Rig Update Feb 2020 – ROB C MUSIC

Ultra-Portable, Fully-featured Rig

Here is an update on my guitar rig, which has been tweaked many times since the last post, but this layout I hope will address a couple of issues I have found when playing live prior to this update.

This is likely only going to appeal to you if you are obsessed with tone-tweaking and rig-miniaturization to the degree that I am!

If you are then keep reading!

Big, Over-the-Shoulder Firepower

This whole rig; pedals and amplifier is capable of covering me for all the gigs that I am likely to play and is also a superb recording setup that I can (and do!) take with me to recording sessions and rehearsals, either as a DI only rig or with a traditional guitar cab setup.

Here’s one of the biggest reasons this latest format is so good. The case!

The whole rig sits in a soft case for transportation, but also remains in the case while in use. This is such a big feature that I think gets overlooked by many, especially those who are trying to minimize the footprint and setup time for their rigs.

The reason this is such a big deal for me is that in the past I had to take my board out of it’s case or bag and then find somewhere to put the case when using the board. Often after soundcheck, where I’m sharing the stage with other acts, like dance groups etc. I am required to move my board off the stage. Not out of the way, but OFF the stage! That means putting everything back in the case only to start setup again before my performance.

With this rig, while I have to still move the board off the stage fairly often, it is greatly simplified by me just having to disconnect a couple of cables, pulling the cover over the top and picking the whole thing up.

Sometimes when I’m playing outside, it rains with no cover for the band. Before the rains sets in heavy I can cover my pedals instantly with this case while I go and make sure I can tend to other equipment on stage that needs immediate cover. It gives me a safety net to protect my rig long enough to get it out of harms way completely. Again, that is a very quick and easy process too.

Recently I played a gig with no cab, going DI only (the cab sim on this amp does a decent job), so I went to the gig by motorbike with just a guitar and my rig over my shoulders.

What Happened to the Modular Rig?

I abandoned the modular-rig approach after one gig. Not that it didn’t perform well – it did, but I found that the setup process as mentioned already was too inconvenient.

However I still have the amp module board if I choose to try it out again or build a smaller, simpler rig. I am tempted to get the other Hotone floor amp called the “Mojo Attack” because I’m keen on having that Fender Tweed-esque clean channel.

Overall Rig Description

I will try and cover this in a video, but here is a rundown of what’s on the board and the various ways it can cover different applications.

The pedals are powered by a high-capacity power bank with a USB to 9v DC converter, which sits underneath at the back. There is space behind the board for my Boss wireless system (kept in a nano-pedal box), a spare power bank and the power cable for the amp (the power supply for the amp is also underneath.

The Amplifier

Hotone Britwind: 2-channel amp with independent EQ for each channel, switchable reverb and gain boost.

Channel 1 is voiced on a Vox-type amp and channel 2 is voiced on a Marshall-style amp. It’s actually very good and I refer to it as a “poor-man’s Bluguitar Amp1!”

The amp by itself is nice enough, but I found that combining it with certain pedals and treating that as the overall “amp system” it sounds much better for my uses. This was originally what inspired the modular rig idea.

The Pedals that Comprise the “Amp System”

The SAG (in front)
Adding the SAG in front of the Britwind makes the amp respond in what I feel is closer to the way a tube amp would. The sag has very little headroom and by hitting it with extra level from boost pedals pushes it into fuzz territory. If I want a tighter response from the same rig I can turn it off for a slightly more modern tone with a little more clarity if needed.

The Bass Limiter (in the loop)
Previously I was using it as the main output section, always on with the volume control being the rig master volume and the threshold control determining the amount of limiting to further enhance a tube-like response through the class D power amp. It works quite well, but I found that I often lost some clarity or got a little lost in the mix for solos where all my boosts were before the limiter. It would start clamping down the level a little too much.

The Boost Killer (last in the loop)
After the limiter showed it’s limitations (pun intended) I added the Boost Killer to act as volume boost for solos, which worked great for pushing through the mix, but was a little hard to control, being a bit too loud or brittle depending on the overall tone I was using.

I then tried swapping the roles of the limiter and the Boost Killer, but keeping them in the same order in the chain. Now I leave the boost killer always on as the output section, last in the loop with the added flexibility of being able to adjust overall bass, treble and gain of the output section.

Having the ability to tweak the bass & treble for the power amp is extremely handy as it adds further fine adjustment of the rig’s tone to suit different speaker cabs and the space I’m in. Having an extra, controllable gain stage at the same point is even more handy as I can dial in some color/compression/distortion in the power amp. This helps make it sound better and also respond better to the volume boost from the limiter by adjusting the headroom of the output section.

Leaving the limiter as the volume boost for solos. An added bonus is that I can introduce varying degrees of limiting on the volume boost from none to too much! The too much setting can be put to use if I want an extreme effect on a recorded track, where I can not use it as a volume boost, but generally as a limiter (works great on clean tones).

The Pedals

Going into the amp

MXR Phase 95 mini
Korg Pitchblack mini tuner
Ammoon nano Chorus
Donner Blues Drive (overdrive/boost)
Tomsline Bluesy (overdrive)
Mosky MM Silver (overdrive/boost)
Donner Noise Killer (noise gate)
The SAG (dirty boost/breakup – always on)

In the FX Loop

TC Electronic Flashback Mini (delay)
Aroma Bass Limiter (volume boost/rig limiter – depending on application)
Donner Boost Killer (master vol./power amp saturation/rig EQ – always on)

In Summary

Whilst this all sounds very complicated and over the top, the combination of all these elements and sub-systems results in a straightforward, no-fuss, easy to use (for me) rig.

What appears to be a lot of minor details and distractions is actually pre-prepared setup. The hard work has been done already, determining what elements work and how they interact. Once I determined what works and how it best works (which has taken some time, but has proved worthwhile) has left me with mostly a set-and-forget system that requires only a general tweak at soundcheck.

My overdrive, boost, noise gate and modulation FX settings in front of the amp are hardly changed at all, except perhaps a mode switch here and there and the combination of drives/boost pre-amp are normally set for a particular sound for a whole song at a time when playing live. It’s a case of choosing the desired channel on the amp and which pedals are active, leaving me two other options for boost during a song (pre-amp/post SAG & post amp/pre output stage). Just two buttons to move up and down in the mix to varying degrees after having dialed in my ideal tones beforehand. The tones I have dialed in are largely compatible with playing loud on stage and practicing at home quietly due to the adjustment I have been able to control on the output stage.

The only tweaking I may have to do in the heat of the moment and that would normally be at a soundcheck anyway is the EQ, gain and master volume controls of the output section (Boost Killer) for the whole rig.

It’s a very powerful and very compact guitar rig and I love using it!

I will report on how it performs at my next gig, which is very soon.