Tone. At Home.
What’s it like to play a gig? How do you prepare for it? What works, and what really doesn’t? Anything and everything to do with playing music live in front of an audience.
Henning Pauly has posted a behind-the-scenes look at the setup for his recent live band live streams, showing us the in-ear monitoring he’s been using for the live bands.
You probably won’t ever need an in-ear monitoring system for home playing or home recording. But if you’ve got a band that rehearses or plays live, you need something that’ll protect your hearing and let you hear everything that’s happening.
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Mary Spender has recently completed a UK tour, where she was also the tour manager and (at least part-time) promoter … and she’s posted a vlog to show us what it was really like.
The thing I loved about this was how Mary shows us that it is possible to take music on the road and put on your own tour in this day and age. If you can draw a crowd, keep things minimal, and organise things yourself, the dream is in reach.
Watch the video for the whole story, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Leo from Frog Leap Studios has posted a demo of his Line 6 Shuriken Variax, and how it enables him to perform his famous metal covers live.
It’s really cool how far the Variax has come from the early days. I had the original Variax – boy was that a long time ago – and it was so bad it ended up in the recycling. I couldn’t even give it away. But the Shuriken – especially paired with the Helix – looks worlds apart. Check out Leo’s video to see just what it can do.
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Ariel and Danish Pete are back with another Guitar Paradiso. This episode, they’re looking at reliced Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster.
This one quickly turns into a wide-ranging discussion about the whole concept of relicing Fender guitars, how different guitar finishes do (and don’t) wear over time, and why a reliced guitar might be a good choice.
Both Ariel and Pete are hugely experienced touring musicians, and it’s great to hear them sharing their experiences and personal preferences. Along the way, Pete digs out several of his personal Strats to help demonstrate the points he’s making, including guitars that he’s toured all round the world.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed this Andertons video.
Henning’s just put up a quick demo of a very interesting piece of gear – a 40W that sits on your pedalboad. Not a drive pedal – a full-blown amp, complete with FX loop!
If you’re a gigging musician, having a backup amp of some kind is essential – especially if you gig with real valve amps. Lugging a spare amp around isn’t fun. And depending on what you buy, that’s a lot of money tied up in it, especially as you hope to never actually have to use it.
Some kind of backup that can sit on your pedalboad – just in case – has a lot of appeal.
And for us home tone chasers, if you can’t have / don’t want a traditional amp at home, this kind of thing is well worth looking at as an alternative to using modelling amps or software amp sims.
I’ll post the full review when Henning uploads it. This could be one to watch.
Please head over to Henning’s channel to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Henning’s video.
This is a very interesting video. It’s a walkthrough of the guitar rigs used by Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett.
Okay, here at the HomeToneBlog, we’re playing to an audience of one – not touring the world playing to arenas full of adoring fans hanging on every single note. There’s still a lot we can learn from seeing what the pros use – and why.
Two things in particular caught my eye in this video.
First off was that Metallica have gone entirely digital modelling for their live amps. The AxeFX has reached the point where it sounds good enough to replace tube amps – and whatever difference there is, it’s not big enough to be worth the challenges of using tube amps.
There’s a telling statement from James’ guitar tech partway through, where he discusses how using AxeFX means they have more time to spend on other aspects of the touring process, like guitar maintenance. Digital modelling promises to sound the same night after night. Tube amps don’t.
Kirk’s guitar tech also throws some light on that decision. He talks about how each tube amp has its own character, and what it can be like when you have to switch to a backup amp when the primary tube amp dies.
The second thing that stood out for me was how they’ve gone with analogue signal paths and switching. Mid-song, they don’t switch patches inside the AxeFX; they switch to a different AxeFX that has the next patch already loaded and ready to go. Why? Analogue just doesn’t have any added latency. Switching is instant.
Something to think about if you’re thinking of gigging with a digital amp yourself one day.
Over on their YouTube channel, mega-European retailers Thomann have taken a look at 5 great dynamic microphones for singers.
Here’s the list of the microphones covered:
You get to hear both talking and singing through each microphone. Very cool.
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Back in January, Rhett Shull posted a demo of his Divided By 13 amp, the FTR37. Even if you’re not interested in the amp, it’s worth watching the video just for the opening track.
I’ve seen Divided By 13 amps on a bunch of YouTube demos over years, especially Shawn Tubbs’ videos. They have a striking design, and seem to be an amp of choice for pros. Definitely curious to learn more about them whenever I can,
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Rhett’s video.