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I'm always the last one setting up before practice and the last one tearing down after sets. Kind of annoying to spend 15-20 minutes unpacking/packing up.

Trying to think of ways to make my life easier.

For whatever stupid reason (gear lust) I sold my Pt Junior and power supply and have been using a plank and a one spot. just trying to think of ways I can speed up the process a bit. Been contemplating getting another PT Junior and power supply and just running board inputs and outputs on the pedal train itself like a lot of people seem to be doing.

I've been making sure to group and loop my cables in a way that makes sense, ie amp power cord and speaker cable together, cable for guitar to pedalboard and pedalboard to amp together, etc.

Maybe it's that I use too much crap.

Anyone have any ways they have shortcut setup and tear down time?

Extra power chord and cables that you can leave there, so it's just plug-and-play when you get there? Like one cable into the board from the amp and one power chord into the board... I have a pretty big board (pt2) with plenty of picky pedals that need their own power supply (one 4x4 and three 1spots), and I'm up and running in 5-6 minutes, and that includes untangling all the power cables that have moves around in the bag on my way there. 15-20 sounds like a bad time.

I have a power strip dedicated and attached to the board, the cables also stay attached. I set up two amps and cabs and a power conditioner/eq/storage box. All amp related cable stay in the storage part of that..
I show up, build amphenge, get in the box, hook up cabs speakers and eq, throw down my board, plug it in, plug into eq and guitar. done. under 10 minutes is the goal and I think I have been crushing that lately. I do get a ton of help moving stuff though.

keep your speaker cable and power cable with your head
keep your instrument cable with your guitar
everything else with your pedals

why not zip tie all your pedals to the plank, or are they already secured?

Pedals are secured. I do like the idea of putting a surge protector on the plank with everything already plugged in. That would definitely save some time!

skullservant wrote:Pedals are secured. I do like the idea of putting a surge protector on the plank with everything already plugged in. That would definitely save some time!

That's what I always did. Build like a little box, covered it in office carpet, and put a hinge on it (so it could fold out into long or stay double depth). I always had a dedicated in/out box so I only had to connect to my guitar, amp, and cab (three cords) and surge protector under or on the board. I would setup at shows in under 5 mintues...and most of that was warm up time/third tuning check. I had a half stack (closed back carvin and a sovtek and I would carry it up to the stage together).

Relay switching in a amptop box/rack kinda thing could speed things up too.

honestly the best trick I've learned in like 15+ years of playing shows with crappy cumbersome gear? TUNER LAST IN THE CHAIN.

Takes about twenty seconds for my amp to warm up. While that's happening, I'm tuning. If nothing's going through to my tuner then I know there's a problem with my pedals or guitar.

I usually gig with a guitar, a delay pedal, and a small combo amp. It still takes me like a half hour to set up not including tuning. I have heard that good feng shui helps.

early on I asked someone I respect what the best thing we could do as a band was. "Set up fast, play, and then get your shit off the sage as quickly as you can. So I've been working on it. Having stuff mostly ready to go is Key. Organization. KNowing where stuff is.

Has throw stuff been mentioned???

AxAxSxS wrote:early on I asked someone I respect what the best thing we could do as a band was. "Set up fast, play, and then get your shit off the sage as quickly as you can. So I've been working on it. Having stuff mostly ready to go is Key. Organization. KNowing where stuff is.

Yup, that was what Nuclear Rabbit told my friends when we talked to them...they were like "you guys are awesome, and we want to bring you guys on tour, but you took over 45 minutes to setup...not going to fly" (something like that). When I got my band, everything was setup and ready to go, 5 minute on stage setup, 5 minute tear down...then everybody helps with drums off stage. But we only played 11-15 minutes so we had to get in and out as fast as possible. haha

yeah the only thing more painful than a long set up time is the band before you take ages to pack off stage. The number of bass rigs I've moved myself while some guy stands there talking to his friends...

I try to keep everything I plug to a minimum. I imagine you have everything like this already, but I just have amp, guitar, pedalboard. Ends up being three trips from car to staging area, two to stage once I put head on top of cab.

First I plug in my pedalboard. The power supply is already plugged into a surge protector, so I just plug that in. Then it's just plug amp into surge protector, head into cab, pedalboard into head, guitar into board. Takes like 45 seconds outside of the actual carrying time.

It helps me mentally to think about getting things all ready and checking them off the list. My mental list is like this:
1. Get power from wall
2. Get amp done
3. Get board done
4. Get guitar done

This leaves no confusion at all, just precise simple movements. Hopefully that helps!

daseb wrote:yeah the only thing more painful than a long set up time is the band before you take ages to pack off stage. The number of bass rigs I've moved myself while some guy stands there talking to his friends...

Haha, just reminded me of when my band was looking at me carrying their equipment to stay in my self-imposed time line and they asked me "Why are you sweating".

I guess the most important thing beyond just thing out efficiency is hustle.

I find using coiled cables and cable ties for non-coiled cables prevents wasting time on undoing knots before and collecting things after.

Use as few bags/cases as possible with as much as possible in each one. Then you don't have to look through a bunch of different bags for cables, picks, etc.
Gig bags help me be more efficient since they have extra pockets usually. And you can carry your guitar on your back while you've got your amp/pedalboard in your hands. Less trips to make.

Then just don't bring anything you don't need. Keep backup stuff in your car if possible so it doesn't get in the way.