According to LiveDaily.com and what I heard on Kroq driving to work the other morning was that the only announced date of this Smashing Pumpkins 20th Year Reunion Tour is in HAMMOND, INDIANA on August 9th.
Why there?
Shows have also been confirmed but not scheduled for New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
This is a quote from the Smashing Pumpkin’s official website:
“We can confirm the band will be playing in New York, Chicago, L.A. as well as additional cities that have yet to be announced. These shows will focus on the band’s history, legacy, and accomplishments over their career.”
For you kids out there, if you don’t remember or know these guys (the Smashing Pumpkins) here is a video called Rocket from what I have always said is the best pumpkins work so far - Siamese Dream. Buy that album.
So to honor whatever you want to call it when a band breaks up for 5 years and then has a reunion at 20th year - Today we will be discussing the last guitar rig Billy Corgan was using with the pumpkins and what he needed to pull of his ‘antics’ electrically on stage.
Here is a photo of his rig (click to enlarge)
It works is as follows: There are 2 rigs.
Rig A and Rig B.
This is for redundancy. If his guitar goes out…the tech simply hits an a/b switch to have the performer back up and live on the backup rig. So rig A would be the main rig and rig B would be the backup rig.
Now if you are a guitar tech and you have to deal with a personality such as Billy Corgan, you’d better get this right and also explain it to him well.
If Billy was to edit a new patch onto rig B for some new idea he has…then the tech must know this and copy it over to rig A. A solution to this is that the artist ONLY edits rig A, then the tech copies it all to rig B and backs it up to disk as well.
ahh..but if the artist can’t remember and then edits on rig B it can become a bit of a pain to manage as you really don’t want to delete any ‘new ideas’.
Okay, so POWER.
You will notice on the left side there is what almost looks like a computer tower. It in fact is a UPS. An Uninterrupted Power Supply - these things have large capacitors that can hold a charge for 20-30 minutes depending on their model. Basically if the power goes out, likely the show is over but these units will keep the entire guitar rig on and functioning, also regulate power, protect against surges and in an emergency, allow you to shut everything down in the proper sequence and gradually, to prevent damaging any equipment or losing any data. Tubes can have problems as well as Speakers when turned on and off at quick intervals when at high volumes.
Switching:
Rocktron All Access pedal.
Billy uses what a Bradshaw system is very similar too…simply a tank like midi foot-controller that can switch patches and control midi in specific ways. Basically one funciton of the rocktron All Access pedal is to control the 8 separate loops in the GCX (ground control) Loop Switcher.
How it works -> Each patch has the ability to turn on or off any of the 8 loops that are being sent along the signal chain.
For example I modeled my rig after his and Vegas (billy’s tech) help me build this. We used the same idea as billy’s rig with the difference being an additional backup rig and UPS power supply, as well as different effects units and amps on the loops.
Guitar input-> Loop 1 goes to Tuner from which the signal goes to a Volume Pedal then returns -> Loop 2 goes to a Dunlop Rack Wah - > Loop 3 goes to Digitech Whammy Pedal - > Loops 4, 5 & 6, Go to the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier Channel switch jacks -> Loop 7 Goes to the Mesa Solo Boost Switch -> Loop 8 Goes out to the Effects Processer which I keep INLINE Before the amp to get the sounds I need. Then from there it goes to the Mesa Boogie Solo boost Jack.-> out to the Input of the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier.
With all of this I can use any combination of these loops to get the desired effects I need.
MIDI PATH. Options are to use an adapter for the rocktron’s power or a powered midi cable that will allow you to remove the need for a wall wart plug on stage.
Midi goes FROM the Rocktron into the GCX Audio Loop Switcher. if you run midi to the Boss SX700 Effects Processor, you can also control which patches come on when you engage the loop it is on. Midi THRU should allow you to do this, also set the Boss SX700 (or other effects unit such as a G-Force) to a specific Midi Channel that nothing else in your chain is using.
ON THE FLOOR:
Foot pedal consists of the Rocktron All Access Foot Controller. Dunlop Wah CONTROLLER pedal. This controls a rackmount dunlop ‘rack wah’ which kicks ass and the pedal on the floor doen’st require any audio to go through it.
With this setup there is NO AUDIO ON THE FLOOR at all. That means shorter signal cables which means less signal loss issues.
How to work this setup?
Lets say that on the rocktron you want the very first sound, Patch one to have a clean sound with a wah pedal.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
on | on | on| on |on | on| on| on
I would create the clean sound by engaging which ever combination of 4,5,6 switches to clean added to loops 1 and 2.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
on | on | x | x |on | x | x | x
And I would name the patch ‘Clean Wah’ and save it.
NOTE: I would always leave the tuner engaged and the volume pedal(LOOP 1) engaged to allow for tuning whenever needed by simply turning the volume down with the pedal.
Additionally: can leave loop 2 on and just activate the wah pedal with the footswitch when needed. This way you know its always available for emphasis or something to experiment live with.
This setup also allows for using the volume pedal to make ’swells’ of volume which can be combined with delay in very interesting ways, to make string-like effects or other weird sounds.
If I wanted to have my heavy sound with delay and a solo lead boost with a specific delay patch on the SX 700, (provided MIDI through the GCX is connected to the MIDI In at the back of the SX 700)
I would do this (using whatever the combination of 4,5,6 switches to the high gain channel on mesa)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
on | on | x | x | x | on | on| on
The rocktron can also assign through its midi setup which patch on the unit on a specific MIDI channel is needing to use. Here you can have it so the delay on the boss unit is appropriate for the solo patch.
So what does Billy Use?
Rocktron All Access Pedal
How Billy Corgan uses the Rocktron All Access MIDI Foot Controller Pedal
Billy Corgan uses an All Access to control his use of either the Deisel head for massive distortion, a small amp (similar to a peavey rage!) for some weird clean effects.
His main effects generation comes from the Eventide Ultra Harmonizers with one in each rig. These expensive studio units have a wide variety of different digitally processed effects that are very cleanly implemented and sound great with a lot of different parameters that can be easily manipulated.
Other Units in Billy’s rack:
Diezel Amplifiers. Two for redundancy.
Alesis Datadisk:
This is a MIDI backup utility unit that allows you to save, for example all the patches on the Eventide Ultra Harmonizer to a 3 1/2 ” floppy disk. You can also use this to recover from backups.
Whenever you update your patches..you should backup all your sounds to an Alesis Datadisk in this situation.
Rockman Midi Octopus.
These units KICK ASS and are used very simply to change channels on 8 different amps at once!
HOWEVER I don’t recommend dealing with Rockman.fr as they don’t communicate very well. I don’t care if i burn that bridge because they’ve burnt it with me - or they could email and be nice. I mean seriously folks. I use lots of products and can endorse them on here and explain how they are used so people will by them. I OWN an octopus and to have rockman.fr delete the image I had which ‘LINKED’ to their website and replace it with some stupid image.. i just don’t get it. Links are GOOD things. especially from sites in your niche. Oh well, I guess in France they don’t email you first to ask you to remove an image. Yes I’m in the USA but I’m Canadian. Way to piss me off guys! hahaha fuck it. I guess I just don’t give a shit about websites in France - Au Revoir.
Well you could if you had to… but basically the 1/4 inch outputs on the back of these units are used for things like switching an amplifier from a clean channel to a heavy channel, but VIA MIDI. Basically anything that requires a 1/4″ footswitch should be controllable from here.
Simply connect any of the 8 1/4″ output jacks to your amps channel switching jack and you can now use midi to control very simply whether you want that set to on or off and it will switch for you via midi.
This helps us in our quest to have ONE BUTTON control everything.
His rig includes custom patches that we can’t explain here as they were simply programmed by billy and his tech into his Eventide Ultra Harmonizer.
For now this is a good start to understanding simply the components of a large professional guitar rig and what it takes simply to be able to use all this gear with ONE button controlling it!
I was lucky to be invited along to see the Aerosmith / Kiss tour by Ace (well Tommy Thayer)’s guitar technician. I have a lot of great photos of Gene Simmons’ basses close up and some other interesting clips and pics. - Next post.
For now here is a video of Fran, the guitar tech for Paul Stanley explaining a bit about what he does for KISS.
More coming. I wish the flash didn’t do what it did on this pic!
Here are some photos of Gene Simmon’s Bass Guitars that I took whilst checking out their stage setup before the show with Aerosmith at the Palace in Detroit in Nov 2006.
Here are Gene’s Basses. All ready for the show.
Here are all the Picks that were given away later on. Notice his ’stuntman’ harness for the part where Gene ‘frightens the crowd’ by flying up into the rafters not unlike a Gotham City bat.
My view from side stage.
Notice my friend’s hair. I asked her to not touch anything so she sat on this small round seat thingy. Shortly afterwards someone grabbed it and put it on stage for Peter Criss to sing Beth on. If you look closely you can see Steven Tylers Mic stand next to the stage with the Green and Red shit hangin on them. If you are under 13 that was green and red sh#@t hanging on them.
Wired Magazine’s Post about how Metallica ‘repents’ to fans and industry with the creation of a new site called ‘Mission Metallica’ where they posted mp3s for FREE (remember the Napster Lawsuit?) for fans prior to releasing the new album.
I think we should all be proud of metallica for bringing on Rob Trujillo and keeping forward progression.
Making St. Anger must have been hell.
This new record ‘Death Magnetic’ is in my opinion one of the closest things Metallica has done to the ‘true Metallica’ that we all used to refer to on the ‘black album’ tour when we were chanting ‘PLAY THE OLD SHIT JAMES!’
It has been out for some time now and hopefully they will continue onward in this fashion.
I have seen metallica 9 times, but I missed this tour. I was lucky to catch them at the Montreal show back on the St. Anger tour with Linkin Park(who have some great songs but can be at times a little wimpy) and Limp Bizkit (WHO SUCKED and destroyed a cover of Ministry’s theives, but they were entertaining) and Mudvayne.
One of the problems I have with Limp Bizkit is that they did that Guitar Search. - > I went to it and they made me sign something saying that all the material I played was original and that they could use it if they wanted to. What was super gay about that fred durst production(I don’t personally know Fred but i was annoyed that he didn’t show up when a lot of people DID - > if i’m auditioning people, I’m gonna be there, why woulnd’t he unless it isn’t a serious audition, but a quest for material? Fred Durst, please answer this otherwise I will simply assume that is what it was.)
I mean I used that search to get a radio interview in Ottawa about my experiences at it. Also I played THERMOclinE’s ‘Frequency’ and some other shit - then I turned the amp off and said to the flawless guy that I was there to follow up on something that my (god rest his soul) old friend and thermo bassist Jason Young had started up with them. I handed them the new mix of ‘vacant lot’ that THERMOclinE recorded and Jay Ruston Remixed. - Then we fired the new singer and i went solo. I mean all i had was Andrew Lamarche - a fantastic drummer but no permanent bassist and no singer but me… and I was never meant to sing for THERMOclinE as it only had one guitar. - > I guess this isn’t really Metallica news, but Metallica was a big influence on my career and guitar knowledge so I will refer to them a lot. I use Mesa Boogie amps pretty exclusively for my heavy sound, but NOT because of Metallica - which would make sense. I use them because Jason Young had made our friend Dave Little buy one for a lot of money, which I got to borrow and I fell in love with that sound and never looked back.
UPDATE: James is okay, as I guessed it was just FOOD POISONING - Get ‘em james! - KRONIS
I’ve been working on Metallica posts all day and for some reason VH1 played some kind of monster last night so I watched it while working. I hadn’t really done much to do with Metallica for some time, but during these new updates and restructuring (finally fuck) of GuitarTechnician.com it has been a lot of ‘Metallica on the Brain’.
Now today I find out (thanks to @metallicaMETAL on twitter) that James Hetfield, the Lead Singer of Metallica, was hospitalized today in Stockholm Sweden.
“We apologize to all our fans who have travelled from near and far and we look forward to coming back soon.”
Tonight’s Sunday night show in Stockholm, Sweden was cancelled due to Hetfield’s sudden hospitalization… perhaps it was food poisoning? hopefully nothing serious. Go get ‘em James, we’re pulling for ya buddy.
The Following was posted on Metallica.com
-> Stockholm Second Show Cancelled 3/8/2009
Tonight’s second show in Stockholm has been cancelled due to James falling ill and receiving medical attention at the hospital. The show WILL be rescheduled sometime this spring, so keep watching this space for more details. We apologize to all our fans who have travelled from near and far and we look forward to coming back soon.
Jeff Ament was struck in the head when his windows were smashed in and laptops ($4K worth) and $3K worth of cash were stolen.
Someone OBVIOUSLY knew he was gonna be there, i wonder if any of the unreleased music was on those laptops… probably as he was likely rehearsing the new tracks to something.. i know i would. hopefully he protected his data with passwords….perhaps we’ll find some unreleased pearl jam online soon.
Hopefully Jeff recovers quickly, i’m sure he’s more stunned but I would be SUPER PISSED at whoever leaked out the info…as the muggers were ready for him and jumped out of the bushes.
DAMN
I still think Pearl Jam’s TEN is their best record to date.
Subscribe to Feed
