It’s back from the dead! The TB Mega Thread.

[My name is Mudd]

Bunch of suburban kids sitting around strange living rooms or churches; eating snax and learning how to tie square knots...

Yep.

[dubkitty]

Bunch of suburban kids sitting around strange living rooms or churches; eating snax and learning how to tie square knots...

Yep.

some of that stuff comes in handy, though. my Dad was a Scout leader for 30 years, so i was drafted into Cub Scouts and then Boy Scouts. much of it was indeed lame but i got to go to summer camp a couple of years up in Michigan where i blew off many of the activities and went walking by myself in the woods. i still learned some useful skills that i've used in my adult and camping fun life: how to handle an axe and saw, build campfires, and some knots that have come in very handy when i had to pull a solution to some problem out of my ass. and if someone ever drops quasi-dead in front of me i can give artificial respiration. i also got to watch the launch of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in the mess hall with 150 other kids aged 10-12, as we cheered until our heads were about to fall off. i was home by the time they actually landed on the Moon, and sat rapt in front of the telly watching them walk around until i couldn't keep my eyes open any more.

i quit Scouts when i was 14, after i learned to play the guitar and started hanging out in the church-basement coffeehouse scene around Chicago. it was way more interesting than troop meetings.

[My name is Mudd]

I'm not suggesting that Scouts isn't a worthy organization (aside from the anti-gay bit and the molestation coverups)...I'm just saying that I already knew most of what my friends were learning in Scouts (knots, skills in the wilderness, responsible use of land, etc...and I didn't have to camp out in somebody's back cow pasture either like my friends did. Serious, that was their 'outdoors' adventure). OK, so I didn't know semaphore...so far tho, I've not found that lacking that skill has detracted from my life too much.

[excane]

WOW, this got really deep in the last 2 days while I've been MIA

I have to go back and absorb it all

[behndy]

PUT YOUR BALL NUBS INTO THE SERIOUS.

DOOOOOO EEEEEEET.

[warwick.hoy]

My bad,...I've just been bored the past few days.

[behndy]

hurm? what bad? i just like to talk about ballz. and where to put them.

"figures you'd wax most poetical about your PECKER."

"uh HUH!!"

[warwick.hoy]

Wax

Pecker

Bored

Hmmmm

[Mudfuzz]

Wax

Pecker

Bored

Hmmmm

melted

now bent

hole

[Waterpilot]

YAY!!

Yep, yay. Good luck, now the real work begins.

I'm a little behind on this. Hope all is well and YAY!

[behndy]

TAKE IT. TAKE IT ALL.

[My name is Mudd]

[Tendollarcat]

Been through a weird phase with gigs and playing in recent months. My band is pretty active locally but every show I've played in the last 5-6 months has been with supplied backline - and normally pretty terrible backline. Its not like my band is particularly big, I just think a bunch of local venues are sick of bands wasting time setting up gear. instead of buying something decent, they buy some shitty combo amp and then wonder why people complain about the sound. Meanwhile, I have a Tecamp head and a Glockenklang 2x12 sitting in a rehearsal space that is getting very little use. My little rig is awesome for most shows but more importantly, it's awesome for running my pedalboard sounds.

I made the decision a few weeks ago that my board is basically my "rig" most of the time. I sort of went to town on a big overhaul. I bought a custom Blackbird board, sold a Burkey power supply and got a Cioks Ac10 and stripped my pedals back to 6. I originally wanted to grab a Verellen pre but couldn't swing the $700. Instead I grabbed a Dave Hall Vt1EQ which will be my "I don't care what piece of shit amp that is, I'll fix the tone on my board" pedal Running an EBS Valvedrive a the start of the chain, tube to start and a tube pre to finish. In the middle is a Rat Tail, TAFM, Pog 2 and an EAD4096. If I continue to play these "combo amp" shows, I think I'll keep building this board up from here.

Any of you relying on your board more than your rig for your tone? Interested to know how you approach shitty backline.

[goroth]

I hate playing with a supplied backline. I think it's really good that places offer a backline for bands just getting started and whatever, but if you have to use it it just blows. A decent compromise is some of the gigs I've played where they say "you've got half an hour, including setting up". In my case that's fine - I plug in my pedal board and amp, all my settings are marked, and they're already checked so it's going to sound good, the guitar is already tuned - all in all it takes me around 2 minutes and I'm ready to roll. There is literally no time saving for them if I use their backline, and as you say, it pretty much always sounds shit and people wonder about why it sounds shit.

I think your setup sounds great given the circumstances, and I try and make my pedalboard as "bulletproof" as possible, but man... supplied backlines...

[Deltaphoenix]

The only backlined gigs that I have played have all had ampeg rigs. Not my favorite but could be worse. I was playing a big stage and I walked up to the amp and changed all of the EQ settings because they had scooped it bad (the amp had graphic and regular eq on it). Soundguy didn't dig that I changed it.
Other than that, I have shared my rig with a band or two (I know them a bit and they were respectful). A couple of times I acted like I didn't realize that the show was backlined, boom my 2-12 and Orange AD200B are ready in a flash then I act dumb and sound great.

I used to have a DHA VT2EQ, I used it for backline insurance like you.