What's your main rig right now?

[creative360]

@creative360 has (almost never) entered the chat

Thanks for the shout-out JT and sorry for the disappearing act. Not active on any forum for the past few months. For whatever reason I can't concentrate. I wish this forum was one big ongoing thread I could just hop in to, since we're all basically saying the same things wherever we are. I did stop by TGP a few weeks ago and saw a "retro" KPA-bashing thread ... it literally sounded like 2012—zero new ideas .. like someone laid a template for acrimonious, uninformed amateur discourse over a new thread. Haven't been back.

In the studio I've been using the stellar Acme Audio Motown DI WB-3 for guitar and bass for a while now, often through a UAD Neve sim Unison input that prints the sound .. then plugs. Monitoring with plugs while tracking, but from outside the daw. I have both a 1980 Greco SE-800 and SA-1200, two stunning lawsuit era replicas, now way more valuable than when I found them on Google-translated Japanese blogs, a $450 Craigslist parts Tele made by a kid in Knoxville that I bought from an expat in Brooklyn that looks and feels 50s and is close too as nice as any vintage one I've played, and nicer than any Custom Shop one I've held, and a new, middle line (German hardware, Chinese assembly) Hofner Club bass with flats .. incredible tone and easy to play. I have other less notable stuff, Danelectro, acoustics whatever. And also, a nearly 3k limited edition Strandberg from a year or two ago that I never play after giving it a real chance for months and hundreds of hours. That should probably go at some point. Lately I've been using a ton of the Spitfire Audio pianos and other Originals-line instruments. Great stuff.

The Kemper. It's still snappy as hell versus plugs and the tones—it's all anyone would ever need for anything, if making music is the point. I still love it, but now as ever, it doesn't save me if I'm not in shape and dealin'. And for everyone who thinks it's bad .. for chrissakes don't use it.

Any pro will tell you, 99% of the time it's whatever is provided by the venue. Obviously the higher-up on the food chain, the closer the venue adheres to the rider, but famous people—Frisell Lage etc etc are still traveling light. Kinda sad, because it's not like they don't care about tone, it's just that really, it doesn't make so much difference in the end, versus the music. And easy travels contributes to the music in its own way. And yes at a certain point, higher rolling tours are carting Kempers more than any other digital, and sometimes amps. And for amps .. dude, amps are still way way way way in effect in studios, and pretty much every small venue. Shrug. It's because they sound great and they're easy peasy.

Anthony Wilson gets to bring his cork sniff rig with Diana Krall because she's a big star who sells-out Radio City size places, meaning his Projector Amp, separate tube reverb, single fifteen cab, etc. He'll carry that around locally in LA as well. But otherwise, he sounds great through the house Blues Junior at Bar Lunatico in Brooklyn, or a reissue Magnatone he borrowed from Rudy Pensa, to play with friends at a gig in Tribeca a bit before the pandemic. That amp sounded great, but it may have been that he turned it up like we (his friends) begged him to before the show. He's often too respectful in terms of his attitude on the bandstand.

Julian Lage is another one. I'll see him in a couple weeks. It's a bigger venue, so let's see what he's running. These guys' tones come and go, and sometimes we friends love it or are dissatisfied or wish they'd change it or wish they'd go back to that thing we liked. We throw out delicate suggestions blah blah. But the world .. or people like Al Schmitt rip or you know top producers or label heads or .. and you know, fans, the paying audiences, they have no problems with what these guys are doing. This stuff simply doesn't matter as much as anyone wishes or claims it does, or at least it doesn't matter as much as I wish it did. No one doing it for real is too hung-up on which string or pick or pedal or amp .. although yes, when our heroes land on something that works, they tend to stick with it which is why we perceive their longtime rigs as obsessions, when often it's more like, if it ain't broke.... I wish I was less of a hothouse flower.

Way back in the day, I rember Anthony being invited up to sit on a stage in a tiny, freezing basement club on the Lower East Side and he was handed a mediocre acoustic, literally with no strap. So he had to stand there holding the thing up to an SM57 on a straight stand. Ten minutes later, thunderous ovation. We were like Doood, how'd you deal? He was like, With what?

ymmv

Miss you guys™

 

[JiveTurkey]

Thanks for the shout-out JT and sorry for the disappearing act. Not active on any forum for the past few months. For whatever reason I can't concentrate. I wish this forum was one big ongoing thread I could just hop in to, since we're all basically saying the same things wherever we are. I did stop by TGP a few weeks ago and saw a "retro" KPA-bashing thread ... it literally sounded like 2012—zero new ideas .. like someone laid a template for acrimonious, uninformed amateur discourse over a new thread. Haven't been back.

In the studio I've been using the stellar Acme Audio Motown DI WB-3 for guitar and bass for a while now, often through a UAD Neve sim Unison input that prints the sound .. then plugs. Monitoring with plugs while tracking, but from outside the daw. I have both a 1980 Greco SE-800 and SA-1200, two stunning lawsuit era replicas, now way more valuable than when I found them on Google-translated Japanese blogs, a $450 Craigslist parts Tele made by a kid in Knoxville that I bought from an expat in Brooklyn that looks and feels 50s and is close too as nice as any vintage one I've played, and nicer than any Custom Shop one I've held, and a new, middle line (German hardware, Chinese assembly) Hofner Club bass with flats .. incredible tone and easy to play. I have other less notable stuff, Danelectro, acoustics whatever. And also, a nearly 3k limited edition Strandberg from a year or two ago that I never play after giving it a real chance for months and hundreds of hours. That should probably go at some point. Lately I've been using a ton of the Spitfire Audio pianos and other Originals-line instruments. Great stuff.

The Kemper. It's still snappy as hell versus plugs and the tones—it's all anyone would ever need for anything, if making music is the point. I still love it, but now as ever, it doesn't save me if I'm not in shape and dealin'. And for everyone who thinks it's bad .. for chrissakes don't use it.

Any pro will tell you, 99% of the time it's whatever is provided by the venue. Obviously the higher-up on the food chain, the closer the venue adheres to the rider, but famous people—Frisell Lage etc etc are still traveling light. Kinda sad, because it's not like they don't care about tone, it's just that really, it doesn't make so much difference in the end, versus the music. And easy travels contributes to the music in its own way. And yes at a certain point, higher rolling tours are carting Kempers more than any other digital, and sometimes amps. And for amps .. dude, amps are still way way way way in effect in studios, and pretty much every small venue. Shrug. It's because they sound great and they're easy peasy.

Anthony Wilson gets to bring his cork sniff rig with Diana Krall because she's a big star who sells-out Radio City size places, meaning his Projector Amp, separate tube reverb, single fifteen cab, etc. He'll carry that around locally in LA as well. But otherwise, he sounds great through the house Blues Junior at Bar Lunatico in Brooklyn, or a reissue Magnatone he borrowed from Rudy Pensa, to play with friends at a gig in Tribeca a bit before the pandemic. That amp sounded great, but it may have been that he turned it up like we (his friends) begged him to before the show. He's often too respectful in terms of his attitude on the bandstand.

Julian Lage is another one. I'll see him in a couple weeks. It's a bigger venue, so let's see what he's running. These guys' tones come and go, and sometimes we friends love it or are dissatisfied or wish they'd change it or wish they'd go back to that thing we liked. We throw out delicate suggestions blah blah. But the world .. or people like Al Schmitt rip or you know top producers or label heads or .. and you know, fans, the paying audiences, they have no problems with what these guys are doing. This stuff simply doesn't matter as much as anyone wishes or claims it does, or at least it doesn't matter as much as I wish it did. No one doing it for real is too hung-up on which string or pick or pedal or amp .. although yes, when our heroes land on something that works, they tend to stick with it which is why we perceive their longtime rigs as obsessions, when often it's more like, if it ain't broke.... I wish I was less of a hothouse flower.

Way back in the day, I rember Anthony being invited up to sit on a stage in a tiny, freezing basement club on the Lower East Side and he was handed a mediocre acoustic, literally with no strap. So he had to stand there holding the thing up to an SM57 on a straight stand. Ten minutes later, thunderous ovation. We were like Doood, how'd you deal? He was like, With what?

ymmv

Miss you guys™

I don't have enough words to do a reply justice here Thanks for popping in! Don't you delete a word!

 

[Fireproof]

Thanks for the shout-out JT and sorry for the disappearing act. Not active on any forum for the past few months. For whatever reason I can't concentrate. I wish this forum was one big ongoing thread I could just hop in to, since we're all basically saying the same things wherever we are. I did stop by TGP a few weeks ago and saw a "retro" KPA-bashing thread ... it literally sounded like 2012—zero new ideas .. like someone laid a template for acrimonious, uninformed amateur discourse over a new thread. Haven't been back.

In the studio I've been using the stellar Acme Audio Motown DI WB-3 for guitar and bass for a while now, often through a UAD Neve sim Unison input that prints the sound .. then plugs. Monitoring with plugs while tracking, but from outside the daw. I have both a 1980 Greco SE-800 and SA-1200, two stunning lawsuit era replicas, now way more valuable than when I found them on Google-translated Japanese blogs, a $450 Craigslist parts Tele made by a kid in Knoxville that I bought from an expat in Brooklyn that looks and feels 50s and is close too as nice as any vintage one I've played, and nicer than any Custom Shop one I've held, and a new, middle line (German hardware, Chinese assembly) Hofner Club bass with flats .. incredible tone and easy to play. I have other less notable stuff, Danelectro, acoustics whatever. And also, a nearly 3k limited edition Strandberg from a year or two ago that I never play after giving it a real chance for months and hundreds of hours. That should probably go at some point. Lately I've been using a ton of the Spitfire Audio pianos and other Originals-line instruments. Great stuff.

The Kemper. It's still snappy as hell versus plugs and the tones—it's all anyone would ever need for anything, if making music is the point. I still love it, but now as ever, it doesn't save me if I'm not in shape and dealin'. And for everyone who thinks it's bad .. for chrissakes don't use it.

Any pro will tell you, 99% of the time it's whatever is provided by the venue. Obviously the higher-up on the food chain, the closer the venue adheres to the rider, but famous people—Frisell Lage etc etc are still traveling light. Kinda sad, because it's not like they don't care about tone, it's just that really, it doesn't make so much difference in the end, versus the music. And easy travels contributes to the music in its own way. And yes at a certain point, higher rolling tours are carting Kempers more than any other digital, and sometimes amps. And for amps .. dude, amps are still way way way way in effect in studios, and pretty much every small venue. Shrug. It's because they sound great and they're easy peasy.

Anthony Wilson gets to bring his cork sniff rig with Diana Krall because she's a big star who sells-out Radio City size places, meaning his Projector Amp, separate tube reverb, single fifteen cab, etc. He'll carry that around locally in LA as well. But otherwise, he sounds great through the house Blues Junior at Bar Lunatico in Brooklyn, or a reissue Magnatone he borrowed from Rudy Pensa, to play with friends at a gig in Tribeca a bit before the pandemic. That amp sounded great, but it may have been that he turned it up like we (his friends) begged him to before the show. He's often too respectful in terms of his attitude on the bandstand.

Julian Lage is another one. I'll see him in a couple weeks. It's a bigger venue, so let's see what he's running. These guys' tones come and go, and sometimes we friends love it or are dissatisfied or wish they'd change it or wish they'd go back to that thing we liked. We throw out delicate suggestions blah blah. But the world .. or people like Al Schmitt rip or you know top producers or label heads or .. and you know, fans, the paying audiences, they have no problems with what these guys are doing. This stuff simply doesn't matter as much as anyone wishes or claims it does, or at least it doesn't matter as much as I wish it did. No one doing it for real is too hung-up on which string or pick or pedal or amp .. although yes, when our heroes land on something that works, they tend to stick with it which is why we perceive their longtime rigs as obsessions, when often it's more like, if it ain't broke.... I wish I was less of a hothouse flower.

Way back in the day, I rember Anthony being invited up to sit on a stage in a tiny, freezing basement club on the Lower East Side and he was handed a mediocre acoustic, literally with no strap. So he had to stand there holding the thing up to an SM57 on a straight stand. Ten minutes later, thunderous ovation. We were like Doood, how'd you deal? He was like, With what?

ymmv

Miss you guys™

Great to see you - glad all is well.

And LOL at JT’s comment about not deleting this in a few days, HAHA!

 

[andergtr]

depends really on where i am using the rig.

at home, it is mostly recording and i can crank up as loud as i want, so i use this rig, which is a bogner ecstasy 3534 head into two 412s and this large pedalboard made by david phillips at LA sound design, as well as a matchless HC30 into either this matchless 410 or a matchless 212 cab and this other smaller pedalboard, also made by david phillips.

at church, which is where i do most of my playing these days, we have no amps and we are on IEMs (in ear monitors), so it's the helix. i have also used the helix with the amps conventionally in 4CM (four cable method), and also direct into the interface and then into pro tools, as well. it really just depends on what i want to do, and sometimes the helix is more effective than the amp setup, which is miked.

i haven't done the direct, loaded-down thing with IRs with amps in a long time, but that's another option i have, as well, as i have a suhr reactive load and a two notes torpedo CAB which i can use to host the IRs.

 

[metropolis_4]

Thanks for the shout-out JT and sorry for the disappearing act. Not active on any forum for the past few months. For whatever reason I can't concentrate. I wish this forum was one big ongoing thread I could just hop in to, since we're all basically saying the same things wherever we are. I did stop by TGP a few weeks ago and saw a "retro" KPA-bashing thread ... it literally sounded like 2012—zero new ideas .. like someone laid a template for acrimonious, uninformed amateur discourse over a new thread. Haven't been back.

In the studio I've been using the stellar Acme Audio Motown DI WB-3 for guitar and bass for a while now, often through a UAD Neve sim Unison input that prints the sound .. then plugs. Monitoring with plugs while tracking, but from outside the daw. I have both a 1980 Greco SE-800 and SA-1200, two stunning lawsuit era replicas, now way more valuable than when I found them on Google-translated Japanese blogs, a $450 Craigslist parts Tele made by a kid in Knoxville that I bought from an expat in Brooklyn that looks and feels 50s and is close too as nice as any vintage one I've played, and nicer than any Custom Shop one I've held, and a new, middle line (German hardware, Chinese assembly) Hofner Club bass with flats .. incredible tone and easy to play. I have other less notable stuff, Danelectro, acoustics whatever. And also, a nearly 3k limited edition Strandberg from a year or two ago that I never play after giving it a real chance for months and hundreds of hours. That should probably go at some point. Lately I've been using a ton of the Spitfire Audio pianos and other Originals-line instruments. Great stuff.

The Kemper. It's still snappy as hell versus plugs and the tones—it's all anyone would ever need for anything, if making music is the point. I still love it, but now as ever, it doesn't save me if I'm not in shape and dealin'. And for everyone who thinks it's bad .. for chrissakes don't use it.

Any pro will tell you, 99% of the time it's whatever is provided by the venue. Obviously the higher-up on the food chain, the closer the venue adheres to the rider, but famous people—Frisell Lage etc etc are still traveling light. Kinda sad, because it's not like they don't care about tone, it's just that really, it doesn't make so much difference in the end, versus the music. And easy travels contributes to the music in its own way. And yes at a certain point, higher rolling tours are carting Kempers more than any other digital, and sometimes amps. And for amps .. dude, amps are still way way way way in effect in studios, and pretty much every small venue. Shrug. It's because they sound great and they're easy peasy.

Anthony Wilson gets to bring his cork sniff rig with Diana Krall because she's a big star who sells-out Radio City size places, meaning his Projector Amp, separate tube reverb, single fifteen cab, etc. He'll carry that around locally in LA as well. But otherwise, he sounds great through the house Blues Junior at Bar Lunatico in Brooklyn, or a reissue Magnatone he borrowed from Rudy Pensa, to play with friends at a gig in Tribeca a bit before the pandemic. That amp sounded great, but it may have been that he turned it up like we (his friends) begged him to before the show. He's often too respectful in terms of his attitude on the bandstand.

Julian Lage is another one. I'll see him in a couple weeks. It's a bigger venue, so let's see what he's running. These guys' tones come and go, and sometimes we friends love it or are dissatisfied or wish they'd change it or wish they'd go back to that thing we liked. We throw out delicate suggestions blah blah. But the world .. or people like Al Schmitt rip or you know top producers or label heads or .. and you know, fans, the paying audiences, they have no problems with what these guys are doing. This stuff simply doesn't matter as much as anyone wishes or claims it does, or at least it doesn't matter as much as I wish it did. No one doing it for real is too hung-up on which string or pick or pedal or amp .. although yes, when our heroes land on something that works, they tend to stick with it which is why we perceive their longtime rigs as obsessions, when often it's more like, if it ain't broke.... I wish I was less of a hothouse flower.

Way back in the day, I rember Anthony being invited up to sit on a stage in a tiny, freezing basement club on the Lower East Side and he was handed a mediocre acoustic, literally with no strap. So he had to stand there holding the thing up to an SM57 on a straight stand. Ten minutes later, thunderous ovation. We were like Doood, how'd you deal? He was like, With what?

ymmv

Miss you guys™

On a tangent:

We watched “Best In Show” last night and there was some killer guitar work going on in the credits music so I looked to see who it was. It was Anthony Wilson.

What a phenomenal player. I’d love a chance to see him at one of those clubs some day

 

[Stratzrus]

I'm still using the same rig. If it ain't broke...

 

[Fireproof]

On a tangent:

We watched “Best In Show” last night and there was some killer guitar work going on in the credits music so I looked to see who it was. It was Anthony Wilson.

What a phenomenal player. I’d love a chance to see him at one of those clubs some day

That movie is so hilarious.

 

[PBGas]

Friedman SSv2
Small Pedalboard
Captor X

 

[metropolis_4]

That movie is so hilarious.

It’s one of my favorites. We watch it every Thanksgiving

 

[Alex Kenivel]