it for me

 

[mentoneman]

Mine is w/d/w but its all in mono. The guitar goes straight into the Fortin JMP, the speaker output goes into a Marshall SE100 and back to the center cab, the center cab is dry but attenuated so its not killing people, the compensated feed from the SE100 goes to the rack and then to a Marshall 100/100 pwr amp, but is pulled back slightly from the center volume. The wet cabs mostly add some space to the tone, I have an REV7 that I run a live reference patch on all the time at around 20-25%, with other stuff switched in/out for a bit of sauce when needed.
I dont use effects very much, but the REV7 is on all the time. That thing works everywhere I try it. You cant really tell its there until you bypass it. The live reference patch dosent sound like a reverb at all, it just sounds like a really great room. I have 2 of them that are 30+ years old, I pray nothing ever happens to them, I love those things. They take somthing that sounds great and makes it MASSIVE
My setup is old and kinda noisy, but it makes me smile everytime I hear it
I hardly gig at all anymore, I would hate moving all that on a weekly basis

i helped a friend retool a industrial space for a youth church group and outfitted him with some sound treatment material, pyramid diffusors for highly reflective surfaces, and a yamaha rev 7 for their modest PA system.
that was a cool unit.

It is, that one patch is actually a stock setting, but its fantastic with the mix set at under 30%
Opens things up a lot without hurting what you like in the first place

it was i little hissy but the analog eq circuit was really handy

 

[mentoneman]

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for what it's all about

a man and his strat

 

[Jofipe]

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for what it's all about

a man and his strat

w o w

 

[nevusofota]

Stereo/WDW = you are the only one in the house that benefits

Mono = better sound to everyone else

Also, the easier the load in the better I play because I usually have more time to properly warm up and get in the proper mindset musically.

 

[mentoneman]

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for what it's all about

a man and his strat

w o w

every NAMM show, if i see no other musical performance its cool, but i always try like heck to see eric play.

he has the magic blend of soul, melody, and technique---how he improvises over chord changes, the substitution chords he uses, the innate sense of harmony and rhythm...just speaks to me.

 

[mentoneman]

Stereo/WDW = you are the only one in the house that benefits

Mono = better sound to everyone else

Also, the easier the load in the better I play because I usually have more time to properly warm up and get in the proper mindset musically.

if you have a soundman who you work with regularly and is a team player the results can be great with wdw or stereo

but i totally agree with your second statement that the sooner you are set up the more you can warm up and rehearse.

 

[mentoneman]

No live playing. You forgot the "pizza" option.

i asked about live setup because of the cartage and setup time factor as well as the sound.

at home when i have the time i set up wdw and without question it is the best sound imo and i will randomly use a wdw rig live

like many i also believe wdw primarily works for my enjoyment on stage and would love to create the smallest possible solution to serve that purpose.

when i first got my pcm 80 i had my superchamp xd combo running dry with a hotplate inserted between amp and combo speaker to pull a line out to feed the lexicon, and the lex fed out the wet stereo signals to two little m audio 6 inch powered monitors and it sounded awesome. physically it wasn't much bigger than an old school ghetto blaster.

granted that didn't include my pedalboard but if that sits on the ground, and the wdw amp/speaker rig mounted to something like a music stand about chest high about the size of a ghetto blaster with a few rack pieces above or below it---

???

 

[Shark Diver]

Live - mono now.

At home - w/d/w always

 

[ke2]

I've always done mono, I mostly play acoustic and sing live these days.
But I also always played with another guitar player, so it was most practical to play mono. If I ever find myself in a trio or something, I might do the stereo thing, just to fill out some space

 

[steve_k]

Mono. The W/D and W/D/W got to be too much to deal with.

 

[supersonic]

Mono with a valve head, stereo with my Axe II. With the Axe II I run a FRFR foldback and a GB Quad as a back line, I stagger delays in stereo and is sounds magnificent. My foldback is the same channel as FOH and because half of my sound is off stage from my quad this widens my sound a lot. In this case the audience hears stereo , or 3D.

 

[tokyo tapes]

I have, or should I say had, a rack that was true stereo with a line mixer for using the stereo effects in parallell etc.... It was very cool but a lot to carry, program and maintain . One day I dragged out my old pedal board. The only effect I use in stereo is the Digiplex (reboxed Chandler delay).

I used to split the signal in the Digiplex Dry/wet. Now I fed the dry signal (not really dry- all effects except the delay) into a plexi half stack and the wet delay signal to an AC-30. The result was astounding! I had forgot how good this sounded. Woody vintage tone with a spatial stereo effect that sounded huge.

Although the big rack have plenty of cool sounds, this is by far a more organic and simple way of getting a stereo image. Having the delay separately enables me to have a high delay effect level without loosing the definition of the dry sound.

Mentoneman, how would you put this in a PA? Mike the different amps and the pans straight up?

Here's a pic of my pedal board. I'll probably never go back to a rack :

 

[mentoneman]

I plug my guitar straight into the amp in 99% of situations.

i've only done this once when a friend needed me to play in an emergency and all i had was my eggie tol 50 combo and strat
it was strange at first not having my toys but after a while i really loved it. naked!

i also did a few acoustic sets and really liked that too.

 

[JTyson]

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for what it's all about

a man and his strat

sweeeet

 

[mentoneman]

I've always done mono, I mostly play acoustic and sing live these days.
But I also always played with another guitar player, so it was most practical to play mono. If I ever find myself in a trio or something, I might do the stereo thing, just to fill out some space

that brings up the other factor which is size of venue

it'd be dumb to bring my normal dry cab--- a bogner 4x12, to a small room or intimate setting, let alone the full wdw rig.
at home i put this together, and it's currently as small as i can make a wdw rig with the stuff i have and desire to be in the rig, and still not feel like i'm lacking anything


instead of bogner 4x12 dry cab its a tone tubbies hbomb 2x12-the bog rocks sweeter but the TT covers clean sparkle to mean bark more easily--brings out the jtm45 in the peacemaker

the frfr powered wet monitors are an Ev sxa-100 and a qsc k12-but i probably could drop to a pair of qsc k10s and be cool

i could actually jam my korg delay and pcm80 and rack interface and power supply into a 4 space rack but i like spacing out the rack units to reduce heat so its an 8 space for now

the rockcrusher is great and a bit sweeter than the thd but man i cant get over how large the unit is!
i told barzini it was like dragging a record player to your gigs.

 

[mentoneman]

better sound

there is something about eric playing this song that just makes this a very hard act to follow although tomo drops some pretty sweet bebopy sounds the second swing around the solo trade off

i love this kind of blues jazz fusion... not the world music or kenny g elevator stuff but more traditional blues progressions with the added jazz colors and sophistication here and there. robben ford, mike landau, eric gales jump to mind as the cats that do it for me.
marco sfgoli and jack thammarat and tom quayle are killer in a jazz rock fusion way.

 

[firegate]

I wired up a 4x12 for a buddy once as a self-enclosed WDW rig, the bottom two drivers were a 2x12 for the dry signal and each of the top drivers took a single in for the wet signal. He was playing a rackmounted Mesa Mark IV and using a G-Force into a Mesa 20/20 for the FX. Was an awesome sounding rig and wasn't any more difficult to cart around than your average half stack.

 

[nzsteve]

I am not a pro player and do not gig so normally my rig is at home. I ran across a screaming deal on a Samson power amp and thought it would be fun to try a w/d and a w/d/w setup. The sound is amazing but where I always get hung up with is how to set the vol on the wet side. Do you set the vol when it the wet side is dry and then blend in the effects or do you set it 100% wet and set the volume then... It you set the wet cab at the same volume and then blend the effects in you get to take advantage of having more speakers, fuller sound when the effects are off.. But when I do that I have alot of trouble trying to get the wet effects set right. I also looked into doing this because someone had put a simple loop in my Mojave and to me it changes the tone and gain to a flatter and duller sound. No idea how to get around that with a series loop. I was going to try a Roctron Intellifex but the last two people I tried to buy from backed out of the deal, one after his quit working the other guy just disappeared. Would the Rocktron solve the problem with a series loop?

I should add that one thing I read about and have tried was using a 4 x 12 cab that has a stereo input, all you need then is your amp the one cab and a power amp and you can do w/d very easily for a portable rig. It also sounds very good maybe its the alignment of the speakers right together.

 

[nzsteve]

I don't think you could get this sound with a mono setup, could you? On DG clip is that a wet dry setup or just one amp?