I use a GCX with Ground Control Pro. Same thing he's talking about basically. It's a life changing setup for any guitar player. The best part is really eliminating the pedal dancing (multiple effects on or off with one touch of the a preset switch). Mine even switches my amp channels.
Everybody that used Bob's stuff soon realized, (like Lukather mentioned a few years ago), that when something goes wrong, (and something always goes wrong), when roadies load & unload all this electronic equipment as fast as they can, every day when touring, who can fix it ? Lukather was on tour in Europe and his rack stopped working. Bradshaw was in California. That's why Lukather keeps it simple now & just uses pedals on a pedal board.
@igknightus because this is modular you should be able to program it that way. You could have a change of effects you like patched in serial as you suggested and have it at the ready when you want it, with one switch of the controller... Any other combo of effects can then be set up on other devices.
Before the births of the cartoons no ears and tone blind gadgetry junkies who can't even hear the differences of direct and ill flavored bypasses - here is the man.. he makes things simpler.. like other gurus like caesar diaz, rene martinez that shines your playing and great tones.. yes not forgetting leo and jim.. the golden ears will always be remembered!
These people can easily afford the Axe Fx but they still use this is must be a good reason,the great multi Fx come and go but the crank plexi nothing can replace it.
I hate multi effect pedals theyre cheap and the sound isnt as nice and versatile as compact pedals. If you want the cheap inexpensive way take the multi effect pedal, if you like your tone more than money then buy compact pedals which sound much cleaner and tone driven than cheap driven
I wish I could afford to have Bob build my live rig. After decades of messing with gear, I think I've finally got a clear idea of what I want. Working on building a hybrid set up with rack units, pedals and a switcher/looper.
Bob didn't realize that sharing his knowledge like he does in this video here would hurt his business, when manufacturers started making more cost-effective solutions based on his custom audio systems. Never show how the sausage is made.
why are people bashing his attitude toward pedalboards? everyone knows that if you have too many things clogging your signal path, it's gonna junk up your sound...what he's saying is nothing more than common sense...pedalboards work for a lot of people who have figured out how to make them sound good, but that's not what his company does....so why would he yammer on about how great he thinks pedalboards are? pedalboards are his competition...
I've found there to be more degradation in the effects loop. plus you need one with a switch, but that could be a simpler mod. This also gives you multi-switching so you don't need to press 5 pedals at once, but really its only aimed at those with heaps of money like the edge, not medium size venue players, and thus certainly not for those who just play as a hobby. but some people happen to like degradation, e.g. nels cline, becuase in a sense its just like turning the treble down on the amp.
i only use 5 or 6 pedals and usually only one is on at a time and thats just for solos. sometimes 2 if i want to have a wah solo or univibe or sometimes delay (hardly ever use it). so i guess this isnt for me.
This is only relevant for guitar players who play very large venues and already own 10k worth of pedals. Apparently Metallica are now using axe fx! That probably says it all.
Sadly, most of these players don't use Bob's system anymore due to shipping cost. They are back to using pedals. A rack of effects is pretty costly to ship overseas
No its more like, in the name of convenience. Although he does have some rack mounted effects as shown here, the switching system IS important if you do a lot of changing mid-song or between songs and you dont have time to hit individual pedals. So, yeah, we need the switching shit, not all the fancy rack shit. Hehe
I just recreated a rig like this with my Modeler. I have the GT1000 Core. I setup the dual pitch detune with chorus and reverb ala Lukather/Landau. It's incredible. I'm getting something similar to the tone for the song Hysteria by Def Leppard. Simply huge. Just amazing and no head high rack and $50k price tag.
I have all, or at least most of the cool gear from the 80's, a HUGE RACK full of outboard gear, along with a switching system. The favorite I used for years, both live and studio, was 2 x100w late-70's Marshall Super Leads for OD and of course lead (dirty) tones (Marshalls cranked using attenuators -- so I didn't blow the first 15 rows of people off of their seats in club situations) ... 2 Fender Super Reverbs for clean tones... all run in stereo. My all-time favorite rig. Now, I can't deal with the heft any longer, and many clubs have become somewhat smaller, the stage space is no longer there for huge stereo rigs. Enter my Fractal FM9 and a couple of "Amp-in-the-Room" FRFR cabs. After a somewhat lengthy learning curve (I'm picky as hell... if it doesn't sound like my fav rig then it's not good enough... so it took a bit of time), I am now thrilled over this rig for live and studio performance... at least thus far it's working out great. My back, neck, knees, and SUV both thank me for the diminished wear and tear! 😛 If my current rig is good enough for Neal Schon and Guthrie, along with others, then it's good enough for me... and it truly is! Nothing will ever completely replace my fav rig... but I am very happy with the down-sizing, all things considered. Thank you very much, amplifier-only "purists"! 😛 BTW, the GT1000 is another reason for me trying the modeling route. A friend uses one and he gets amazing tone from that unit. He gets incredible Van Halen and Alex Lifeson tones... seriously incredible! Ed may have even switched to the GT1000 after hearing my friend's near-duplicate Edward tones... they are THAT good! The FM9 is a bit more versatile and offers a few more features IMO, which is why I didn't go with another modeler. Cheers!
Seems like a lot of guys are way over the top with all these pedals. I used to roll like that. Now it's a Klon, Zendrive and Big Sky that's it. Occasionally I'll patch in a delay maybe something else for a particular song. I've found less is more and my tone has never been better.
And your tone would still benefit by putting these pedals into a good loop switcher so that whatever you're not using at that particular moment is completely out of the signal path.
Amp A. Holic no delay, no obnoxious chorus, guys also use too much reverb and they think they sound awesome. Clean, crunch, high gain and fuzz if needed. A bit of compression maybe and maybe a bit of reverb but I don’t use it. They cover up their shitty playing. And the new worship ambient sounds. 🙄💤 horrible.
Why does Bob have to be so SOUR & patronising towards pedalboards and custom-built effects pedals? While his reasons for using rackmounted systems are very reasonable, his attitude towards pedalboards is really off-putting.
@igknightus. Yeah you can, via pedals between guitar and amp. Either with or withouth his midi switchable looping system. With such a complicated system you can basically decide where to place all your effects and how they relate to the amps in the chain. That's why it is so complicated. A lot of the rack gear needs a lot of programming and finetuning too. But basically placing a delay in front of the amp is probably on of the more easy actions in setting up such a system ;).
Not relying on patch cords? Can someone help explain that? How can he push a signal thru so many pieces and not lose signal strength? Would appreciate any input.
@igknightus put the pedals that achieve that effect into one loop and use other loops for other characteristics. Analyse ur rig - maybe its just one or two pedals that make the effect. Isolate those in a loop for that effect or put them before or after everything else. If its a certain eq characteristic u like maybe that can be obtained through eq which doesnt subtract from the direct signal. Often its the "softer" feel people like about boards - not how they end up sounding in live mix
@wannabehendrix Bob's system would probably incorporate buffers where signal loss or impedance mismatch were an issue. He might just use a Boss pedal near the end of the signal chain as a "buffer". You sure see a lot of Boss gear in these pro rigs so I'm merely guessing.
@igknightus. Yeah you can, via pedals between guitar and amp. Either with or withouth his midi switchable looping system. With such a complicated system you can basically decide where to place all your effects and how they relate to the amps in the chain. That's why it is so complicated. A lot of the rack gear needs a lot of programming and finetuning too. But basically placing a delay in front of the amp is probably one of the more easy actions in setting up such a system ;).
Still love my "oldschool" pedalboard. 1. If you take short wires, your amp's "send and return" and bufferd or hardwire bypasses your tone will also be clean. 2. if you build your board into a flightcase you just need to take one thing from gig to gig instead of a gigant rak like that. 3. look at tom morellos board and you know the trues
@guitardaze Hi. This sistem is awesome ! You are right. For musicians this kind of sistem is the best. of corse that a simple pedalboard with everything you need in front of you is a good way to do it. But, sometimes you need two delays, ( for example ) with diferent setings. With a simple pedalboard like this, you have to work hard live and sometimes you have to change setings in the pedals during your performance. In this aspect, have a mounted rack sistem is very usefull.
@igknightus, you can have your system built to that ability, that's how I had mine set up. all my pedals are in succesion, my switcher controls them without changing my sound.
Agreed. The personality and ability to play well in the fingers. You put a great play through a sucky rig, his sound is still going to be sucky. You put 2 guys who are on equal grounds technically into a nice rig and sucky rig, you can hear significant differences.
Tone is in the fingers to a certain extent, but your fingers cant make a fender bassman sound like a cranked marshall, or vice versa. Cant make a cool solid state (yes, they exist) amp sound like a tube amp either. Dynamics are in your fingers, and tone to a certain extent if you use any sort of extended technique to manipulate timbre.
Is that not what an effects loop built into an amp is for? So you can still plug your guitar directly into said amp hence no signal degradation and no tonal loss. Therefore the need for this would be less then necessary for most folk.
Effects loops are so you can use the amps distortion without distorting the wet effect. There’s still degradation if they are all engaged and in series.
the problem i have is, i have troulble getting my boost for soloing. I run a Soldano SLO 100 head through quads, overdrive pedal, wah and boss tuner pedal. to get the boost i use a Soldano combo. the signal path is, slave out of slo100 to boss line selector set in a b position. this works fine exept this incurs a pretty nasty hum. my only solution is to run combo(boost amp) from another power circuit and power the line selector with a battery. is there a way to do this on one single circuit.
from the line selector a lead to the combo amp. Will a power conditioner sort this out ? im thinking it could be a ground loop, but im just a dumb ass guitar player, can some one please point me in the right direction
