On Thursday, October 17 I headed up to The Fillmore West to connect with Blues Traveler's sound crew. They've been on tour all summer, hauling gear all over the continent. They'd heard about the Axe-Fx II and wanted to see what it could do for something that wasn't guitar. They wanted to see what it could do for harmonica.
John Popper fronts Blues Traveler. He sings and plays harmonica. He usually plays his harps in to an SM-58 that's run nearly direct in to whatever backline guitar amplifier they can get on the road. Tonight they were running Bogner Shiva's across the stage. The signal is split a bunch of times before it gets to the Shiva, with some direct harp running through a Leslie, some heading to an Eventide H8000FW, some heading through several pedal boards located both back stage and front state and some signal heading straight in to a little Orange amp that sits on top of the Shiva.
It's complicated. But it works and it sure sounds good.
John and his crew wanted to know if the Axe-Fx II could simplify things, lighten the load, and make them less dependent on getting specific backline amps at venues as they toured...without sacraficing any of that amazing tone.
We setup a mirror of his traditional rig in the Axe-Fx, complete with multiple signal paths and multiple outputs. A line for wet effects was run straight to the FoH and two lines for monitoring via backline amps were run to the Shiva and Orange sitting behind him. The signals were run straight in to the effects retuns on both amps. We dialed in a mirror of his Shiva and Orange tones on each of the lines, dropped some parallel fuzz and distortion pedals in to the grid, ran a parallel line with a stereo rotary on it and then...stepped back...and let John take it for a ride.
Feedback was a concern when we were dialing things in, but John rides feedback like a master. He kept asking for levels to go up and gain to go up and drive to go up and just MORE. Watching him keep the whole system just on the edge was really amazing. Like he was surfing the gain. A few tweaks here, a few tweaks there, and he seemed to be a happy guy. His crew were more than happy to cart away a ton of gear from the stage, leaving the amps and the Axe-Fx II and an MFC-101 at his feet. John has some external controlers on his microphone and they run in the MFC-101. He can bring in gain stages, Leslie and feedback without taking his hands off his mic and harp. It's a really cool setup, totally custom.
Before John departed from sound check he took a picture of the Axe-Fx II, with a MacBook Air sitting on top of it running Axe-Edit, and said, "Man, I've got to send this to my buddy Woz. He'll never believe the size of my rig now! Wish he could have made the show tonight, this would have blown his mind!"
With a happy crew and a happy John Popper I settled in to watch Blues Traveler bring the magic to The Fillmore. They were totally on their game. The energy and sound from them was amazing. The Axe-Fx II had conquered yet another challenge. Mission accomplished.
Here's a bunch of what John was using:
There's pedals up front with him plus a GCX for accessing the Eventide and some of the pedals in a rack that sits behind the amplifiers. Behind the amps is a rack for the Eventide and more pedals, plus another board of pedals sitting on top of all of that. And then behind all of that is a big flight case with a Leslie in it.
All of the racked stuff and pedals were reduced to this:
Here's John tearing it up through the rig during the show:
Such a nice guy! And this was just a fraction of the harmonicas he had with him!
John Popper fronts Blues Traveler. He sings and plays harmonica. He usually plays his harps in to an SM-58 that's run nearly direct in to whatever backline guitar amplifier they can get on the road. Tonight they were running Bogner Shiva's across the stage. The signal is split a bunch of times before it gets to the Shiva, with some direct harp running through a Leslie, some heading to an Eventide H8000FW, some heading through several pedal boards located both back stage and front state and some signal heading straight in to a little Orange amp that sits on top of the Shiva.
It's complicated. But it works and it sure sounds good.
John and his crew wanted to know if the Axe-Fx II could simplify things, lighten the load, and make them less dependent on getting specific backline amps at venues as they toured...without sacraficing any of that amazing tone.
We setup a mirror of his traditional rig in the Axe-Fx, complete with multiple signal paths and multiple outputs. A line for wet effects was run straight to the FoH and two lines for monitoring via backline amps were run to the Shiva and Orange sitting behind him. The signals were run straight in to the effects retuns on both amps. We dialed in a mirror of his Shiva and Orange tones on each of the lines, dropped some parallel fuzz and distortion pedals in to the grid, ran a parallel line with a stereo rotary on it and then...stepped back...and let John take it for a ride.
Feedback was a concern when we were dialing things in, but John rides feedback like a master. He kept asking for levels to go up and gain to go up and drive to go up and just MORE. Watching him keep the whole system just on the edge was really amazing. Like he was surfing the gain. A few tweaks here, a few tweaks there, and he seemed to be a happy guy. His crew were more than happy to cart away a ton of gear from the stage, leaving the amps and the Axe-Fx II and an MFC-101 at his feet. John has some external controlers on his microphone and they run in the MFC-101. He can bring in gain stages, Leslie and feedback without taking his hands off his mic and harp. It's a really cool setup, totally custom.
Before John departed from sound check he took a picture of the Axe-Fx II, with a MacBook Air sitting on top of it running Axe-Edit, and said, "Man, I've got to send this to my buddy Woz. He'll never believe the size of my rig now! Wish he could have made the show tonight, this would have blown his mind!"
With a happy crew and a happy John Popper I settled in to watch Blues Traveler bring the magic to The Fillmore. They were totally on their game. The energy and sound from them was amazing. The Axe-Fx II had conquered yet another challenge. Mission accomplished.
Here's a bunch of what John was using:
There's pedals up front with him plus a GCX for accessing the Eventide and some of the pedals in a rack that sits behind the amplifiers. Behind the amps is a rack for the Eventide and more pedals, plus another board of pedals sitting on top of all of that. And then behind all of that is a big flight case with a Leslie in it.
All of the racked stuff and pedals were reduced to this:
Here's John tearing it up through the rig during the show:
Such a nice guy! And this was just a fraction of the harmonicas he had with him!
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