All Time Low isn’t just your usual band. Ever since day one with these guys, I was on a mission to get rid of stage volume. My goal was to remove all of the stage sound that I possibly could, minus drums of course. Since the band was already on IEM’s, they had no reason to have guitar cabs on stage. They couldn’t hear them, and they just made my life harder. My first tour with them consisted of turning guitar cabs around backwards to get the noise out of my mix. But, I was on the search for something better. We bounced back and forth between iso boxes, DI’s, PODs, and a few other ideas. I was soon introduced to the Palmer Guitar Load box. This isn’t just your typical DI box. It’s an 8 ohm 150 watt load box. Meaning, you can plug your guitar head straight into the box and get a killer sound out of it, without ever needing a cab. Brilliant! You can read more about them here: [URL]http://www.palmergear.com/[/URL]
Ever since we made the switch to the Palmer DIs, I’ve had a more consistent, better sounding, kick ass guitar tone. No worrying about mic placement, no worrying about having a cab cranked on stage, no noise at all. Our guys can crank the heads to 11, and I don’t even notice. Now, we also recently switched one of our guitarist’s over to the Digidesign Eleven Rack. He liked the Palmer, but wanted something simpler. The Eleven Rack works very well for him.
Our guitar rigs are very portable, easy to fly with and fit anywhere. Let’s start with our SL guitar world.
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/SRGTR2.png[/IMG]
This is the Zack & Alex rack. The JCM 900 is for Alex’s dirty channel, and we just picked up a VOX AC30 for his clean channel. The JCM 900 feeds into his bottom Palmer, and the Vox feeds into the middle Palmer. Zack’s bass rig is as simple as it gets. It’s a Sansamp RBI with 2 outputs. The 3rd wireless unit in the rack is for Alex’s acoustic guitar.
For all you guitar junkies, here’s the SL guitar vault:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/SRGTR.png[/IMG]
On to the SR guitar world.
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/SLGTR3.png[/IMG]
Another very simple guitar world. The Eleven Rack is for Jack. Our guitar tech runs the Eleven Rack on his computer so he can change settings as needed(clean, dirty, delay, effects, ect). The Eleven Rack eliminates the need for a pedal board, so his guitar world is 100% digital. The bottom Mesa and Palmer is for our off stage guitarist.
And, of course, the SR guitar vault:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/SLGTR.png[/IMG]
Oh, and if you need a drink during the set, SR guitar world is the place to be:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/SLGTR2.png[/IMG]
On to the drum world! Starting with our drum tech’s world:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/drums.png[/IMG]
He is responsible for running the protools rig during the show.
And of course, the actual drums:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/drums3.png[/IMG]
He’s got a pair of I5B’s right on his ass to give him all the thump he could ever want during the show. All of the microphones are attached via LP drum claws, which makes for a very clean looking drum set. I’ll get into the specifics of the microphones next time, but just know, his kit sounds amazing every night.
At the end of the day when it’s all said and done, we’ve got a very clean looking stage, and a very good sounding live show every night.
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e194/HarfordSound/IMG_3366.png[/IMG]
Evan
