The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hi All,

A number of us are providing the gear for the show. Here are a few things that will keep us moving and keep the gear working.

1. We have plenty of guitars and amps. We will set up an "on deck" position on the side of the stage. Here you will find a selection of guitars and amps. You should be there the set before yours to pick out a guitar and tune it. We will have tuners set up and ready to go there. This is also the best time to adjust your guitar strap.

2. Take your guitar with you on and off stage. Leave the cables behind and turn off the distortion pedals before you unplug. It is okay if the amp buzzes in between sets.

3. Don't touch the amps! We will set everything up ahead of time to generally sound good. Don't crank the EQ or reverb. Most of the amps don't have reverb anyway. Each amp will have at least a clean and distorted setting. Most will have clean, distorted, and lead. Please talk to me about which amp you should use. I would be very glad to give you suggestions and explain things.

In general:

If you just need a clean sound use my Fender Princeton. It is the silver and black amp.

If you need a distorted sound, use Sam's Marshall. It is the cream and black amp.

If you need clean, distorted and lead, use Jack's Mesa Boogie. It is the all black amp.

See everyone soon!

Be well,
Ken

just to add to ken's excellent post, i believe there is a small backstage area we can use for staging/tune-ups for the next act, as opposed to the side of the stage.

While getting everything together I had some amplification questions:

1. I will go ahead and bring the Yamaha S90 to ensure there is something with a piano feel. Will there be a keyboard amp or are house monitors sufficient? If needed I can bring along a Roland KC-300.

2. Is there need for a Telecaster in the guitar pool? I have an American Deluxe model and hadn't noticed one mentioned specifically in any of the other threads.

3. Is there a preference on acoustic guitar amplification? I prefer playing with a mic, but was wondering if people have tended to use mics or plug in directly in the past.

The plan is to run the keys direct and have a monitor by the keyboard. Bringing a keyboard amp is a good safety measure thought.

I'm bringing my Telecaster which is a veteren songfight live guitar. It is an american with a JB Jr in the bridge position. It is a sweet guitar if I do say so myself. I will change the strings tonight.

The plan is to run the acoustics direct to avoid feedback issues, but we haven't confirmed with the soundguy yet.

Ken

The bass amp for onstagity will be arriving at Jack's between 1 & 2 on Friday afternoon. I'll trust y'all to set the knobs to the most uniformly pleasing settings. I'm not what you'd call too bright on that stuff.

Question about line ins on stage... are there any? Or are we running every other oddball instrument through amps/mics already onstage?

Question about our own axes... we *can* bring them if we've got 'em, yes? Sans pedal boards and all the rest, of course.

(Asks the harmonica/theremin/hand percussion playing guitar strangler)

I'm hoping to have 5 mics on stage for vocals and whatever.

It might be best to run the theremin into a guitar amp or the keyboard amp if it isn't being used.

Ken

That sounds good to me. Thanks for the quick 'back, Ken. See you on Friday!

Axes in the Primitive tour bus:
Burns Steer (electric guitar)
Schecter S-1 (Vampira Model, electric guitar)
Fender Zone (electric bass)

Just to throw some chlorine in the gene pool

i'm hoping to talk to the sound guy today at some point. i talked to the vault manager this morning and she is going to call me back with his number.

ok, i just spoke to the vault manager. they have a number of stage mics for use (maybe 4 SM58s), and i'm assuming stands to go with them. the soundguy is indisposed today, but she assured me that he would call me sometime tomorrow during the day to discuss stuff. i told her to give him my cell.

i think i also negotiated an extra half hour for load in tomorrow (5:30 instead of 6) but i'll confirm this later.

I put new strings on my acoustic (needs a 9-volt for its preamp still, though), bass, and Les Paul. Yay! Also my Strat, but I'm not sure if I'm bringing it at this point. I'm also bringing a 5-guitar stand, and two individual guitar stands. I'm setting up the following for my amp: tuner pedal -> wah wah (-> distortion pedal with fuzz and overdrive modes, or we may just use the distortion channel of my amp) -> delay pedal with echo/more echo/reverse/tap-tempo buttons. However it winds up being set up, I will try to put big easy-to-read labels on the buttons. (Got to remember to bring my Sharpie...) I'm bringing enough cables and power strips/extension cords for this plus a few extra medium length instrument cables. I also have spare strings for all my guitars (though they're just the old strings I took off recently). I may grab a couple mic stands and SM57s, also. Hm.... what else? Oh yeah, I've got picks. I guess that's all for me.

Also, I'll probably set up the up the tuner pedal so that when you turn it on to tune it cuts the output signal. So you could just turn the tuner on when you need to unplug and get off stage. Then the next person would get up, plug in, tune, and turn off the tuner to rock.

Lunkhead wrote:
Also, I'll probably set up the up the tuner pedal so that when you turn it on to tune it cuts the output signal. So you could just turn the tuner on when you need to unplug and get off stage. Then the next person would get up, plug in, tune, and turn off the tuner to rock.

what he said for my amp too.

And probebly for Ken's, as well. We should set up some kind of punishment for anybody who unplugs a live guitar.

Oh crap, does anybody have an extra tuner/tuner pedal for the bass? I completely forgot about that... Not that it's as important, but it woul be nice.

Also: Keep Pepto-Bismol on-hand in case of nauseous fluffy.

fluffy wrote:Also: Keep Pepto-Bismol on-hand in case of nauseous fluffy.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nauseous

Har har.

i've got a couple 1/4 inch patch cords with yellow ends that aren't mine that someone left at my house.

i've also got a couple unopened bottles of Bundaberg rum that Caravan Ray left at my house.

one will most likely be drunk at some point in the next year. the other will remain unopened and come to next years songfight so we can all drink a toast to him.

Oi! Oi! Oi!

anybody find my black ipod nano, or my black sweater (four buttons: k records, smells delicious, larry grant, drinking liberally)?

jack wrote: i've also got a couple unopened bottles of Bundaberg rum that Caravan Ray left at my house.

Ideally - one should find it's way to Booty Chesterfield as his prize for the first annual "Caravan Ray Rock Pig Award for Services to Bringing RAWK! to a Songfight Live" - but I know that these things have a habit of 'evaporating' when you least expect it... - and seeing Booty wasn't there on the night to receive his award, and I forgot to take it along to the show anyway - well, whatever will be will be - Booty will always have the kudos.

jack wrote:i've got a couple 1/4 inch patch cords with yellow ends that aren't mine that someone left at my house.

Keep 'em, I didn't notice them not being in the final gear bag packing, and hell, they're okay enough for backups. Or primaries. Or for hanging tire swings.

I arrived home with a plain black Fender guitar strap, simple style webbing with a rubber hook on each end, that I'm pretty sure wasn't mine. Anybody who's missing one, PM me your address and I'll send it back...

Charles (KA)