I posted replies to some questions about the rig over at Huge Racks- thought I'd re-post here:
so to answer some questions- with Melissa, I'm using a wedge, not in ears. I bailed on in ears a year ago and am much happier using a wedge. Bottom line is I'm much less picky about the mix and have way more fun when using a wedge. If in ear mixes aren't just perfect, I spend all my time saying "this up, this down" all night, and that drives me nuts. I can have just a decent wedge mix with a blend of everything (drums, bass, vocals, Melissa's guitars, my guitar) in it, and get some drums and a bit of my guitar in the side fills, and I'm super happy.
SO- for me they just put a bit of the Axe FX direct signal in the monitors. It's what everyone else gets as well (everyone else is on in ears).
Speaking of monitors, we had a guy named Bob do them the other night, he's Metallica's monitor engineer and it was just STELLAR. It sounded so so good onstage, and Melissa was super stoked with her in ear mix too. I almost wish I'd tried in-ears on that show, just because i've always wanted to experience an incredible in-ear mix, like the skies will part and I'd go "AH, now I see how good this can be".
Plexi patch- basically I have a "standard" signal chain I follow for axe fx patches, and then I use whatever amp model is appropriate, and tweak delay, verb, drives etc per patch. The chain is:
Phaser-drive1-drive2-delay1-amp=delay2
....................................................reverb1
....................................................shunt
Hard to show this here, but amp 1 splits to the shunt in the 3rd row, the delay2 and verb 1. The delay and verb get run 100% wet, and the shunt serves as a dry thru, then they all sum back together, and the chain continues-
graphic eq1-graphic eq2-cab1
....................................cab2
....................................fx loop
Graphic 2 splits to cab1, cab2 and fx loop. The graphics aren't used for eq- only for volume control over the patch. Graphic1 is like an overall volume that I balance by ear per patch, and Graphic 2 is a solo level boost, I have it tied to a IA switch on the MFC101, and it gives me a 2 DB boost.
The FX loop sends the signal out with no cab sims to output 2 of the Axe, and on to the Atomic 50/50 and cabs. The Cab sims are 2 stereo cab blocks, each with a different red wirez IR- one is a basketweave Marshall with a greenback, mic'd with a 57 at 0.5 in at the cap edge, and the other is a G12M Heritage mic'd the same way.
Why 2 stereo cab blocks? Because it's the only way to blend 2 IR's of different speakers, and have stereo effects. Yes this means I'm using "low res" speaker sims but i love the added tone complexity mixing 2 speaker sims, and I think it outweighs the small disadvantage of using lower res IR's.
With regards to how I set up the plexi amp sim- it's plexi 2, bright is off, and I have everything cranked up pretty good- hard to remember exactly but gain is about 3/4 of the way up, as is the master, and bass is cranked, and mid/treble are 3/4 of the way up as well. Presence is on maybe 6 or so, depth on about 2. Cool trick- if it's too edgy, go into the advanced amp parameters and turn down the transformer HF parameter. It's probably on 14k, turn it down to like 4 or 5 k. Niiicceeeeee........
Whew ok that's it!
