To Blog or not to Blog, that is the Twitter

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:31:57 -0700

It’s pretty obvious from the dates on my previous entries that staying on top of The Rant is not high on my priority list. There are a few reasons for that, but primary is the growth of Facebook and Twitter. By the time you sit down to write an in depth report on your activities of the last month (or in my case, last 6 months) it occurs to you that you’ve already Tweeted almost everything worth reporting. And unfortunately, more, usually.

So what is the point of a personal blog then? Surely you don’t need to spend your valuable time absorbing my analysis of the goings on in the political, religious, scientific, tech world or even the music business. There are far more authoritative voices out there on any topic you could name. So the hope is to offer something unique. Something unavailable anywhere else and something that has value to large enough an audience that it justifies the effort on both ends.

In the coming months I’ll give it a bit of thought and maybe take a few stabs at seeing what I can bring to the blogsphere. Maybe more on the state of the digital guitar rig as I seem to be (according to my endorsers and clients) a uniquely willing early adopter.

As soon as I do find the topic and the time to spend on it, I’ll let you all know. On Twitter.

Peace,

KD

Pop Stars, Micro Brews & Guitars in Cleveland

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 08:52:31 -0700

Earlier this year I went to Cleveland to help Kate Voegele and her band tweak their show for their summer tour supporting her latest album, A Fine Mess. Producer Mike Elizondo had taken Kate a bit beyond the more traditional sounds and arrangements of the first album and management wanted to make sure all was on track to bring as much of that to the live show as possible.

Kate’s guitarist and MD Sam Getz was quite capable of covering the parts and the sounds, the challenge was getting a rig assembled that would reliably do it night after night, radio show to concert hall, without breaking the bank and the crew’s will to live.

I saw Sam’s display case (yes, display case) of vintage pedals, his wall of boutique amps and I thought it would be impossible to sell him on downscaling to a DI rig. It’s marvelous what a few beers at the Winking Lizard can do. The next night we went out to Guitar Center and Sam took home a Line 6 X3 Live.

The band looked more than a bit skeptical when Sam fired it up the following rehearsal. After the first run through of the single 99 Times, Kate’s drummer started dogging Sam about lip syncing. The guitar tone, complete with mix effects, was so dead on in the In Ears that he thought Sam was playing along to a backing track.

Here’s the story in his own words:

How did you approach the first Kate tour in terms of gear and recreating the sounds on the album?

The guitar tones on her first record were pretty strait forward. Mostly delay and some chorus, but it's funny how fast you can fill up a pedal board just to get a few different tones. I had to carry a smaller pedalboard for fly dates which limited my options a bit. I was using a couple different amps and would mic up a 4x12 cab off stage so that I could crank the amps to their sweet spot... I was definitely taking around a lot of gear.

On her new record there are a lot of variations on the effects which meant I was going to need an even bigger rig... You couldn't have introduced me to the X3 at a better time!

What were your reservations about using a modeling rig, going DI only?

Well first of all I had never played through a modeling rig that I felt sounded as good as my vintage or boutique amps, even if I did find an amp sound that I liked in a modeling unit, I couldn't get passed the cabinet & mic simulation. A year ago I would have never thought I would be using an amp modeler on stage, but now that they've got the cab and mic modeling down, I actually really enjoy my tones.

What were the biggest benefits of using the X3?

Portability and consistency! For the first time ever I was able to plug into the exact same rig every night on every leg of the tour and on one-offs where I used to have to rely on rental amps. You always get something different, so I was constantly having to reset my overdrives and FX's to work with whatever back line provided .

Also, since we were using in-ear monitors the X3 sounded great coming DI into my In Ears with no bleed from drums or mic distortion.

What did you miss most about your amp and pedal board?

I think what I missed most was physically having an analog amp and pedalboard there on stage. Being able to just reach down and quickly adjust one effect.

In the end, did the benefits outweigh the disadvantages?

I would have to say yes. Although I couldn't tweak my individual effects quite as easily, I found that I didn't need to tweak as much because I had every section of every song pre set and stored in the Gear Box editor. And the X3 Live is surprisingly easy to tweak compared to other modelers I've messed with.

How did Kate , the band and the crew adapt to your switch to DI?

They were shocked at first... Kate was impressed that I actually gave in and was trying something digital. Mark Tobik who is Kate's bass player is my gear buddy. We sit on the tour bus every night looking for vintage gear and boutique effects. In fact it was funny because on this last tour it was the bass player who had the biggest pedalboard.

He thought I had gone crazy leaving behind all my stomp boxes, but was sold after our first rehearsal with it. He couldn't believe how close everything sounded to the record! Our front of house engineer Paul Babikian used to love throwing vintage mic's on my amps, so he was disappointed at first when I told him not to bring out his old 409's cause "I'm going direct". After he got over that, he totally understood why I wanted to bring out the X3 instead of my previous rig. He said "it sounds natural; like it's really pushing air out of those XLR outs"!

What were your favorite features of the X3?

I love the delays! I've always been a fan of Line 6 Echo Farm plug-in, and the DL4 has been on my pedalboard for years. Since we play to a click, I can have the craziest delays dialed in, in tempo, for each song! I used the Tube Echo & Stereo Delay a lot!

Something else that makes the X3 so valuable to me is that I can easily plug it into my laptop via usb where I have all my tones saved. If we change the set I can move the song order around on the X3 so my patches all line up with the setlist. I can also put those patches into another Pod. It’s super easy for me and I’m usually pretty slow when it comes to using computers.

What's your wish list for modeling devices, things that would make it a no brainer to switch to completely.

I think the only thing that keeps me from using the X3 all the time is that I'm kind of a "gear head" and I love using old amps and effects: when it's convenient enough... but Line 6 is doing a great job of delivering those tones when it just doesn't make sense to haul around all those different devices.

What are you up to next?

I'll be on the road with Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers this fall promoting the new album "The Bear" which comes out September 8th. www.SK6ers.com

I've also been in the studio a lot lately finishing up a record that's been about 2 years in the making... It's a project i have with a few of my friends at home in Cleveland called The Vig.

Free Line6 Pod Presets - Amendment

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 20:03:50 -0700

When I wrote this article I was under the mistaken impression that patches written for an X3 or Pod Farm would auto translate for other devices and open as usable settings in other Line6 gear. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. A few friends got back to me saying that basically all my patches were useless to them because my settings were based on models they didn’t have in their devices. Drag.

In light of that, my sincere regrets and a recommendation that you check out the Line6 site for presets designed for your particular box. Their list has really grown since I wrote this, so you should find some inspiring patches for your tracks and live gigs.

That said, if you do have all the Line6 Model Packs installed in your gear, these patches should work for you. Feel free to give them a try, they should still be available at the link in the article below:

Much too long ago I promised I’d have some Pod sounds available for download and I’m finally getting around to it. Instead of throwing up a pile of sounds that will take even the most nerdy of us a year to weed through, I’m going to try to get out a bank or so a week (and that could take a few years at this point) of templates I’ve designed for DI sessions, live amp/DI situations, no latency tracking with the L6 audio I/Os as well as DAW channel strip plugs.

There’s also a pile of artist inspired presets where I’ve copped some of my fav guitar sounds for instant recall. And as James Harrah would say, were he standing over my shoulder at this moment: “but wait... there’s more”.

In addition to the great guitar & bass sounds I use the Pod Farm plug on Pianos, Drums, Vocal Busses and a lot of other stuff too. I’ll eventually get them all up here.

The first contestant is a bank I made for live performance. 4 must have amps with the appropriate effects chain per each, with the most often used stylistic considerations in mind. If you have a dual channel Pod like the X3 live, the B button is a second version of the first chain with tweaks for soloing and melodic lines.

Here’s your link to Bank 1: Pod X3 Live & DI.zip

Lush Guitars Palm Pedal Tele

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 09:32:13 -0700

A couple of years ago I bought a Sheryl Crowe live DVD after hearing it blasting at Fry’s. Sheryl’s always great and that version of her band was one of my favorite rock bands of all time.

On the first run through I had it spinning while I did a little clean up around the studio. I forget the song, but a tune that had pedal steel on the original record came up and somebody was copping the part dead on. I stopped what I was doing to wait and see who (or what) was playing pedal steel and it turned out to be Peter Stroud playing slide on a Palm Pedal Tele. I had to have one.

I had an old Tele body and hardware lying around from the Gator Ax experiment so I had Erik Goehrisch of Lush Guitars tackle the job of finding a Bigsby Palm Pedal and putting it all together. It took more than a year for Erik to track one down but he finally found one and here’s the finished product.

He added one of his necks, replaced my fried Tele bridge pickup with a noiseless Seymour Duncan and it’s become my favorite guitar to pick up when I have a spare minute to play for fun. I’ve also used it for some esoteric pedal steel effects on some tracks, most recently on a pub demo for a Mike Elizondo and Carrie Underwood co-write.

Now I just need an excuse to learn some of those Tele Hero-Brad Paisley riffs and I’ll really be putting the thing to use.

Check out Erik and Lush guitars @ http://www.lushguitars.com/

Stargate Atlantis - Vegas

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 07:08:51 -0700

Guitars for renegade alien annihilation became a theme for me towards the end of last year. Joel Goldsmith wrote some great cues for this episode of Stargate Atlantis featuring one of the most compelling alien villains I’ve seen in a while. Not the dude above with the cel phone attached to his melon; he’s the good guy.

Check out the scene and Joel’s use of a wide variety of guitar textures to catch the vibe for a trailer park meth head alien show down in the desert.