Gear
People often ask me about some of the gear I use when performing loops and such. It has become a bit of joke because some of the gear is considered “digital” and thus not vintage-boutique cool. My guitar buddies always tell me their tube tone is way better. To a point, I let them think they’re right. : )
I made the jump to digital after having to perform enough times to realize that rarely does that killer tube tone traslate to FOH (front of house). Rarely can the house sound system (or the people there) capture the nuances of real tube tone.
Also, all that crap is heavy and expensive. Oh, and it always fails. A busted tube, a cord that comes unplugged, a pedal that just dies… it just seems like an outdated technology for the road. For the studio, it still a great thing.
I approach music a lot like a keyboard player. Keyboards have patches that you call up as needed. All the effects, eq, and compression settings are stored in each patch so all you have to do is just hit one button to get an entirely new sound. This works well for me when looping. Often I’d rather, for the sake of time, just hit a button or two rather than tap dance with my pedal board.
Anyways, I had to laugh today because it turns out there’s another guitarist out there who actually has the same point of view. Unlike me, he’s entirely niched as an awesome live and studio guitarist. For live shows, he’s ditched his physical tubes and gone digital. I immediately sent the video to all my guitar guru friends who have heckled me for years. It was sweet, sweet vindication.
Here’s a clip:
