STEVE VAI, THOMAS NORDEGG, THE AXE FX & SOME LABELS - A BEHIND THE SCENES STORY!

Toadfish and M@,

Thanks for sharing your stories. They were very entertaining and well written. How cool to hang out with Steve Vai's guitar tech during a show!

Scott
 
Well, I just killed 25 minutes at work oblivious I was doing that. Thanks for the great stories Sukh and Matt. Way cool. Heck it takes me weeks to program my pathetic patches on my axe and mfc, and you did awesomness in 7 hours!!!
 
Sorry about that.. I'm pretty sure I washed it at some point during the day. Hang on, that was a Saturday right..... oh.... :)

It was a Saturday, I think I washed mine before the meal I had afterwards 8)

This thread has been a really enjoyable read, especially as I missed all of the Vai shows in Europe and England due to logistics etc. I had planned to go to a second Vai experience, as I found Steve, very interested and cool in answering peoples questions.

I know I said it before but what a great experience you had that day. (The Vai show I mean)
 
No problem! I used to live in the states and spoke to Gary Brawer quite a bit about the setup (he actually did the setup on my guitar himself). Really cool guy who also takes the time to talk to you. They had to re-glue several frets before plekking them (he said that even the high-end JS's rarely have perfectly seated frets and if they aren't, the setup just won't work).

They put a compound radius in the frets that allows me to get an action of just under 1mm at the 12th fret (top E) and it bends effortlessly across the neck. The odd thing I noticed with this setup is that nothing buzzes, it just seems to 'compress' when you wack the strings. Really good fun to play, but takes a little getting used to as it looks as if it shouldn't work!

Damn, proper job then!
 
(I'd do one preset per song with scenes). Prime guitar nerd moment: using iPad apps to convert between mix % and db to keep wet levels the same as multiple "leaky" dry signals in parallel were eliminated.

The new plan was to compact the ENTIRE show into just THREE PRESETS. We'd use the brand new "Program Change to Scene Mapping" feature (it ended up being four presets though... at the time, X-Y had not been added to scenes and we needed too many delays in the final set).

PS: Facebook status summary re-cap: "Definition of Ambitious: erasing and re-programming Steve Vai's guitar rig with only 28 hours until show time. Definition of Insane: Doing it again the next day with only seven. From 40 presets to 4? Hello SCENES!"

So Steve Vai's whole show is done with 4 presets and scenes. Could you describe the basic templates you used for the 4 presets. What is the order of the effects chains, and which effects are in series and which are in parallel? Is he using the Axe FX in mono or stereo live? I understand he uses the Axe FX for effects only in the loops of his amp.
 
What a great experience....Thanks Sukh for sharing!. One of my favorite concerts was when Vai stepped in for Ingwie in Alcatraz. I had front row Vai feet in front of me. Inspirational is an under statement. The guy Is awesome on the fret board.
Now I'd like to buy some of those kick tags :)
 
Thank you Sukh & M@ for sharing your stories. This thread would get my vote for inclusion in a "Best of Fractal Forum".
Speaking of which, why isn't there a "Best of Fractal Forum"?
 
Sukh,
You have a gift for writing stories !
I don't usually like those long posts but you had me reading every single word .
It was better than those Guitar magazine articles so you could always get a second job as a music journalist !

Well done, and thanks for giving us an insider perspective on that experience, very enjoyable.
 
Glad you all enjoyed it - I still trip from it now!

Hopefully another one of these stories coming up soon....

:)
 
photo-2.jpg

Vai's rig




I've been trying to figure out what kind of rack case that is in the middle. Is it just an SKB? Like this: 8U Roto Shockmount Rack Case - 24" Deep by SKB Cases
 
I thought I'd add a few words here about this story to provide some background as to why new labels were needful in the middle of a tour! Now, I know a lot about this rig, and a little about the experience of working with Steve, Dave, and Thomas, so here's my own short story.

Steve called me last summer from a rehearsal space. Whenever that name comes up in the caller ID, I get excited. I actually took his call from the end of a jetty off a quiet beach in Maine, water on three sides of me! After we solved a volume pedal problem, he told me that while he was thrilled with the sound of his Axe-Fx II, there were lots of things that needed to polishing in the programming... Steve knows tone/effects as well as anyone on earth. He creates his own Axe-Fx II presets and knows the unit well -- but this was stuff that's outside the realm of art and more towards engineering. (Moving things from the latter to the former has generally been Steve's advice as an unofficial product strategy consultant to Fractal.) The issues were familiar to me: spillovers needed work, levels needed to be normalized, and there were certain preset changes where the transition was too jarring, with a sudden jerk or a gap.

I'd go on to work virtually (thanks GoToMeeting!) with my all time favorite "guitar warlock," (hi Thomas) getting MOST of the issues solved, but from my virtual replica of the rig, I knew there was still room for improvement both in terms of sound and in ease of use/maintenance, especially given how complex my MFC-101 setup had become. Cliff and I brainstormed a few ideas. We talked about maybe adding new intelligence and features to the MFC. Then we came up with the idea for SCENES. At first, it would have been bypass states only, but I knew that in Steve's rig changes like this would also sometimes require small tweaks to MAIN level. Cliff then did the firmware magic that only he can do, and in initial tests, it was obvious that we were on to something really big.

Meanwhile, I had promised to meet up with Steve and Thomas to show them something "really cool". In what was now about 11 days, with an Amp Show and Axe-Fest West also looming! Enter Cliff's superhuman productivity and our team of trusty beta testers. Together, they raced through revisions until things were working smoothly to our shared satisfaction. I got on a plane. Flew out and did Axe-Fest West for 4 days straight. Next morning, another plane, another taxi, and I am in a hotel room with Steve's stage rig on Thomas' day off with an early beta of what would later become 9.0. Thomas and I worked for approximately 24 of the next 28 hours. I began by documenting what I saw (pencil and paper) then ERASING the unit and reprogramming from scratch (I'd do one preset per song with scenes). Prime guitar nerd moment: using iPad apps to convert between mix % and db to keep wet levels the same as multiple "leaky" dry signals in parallel were eliminated.

Steve played a show (San Francisco!) on the first pass of the revised rig. Things were "better" but even from the audience I could see and hear my own mistakes(plus a few bugs) in action! Not to mention that without a clear sense of ALL of the old problems, I'd precisely recreated some of them in the new system! Steve, always an inspiration, gave me some reassurances but intoned that while the light was visible, it might be better to stay where things had been rather than to introduce such big departures AND add new issues. We'd meet again "tomorrow" and work closely together again. I'd show him something new when he arrived. If he didn't immediately love it, I told my self, I'd restore all the old backups and then go out back and hang myself with a 7-pin MIDI cable.

As I crashed on the tourbus I created a new concept and emailed details to Cliff. (insert firmware magic sound.) >poof< 6 hours later I downloaded a new build to my laptop (over free wifi and proper Genmaicha... gotta love northern CA). Cut to a small room sidestage with 7 hours until soundcheck. Got out my notes. AGAIN I erased both Axe-Fx and MFC and Thomas and I went to work... The new plan was to compact the ENTIRE show into just THREE PRESETS. We'd use the brand new "Program Change to Scene Mapping" feature (it ended up being four presets though... at the time, X-Y had not been added to scenes and we needed too many delays in the final set). Work. Sweat. Breathe. More tea. More work. Steve showed up early and I must say that this was the saving grace. He stepped through the show, called out revisions and we polished that rig to perfection. Soundcheck. Now the real test: our new sounds will be heard in the context of the band and at gig levels. and.... IT WORKS!!! He'll try it out again tonight. (Last chance... the tour is en route to play a live streaming show into 13 million households!) Just as I'd seen struggles and sighs the night before I saw smooth sailing and smiles on night two. With two ~very~ small exceptions things seemed PERFECT. High five as he exits the stage for Dave's acoustic solo. At some point during the show, Steve asked me to come ON STAGE with him where he presented me with a generous personal thank you and gave Fractal a glowing public endorsement. (I also re-saved a scene where one effect should have been ON, but had been saved as OFF ;-) My second exception to perfection would later be solved by I/O:MIDI:SCENE REVERT ;-).

At the end of that night, after I told him how we'd solve the last wiggly-niggly, Steve Vai laid an arm around my shoulder, gave me a huge grin and said, "Matt, man... that was a 100% improvement. Thanks for all the love you guys put into this rig." I rode the tourbus to Anaheim, hopped off on the shoulder of the interstate to grab a taxi to LAX... my laptop bag still proudly bearing a STORY OF LIGHT: ALL ACCESS" pass.

PS: Facebook status summary re-cap: "Definition of Ambitious: erasing and re-programming Steve Vai's guitar rig with only 28 hours until show time. Definition of Insane: Doing it again the next day with only seven. From 40 presets to 4? Hello SCENES!"

PPS: Looking at pics in my phone on the flight out, I realized that I'd left THE most prestigious MFC-101 on earth labeled sloppily with sharpie on nasty looking gaffer tape...

Great story, M@!
 
Thanks for the story. I have spent some time with Thomas, Dave, and Steve (much more superficial than you) and they all seemed just like regular people to me. I found Dave specially nice-talking and Thomas very into his own things while he was VERY kind. I found Steve super professional in what he does.
 
You're very welcome mate - glad you enjoyed it!

Absolutely agree with you - they are just like ordinary people that are just really into what they do - a true testament to how very cool they are as human beings regardless of how big they are as stars.

Cheers!
Sukh
 
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