Superstition Live Video

Fro

Fro

Experienced
Here is my band playing Superstition at the Wisconsin State Fair a few days ago. The audio is a mix of straight from the board and the camera mic. I'm running direct to FOH, Plexi 100 sim with Ownhammer IR's. The guitar is a 1977 Guild S300 with Dimarzio Air Classics. The whole band is on IEM's. You'll notice the Presonus StudioLive board sitting behind me with the computer. I bring a split snake and that board to run the IEM's, and the band all has iPods with QMix. The split snake is in the box on the ground just to the left of the Presonus. The only thing making sound on stage is the drums.

Enjoy!

 
That was a great arrangement of a song that's tough to cover without a keyboard player. I enjoyed that. Thanks for posting it.

Edit: just saw Plexi 100 + Ownhammer IRs is what you were using. I'm running 75% of my live sounds with Plexi models now! It's been a crazy flexible and addictive amp for me.
 
Nice sounding patch and playing!!!

Interested in the Plex 100 - I have not really used it. Can you share the amp settings and any pedals you are hitting it with?

thanks
 
Thanks guys for the comments!

I'm using the Plexi 100 for most of my patches right now, from pretty clean to crunch and leads. No drive pedals in front of the amp. I have them in my patches in case I want to use them, but usually don't. My basic settings are:

Input drive - 7.70
Bass - 4.79
Mid - 9.58
Treble - 8.30
Presence - 8.60
Master Volume - 8.34
Bright Switch off

I've been using the Plexi 100 for a while, but had some different settings. Then I changed things a bit after I tried the Pete Thorn preset pack. I think his settings are very similar, except he has the bright switch engaged. The only main thing I do to go between lighter and heavier patches is change my input trim. So it's something like this:

Input Trim Settings:

Cleaner - 0.30
Crunch - 0.599
More Gain - 1.00
Lead1 - 1.124
Lead2 - 1.00 with Saturation engaged.

The Ownhammer cab is from his original Beta set, the one that was publicly available, using the SM57 USA Vintage 7 cab.

Now that I have my sounds pretty well set, I'm going to start experimenting with some other amps. If I find something that's different and cool, I'll try to incorporate it. If I don't, no biggie, I'm totally happy with what I have. That's what's so cool about this black box!
 
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Which Plexi 100 high or normal?

Fro said:
Thanks guys for the comments!

I'm using the Plexi 100 for most of my patches right now, from pretty clean to crunch and leads. No drive pedals in front of the amp. I have them in my patches in case I want to use them, but usually don't. My basic settings are:

Input drive - 7.70
Bass - 4.79
Mid - 9.58
Treble - 8.30
Presence - 8.60
Master Volume - 8.34
Bright Switch off

I've been using the Plexi 100 for a while, but had some different settings. Then I changed things a bit after I tried the Pete Thorn preset pack. I think his settings are very similar, except he has the bright switch engaged. The only main thing I do to go between lighter and heavier patches is change my input trim. So it's something like this:

Input Trim Settings:

Cleaner - 0.30
Crunch - 0.599
More Gain - 1.00
Lead1 - 1.124
Lead2 - 1.00 with Saturation engaged.

The Ownhammer cab is from his original Beta set, the one that was publicly available, using the SM57 USA Vintage 7 cab.

Now that I have my sounds pretty well set, I'm going to start experimenting with some other amps. If I find something that's different and cool, I'll try to incorporate it. If I don't, no biggie, I'm totally happy with what I have. That's what's so cool about this black box!
Click to expand...
 
How are you running the qmix, do you have a router in your rig?

Right now I have the singer, drummer, and me running IEM using a LiveStudio 16.0.2.

What in ears are you using?

The band sounds great!
 
I used your basic settings as a starting point (using the Plexi Normal) and I was able to dial in a nice clean, crunch and lead tones fairly quickly. Made some minor tweaks (especially to the clean) -- but it sounds awesome. Might try it out next sat night on one or two tunes.

thanks for sharing the settings.
 
If you want to add a new twist to this song, look up Jeff Beck's cover in the 70s.
Even funkier and great to play.
 
LVC said:
I used your basic settings as a starting point (using the Plexi Normal) and I was able to dial in a nice clean, crunch and lead tones fairly quickly. Made some minor tweaks (especially to the clean) -- but it sounds awesome. Might try it out next sat night on one or two tunes.

thanks for sharing the settings.
Click to expand...

I was actually using the Plexi 100 High. I think that model was added first, and the normal model didn’t show up until one firmware later. Since I already dialed in the High, I never tried the normal one. I think I will now. I’m glad the settings helped you out. :)

pjrake said:
How are you running the qmix, do you have a router in your rig?

Right now I have the singer, drummer, and me running IEM using a LiveStudio 16.0.2.

What in ears are you using?

The band sounds great!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I’m using an Apple Airport Express. I picked up an older Intel Mac Laptop on Ebay that I don’t mind taking to gigs. I don’t use it for anything personal or confidential, etc. It’s just for gigs. The laptop is hooked up to the Presonus 16.4.2 via Firewire. Then I have the laptop and all of the iPods logged into the wireless network I created on the Airport Express. It’s been very rock solid.

However, I no longer use my Line 6 G50 Relay Wireless. It was killing the Wifi. I guess there is a workaround, or maybe the newer models are better?? I was too lazy to figure it out and just went back to my 20 year old Shure wireless, and no problems. When I was using the G50, the iPods would never stay connected to the network.

For ears, the singer and I both have the Shure PSM 900 transmitter/receiver and the custom molded Westone earpieces. I have the ES 5’s and he has the ES’3s. The bass player and drummer use standard earpieces, not custom molded. I don’t remember which model. The drummer uses a Shure P4HW for a headphone amp.

yek said:
If you want to add a new twist to this song, look up Jeff Beck's cover in the 70s.
Even funkier and great to play.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! I found a live version of Beck/Bogert/Appice. Is that the one? I love Carmine Appice’s drum groove. Very cool. And of course, Beck is always good.
 
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Nice! Loved the tone and you play a great cover version.

You say "Then I have the laptop and all of the iPods logged into the wireless network...." How to you integrate iPods and the Airport Express into your monitoring ?
 
damienmcgauley said:
Nice! Loved the tone and you play a great cover version.

You say "Then I have the laptop and all of the iPods logged into the wireless network...." How to you integrate iPods and the Airport Express into your monitoring ?
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Good question. I’ll take a step back for those that may have missed the first part of the conversation.

My whole band runs in-ear monitors (IEM). I could go into a much larger conversation on the benefits of doing this vs the downfalls, etc. I’ll just say this, there are a few factors into making the use of earphones a lot more enjoyable for me, like the quality of the earpiece, how much external sound they block, etc. One thing that also helps a lot is getting the perfect mix. With the perfect mix in my earpiece, it really sounds and feels like I don’t even have anything in my ears. It just feels like a really good stage mix.

So, with that said, we like to bring our own complete monitor setup with us whenever we do a show. In reality, it’s not a lot of extra gear to bring or to set up if you are organized, prepared for it, and explain to the sound guy what it is you want to do. In the case of this last show, the sound guy was ecstatic that we were self sufficient, organized, and planned ahead. It made his life so much easier.

We bring a split snake and a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 mixer with us. The split snake I have is just a rack with 3 ART S8 Mic splitters in it and 2 snakes coming out the back. I set this next to the FOH snake box. We take everything that was plugged into the FOH snake box and plug it into my box. Then we plug one of my snake splits back into the FOH box, and the other one into my monitor board. At this point, FOH is still getting all of their signals just like they were before. Nothing has changed for them. I have essentially “tapped” into the snake so I can also run the signals to my Presonus mixer.

My mixer is now used only for sending out individually mixed signals to each of our headphone amplifiers. We use the Aux sends on the mixer for this. The StudioLive boards have a FireWire connection that you use to plug into a laptop. Presonus makes an app for the computer called Universal Control that gives you full control of the mixer. They also make an app for the iPod/iPhone called Qmix. As long as the computer and the iPods are on the same network, the iPods will see the mixer through the Universal Control app on the computer. Qmix gives each member of the band access to the levels of their specific Aux send going to their headphone amp.

So, while FOH is getting their levels, each band member is also setting the level in their headphones without bothering FOH. Once FOH is good to go, so are we. When the show is done, we just move all of the lines back to the FOH box, and we’re done.
 
Fro said:
Thanks!

Good question. I’ll take a step back for those that may have missed the first part of the conversation.

My whole band runs in-ear monitors (IEM). I could go into a much larger conversation on the benefits of doing this vs the downfalls, etc. I’ll just say this, there are a few factors into making the use of earphones a lot more enjoyable for me, like the quality of the earpiece, how much external sound they block, etc. One thing that also helps a lot is getting the perfect mix. With the perfect mix in my earpiece, it really sounds and feels like I don’t even have anything in my ears. It just feels like a really good stage mix.

So, with that said, we like to bring our own complete monitor setup with us whenever we do a show. In reality, it’s not a lot of extra gear to bring or to set up if you are organized, prepared for it, and explain to the sound guy what it is you want to do. In the case of this last show, the sound guy was ecstatic that we were self sufficient, organized, and planned ahead. It made his life so much easier.

We bring a split snake and a Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 mixer with us. The split snake I have is just a rack with 3 ART S8 Mic splitters in it and 2 snakes coming out the back. I set this next to the FOH snake box. We take everything that was plugged into the FOH snake box and plug it into my box. Then we plug one of my snake splits back into the FOH box, and the other one into my monitor board. At this point, FOH is still getting all of their signals just like they were before. Nothing has changed for them. I have essentially “tapped” into the snake so I can also run the signals to my Presonus mixer.

My mixer is now used only for sending out individually mixed signals to each of our headphone amplifiers. We use the Aux sends on the mixer for this. The StudioLive boards have a FireWire connection that you use to plug into a laptop. Presonus makes an app for the computer called Universal Control that gives you full control of the mixer. They also make an app for the iPod/iPhone called Qmix. As long as the computer and the iPods are on the same network, the iPods will see the mixer through the Universal Control app on the computer. Qmix gives each member of the band access to the levels of their specific Aux send going to their headphone amp.

So, while FOH is getting their levels, each band member is also setting the level in their headphones without bothering FOH. Once FOH is good to go, so are we. When the show is done, we just move all of the lines back to the FOH box, and we’re done.
Click to expand...

Clever Stuff! Thank you for the interesting and detailed description :)
 
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