Experiences and suggestions - lending to support acts etc

NMG

NMG

Experienced
There comes a time, you are asked by event organisers to help out by allowing one of more of the support act to "use your amp". Now, this has come up once before for a solo female singer who didnt own an amp. She couldnt understand why i was getting stressed on the days before. So i was standing on a stage in front of a waiting crowd dialing in a tone that worked for her and her guitar a minute before her performance. I picked a vox ac30 model and turned up the gain and she smiled and gave a thumbs up! It was done. The sound man said at the start of her performance, ok the guitar sounds excellent ok, please welcome to the stage....."

So that was it.

I have been asked again at our next gig to provide, if possible, an amp for the other support act to use. So far i have had to refuse to help, except for lending my cab if they bring a head. I cant imagine the difficulty in setting up an axe fx for a guitarist to simply plug his pedal board into too get a decent result off the bat.

Still in my town most guitarists have never heard of fractal audio or seen their gear. At this last gig, as i removed the case cover from my 4U to reveal what i had, a voice behind said "fuck me, what the hell is that!"

What are your experiences and recommendations for, lending axefxs at gigs, setting up tones quickly and how to accommodate pedal boards of traditional setups into the axe fx?
 
If some one wants to play through my gear they play trough my gear! I do not set it up for there pleasure. put them on a preset with clean and dirty and say there ya go! most of the time there are no complaints. if there is tell them no harm use your own gear.
 
I would be tempted to set up a preset with a very standard amp for the kind of thing you do, and then maybe set up a pristine clean, a slightly pushed clean and a crunch scene on it. Nothing else other than a bit of reverb. Let the other guy pick a scene, spend < 1 minute dialing in BMT and then that's it.

If you had a normal, single channel amp, that's about all anyone could expect to get from using someone else's amp.
 
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The best thing to do is to ask ahead of time what type of guitar / pickups they use and what amp / cab / speakers they normally use.

Overdrive and fuzz pedals can really sound bad if matched up with the wrong type of amp.

If you can't get a technical rider up front, then setup a basic Fender and Marshall preset; one each for single coils and humbuckers. Keep the tones full and balanced / middle of the road.

Setup the input impedance fixed vs. auto. This can avoid some tone surprises.
 
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NMG said:
There comes a time, you are asked by event organisers to help out by allowing one of more of the support act to "use your amp". Now, this has come up once before for a solo female singer who didn't own an amp. She couldn't understand why i was getting stressed on the days before. So i was standing on a stage in front of a waiting crowd dialing in a tone that worked for her and her guitar a minute before her performance. I picked a vox ac30 model and turned up the gain and she smiled and gave a thumbs up! It was done. The sound man said at the start of her performance, ok the guitar sounds excellent ok, please welcome to the stage....."

<snip>
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Was she hawt?

Hopefully she was grateful.
 
I'd have a few basic setups... a twin with a screamer, a plexi, and a recto. You could do anything with those... maybe a vox.
 
electronpirate said:
Arrange 5 of them clean to mean, ask them which amp they'd like, and let them go.
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This is it. Give them a generic clean, gritty clean, crunch, and a lead tone or two... With FX and a wah on auto engage, they will already be thinking you've transported them to heaven. If they seem unsatified, tell the they're going to have their very own "Unplugged" concert, hit the off switch and walk away.
 
The problem will be they will want to use their own pedals.

That's why I stick to a stock clean high headroom Fender and a stock Plexi Marshall preset.

I wouldn't even go Vox. Just bread and butter.
 
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Unless it is someone I know and/or trust, they get the use of my Mesa heads and cabs , minus the rack. It is easy to unplug the effects return cable from the back of my head and the foh xlr from the back of my AxeFx and leave them with the option to use their own pedals. For those who go frfr and use the AxeFx exclusively...id keep a set of 3 or 4 standard basic patches to use like others in here have suggested.
 
barhrecords said:
The problem will be they will want to use their own pedals.

That's why I stick to a stock clean high headroom Fender and a stock Plexi Marshall preset.

I wouldn't even go Vox. Just bread and butter.
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Yeah man, this is the issue. I havent run pedels into axe fx and dont own any to do so. Whats likely to be the outcome if i setup a clean amp for them to connect their pedal board?
 
When people start getting to the point they don't want to bring gear to a show that has multiple bands playing. It makes me think they don't give a shit about equipment, or are being lazy. Different story if its a last minute sitting in situation. But if you have a planned gig and an established band and your pulling that stuff. Maybe you need to rethink how seriously you take what your doing.

I admit that sometimes its a matter of having enough room in a venue and holding a crowd.

Pirate hit it on the head though, If some baseline presets aren't enough and a pedal board with some tags on it is to much. Than its kinda to bad for them. Should of thought of this ahead of time, and came prepared.
 
I don't like to share my woman, my french fries, or my Axe-Fx

Venue's can provide a backline for other acts, and I don't think it should be dependent upon agreeing to let other performers use my rig just to have a slot on the bill. Obviously I was able to put together a great sounding and easily portable rig, so why can't anyone else ?

Heck, there are a ton of options for other guitarist these days, from a cheap little Fly Rig setup to an Amplifire, to a KPA to an Axe and everything in between.

There really is zero reason any guitarist can't bring their own rig to a gig, short of an emergency happening.
 
Where does it end too ? One days its providing an amp, next time are they supposed to also get to use your guitars ? Should I put them on my bar tab too.... want to make sure those other acts have a real nice time, and certainly wouldn't want the event organizers have to lift a finger or incur any expense to make it happen.

Maybe I should also swing by their hotel and pick them all up so logistics of the gig isn't a concern for anyone either LOL
 
I've done this a couple times. I set up a bank with presets. Clean - High gain and mark the IA switches with Gaff tape to be removed later.

Also, I have told other guitarists to bring a pedalboard of their choosing and then I just build a patch with A fender twin clean sound and have them use the pedals in front. No big deal.
 
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Sounds to me, like this type of thing happes quite a bit at this club. I am sure it's not just with you, but with other people. Maybe you should write down the Fractal website for them, so they can have a "go to" amp for all of these people who are not "ready" to go play shows. ;) Joe
 
I've spent way to much money and time on gear. They need to bring there own gear. My gear and guitars are like my wife or girlfriend, you don't go out to a club with your girl and someone comes up and asks to borrow your girl for a date. If I knew the person or they were my friend I could see helping them out for one show. Now if you buy an Axefx to rent out "there's an idea" it would have to be a preset thing because your not gonna master the Axe in a day. You can't come to a show that was prebooked without your own gear unless it was planned in advance
 
I've had guys sit in a few times on my gear, and I either scroll to factory 001 or 025. Those seem to me the best coverage of the tone spectrum for most people.
 
NMG said:
Yeah man, this is the issue. I havent run pedels into axe fx and dont own any to do so. Whats likely to be the outcome if i setup a clean amp for them to connect their pedal board?
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You really should ask what type of amp they usually use. And that is why I recommend a Fender and Marshall preset.

If it is an amp with loads of clean headroom, dial up your stock Fender.

If it is an amp with crunch, dial up your Plexi.

With just those two, you should be able to get good results. Their overdrives and fuzzes will thank you later :)

Also, fix the input impedance at 1M.
 
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