Today I’m playing guitar for a birthday party! It’s at a private residence about a 45min. drive from my home. The client doesn’t have a lot of space and I have a short setup time frame. So my sound system will consist of my Boss T1 mixer and 2 Yamaha pa speakers on stands. Again I’ll be miking my guitar with my akg c535eb mic. I have another guitar that I can plug in however I really love and prefer the miked sound. The akg c535eb mic is a fantastic choice for miking the flamenco guitar and is fast becoming the mic of choice for most players in spain. Vicente Amigo would be a good example. (BTW… If anyone knows if Vicente Amigo uses a preamp live, I’d love to hear about it)
I arrived for the gig at 8:15pm and setup to play at 9pm. Every now and then you have a private or corporate gig that is simply, perfect! Most days you’re stuck in a corner and play as background music for the event.
However tonight was different…
My performance was more of a house concert. The client and guest were a fantastic group of people. I got to personally meet everyone as I arrived and even had help setting up. The house was very nice and the room I was in acoustically sounded amazing. Everyone sat around and listened as I performed my first set. During my break I was able to watch some of the hockey game. (usually I would find a quite corner, have a quick coffee and practice for 15 to 20 min.) Then it was back to play my second set and again everyone came to listen. It was a wonderful event!
The photo on the left shows my small set up. 1st to the left is my Boss T1. It works as a mic pre, compressor and gives me a nice reverb. Then it’s plugged into my Yamaha mixer. (from my Yamaha Stagepas 300) The Yamaha is then plugged into 2 small Yamaha pa speakers on stands.
First I’m off to Vancouver to rehearse with Gypsalero a quartet that plays instrumental music from Jazz to Bluegrass and almost everything in between. You can find out more about the group from my web site.
Next I’m off the meet another musician who’s buying my reverb / echo pedal. It’s a RV3 made by Boss. It’s a fantastic little unit however lately, it’s been collecting a lot of dust.
Anyways, On to the gig…
This one is a solo guitar gig very close to my home. I do a great deal of playing for the Iris group. The company and it’s staff a all No#1 in my books! I’m also very fortunate to have Iris playing my music in all their locations across Canada.
For this performance I’ll use a small sound system that includes my Boss T1 digital mixer and a couple of yamaha pa speakers. (BR10′s) I’ll be mic’ing my guitar with my AKG C535EB mic and I will not be using my DBX preamp. I’ll arrive at 5pm for a 6pm start. Unfortunately I neglected to take photo’s on this one.
The music performed will be selections from my cd’s, the gipsy kings, Ottmar Liebert, Vicente Amigo, Santana, the Eagles, etc…
I began playing at 6pm and didn’t bother with taking a break. During my performance I had a little laugh as Dr. Davies, my optometrist, asked if he could cut in to play a few numbers. (he was just joking with me) I think everyone had a great time and at 8pm I was done.
Then it was time to tear down the gear and head home. Tomorrow I’m off to a private birthday gig, then the following day it’s a double header!
Here’s my behind the scene gig at the University of British Columbia…
My performance today is a “Foundation Pouring Event” for the UBC faculty of law.
It’s a 7:30am start so I’m leaving my home at 4:45am. I’ll be up at 3:45am.
All packed up and ready to go!
UBC is a 1.5 hour drive from my home when the traffic is light so I have given myself 2hrs to get there and 45 minutes to set up. I’ve packed my gear in the truck the previous night so I’m good to go in the morning.
On the day of the event…
It’s 4:25am and I’m already on the road to UBC. I can’t believe all the joggers out this early! And Starbucks is closed! Thank goodness for Tim Hortons.
It all fits on the cart for transport.
I arrived at 6am and it took an extra 15 minutes to find the building. UBC has 1 building that is spread out over blocks. It can be very confusing. Next it’s time to lug my sound system to our performance location. The building is locked however there is someone to meet me there to let me in at 7am. I’ve also emailed & phoned the other guitarist to updated gig directions so he’ll arrive on time without getting lost. I’ll be playing this one as a guitar duo.
Our audience
My guitar on a break during speeches
Andre, the guitarist joining me on the gig arrived at 7am. I quickly assembled the sound system, tuned up and away we go. It was fairly small group on site.
Our set up before the performance
We played for 30 minutes then there were speeches by dignitaries. We then played for an hour and that was it. I quickly tore the gear down to rush back to my vehicle before the parking meter expired.
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.
Today I’m playing guitar for a birthday party! It’s at a private residence about a 45min. drive from my home. The client doesn’t have a lot of space and I have a short setup time frame. So my sound system will consist of my Boss T1 mixer and 2 Yamaha pa speakers on stands. Again I’ll be miking my guitar with my akg c535eb mic. I have another guitar that I can plug in however I really love and prefer the miked sound. The akg c535eb mic is a fantastic choice for miking the flamenco guitar and is fast becoming the mic of choice for most players in spain. Vicente Amigo would be a good example. (BTW… If anyone knows if Vicente Amigo uses a preamp live, I’d love to hear about it)
The photo on the left shows my small set up. 1st to the left is my Boss T1. It works as a mic pre, compressor and gives me a nice reverb. Then it’s plugged into my Yamaha mixer. (from my Yamaha Stagepas 300) The Yamaha is then plugged into 2 small Yamaha pa speakers on stands.
