Guitar Gear Forum

So we had to do an open mic/audition at a new venue to see if they can book us there. Anyway, this being an open mic night I didn't bring my rig.
I put together a pedalboard with a tuner, wah chorus, tube screamer, Plexitone and delay. All fit in a Pedaltrain Nano+.
I used the venue's amp, which was a BlackStar HT40. Just ran it clean with the pedals in front of it.
And honestly I got like 90% of my regular tone out of this setup.
Which I guess can attest to the"tone is in the hands" premise but it also makes me feel like working so much on putting together rigs is a bit pointless, since I can get it so close with so little gear.

Pointless? NEVER!!!! I cannot belive I just read that!!! Shame!!!


By the way, did you pass the audition?

Last night I saw two bands. The first sounded good, but were using modellers (neural DSP stuff from what I could see). The second used 5150 half stacks and sounded great. The extra 10% counts.

Years ago I figured out that I more or less sound the same through whatever I play through. Some gear gave that sound up easy, and some gear I had to fight every step of the way. The gear I constantly fought with wasn't worth keeping.

I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

I remember sorta feeling like this with the Empress Heavy setup I built. But it's not as fun as a big ass half stack behind me. So meh lol

ajaxlepinski wrote:Pointless? NEVER!!!! I cannot belive I just read that!!! Shame!!!


By the way, did you pass the audition?

Yes, we did. Which is great because it's going to open
Up an area we hadn't gigged at yet.


And yes putting together great sounding rigs is part of the fun so maybe pointless is not the right word lol

Zozobra wrote:Last night I saw two bands. The first sounded good, but were using modellers (neural DSP stuff from what I could see). The second used 5150 half stacks and sounded great. The extra 10% counts.

I completely agree. In not going to use modelers anytime soon.

But in this case, I think the 10% I was talking about was a 10% differenc, not a 10% decline.
I think the biggest difference was the I was playing through an
open back combo. If the backline amp was a head/cab or even a closed back combo it would've been even closer.

The reality is you can’t really take out a full W/D/W rig to your local gig any way. Better off with just a amp and some pedals. … now guitars do matter. Something nice like a Les Paul or sweet Fender.

NinjaRaf wrote:I remember sorta feeling like this with the Empress Heavy setup I built. But it's not as fun as a big ass half stack behind me. So meh lol

I remember your Empress clips. They sounded great.

GuitarBilly wrote:So we had to do an open mic/audition at a new venue to see if they can book us there. Anyway, this being an open mic night I didn't bring my rig.
I put together a pedalboard with a tuner, wah chorus, tube screamer, Plexitone and delay. All fit in a Pedaltrain Nano+.
I used the venue's amp, which was a BlackStar HT40. Just ran it clean with the pedals in front of it.
And honestly I got like 90% of my regular tone out of this setup.
Which I guess can attest to the"tone is in the hands" premise but it also makes me feel like working so much on putting together rigs is a bit pointless, since I can get it so close with so little gear.

I've been feeling this way for a while tbh. I have good gear and have played lots of the super hyped unobtainium gear over the years and while it's all good none of it is like a "holy fucking shit night and day difference" to me

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

I think the main advantage of a setup like that is if you want a different tone you just get a different pedal instead of a whole new rig.
Or even switching between the 2. Instead of having an amp for modern
high gain and a plexi for example you can just have 2 pedals on the board. Even easier if it's on a switcher.

Food for thought

GuitarBilly wrote:

NinjaRaf wrote:I remember sorta feeling like this with the Empress Heavy setup I built. But it's not as fun as a big ass half stack behind me. So meh lol

I remember your Empress clips. They sounded great.

I had that little Fox 45 watt power amp/clean channel thing with it. The whole thing fit on a nano pedal board, and it worked great with the band, too. But then you play it at home and record with it, and it's just not quite the same.

NinjaRaf wrote:

GuitarBilly wrote:

NinjaRaf wrote:I remember sorta feeling like this with the Empress Heavy setup I built. But it's not as fun as a big ass half stack behind me. So meh lol

I remember your Empress clips. They sounded great.

I had that little Fox 45 watt power amp/clean channel thing with it. The whole thing fit on a nano pedal board, and it worked great with the band, too. But then you play it at home and record with it, and it's just not quite the same.

Yeah I think recording is a different thing. I'd certainly would use amps for that.

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

That's what I think when I put the Caline English Man into a clean channel. Then for something radically different I switch from the English Man to the Line 6 Uber Metal.

Devin wrote:
I've been feeling this way for a while tbh. I have good gear and have played lots of the super hyped unobtainium gear over the years and while it's all good none of it is like a "holy fucking shit night and day difference" to me

I think this is a very uncomfortable truth for guitar gear as I have had a similar experience.

In the last couple years I went from a 2204, to a Splawn Quick Rod, to a Suhr Badger 30, stumbled back into that Quick Rod again, only to find that an amp I got between them, as sort of an extra "fun" grab is better for the sound I want than any of those. That being the GH50L.

I do sometimes think I should have some sort of "pedal option" just in case, but I gig so infrequently (a 3-5 times a year usually) to make me really care about that. And I never have to do shit with a provided backline, so I always sort of know what I'm getting into.

GuitarBilly wrote:

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

I think the main advantage of a setup like that is if you want a different tone you just get a different pedal instead of a whole new rig.
Or even switching between the 2. Instead of having an amp for modern
high gain and a plexi for example you can just have 2 pedals on the board. Even easier if it's on a switcher.

Food for thought

totally, ill be driving around thinking wow imagine having a recto and marshall in one amp.. then it comes to me i could just use my englishman and ibanez smashbox i paid probably $75 for combined and i have a fine impersonation of a marshall/boogie.

VTM wrote:

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

That's what I think when I put the Caline English Man into a clean channel. Then for something radically different I switch from the English Man to the Line 6 Uber Metal.

Yeah I user the Carl Martin Plexitone, which is the "real" version of the English Man. But I also have the English Man and they're pretty much identical..

I only use the Plexitone because I already had it before I bought the EM.

VTM wrote:

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

That's what I think when I put the Caline English Man into a clean channel. Then for something radically different I switch from the English Man to the Line 6 Uber Metal.

yeah the ubermetal rips, the metalzone is great too when you find the sweet spot. i have a bunch of old pedals i think im gonna bust out

RaceU4her wrote:

VTM wrote:

RaceU4her wrote:I could totally understand one being a pedal into a clean amp guy, i use my ampeg v50h which has probably the best clean tone of any of my amps with all sorts of pedals that I say “this could be my main rig”.

That's what I think when I put the Caline English Man into a clean channel. Then for something radically different I switch from the English Man to the Line 6 Uber Metal.

yeah the ubermetal rips, the metalzone is great too when you find the sweet spot. i have a bunch of old pedals i think im gonna bust out

The Boss Metalcore was a really underrated metal pedal too imo

A few years back I sold off all my tube amps. I put together a pedalboard rig and played that for over a year. I know the sound I want and like to see how many different ways I can get it. Ultimately it's a mid gain Marshally type tone. The VTM is my go to amp. The blue channel of the EVH amps is right there. So I put together a pedalboard rig using my Mosvalve power amp and used a few different actual preamp pedals like the AMT M1 or the VOX Copperhead. Or I used the AMT F1 as a clean preamp and used a distortion pedal like the Englishman or JPTR FX. Katastrophe. Killer tones either way. Totally happy with them and could easily be my main rig.

bubbastain wrote:A few years back I sold off all my tube amps. I put together a pedalboard rig and played that for over a year. I know the sound I want and like to see how many different ways I can get it. Ultimately it's a mid gain Marshally type tone. The VTM is my go to amp. The blue channel of the EVH amps is right there. So I put together a pedalboard rig using my Mosvalve power amp and used a few different actual preamp pedals like the AMT M1 or the VOX Copperhead. Or I used the AMT F1 as a clean preamp and used a distortion pedal like the Englishman or JPTR FX. Katastrophe. Killer tones either way. Totally happy with them and could easily be my main rig.

Speaking of VTM, the low input of the VTM is one hell of a pedal platform. If you haven't tried to do that, give it a shot. keep the gain low to run it clean and hit it with a good overdrive pedal.

spawnofthesith wrote:

The Boss Metalcore was a really underrated metal pedal too imo

That one has been on my list for a while, i remember trying the mega distortion that was out around the same time and liking that