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Over the last few weeks or so, I’ve been wiring up my (current) dream pedal board. Those of you who are connected to me on social media are probably bored of it already, as I may have taken some pictures and talked about it a bit, but you know, it’s 2017 and that’s what we do!
Now, when I say my dream board – I mean that “with the materials I have in front of me, what is practical to play in the pubs and clubs around here, and what I can be arsed to program”. Obviously, there are things I would change in a heartbeat should I have unlimited funds (GigRig G2 and associated power modules spring to mind) but let’s not have a “desert island dream board” thing, just a “what is best and most practical for me” piece! We all know the Mobius can't touch a CE-1, but you just can't program it and control it via midi!
At the heart of it all is the One Control OC10 ‘crocodile tail loop’. It’s a pretty basic true bypass looper, with 70 presents, midi control and all that. I obtained it about 18 months ago as part of a wider deal and I’ve been sat on it ever since, waiting for the rest to fall into place. The analogue section of my board is extremely obvious, Wampler all the way – I have to tell you now, I am under no obligation at all to use Wampler gear personally, but you know, it’s bloody great so I use it. It’s as simple as that! So, my analogue section is as follows.
Ego Compressor (full size one, don’t have the Mini one – it disappeared into ‘That Pedal Shed’ when I went up with the Bravado some months ago and I’ll never see it again, which is a shame, as I need the space on my board – I could get a wah in there…), Tumnus and Dual Fusion (I order the DF C2 – C1, so the ‘screamer’ hits the front end of C1). The Dual Fusion is separated (whoever had THAT idea is a bloody genius *cough*) so each side can be controlled via the OC10 independently. A Strymon Mobius straddles the Drive section, the pre-gain section sits between the Ego and the Tumnus and the post-gain section directly after, a TimeLine, which then goes into an ‘always on’ TC Electronic Mini HOF and then a Wampler dB+ for clean boost is after. I also have a TC Electronic Polytune 2 mini in the tuner send of the OC10… Right, so that’s that.
So, in a nutshell –
- PRS Brent Mason signature;
- Line6 G30 (wireless);
- TC Electronic Polytune 2 noir;
- OC-10 (loop order... )
- Ego Compressor;
- Pre-gain Mobius (so great for Vibe and Phaser);
- Tumnus – on the edge of dirt, so it adds width and a little high end;
- C2 Dual Fusion – ‘Throaty’ (used primarily as a solo boost);
- C1 Dual Fusion – ‘Fat’ (main overdrive sound);
- Post-gain Mobius (Chorus, flangers, trem, etc);
- TimeLine;
- dB+ (clean boost for solos etc);
- TC Mini HOF;
- Carl Martin ProPower2;
- Fender BDri (running it as a head);
- Custom built (by my friend Rick who plays bass in the band!) 2x12”, loaded with WGS Reaper HP and ET-90. I run the cab vertically with the Reaper at the top, as it sound more natural than the ET-90 but that adds some lovely colour so combined – out the front - it sounds amazing.
The thing about this rig is that it does not represent the best effects you can get to do for each individual position (although I defy you to find anything better in terms of overdrive and compression), but in so far as the best for the space used in the context I’m using it for, definitely. I chose the Strymon stuff as I prefer the through tone to the comparable stuff on the market today, and they have the most options available within. I know a UniVibe, a CE-1, Electric Mistress and a Phase90 will be better, but the Mobius does it all well enough to get away with live, and it still sounds awesome. Same with the TimeLine, the Faux Tape Echo is infinitely better for delay… but patches. I need that control. MiniHOF, sounds perfect for the space it uses (and I don’t do different reverbs so…). So, for me, this is the best rig that fits on my medium sized Temple Board that I can control via midi and a looper.
So, that’s that. Why blog it then? Here is why, I need to tell you about the cables I’m running on this rig and how they have blown me away…
First of all, a little history (you thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you – but you know me, there is always a back story). I stopped playing when I got married and had kids, I’d not gigged for about 5 years before that so I sold all my gear apart from my acoustic and 2 high quality 30’ cables I’d had since 1993. When I got back in to playing, right before I started with Brian, I started to accumulate gear again but never, ever, once considered quality patch cables of being important. Pretty soon I had a decent guitar, a decent amp and some incredible effects… All wired up with ‘£4.99 for 10’ moulded plastic patch cables. This changed on my 40th birthday, a dear friend that I’ve known forever who distributes Evidence Audio cables sent me a few of the SIS plugs and a length of the Monorail cable. I reluctantly tried them and was instantly blow away by the quality of the tone coming from my amp. Yeah, that was an ‘oh shit’ moment as these things aren’t cheap! I started to buy them when I could… I now have my entire board wired up with them – which is about 25 cables of various lengths, using around 24’ of cable!
Here is the thing, this is why I love them – not only do they sound great (and they really do) they are SO easy to make you just wouldn’t believe it. I have experienced many versions of the solderless cable in past, they either are a bitch to make, only 50% of them work first time out, or the plugs are stupidly large or a strange shape – never quite understood that – but these are discrete (they stand out less than 15mm from the socket), OK, so they aren’t a pancake but as far as right angled cables goes, that’s easily in the discrete ballpark! The great thing about the SIS plug is that once you strip the cable back (I do it with a pair of kitchen scissors, no need for all the fancy tools and stuff) you place it in the plug and then turn. If the cable is in the correct state (you have to leave the right amount of core showing and wrap the shielding stuff round properly etc) once you have screwed it in the plug will not come off. So you know it’s connected. You then put the cap of the plug on and boom, you’re away. It currently takes me about 2 minutes (again, with the scissors) to make a cable and with this board I’ve had a 100% “first time” success rate. I’ve not had one that’s not worked… There isn’t a knack to it, you don’t have to have special tools, once you know how much cable to leave bare, you are away. That, if you think about it, for a solderless system is quite incredible.
Now, there are other cables in play here as well… I took a punt, as I’m now an Evidence Audio fan, and order some Forte Cables. Now, these aren’t cheap – they really aren’t cheap. I read all the stuff about them, apparently you need to break them in, they sound best going in a certain direction… I’m always quite dubious when I read stuff like this, but you know, once I plugged it in, the signal was clearer. The sound fuller. They are extremely bendy and flexible (handy as the guys that help us pack away the gear at the end of the night can be a little brutal with gear), extremely strong and as always built like a tank. I played them for 4 gigs and then did a little experiment. I turned it around and it sounded not as clear, not as full… can a cable be directional? I don’t know, but it didn’t sound as good as when I was using it the right way round! There was life missing, top end absent (not missing, just not as ‘there’) and an overriding sense of loss of life and a little power. I thought it might be my accountant trying to justify it the purchase in my head until one of the guys in the band confirmed it as well. The old cables I had all these years, that were quite expensive at the time and guaranteed for life still work, they just don't sound very good anymore!
So, what started as me wanting to show off my new board, ended up as an advert for Evidence Audio cables (don’t worry, I have no financial stake in them, I’ve payed for most it, and am under no obligation to promote them - so this isn’t a sales pitch). I see so many people getting frustrated with their patch cables, people who can’t solder, people who get large failure rates. My advice to you, get the Evidence Audio SIS/Monorail system, you can’t go wrong. Well, you can, but I’ve only seen it once!
Here is a little video of Dan Steinhardt construction the MonoRail/SIS system cables... (cable making start at 17:50)
Seriously, Evidence Audio cables... there is no better system!
In this age of modern technology, information has never been more readily available and at our fingertips. There have been forums around for many years for all sorts of music-related topics. TheGearPage.net, TDPRI, DIY forums for learning to build pedals to name just a very few of the more popular forums out there that people have been frequenting for years. Now the newest evolution is the creation of guitar groups on Facebook (one of which we created and maintain). If you can't find information regarding a question or if you're trying to find a solution to an issue, there are a plethora of resources to choose from to share experiences and ask questions to a group of players of all skill levels from around the world.
These resources have helped so many people gain a wealth of knowledge, along with making new friends in the process. That's the intended goal of guitar groups, is sharing and coming together over our favorite instrument. However, there' s a flip side to such a great gathering place for musicians. Along with knowledge also comes a not so friendly side. I'm talking about trolls, bullies, jerks... whatever you want to call them. These are the people who judge (based on their own self-established authority) that a topic or picture is unworthy of the groups time, or if they don't agree with something that the group doesn't either or that the poster is a [insert vulgar adjective and noun here]. We've ALL been there and seen it happen. It's aggravating from anyone's perspective, but it's really disrespectful or hurtful sometimes to the people who are on the receiving end of the objection or trolling. If you have friends or people who want to defend the receiver, it grows out of hand VERY quickly.
This scenario has had me thinking a lot recently, and wondering WHY people feel they have any right to criticize or put down another person for wanting to learn or share something. TONE IS LITERALLY ONE OF THE MOST SUBJECTIVE THINGS IN THE WORLD. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. It's whatever makes the player happy in their own chase for tone...there are no rules. Yes, there are common practices, but if players feel the need to switch it up and they dig it, then go for it. Nobody should be harassed or belittled for getting enjoyment out of their gear. So what if someone doesn't like relics or thinks Dumble amps suck, or they love Joyo pedals and think any pedal over $50 is a ripoff? There's a nice way to put it without being a jerk about it. Respect and tactfulness are lost arts these days.
What's the deal then? Why are people so quick to turn a friendly conversation into an all out war with words on a subject that's so subjective and different for everyone? The truth is we'll never know. Maybe they're just having a bad day (which we're all entitled to) and it's just the wrong place at the wrong time and that thread sets them off. That doesn't make it right, but it happens. Maybe it's jealousy? Unfortunately this is part of it as well, and with different incomes and lifestyles comes different opportunities for gear that won't always be available for everyone. There still should be no animosity over it, that's just the way the world is in all walks of life, certainly not just gear. What each person does with their own money is their prerogative, but not everyone sees that the same way.
So how do we combat this? Number one advice (you probably already know it) is don't feed the trolls. Getting angry and quickly responding usually escalates and feeds into their destructive behavior. Ignoring rude comments as if they don't exist doesn't feed into whatever trip their on, and it will quickly fade into the sea of comments. Another way we handle ridiculous comments on YouTube or Facebook (which any company gets on a regular basis, you'd be amazed at some of them) is to just kill them with kindness. A simple "Thanks!" or "Cool, thanks for the input" ends the conversation by taking the high road. Either way, meeting negativity with more negativity won't solve the problem, and it usually just adds fuel to the fire. Following the old saying of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" is a simple way to approach it, and that's how most people normally operate. If the average person isn't into a thread, they move on to another that they are into.
If you see someone being bullied or a troll bringing a thread down, take the time to let an admin of the group/forum know what's going on. The end goal is to keep these great places of knowledge thriving and positive, and even a quick message can keep a bad apple from ruining the bunch.
Here we go, another blog piece from me that has far too much waffle in about guitar players I like, please bear with me, it gets tone related toward the end! So, I had a rare treat last week – it’s not often an artist with the pedigree and reputation comes close to where I live, but this year appears to be bucking that trend… It started with Joey Landreth in February and in April I get Adrian Legg. Perfect.
As always, I’m going to bore you with the history (there is always a history, isn’t there?). I was blissfully unaware of Adrian the first time I saw him live, I was 19 (this was February 1993) and if it wasn’t Vai or Satch I didn’t give a crap. Acoustic players were pointless, they just strummed and I was right and if I was wrong I didn’t want to be right. So, I rocked up to see Satch on the Extremist Tour with my Brother and my mate Graeme full of excitement and ready to be transported away to fly in a blue dream (etc).
We got there a little early, took our seats and found out that there some bloke called Adrian Legg in support… Lights went down and this (what appeared to be a) little middle aged guy came out the curtain and sat in a chair on the stage with an Ovation and said “Hello”. My brain groaned and I sat there already bored of this man… And then he started playing. Within seconds I was converted, this guys was incredible. My socks were blown clean off… I’d never seen or heard anything like it. I was wrong about the acoustic guitar!
Fast forward to 2008 or so, Facebook was taking off and up in my feed came “Adrian Legg”, I looked, it was him, so I sent him a request and he accepted. This was before I started with Wampler so I had no reason to talk to him, didn’t want to be a fanboy so I just left him there, he would comment on my status now and then, I would on his (we are somewhat politically aligned and view a lot of things the same way), and it went on like that for ages… then I started with Wampler and we started to talk about tone. During these conversations I sent him a couple of my own pedals for him to try and he loved the Black ’65, he gigged it for years… then came the Faux Tape Echo and finally the Tumnus… With touring in the way he does everything is about size and weight so out reaching out to the mini market really appealed to him.
After all these years I’d never had the chance to see him perform again, he attended the only NAMM show I’ve not been too since 2012, a couple of dates in the UK didn’t line up but out of the blue he was booked in a town about 25 miles from me, in a glorious old church hall, so I snapped up a couple of tickets instantly.
I finally saw Adrian perform again last Saturday April 22nd 2017. Just over 24 years after the first and last time I saw him. I arrived just as he was about to start, sat with an old friend of mine who is a fan also, and we thoroughly enjoyed every second. I had asked Adrian to do my favourite song (if he could) a few weeks before and about 4 songs in, Mrs Jack’s Last Stand was played, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t tears.
During the break I wondered forward and I finally met the man I’d been a fan of all these years, the man who had changed my view on acoustic players, the man I could now call a friend thanks to the beauties of social networking. I got a friendly hug from Adrian Legg. Win!
Adrian’s tone and playing was exquisite all the way through, his guitar is not really an electric and not really an acoustic, with a magnetic pickup and piezos, mixed together at times. The Tumnus brings out the harmonics of both pickups beautifully, the lower mid hump (that we think is about 800-1k) just makes everything sound alive and ‘there’, right in front of you. When he kicked it in, the guitar appeared to jump out at you tonally, it was quite the experience to hear it played that way, not pushing another drive pedal, not pushing an amp, just making the guitar jump up and out. Once again, that little gold pedal surprised me. Kinda thinking we should market it as the worlds first 3D guitar pedal!
Received an email from Lee this morning that was a great thing to wake up to!
Lee had just sent a check for £2000 to the UK Teenage Cancer Trust following the sale of all of the Psychosomatic Drive pedals we made following our April 1st video.
It's great that something so good can come of something so silly!
Wampler Pedals would like to thank: Lee, Avi, Chappers, Bea, Dan, Mick, Danish Pete, Mr Paul freakin' Gilbert and everyone who bought the pedal!
Original video:
Follow up video:
Tone sculpting has become a bit of an art, and many players pay so much attention to all facets of their board and guitar. Every link in the chain adds up to the overall tone you’re going to have coming from your amp, and small adjustments in your chain can make a big difference e in the long run.
Picks – There are thousands upon thousands of options for picks, ranging from extremely cheap budget picks all the way to expensive boutique picks that are worth almost as much as some pedals are. If you’re ever looking for a quick adjustment in your tone for something different, try a different pick shape or material. Different material will have a different tonal result on your pick attack, the harmonics and even feel of your playing. Metallic picks (using coins, etc) will have a brighter, chimey-er tone, where using some wood picks will yield a much darker tone. There are a plethora of options in terms of the material used to create them, so do your research and find which material yields the tone you’re looking for. Different thicknesses will make a large difference as well. It’s a fairly inexpensive way to for you to approach your tone differently. Also, if you don’t normally use your fingers, try it! Your fingers and fingernails have their own unique tone, and can resonate differently than a pick can. Switching up your right hand technique can really help you break out of the box tonally and technically.
Cables and Buffers – These are a foundation part of your tone, so great cables can make a huge difference. Again, there are a plethora of options out there for soldered and solderless cables, along with varying ends and methods of creating those cables, along with shielding options and types of outer casings for enhanced durability. The key to finding a great cable is finding a set that creates minimal signal degradation. The cheapo $5 patch cables can suck some tone and cut your high end, which after going through several of those cables will yield a more muffled, dull bypassed tone. Buffers also play a huge part in keeping your tone pristine. Buffers alter the impedence of your guitar signal, which helps it travel through your board easier. Just remember that some pedals (fuzzes and wah’s) aren’t fans of buffers, so place them before it. The best judge of whether you need a buffer or not is to take a short guitar cable (10’) and plug directly into your amp and play. Now plug into your board and see if the tone sounds muffled or like a blanket is lying over your amp. This would be due to signal loss from not having a buffer or needing better cables.
Speakers and Speaker Cabs - Of all of your tonal puzzle pieces, these are literally the devices that project your sound into the world, so choosing the right speaker for the application can play a huge role in turning great tone into STELLAR tone. There are more options than I can possibly put into a single blog, but there are hundreds of speakers from various companies that can accentuate the amp it’s paired with, and subsequently the pedals and guitar that are running into it.
The key to finding the perfect voicing for the sound you have in your head is realizing what you’re intentions are for the amp you’re using. If you want clean headroom, your speaker choices can differ greatly from an amp that you’re intending to use as your dirt tones. Choices can be affected by what configurations you have as well, so a single 1x12” cab will sound different from a 2x12” and a 4x12” (or 4x10”, or countless other options). Having a cab that holds more than one speaker is beneficial because it allows you to mix speakers to fit the perfect application. One speaker may be designed for more aggressive lows and highs with less emphasis on mids, where you could pair that with a more mid-focused speaker to fill out your sound tonally.
When choosing your speaker, you need to pay attention to the outputs on your amps and what ohms they can put out, as well as the speaker and make sure they match up. If you’re not sure exactly how to do this, the easiest method is to email the company and let them know what amp you’re using and they can recommend the right product and ohm rating for you. Your amp can sound completely different based on whether you’re running at 4ohm, 8ohm and 16ohm and doing the research between the various options and what works best for your amp will yield some really fun and great sounding results.
Along with proper speaker choices, deciding on the right cab (as mentioned above) will play a part in your overall tone. Horizontal cables vs. vertical cabs can make a big difference on the tone you and the audience are hearing, along with which way the cab is facing and whether it’s tilted, off the floor, or even facing a different direction. The last thing the front row of a gig wants is to have your speakers blaring directly in their faces. Tilting the cab back (on combos) or getting the cab off of the floor will help diffuse some of the sound and disperse it into the air instead of directly at the audience’s faces.
Mix it up a bit – Do you normally run your delay into the FX loop? Try placing it before your dirt pedals for a completely different set of tones. There are typical “guides” and thought processes that come to mind when laying out a pedalboard, but when it comes down to it there are no rules, and what’s right is whatever sounds best to you. Experiment with signal chain order, especially stacking different pedals into each other to see what sonic tones you can coax out of something that would seem so unorthodox.
My absolute favourite part of this job is the creative process and the sometime silly things that come of it. Over the years I've had the pleasure of working with Brian, Travis, Max, Jeff, Alex... so many people and with each one we've had moments of utter brilliance (even if I do say so myself) that have created some great products and moments.
One of the best parts of it all, for me, has been the concept of the silly pedal graphics. I did my first for Christmas in 2011 and we've been doing them regularly ever since, I have an extremely short attention span and when I have photoshop in front of me things tend to happen to relieve my boredom - I think we might have been the first to do an April Fool pedal graphic way back then, and then we upped the game in 2014 when we did the video for the HAIRstortion (that came from a drunken conversation between Brian and I over dinner at NAMM, we were crying with laughter in a very nice restaurant and receiving some extremely interesting looks from the staff and other customers, but you know.... meh).
Come the start of March I had realised we'd not even considered an April Fool thing, and had all but conceded to the other companies that have also started to do it, as we were going to miss out this year. Shame, but we've been really busy and the inspiration hadn't hit yet...
All this started on March 9th, a Thursday at about 17:50 or so, Lee Anderton posted a video on his page and I commented on his tone, which was lovely. He shot straight back with a typical Lee comment (I first met Lee in January 2012 at NAMM, over the years we've done dinner, we've done banter, they've become one of the biggest selling dealers we have, he's cut me some great deals on some gear... so, you know, this wasn't random, I've known him as an industry guy for years), and within 20 minutes the idea was born!
You can take a look at the conversation here (look for my "nice tone mate" comment and then read the thread that came from it), kudos to Lee for the initial idea, and then it went to email and we had the entire thing planned out in 30 minutes from my first comment to me making this in photoshop and sending it to Lee as a concept for April Fool...
When thinking about things like this, especially if you intend to make a couple for a video, you tend to use a casing etc that is already in production, that way there will be units already around and it's much easier for the guys in manufacturing to complete. As this was basic, I used the casing of the dB+. Font was a free one from one of the free font sites, happy days, and it was done. I sent it to Lee, he absolutely loved it... As you can imagine, in order to get this filmed and ready for April first, we had absolutely no time to mess around. Lee needed them ASAP so it was all systems go.
I emailed Brian, Avi and Steve (Avi is the boss of manufacturing and distribution so EVERYTHING goes through him eventually... Steve is the director of marketing for the company that Avi heads - Steve is in overall charge of transferring my pedal graphics on to the unit and their general appearance etc) with the outline, the graphic, the assets for the graphic and most importantly the timeline... I knew I didn't have to convince BW that this was a good idea as he gets 'it' and he did, the trouble I saw was convincing Avi that this would be something worth doing from a marketing perspective. Avi got it straight away, he saw what this was, who it was, and why we were doing it and just said "No need to keep me in the email chain, just do what you need" which was tremendous! Steve printed a couple of cases up, we put the dB+ circuit in and they overnighted it all the way from California to Andertons over here in sunny ol' England.
Lee had already said he was trying to get others involved, I asked Brian to shot the breadboard section (I love things like this, because I get to script and direct the worlds best analogue pedal designer at a breadboard and he just trusts me and does it and he always does it perfectly) and we sent it over, Lee told me about a week before the reveal they'd got Paul Gilbert in on it, Chappers, Bea and Danish Pete, and of course Dan and Mick from That Pedal Show... I was SO excited to see it as not only are all of those guys ace, but each are individually funny in their own right, I knew that Andertons were putting full production values into it, so this was going to be amazing... I hoped! Lee and I were spending a lot of time trying to convince the guys that we should make a run of these to sell for charity, and it didn't look like we have the capacity to do a small individual run like this, but once Antony (the sales sale rep for Europe) got involved it happened! More about that later!
March 31st... TC Electronics and JHS Pedals released their April Fool videos a day early, the cheeky monkeys! I thought Tore's was genius, the Vacuum Compact Kill Switch Pedal, hats off lads, excellent work - they do keep us on our toes ...
Here is the video!
As you can see, it turned out fantastic. Each person in the video played it perfectly, tremendous display of dead pan humour and the production is incredible. :)
The following day, Andertons released this...
18 hours after the launch of the first video and it's already been viewed over 47,000 times. The follow up over 6,000... Andertons put 25 pedals up for sale at 10am and within a matter of minutes they had all gone, so that's £1500 to the Teenage Cancer Trust for what was effectively a silly idea and some banter... Wonderful.
So, 2018... I'm already thinking about it. :)
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of dropping by That Pedal Shed to drop off a Bravado demo amp... that we are hopefully will be featured in lots of videos of That Pedal Show in the future! ;)
After a horrendous drive up (I had to leave at silly o'clock not only to be there on time but to also miss the traffic bottlenecks at rush hour), I rolled into the Tone Shed just as the guys were setting up.
Dan and Mick had swung by the booth at NAMM this year and were interested in the Bravado amp and what it actually meant for guitar players, so once we had all got back Dan and I liaised and we set a date for me to go visit. Now, that Pedal Shed is in a gloriously normal Wilshire spot, tucked away in a completely uneventful business park, that is blissfully unaware of the magic that happens within, it always makes me smile when I go up just how unassuming the place is! The first time I visited Dan at the GigRig was about 3 or 4 years ago, back when it was just GigRig HQ and within it was a typically chaotic work space with pedals, amps, PCB's, switches, components and the general chaos of a productive workspace. Since then I've been back a few times, and each time it's been slowly transformed to the place we know today, GigRig is now run from an adjoining unit with the original location now the studio out back and general rig based workstation in front.
The best thing about walking into that place is the lovely welcome you get when you walk in, both Dan and Mick are genuinely lovely people so it's always a delight to walk in and start chatting (Mick and I had a lot of blushes to cover up, we'd last seen each other at a Joey Landreth gig crying like babies at the beauty of the music), so after that, I grabbed the Bravado, as well as my home made cab, and in we went.
These days, it's kinda strange to walk into that same room, the original workshop, as you know it so well as the Pedal Shed. Strangely enough, the only thing I can compare it too is when we took the kids to see the Harry Potter studio tour earlier this year, you just kinda knew the place before walking in!
I was lucky enough to be invited to stay for the filming of a couple of episodes, the Pedal Platform special and the Binson EchoRec (in fact, it's my crappy brown Adidas you can see in the top left of the screen when the EchoRec is shown) and was treated to a behind the scenes view of the entire thing. Dan and Mick work so well together, they intentionally don't really discuss the products that are on the show that much, preferring to see how they react to each others thoughts and comments. Dan is generally the nerd, what he doesn't know about pedals you can write on the back of a postage stamp with a paint roller, and Mick's practical experience of gear journalism makes a great blend. Plus, they've been mates for years so the jokes you see are unrehearsed, just two mates trying to make each other laugh as often as possible.
Before filming, we had a really long chat about the concept of pedal platforms, what they are, what people think they are, what other companies think they are, how much is marketing faff, how much of it is reality and what is what. They had a quick play through it to make sure levels were correct and then the filming started. So, what you see on screen is them discovering it properly, we didn't specifically select the effects, Dan just took the ones he wanted to try and played them. I was a little nervous when I noticed that we were up against a Mesa Lonestar head, which retails at around £1000 more than the Bravado and has a stellar reputation, so it really was a trail by fire, and a trail that was likely to be viewed by almost 50K people in the first 7 days.
In the room, the Bravado sounded phenomenal - hopefully you can hear on the video about how much more articulate it was than the mesa when using pedals!
Here is the other video filmed that day, Bravado is all over it! Can't wait to see what they do next with it!
So, this weekend marked the annual country music festival in the UK, C2C - or to give it its full title, Country 2 Country. Country music is largely overlooked here in the UK, it's never on mainstream radio or in the 'charts' (but let's face it, there hasn't been much in the charts I like to listen to for years anyway) and most people don't have any country music in their collection, they can't see past Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and if you say Brent Mason to them they look blank. Sometimes though, in the defence of some UK pubs, you can often hear a Cash tune bouncing around if you are lucky.
This year had an interesting headline act for the first day (Friday), a certain Mr Paisley. Now, before I started to work for Wampler I was completely unaware of Brad - I was fanatical about Brent Mason at the time, but BP has passed me by. One of the first jobs for Brian was designing the logo for the "overdrive for Brad Paisley we've got coming out" (the rest is history, but safe to say my first venture into graphic design went rather well) so I took a punt on the "Play" album and from that moment, I was a fan. Mrs Wilding and I trudged up to London (us English don't like to spend more than an hour in the car so a trip to London is a big deal), checked into the hotel next door (show seat to bed, 10 minute walk, lovely) and went for a wonder around the arena.
Once we'd been around trying on Cowboy Hats and fringed jackets for a while (yes, all being sold there, so many clichés) we went in to get our seats, Chris Young was half way through his set (not heard him before, was good) and we got comfy. We were lucky, very lucky, we were sat stage left, about 10 rows from the font and about 30' up in the raised seats. I love positions like that because you can see the monitor desk, the tech area and slightly back/side stage. It does have to be said that it drives Mrs Wilding nuts as I'm often not watching the show but the tech work on the guitars etc.
OK, so all of that doesn't mean anything to you, but it sets you up for the position I was in for the show and being the second time I'd seen Brad at this festival (he was there a couple of years ago as well) we knew what to expect. The o2 in London is a fantastic venue, not much in the way of sound ‘bounce-around’ and there is unrestricted sight access for all, I did a quick DB check on my phone and they were banging out 95db, which made me chuckle as that is the maximum sound level permitted at Winter NAMM, which is generally only 2 or 3db above the ground floor level.
Bang on time, the lights went down (the band were already in place) and the place went nuts when we saw the famous white hat walk on stage. BP had arrived and was owning the stage! Before I get into the main point of this, I do want to say - being in a country that is famous for not liking this style of music means that when artists do come over, we are treated to a list of "greatest hits" within the set list - so, there is barely any new music to get through, you just hear the good stuff - yeah, I know, I'm shallow, but you know what it's like...
Right, so here we go. The first song was Crushin' It. And I don't know what happened, either a string broke or the strap failed, because towards the end of the first song he took his guitar off and held it as he carried on singing, the tech ran out and gave him a different guitar and by the time song two started, American Saturday Night, he was leading the band in usual BP fashion. Unfortunately for BP, this was the least of his woes for the night... As I said above, I was watching with interest the side/back stage action as much as I was watching I got the feeling that something was up extremely early on. Brad's tech was running around like a mentalist, there was frenetic action going on by the racks of wireless receivers and BP kept stopping playing almost every song. I think it was the second or third song (Water) that he first slightly put his hat down slightly and turned his head towards the monitor guy and started to gesture frantically, albeit quickly, to his belt pack. I don't know if this was intentional, but in putting his hat down slightly the cameras in his face (from afar) didn't see what he was saying so from what I can see, the majority of the crowd where blissfully unaware of there being any issue. The more he stopped playing at certain points the more I understood what was happening, it appeared that he had really inconsistent in ear monitors (IEM) throughout. I am guess that they dropped out about 10 times in total, as he motioned towards side stage each time, but the amazing thing was no one noticed. His vocal, considering he couldn't really hear himself, was outstanding - flawless in fact... he was sincerity personified, he told us it was the greatest night of his life, he loved coming over and all 20k people believed him. He did the entire show having a completely crap time yet everyone thought it was perfect. The only outward expression of his uncomfort was the heavily covered communications with the monitor guy, the often stopping of playing and his general demeanor once he had come off stage (from my place I could see how upset he was once he was out of the public eye).
The following day, after I got home, I realised I had seen a completely masterclass in professionalism. I had spoken to someone within team Paisley who confirmed that there was complete IEM loss, repeatedly, throughout the show for them all, it was "one of those nights". I remembered all the tantrums I had seen on stage, at a local level, even hearing one singer say "I'm a professional, I need more than 6 hours preparation for a gig" and this from a bass player "if I can't have the monitors there, I'm not going on" and thought about being stood in front of 20k people, in a foreign country, having to sing and not being able to hear yourself. I spoke to a few guys I know that were at the show and were at places around the arena that they couldn't see what I could, and they knew something was up but didn't know what. They told me that the people they were with had NO idea that there was any issues, although one guy was asked by his friend if he'd broken a string in the first song.
^ A video I took, although this was obviously part of the show where everything was working, you can see my view of the side of the stage and monitor desk.
So, Brad Paisley, I take my hat off to you. It was straight up one of the most professional displays I’ve ever seen, not just from him but everyone else also in the band as they all suffered, yet the show ran on time and without breakdown. I sincerely hope that you return back to the UK soon and it hasn’t put you off! Oh, and of course – both BP and his guitar player Gary Hooker are both big Wampler users and both had immaculate tone. Their tone was almost, almost, as outstanding as their professionalism!
