I started the overhaul of the guitar system yesterday. I spent most of the day working on the rack. I rearranged the gear to better reflect the need to easily get at the back of certain pieces of gear, some of which are quite shallow. I used to spend a lot of time trying to find to plugs on the MOTU when it was at the bottom of the rack, and this happens every time I set up. Clearly, that needed to change.
I’m also slowly replacing cables in the rack with Monster and Mogami. This is actually really expensive (there are 30+ patch connections in my rig), so I have to do it a few cables at a time.
Since this is my first entry about my guitar system, I’ll outline what I’m doing. This needs to be documented for some part of my dissertation, so this will serve as a draft for my ideas. I’m brainstorming, so this won’t be in a great format.
Gear:
Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL – Analog matrix-based routing system
Marshall 9200 – Dual mono-bloc tube power amp (w/SED 6L6GC tubes)
Marshall JMP-1 Tube Preamp
ENGL E530 Tube Preamp
DBX 266XL Compressor / Gate
Digitech TSR-24s Digital Effects Processor (Algorithm-building)
BBE 362 Sonic Maximizer
Furman AR-117 Line Regulator
MOTU 828 Digital I/O
HP Laptop (2GHz Centrino Duo-Core with 2GB RAM)
M-Audio MIDISport 2×2
ART X15 MIDI foot controller
Behringer BCR2000 USB Control Surface
Max/MSP/Jitter 4.6
Speakers: (I gig with one or the other pair)
2 Avatar 1×12 cabs with Celestion Vintage 30s
2 Carvin 2×12 (Upright) with Celestion G12M-70s
The gear fits in an eight space and a four space rack that I mount on a dolly, plus a few other bags, guitar cases, and the cabs.
Philosophy:
Many performers will look at the list of gear an think, “this guy is nuts to drag that much stuff around.” Perhaps this is true, but there is a design philosophy at work. First, unlike most other instruments the electric guitar is not complete. It requires an amplifier and speakers to function as an acoustic system. Therefore, the amplifier must be considered a part of the “instrument.” As a performer, I find that playing through simulators (like Line 6 or software plug-ins) is unpleasant, at best, and completely uninspiring, at worst. I play the electric guitar – tube amplifier system, and as a performer I tend to focus on the amplifier-end of the system.
So, I’m stuck hauling 150 lbs. of gear around, whether I’m hauling a big vintage amp, or my current modular system. I can live with that. I won’t be doing a train tour of Europe anytime soon.
I’m also a bit old school, and I don’t think it is okay to have a gear malfunction prevent me from doing a gig or clinic. Therefore, my system involve a series of “safety nets,” that allow me to remove malfunctioning elements and still perform. This could include the worst-case scenario of eliminating all digital elements and simply playing the through the classic preamp-to-power amp setup.
Additionally, I want as open-ended of system as I can have. I want to be able to come up with a crazy idea for a guitar sound and have the means to realize it quickly and without compromise. I want the benefits of tube and solid-state analog technologies married with the best of the digital realm.
A bit of history:
The conventional guitar-amplifier paradigm has been recognized as limited from quite early on. Hence, the effect pedal and its descendant, the pedalboard (for you non-guitarists, the pedalboard is that ugly, noisy, monstrosity that most guitarists battle with during rehearsals, and that malfunctions and ruins the gig). Pedals work well if you only have a few to manage, but there is a design limitation as the number of pedals grow.
At some point, you find that you can’t hit all of the pedals at one time that you need to go from one sound to another. Enter the multi-effects (FX) unit. You can now press one button and recall a “patch” of effects (a chain of analog and/or digital audio components). These became really hot in the 80’s and 90’s, but the limitations (not all of the effects in a unit are good, harder to program, popular perception of quality) have led to parallel and intersecting trends back to pedals and pedalboards on the one hand, and modeling, software-based technology on the other.
My philosophy is to try to bridge the best aspects of these approaches while mitigating the disadvantages. In addition, I wanted to open up my rig to the control and signal possibilities afforded by Max/MSP. I’m not intimidated by programming devices, patches, etc., so I didn’t feel the need avoid multi-FX units. However, I wanted to overcome the limits of poor effects in the multi-FX systems. For example, a unit that is designed to function as a preamp, a compressor, and effects unit usually doesn’t do any of these things very well; One must give up sound quality to gain interface ease.
I took a modular approach. I have two separate preamps, a compressor/gate, and a studio effects processor. Thus, I have high quality components, but still have much of the ease of control of a patch-based system.
Marshall JMP-1
The Marshall JMP-1 was a really great effort to bridge the gap of MIDI control and classic tube (or valve, to the Brits) technology. It was designed to allow the user to store and recall preamp sounds (a combination of preamp channel, gain, volume, and tone setting) using MIDI Patch numbers. Unfortunately, this necessitated some compromises in circuit design to allow all of these parameters to be digitally controlled. The result was a bit noisy, though it did a remarkably good job as a “tube preamp” considering how much of its sound was op-amp based. It uses two 12AX7 tubes in conjunction with the opamp circuits to produce “tube” tones.
I’ve used one since 1995. I’ve have been pretty happy with it, but there are some tones that it doesn’t do well. I like the clean tones and the mildly-dirty breaking tones, but it really doesn’t have as much gain as I want for the “rip your head off” heavy tones. I can get them with different tubes, but then I lose the clean and breaking tones I like.
Also, the MIDI Implementation is really limited. They should have designed this thing to respond to a variety of SysEx messages to redo patches on the fly.
ENGL E530
This is ENGL’s effort at a tube op-amp hybrid. Like the JMP-1, it only uses two 12AX7 tubes. Overall, the ENGL has a much richer harmonic content than the JMP-1, and like all Engl products, it has more gain that you could possibly ever want or need by the time it’s turned half way up. It has a tighter, more compressed way of breaking up and going into high gain than the JMP-1. The transition tones aren’t quite as interesting to my ear as the JMP-1, though. No MIDI, so it is quite a bit quieter than the Marshall. Two channels, with switchable high/lo gain on each channel, plus a contour switch to change the midrange EQ.
After years with the Marshall, I wanted something that could do high gain more quietly. I realized that the idea of 99 presounds was a pipe dream in that I really only had about four or five that I used regularly, so the lack of patches wasn’t a deal breaker
Two Preamp Design
I use both preamps for a couple of different reasons. First, they both sound good. I like the sound of the ENGL for pure clean or heavy tones, but the in-between tones of the JMP-1 work a little better.
More importantly, there is an array of things that I can do that would be impossible with only one preamp. For example, I rarely have a patch with only clean or distorted sounds. I have both preamps patched in parallel, one clean and the other dirty, and I use a continuous controller to fade between them. No more clicking between the two tones. I have all of the mixtures. Also, I can run them in parallel and used one for the high end and the other for the low end (more gain on the low end with a more clear high end). I can wire them in series.
Of course all of these options are made possible by the matrix routing system of the Switchblade, but I’ll come to that later.
DBX 266XL
This is a standard dual channel compressor/gate. I run channel one with light compression (2:1 with a fairly high threshold), and channel two pretty hard (4:1+ with a lower threshold). This gives me three compression setting (none, low, high) to work with in my patches.
Each channel has its own gate, so I can cut any line noise from the preamps, though I try to never have to rely on this. I prefer to keep my preamps as noiseless as possible by conventional means (maintenance, shielding the guitar, good cables, etc.). However, there is something really cool about playing super-loud, wall-of-doom power chords and then cutting to total silence, and gates are great for that.
The Digitech TSR-24s
The Digitech TSR-24s is a great example of business making the wrong decision because of poor consumer response. The unit was incredible sophisticated for its price point, but it was discontinued in favor of a simpler application of the S-DISK platform. The product line abandoned its emphasis on user control, and a really interesting line of R&D based on increased user-control as a design imperative was lost.
The pedal approach allowed for routing (algorithm or circuit) experimentation. A delay (echo) sounds different is it is connected in series rather than in parallel to a flanger. If it is in series, it sounds different when the delay is connected before the flanger rather than after. Most multi-FX units were stuck in one routing configuration.
The TSR-24s was different. It had a software environment in which you could open effects units and patch them together in any order. The only limitation was processing power and memory. The unit could be upgraded with an additional Parallel Processing Card (PPC) with another processor and more memory. With the card installed, bigger dual-PPC algorithms could be built, and “seamless” patch changes were possible between single-PPC algorithms (in actuality, they were anything but seamless, but it was a cool idea).
The real limitation of the TSR-24s is the lo-fi audio quality. Though it was quite good for its time, the unit pales in comparison to modern 96kHz+ units. Also, Digitech really didn’t do much of anything with the MIDI implementation. The things really could have had some sophisticated SysEx capabilities, but they didn’t really do anything with that.
However, the interface and routing possibilities have kept it in my rack since 1994, and I can’t imagine replacing it anytime soon.
BBE 362
I have used a Sonic Maximizer since 2001. People are often confused by the BBE, but the concept is really simple. Sounds at different frequencies travel through a speaker at slightly different speeds, so low frequency sounds don’t quite arrive at the listener’s ear at the same time as the highs and mids, and clarity is lost.
The BBE stuff uses a proprietary process to realign the low frequency sounds with the highs and mids, restoring the clarity lost to this subtle phase distortion.
Because this delay (due to slight impedance variation across the tonal spectrum) can happen in any long signal path, the BBE can also clean up a lot of the fogginess present when you run through a lot of gear and can be used in post-production.
I don’t use it all the time, but for certain sounds, it really tightens things up.
Power Amp and Speakers
Marshall 9200
I use a tube-based dual mono-block power amp. This is essentially two identical 100w tube power stages mounted in the same chassis. Marshall has made two models of this amp: the 9200 and the EL34 100/100. The difference is the power tubes used. The EL34 100/100 is the current model and uses the EL34 tubes that most Marshall amps use.
I use the older 9200 with 5881 tubes. The 5881 is a 6L6-style tube, and I’ve retubed mine with SED 6L6GC tubes. I like the tonal qualities of the 6L6-style tube better than the EL34.
I use the two power stages as a stereo power amp. I have two pairs of speakers that I use.
2 Avatar 1×12 cabs (the cube style) with Celestion Vintage 30s
2 Carvin 2×12 (Upright) with Celestion G12M-70s
The Avatars are great cabs: Well built, great sound. With the Vintage 30’s, they have a nice bright sound with a lot of midrange clarity.
The Carvins are really dark and chunky. The G12M-70s are an odd speaker. It’s allegedly a cross between a G12T-75 and a classic lead 80. The low end is great, but they are a bit foggy in the mids and highs.
I record using both, but I only take one or the other pair to gigs. I will probably eventually replace a speaker in each of the Carvins with a Vintage 30 to get the blended sound for when I want a bigger cab. I may sell one of the Avatars and buy another pair of the smaller 1×12 to gig with (the big ones don’t fit in my trunk). I’ll keep one big one for studio work.
Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL and the Routing Paradigm
Okay, so now I have a bunch of nice, modular components for the guitar system. I could have simply plugged the guitar into an a/b/y switch to the preamps, plugged the preamps into the compressor, the compressor into the effects unit, The Effects unit into the BBE, and the BBE into the power amp. I did it this way for years (though with only the Marshall preamp and no a/b/y). It worked, and my sound was pretty good. I had many sound combinations, and they generally rocked and were huge.
The problem lies in the fact that I didn’t always use effects. When I wasn’t using any effects, I was still sending my tube analog signal through an A/D and D/A for no reason. I could float the effects on the effects loop of the JMP-1, but then the effects were before the compressor, and that sucked. There were digital routing solutions, but that really didn’t solve the problem since they required an A/D and D/A. I just lived with it for years, but I eventually found the Switchblade.
The Switchblade GL is an analog matrix routing system. It has 16 inputs and 16 outputs, which can be routed in any way. This is all done in the analog realm, but it is digitally controlled, so it takes full advantage of MIDI.
In other words, all of my gear plugs into the Switchblade, and I then route the pieces of gear I need for a patch in the software control environment. I can assign continuous controller to volume controls on the connections. If I am not using effects, I can take the TSR-24s completely out of the signal chain. I only route through the pieces of gear I am using, so the sound quality is generally at its best.
The Switchblade is controlled by MIDI, so it takes commands from the ART foot controller, Max/MSP, or the Behringer control surface. It also triggers the toggle switches to control the channel selection of the ENGL preamp, and the voicing selection switch on the Marshall 9200.
This is a pricey piece of gear, but it is well worth every dime. The sound quality is superb. Further, the MIDI implementation may be the most complete of any piece of gear I own. In addition to standard MIDI commands, the SysEx implementation allows you to redefine patches on the fly and use up to 64 controllers to control the signals in the system.
The only real complaint about the unit is that it could use some interface updating. It would be nice to have a better control interface than MIDI. A USB port and driver would add to the ease of use in modern systems. Short of that, a dedicated MIDI Thru port would help avoid having to repatch MIDI cables to use the WinBlade software provided by the manufacturer.
I’ll address the computer portion of the rig in a later post.
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