My live performance flamenco guitar set up

The Bose T-1 is a very small digital mixer. It’s pretty good. (the big issue I have with it is that I can’t assign the reverb to the monitor bus) I mic my guitar to channel #1. My nylon string guitar mic is an AKG C535 EB which I love!! I can use a little compression to keep the string balance even while close mic’ing the guitar. The compression also helps to keep me out in front of the mix without relying on a sound tech to properly ride the fader all night. I can also add reverb. The T-1 have a very decent reverb and is loaded with a lot of other great effects. I also run a line out of my guitar channel that goes to the input of my RC50 loopstation to record live guitar loops. BTW, the T1 has a 3 band eq and a parametric eq for each channel. These days I keep the eq on the T-1 flat.

Currently my guitar mic goes into a DBX 376 tube preamp. It’s great! It’s used for: – warming and fattening up my guitar – eq is great. I cut the low end, a little high end and carve out a little 1k – I’ll bypass the T1 compression and use the DBX compressor (overeasy @ about a 4:1 comp)

Channel #2 of the T-1 is the input for my loopstation’s output. I’ll add reveb to this channel as the channel #1 line output I assigned pre-effects.

I use the sub-output a from my loopstation to send a click into Channel #3 of the Bose T-1.

The T-1 has one aux send for each channel that I use to send a mix to the monitor output to my in-ear monitors. (I use live wire in-ear monitors) My monitor mix consists of my guitar, looped guitar & click. The mix is dry because of Bose’s reluctance to create a global reverb send to the monitor bus! (maybe if enough people complain Bose will fix this for us with an update) BTW, I only put my in-ear monitor in my right ear. I keep to other out to hear the room sound. I’ll only put both monitors in if I’m playing a corporate event were the room volume (people talking) is so loud that I can’t think. (300 to 600 people packed into a small venue all talking can really grind you down after a couple of hours) check out my Behind the scenes posts to see what I mean.

The main out of the T-1 is my channel #1 guitar and my loops created live to channel #2.

Now if you what to hear your guitar with reverb in the in-ear monitors hears what I do these days. I do not send Ch1 & Ch2 guitars to the aux. I use a splitter out of the T-1′s main output. One split goes to the PA system and the other goes into Channel #4 of the T-1 (now channel 4 is a guitar mix (my guitar and the loops) with reverb. I assign Channel #4 to the aux monitor mix.

My monitor mix now contains the ch3 click and the ch1 & ch2 guitar mix with reverb. It took a long time for me to sort this one all out but it works GREAT!

Live with the band I’ll use this system (only if I decide to perform w/loops) and each band member has an in-ear monitor with me and the click. This has also worked great when we’ve done multi-media shows with video, laser & lighting sync.

If I’m not playing with loops I only use my DBX 376 tube pre-amp and I take a direct line out for my in-ear monitor. (bought an inline $7 volume control from Radio Shack / The Source to control the in-ear volume) The beauty of this is I don’t have to rely on the FOH (Front Of House) sound tech to give me a good monitor mix. My guitar always sounds amazing to me on stage! And that is so very important to a great, relaxed performance!

One more note… I also have a TC Electronic reverb in my DBX pre-amp rack. I sometimes use the effects loop on the DBX to add a nice reverb to my guitar if I don’t feel the FOH sound tech doesn’t have one or I’m worried he doesn’t know what he’s doing.