Live Guitar Rigs

[ColourSurround]

I'd like to pick your brains as to what you all think is the best Reverb pedal/console to use in a live rig. Actually, in terms of pedals and effects, toss in all of your favourites as I'm building up my pedal board once more and am always open to some good suggestions.

PiN

[Protools Guy]

My personal feeling is that reverb is one of the least important elements to my live rig. On the other hand, a good delay is extremely important. I've been using the Line 6 DL4. It's road worthy and doesn't cost a fortune. I like the layout of the buttons and tap tempo feature.

I would also suggest trying your delay in the effects loop of your amp as opposed to before the head. If your head's effects loop is too hot (line level) you can use the Ebtech Line Level Shifter.

If you absolutely HAVE to have reverb, I would suggest taking a line out of your amp, feeding that signal to a mixer, and sending that signal, (as well as any other rack effects you use and can feed into the mixer) to the reverb, and then returning the reverb signal to the mixer. The outputs of the mixer would then feed a stereo power amp and go to a wet left cabinet and then a wet right cab. I've scaled my live rig WAY down, but that's the way I used to do it.

Hope this helps...

Hope this helps.

[Jim Williams]

Guitar reverb will not work on a pedal unless the amp is set very clean. Otherwise, the effect is distorted.

Reverbs, delays and similar effects should be used post overdrive. I use a Lexicon LXP-1 into the line level effects loops of my amps. That also allows the stereo function of the reverb if I use an adittional head with the loop return.

Sounds like Pink Floyd live. Steve Kimock also uses that reverb with 2 amps.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[evangelista]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

Guitar reverb will not work on a pedal unless the amp is set very clean. Otherwise, the effect is distorted.

Tell that to Neil Young.

[Jim Williams]

Originally Posted by evangelista

Tell that to Neil Young.

I tried. He doesn't care. It shows.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

I tried. He doesn't care. It shows.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

Heh.

[trevoire520]

Originally Posted by Protools Guy

If you absolutely HAVE to have reverb, I would suggest taking a line out of your amp, feeding that signal to a mixer, and sending that signal, (as well as any other rack effects you use and can feed into the mixer) to the reverb, and then returning the reverb signal to the mixer. The outputs of the mixer would then feed a stereo power amp and go to a wet left cabinet and then a wet right cab. I've scaled my live rig WAY down, but that's the way I used to do it.

That seems a bit complicated compared to say, putting a reverb in the fx loop of the amp?

[RockManDan]

yea doing the dry cab with two wet cabs thing is awesome...but insanely overcomplicated for anyone but a huge name guitar player. In order to be worth the effort, every club you play at will have to mic up all 3 cabs, balance them all at teh board, then be running a stereo PA to make it have the desired effect. good luck finding those 3 things at any typical venue. most soundmen ive run across will say 'hah ok whatever' and throw a 57 on one of your speakers. Best bet is to get the best possible sound out of one cab and be done with it. I used to want to be eddie van halen and run a huge eventide stereo sound. But after lugging a bunch of cabs and finding that it never really sounded much better out in the crowd, i downsized. Make it easier on your back and your car space. Just run verb/delay/mod effects in your loop and run them back into your amps poweramp and be done with it. tweak to taste and throw a single mic in front of that and let the soundman balance you with the rest of the band. anything else is just asking for trouble. -dan

[mikecorwin]

Get a Van Amps Reverbamate and be done with it.

[Puffer Fish]

I run a dry rig--Marshall DSL 401. It has on-board reverb, but not my thing. A reverb pedal that I tried and thought was pretty nice was an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail. I tried it one time on a lark not expecting anything but was quite impressed. Other than that, I like a Fender Twin tube reverb. The Vox Ac30 reverb I tired out I wanted to like, but it just did not come together for me. It was too deep, I guess. I hope this is helpful.

[Jim Williams]

My fav set up is 2 South African Basson Sound 120 watt heads, 2 4x12 cabs, spread 10 feet apart.

Basson Sound

I use one head as the control head, the other is a slave. The slave gets the other output from the modified Lexicon LXP-1 feeding it's effects return, it's a power amp slave feeding the extra cab in stereo. The dry signal is mono but the effects return is stereo. Crank it up and it's shock and awe. You do need a big room to do that in. Outdoors it's great as that ambience adds the fill a room does.

Since these are very powerful amps and very loud cabs (102 db at 1 watt SPL) I don't get a chance to use that set up very often, it's much louder than 2 100 watt Marshall stacks. Hendrix would have loved these. They are not Marshall tinny, but fat sounding.

My small set up is a 1966 Fender Deluxe Reverb with the effects loop (the spring reverb and vibrato have been removed) modified with 2 6550 power tubes and 100 watt transformers. It does about 75 watts and is very loud for it's size. If that's too much I also use a 1970 Vibro Champ modified to 12 watts. It's loud enough to play with the band if I use a 4x12 with it.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades