AxeFX II use in BowieVision

Sleestak

Power User
One of my bands is a tribute to David Bowie. We have existed for over three years, and since Mr Bowie's passing, we've been busier than ever. Here's a little glimpse into our show :

The AxeFX has been part of my rig since the beginning of this band. In fact, I bought the AxeFX system because I knew it would be very difficult to do these guitar parts without it. David Bowie had some incredible guitarists, each with their own idiomatic tones, licks, phrasing, and gear. I'm experienced as a transcriptionist and musical director, and I put a lot of effort into writing painstakingly accurate charts for my parts. Then I had to dig into recreating the tones of those guitarists. I started by making a chart of guitarists who played on each song, researched their equipment for those songs, and built similar signal chains in the AxeFX as a starting point for each song. In the case of a few particularly adventuresome guitarists (Fripp, Belew, Torn, Gabrels), I had to reverse-engineer their sounds based on sound. I even had to invent a few new notation symbols for those parts. Obviously, a lot of those studio parts are multi-tracked and layered, especially in the last three decades of material. The biggest performance challenge is reducing multi-track guitar parts into something I can cover live onstage as the band's single guitarist. With a few looping tricks and parallel signal paths, I pull it off without even switching guitars during the show.

Last weekend we played two sold-out shows, and I had a number of audience members approach me after the performances to ask (1) if I was actually playing all the parts live and (2) how I had created those sounds. I informed them that ALL of our show is 100%, and yes, I am really playing all those parts myself. As for how I created the sounds, I always give credit to the AxeFX. I honestly couldn't do this show without it. I've learned a lot about creating and refining my own patches, and I do have a good ear for this. So I'll take some of the credit for knowing what I want to create, and for having developed the tool-specific expertise to build those tones. But I'll say it again: without the AxeFX this would be nearly impossible. The guitarists who talk to me after shows always comment about the AxeFX. I used to always hear "I've never seen one in person before", but now I often hear "AxeFX! The guitarist in (fill in some famous band) uses one".

It never surprises me to see an AxeFX in music theater shows, or on tour with big productions. I can't imagine attempting to perform my show without it.
 
Awesome! Especially loved your tones for Fashion and Ziggy.
Thanks! The trick for Fashion was figuring out how to get Fripp's sound. He used a WEM (Watkins Electric Music) "Project 5" as his distortion at that time, and I couldn't locate a good example of that device in isolation. So I just worked backwards from the composite tone, and stacked a fuzz in parallel with an overdrive, then filtered it madly at the end :)
 
You guys are doing a great job!

David Bowie was a pretty big influence on my life. I'm particularly fond of the era from Station to Station to Scary Monsters... and Super Creeps. Low was one of those albums that changed my life and I probably know every line from the movie Labyrinth. The day I learned that he died I put on Stage and then I looped Blackstar over and over.

Looks like you guys stick to the Pacific Northwest, but if you ever come to Colorado, I'm there. :)
 
Thanks! The trick for Fashion was figuring out how to get Fripp's sound. He used a WEM (Watkins Electric Music) "Project 5" as his distortion at that time, and I couldn't locate a good example of that device in isolation. So I just worked backwards from the composite tone, and stacked a fuzz in parallel with an overdrive, then filtered it madly at the end :)
Amazing stuff. I have been chasing that tone for years and you play the Fripp parts with the proper amount of mayhem too. If you ever play the NY/NJ area, I will definitely check out your truly awesome band.
 
You guys are doing a great job!

David Bowie was a pretty big influence on my life. I'm particularly fond of the era from Station to Station to Scary Monsters... and Super Creeps. Low was one of those albums that changed my life and I probably know every line from the movie Labyrinth. The day I learned that he died I put on Stage and then I looped Blackstar over and over.

Looks like you guys stick to the Pacific Northwest, but if you ever come to Colorado, I'm there. :)
We'd love to come to Colorado. We're working our way up / down the west coast right now, and starting to book some eastward gigs as well.
 
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