actionjackson12
Inspired
Hey all, I wanted to write a quick post about my new live setup technique(s). I've seen a lot of posts, and even made some myself, in regards to getting authentic double tracked guitars live. I will also touch on my technique for creating backing tracked guitars.
Gear:
TC ELECTRONIC HYPER GRAVITY COMPRESSOR>
>WALRUS VOYAGER OVERDRIVE>
>TC ELECTRONIC MIMIQ>
>AXE-FX MKII>
>FOH & BACKLINE CABS in STEREO (MATRIX GT1000FX>L-MESA VERT SLANT 2X12, R-ORANGE 4X12)
I spent all of this past Saturday dialing in my guitar Tones along side our bassist to get a really cohesive live sound between us, or at least a base foundation to have (venues will determine a little tweaking im sure).
I then setup my 2 MACKIE HD1221's in my living room at typical venue distance apart as well as my stereo backline cabs (I have a bigass living room lol) and started A/B'ing settings, tones, pedals etc. I had a friend and sound engineer walk around the "Living room-venue" as I played trying several Stereo/MONO configurations and the consensus, hands down was 2amps (different but similar amps or different EQ on each), stereo cab (Different CABs), and MIMIQ pedal on mode 1, tightness at noon. It sounds HUGE. I even A/B'd real double tracking to the MIMIQ and it is ALMOST impossible to tell the two apart, the real double tracked stuff is a little smoother, but hey close enough for me.
SoO, I commenced creating my patches for live use, set all my scenes up & got all the levels consistent across the board.
-pedals listed above are in front of the axe-fx. MIMIQ outs to the Stereo input on the back of axefx (set I/O on axe-fx to stereo, it's imperative for this to work.
-2AMPS, L amp set to input LEFT and PAN 100%Left do the exact opposite for the RIGHT AMP.
-STEREO CAB, each cab must be panned hard, one LEFT and one RIGHT, and the master balance left at 0, input is STEREO.
-For lead tones/scenes I simply created an X or Y amp and set its input to either L or R and turn the other amp off. This will put your lead back to center in MONO. Make sure all amps bypass are set to mute, also note that the two amps are in parallel. This technique will allow you to leave the MIMIQ pedal ON all the time no tap dancing here! (all my pedals stay on ALL THE TIME, no change whatsoever, even for cleans!!!)
Once I had all my patches setup I proceeded to record the backing tracks (im the only guitarist in our band so BT's are necessary at this point) using the EXACT SAME TONES and LEVELS I tracked everything I needed in stereo. Its important to keep these to variables the same so there is no differentiation between the live guitar sound and backing track guitar sound, I just tell the FOH to match the levels on their end and all is well.
The results are AMAZING. Night and Day from when we first started playing live this past December. It sounds like there are two guitarists on stage, and when the backing tracks kick in you cannot even tell its a backing track.
One thing to note is that the reason i use external pedals is to free up CPU usage...bc once you have TWO amps, stereo cab, two delays, two reverbs etc. etc. CPU is gonna be an issue.
I LOVE THE AXE-FX
Cheers
Gear:
TC ELECTRONIC HYPER GRAVITY COMPRESSOR>
>WALRUS VOYAGER OVERDRIVE>
>TC ELECTRONIC MIMIQ>
>AXE-FX MKII>
>FOH & BACKLINE CABS in STEREO (MATRIX GT1000FX>L-MESA VERT SLANT 2X12, R-ORANGE 4X12)
I spent all of this past Saturday dialing in my guitar Tones along side our bassist to get a really cohesive live sound between us, or at least a base foundation to have (venues will determine a little tweaking im sure).
I then setup my 2 MACKIE HD1221's in my living room at typical venue distance apart as well as my stereo backline cabs (I have a bigass living room lol) and started A/B'ing settings, tones, pedals etc. I had a friend and sound engineer walk around the "Living room-venue" as I played trying several Stereo/MONO configurations and the consensus, hands down was 2amps (different but similar amps or different EQ on each), stereo cab (Different CABs), and MIMIQ pedal on mode 1, tightness at noon. It sounds HUGE. I even A/B'd real double tracking to the MIMIQ and it is ALMOST impossible to tell the two apart, the real double tracked stuff is a little smoother, but hey close enough for me.
SoO, I commenced creating my patches for live use, set all my scenes up & got all the levels consistent across the board.
-pedals listed above are in front of the axe-fx. MIMIQ outs to the Stereo input on the back of axefx (set I/O on axe-fx to stereo, it's imperative for this to work.
-2AMPS, L amp set to input LEFT and PAN 100%Left do the exact opposite for the RIGHT AMP.
-STEREO CAB, each cab must be panned hard, one LEFT and one RIGHT, and the master balance left at 0, input is STEREO.
-For lead tones/scenes I simply created an X or Y amp and set its input to either L or R and turn the other amp off. This will put your lead back to center in MONO. Make sure all amps bypass are set to mute, also note that the two amps are in parallel. This technique will allow you to leave the MIMIQ pedal ON all the time no tap dancing here! (all my pedals stay on ALL THE TIME, no change whatsoever, even for cleans!!!)
Once I had all my patches setup I proceeded to record the backing tracks (im the only guitarist in our band so BT's are necessary at this point) using the EXACT SAME TONES and LEVELS I tracked everything I needed in stereo. Its important to keep these to variables the same so there is no differentiation between the live guitar sound and backing track guitar sound, I just tell the FOH to match the levels on their end and all is well.
The results are AMAZING. Night and Day from when we first started playing live this past December. It sounds like there are two guitarists on stage, and when the backing tracks kick in you cannot even tell its a backing track.
One thing to note is that the reason i use external pedals is to free up CPU usage...bc once you have TWO amps, stereo cab, two delays, two reverbs etc. etc. CPU is gonna be an issue.
I LOVE THE AXE-FX
Cheers