First gig tonight w/my Ultra

LAYGO

LAYGO

Experienced
I've got a minimal layout for tonight, a short set, and there's so much more I want to do. Patch per song type stuff or even patch per parts of song.

Thing is, we've expended so much energy in getting READY for this gig, I've not had time to dial in more sounds. We got notified on THURS that they wanted us to play tonight. 5 days. YIKES! Talk about stressful 1st practice on FRI!

What makes it even more stressful is we've internal set a date of mid march onward to look for our first gig. We had set a house party up on March 7th to do a full scale dressed rehearsal for friends & whatnot to get feedback. Tonight is obviously not March 7th.

BUT . . . we busted our ass to get ready for tonight. The team (7 people) really pulled together to get this done. Finally, most of if not all of the light show will be working for the first time and including projections. It's gonna be fun!

Now if someone would tell my body that. I somatisize stress with aches & pains. Well, my back is spasming, my left hand suddenly went numb during practice on SAT & some on SUN, and I've had butterflies for 36hrs straight! How I suddenly developed carpal tunnel in my left hand (fret hand) is beyond me. I've been into computers for 10+ years & I've ALWAYS maintained proper wrist posture. Just with playing guitar, not so easy. Plus I've been playing a CRAP LOAD to get ready.

And there you have it . . . but I'm so excited & can not wait for 10pm tonight . . .
 
Break a leg Laygo.
Hope al goes wall with the hand.
Are you sure it's Carpal?

A few years back my pinky and ring finger went numb and started turning towards my palm. I couldn't spread my fingers and lost force in my hand.
I had damaged my Ulnar.

Anyway, if it is Carpal, perhaps some anti-inflamatoir ointment could help.

I'm rooting for you.

Greetz,

Geert
 
My advice...

Before you head out, play your AXE FX however you'll do it live. If you're going to use a power amp and guitar cabinet, play it like this at home... LOUD. If you're going direct (FRFR), play it like this at home... LOUD. Try to get the patches that you plan to use for the show to all be (relatively) the same volume. Did I mention that you should do this LOUD? Try them at the volume that you will expect you'll set it at for the show. Go through each one & adjust each so that they're all the correct volume in relation to each other. But, you're not done, yet...

When you're there... if you have time for a sound check, have the drummer and bass player play a simple rhythm in an easy key. Play something over their jamming and quickly try each of your patches. If any seem like they're too loud compared to the others, adjust them to be a little lower and re-save them right then & there. If any are too quiet, adjust them to be a bit louder and save them. Check them again if you can to make sure that you didn't adjust any too much. The point is to make sure that you can hear each of them equally, or at appropriate levels compared to each other over the rhythm section. It never fails that once you're loud & live on stage - your sounds aren't as balanced as you thought they were at home.

Good luck and have fun. Don't stress out. The adrenaline of playing the show will probably make your hands magically feel better. :cool:
 
LOL, I'm playing at home maxed out on my poweramp. I'm using the vol increment/decrement to level the patches. It saves automagically when used.
 
All went well performance wise, but it was more of the same: cutting through the mix. Not a fault of the Ultra, it was mine because I Haven't set up the EQ's yet. I'm gonna get on the ball. I'm happy how it sounds on the parts you can hear me on the recording.

If there's any insight, here's my timeline:
- SEPT 07: I get on the Ultra waiting list
- DEC 07: band breaks up
- MAR 08: my name comes up on the ultra list. Not in a band & no prospects, I go ahead & pull the trigger anyways.
- APR to DEC 08: I barely even pick up a guitar! Much less tweak the brand new Ultra sitting there collecting dust.
- DEC 08: I begin discussions to start up the project again, but with a new crew
- JAN 09: we begin practicing beginning of 2nd week
- FEB 09: out of the blue, a venue virtually begs us to play a gig . . . for a date FIVE DAYS LATER!

We'd been practicing about 6wks with about 8-9 practices, then for valentines day weekend, drummer goes out of town & next scheduled practice, the bassist was sick. On the 19th the venue calls & says PLEASE play on the 24th. We had planned for a "dressed rehearsal" house party to figure out what we'd need to work on before playing live in front real people. That was scheduled for March 7th.

So much for plans & preparation. :)

We got the news about the gig early on Thurs, but no one was available to practice on Thurs. So, we had FRI/SAT/SUN/MON to practice, but you never practice the day BEFORE a gig. Bad mojo. So we crammed about 2-3 setlist play throughs in each practice on FRI/SAT/SUN. Problem was, the first half of practice on FRI was HORRIBLE & STRESSFUL because we had just had about a week and a half off & everything was rusty as fuck! We pulled it together for the 2nd half & started feeling better. Then everything clicked well on SAT & we had a it solid by SUN.

I spent all day SUN before practice with butterflies, I get to practice & I feel ok, but my hand goes numb. I spend all day MON in a wrist brace and a muscle TINS (TINGE?) unit on my back that's spasming. I'm litterally falling apart!

Slowly, all that shit starts going away as we get closer to playing as I'm walking through the crowd & realizing it's basically its everyone that will love us no matter what after the show! :) So I relax & just have fun. Then the opening "band" starts (1 guy, 1 acoustic). We had spent awhile setting up our light show outside of the just blah house par cans (2x800w strobes, 2xLED color par cans, pin spots, projections). We just knew we were going to blow away the other bands.

And we did . . .

We took the bulk of the door, the venue has asked us back for a gig very soon again & a headlining SAT night gig! ALL THIS FROM OUR FIRST SHOW! The thing is, it was all brothers/sisters/mothers in the crowd! They will have no need to come back! So no way we'll get that crowd again until people actually start catching wind of us!

Regardless, I'm real stoked about how it went, and I can't wait to start playing bigger shows & start building our light show even more. Having a wife that did stage theatric lights for a living was huge! She was running lights & projections & if it wasn't for the shitty house lights, you could probably even SEE the projections.

Anyways, I gotta start figuring out a way to cut better! ;) I'm EQtarded.
 
LAYGO,

I've been following this thread. My FX Standard makes it's gig debut this Saturday night. I've been concentrating on the patch levels (one rehearsal), but the EQ's will only bear out at the gig. I've been tweaking them mid to low mid heavy at home and loud......................but the gig will tell.

Trial by fire................... :D
 
Thanks!

I'm pretty comfortable with the patch changes - working with my GCP. If the EQ and patch levels are off, I'll do what I can on the fly, but I intend to have fun. :D
 
Besides, the Ultra just looks cool on stage:

DSC00120.jpg


OH NOES! MY EDITED LIGHT IS ON! WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOoooooooo........?

DSC00102.jpg


DSC00093.jpg
 
Another gig tomorrow night. Multitude of tweaks to the sound. Including actually having a volume boost that works for the solos.

Here's some video from the last show (better audio on our MySpace, see sig***):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SddZUHcxLIA (2nd song, roooough start, but gets better)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RupvqPqzvk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ceO3jAOE24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuWtcw2GQiY

During sound check, I had no neck pickup volume, only bridge. Both pots full volume, cable correct plugged in, everything was right, but no volume. I couldn't tune, the tuner was going haywire, massive modulation. The 1st song was kooky because suddenly of the volume issues switching between pickups. Finally, I had not enough volume on my clean patches, so I had to improvise & turn down on some mild patches. Kind of had me a lil flustered.

And finally, I was rocking so hard, my glasses fell off during the 4th song! I was concerned they'd get crushed, so it affected my playing while I tried to half play, half find them with a friend. This is my 2nd pair, as my 1st pair blew off while I was riding my motorcycle & was promptly squished by a car. $150 . . *POOF* . . . gone like that.

So, fingers crossed that I don't have anymore Gremlins!

*** BTW, you also know I suck at guitar! I'm no wizard or anything, but can play the licks we're playing. I flubbed quite a few times in all the videos! :)
 
Gig went well, except for being rushed through the set & having to skip 2 songs! :( And I some how strummed my volume down several times! :(

More pictures/video coming.
 
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