Rig Help

[gone phishing]

Alright so basically, I would love for you guys to help me design a good rig. I sold off all of my shitty, semi broken pedals (kept my tuner of course), and would love to get some new pedals and possibly some things to add in an effects loop.

So, I have a pretty lame rig so far

Ibanez AG-75
Bugera V22

Any recomendations are awesome

[Poster]

well iam sure you wont go read all the other threads, make notes, and make your mind up, so Ill try to help you bud.



you need to customize a good cheap guitar, tuners, pots, cap, tailpiece?, pups etc. Get a good setup if cant do that yourself (no shame in that).

then you need to stop and think about where your at in the game.

get a production line, tube amp combo. those little ibanez 808 mini tube combos sound pretty fucking good. there are many decent little amps out there. Vox night trains are fantastic little amps.

see what you can get out of the amp you end up with first. buying pedals before you even know what your playing out of is stupid as shit, and honestly, you need to determine speaker/tube compliments on that amp long before you start blowing money on bullshit. because a production line guitar/amp needs to be tweaked. (if you disagree with this, you really have cock knuckle chinese assembly line tone, and you can go right home and fuck yourself)

do all that, and report back. epiphone es175 are very malleable into a pro archtop and can be had for about 350. Ill help you find any and all components, just holla.

ALWAYS BUY USED.

once you get both of those main components nice and happy happy, we can create an entire rig around that. thats pretty much how it works. change amps? all your shit needs to change too. Change guitars? Same deal, you got me. Any other stratagem is lazy and quite frankly not worth my time.

Love you, keep playing, lets get this setup busting nuts.

[MomaDan]

Out of the above, follow this line:

ALWAYS BUY USED.

Your amp is fine for now, guitar should be too unless you really want a new one or just want to change the pickups. I wouldn't put too much money into an Artcore unless you really love it. It doesn't really increase the value.

For pedals start with a ts9/808 maybe 2 of them, obvious first step for a Trey type rig. This is the order I bought pedals in, dirt>wah>delay/looper>vibe>fuzz (not for Phish stuff). Throw a tuner in there and you have a nice little setup.

[Poster]

LOL oh yeah, thats the first steps in a trey rig, WTF load of shit is that.

[Heady Jam Fan]

I am assuming you want a Trey-inspired rig, asking on this site?

How do you like the Ibanez and Bugera? The Bugera looks pretty cool, what is the lead channel like?

If you like that gear, then consider pedals - obviously I have the pedals I have for a reason, so I guess some of this is just justifying my rig...

If the lead channel isn't midrangy enough (maybe more overdriven), I like the Boss PQ4 if you can find one - it has a similar smoothing effect as a Mesa lead channel in some ways.

Most people hear use a TS or two for overdrive. I am loving my '83 especially since my Artinger is pretty warm. If you want more low-end, I like the Analogman Silver. If you don't want the low-end and don't want to spend the cash on a vintage, I would go with the Maxon OD9. You can get by with one to start, but will probably want two down the line.

I also think a compressor is an important part of the rig. People like Keeley, but I say avoid it - if your pups are any louder than typical PAFs (like the ones in my Heritage Les Paul or the Joe Bardens in my headless) you will run out of headroom and end up below unity. The Analogman is very good and I also like my Retro Sonic, but I believe I have a Black Ross on the way (been working on a deal for a few days) so I might sell it. I know a few heads here like CMATMODS, never tried it. The midrange of a Ross style comp really smoothes out the TS and adds that sustain - with the midrange boost, you will have a big chunk of the tone.

For the loop, I only have a delay in mine. I really like the El Cap (was having some weirdness, but I think I dialed it out). It can do anything I need on the fly with tap tempo and an expression to control the delay level (mix knob). It's pricey, but worth it. As for reverb, I either don't use any or just a little on my Mesa. If I wanted to, I could just use the El Cap with the delay level way down.

Poster suggested some good upgrades for your guitar if you decide to, but I always find a speaker upgrade for an amp makes a big difference. I am using an Eminence Red Fang in my Mesa for that chime. You might be able to get by with a Celestion Blue on a 22w if you can swing the cash, but I wouldn't want to risk blowing it out. A Weber ceramic is definitely affordable, the Alnico costs a bit more, but if you hit the sweet spot, it can be worth it - I also like the Red Fang and the WGS Blackhawk has been getting attention.

Thats just what I would be considering Wah and vibe etc are also cool, but IMO secondary - get the amp and guitar setup the way you like, get the core pedals you like, then get 'effects' if you have cash left over!

[gone phishing]

Get a good setup if cant do that yourself (no shame in that).

I have a pretty solid setup on my guitar now, and I can get it changed however I want whenever (I work at a music store with a pretty good tech). But I see where you're coming from about a guitar upgrade. I mean I know the Ibanez isnt the greatest, but I really like the feel of it. I may try to swap out the pickups soon and definitely upgrade tuners.

About the amp, I see where you're coming from too. The Bugera isnt great, but its good for what I do (I'm definitely trying to get rid of that and get a Fender or Vox soon), but for now its good. The lead channel is pretty sweet, but the reverb on it just sounds whack.

So for now on the top of my list I should put: TS9, wah and a compressor? If this is completely wrong feel free to eat me alive haha.

[Poster]

sure you could get a garmo wah wah to spice it up, as you can always adjust the inner pots for when things change. And that ibanez would probably be a good candidate, graphtec nut, locking tuners, some sort of string saver saddles, rs guitar works super pot for the volume, torress solid brass shaft pot for the tone, torress woman cap, look at adjusting those pole pieces on the humbuckers, you can get a little different flavor tweaking, just make sure to write down how man turns of each screw so you can go back to original if you want. but id advise avoiding a custom TS right now as I dont know what amp your going to use and thatll determine which chip id think is best for the socket, and what purpose for each mini toggle. Yeah well get you a tube screamer thatll blow the fucking shit out of about anything on earth. But itll save time and money.

seriously, dont let some peoples :0) hippie pussy mentality get in the way of your mountain lion rig. it needs to kill. even in the future if you buy new stuff, build completely separate rigs from the ground up, and this one will always be completely unique to you, in a very epic way, and fun to jump in and use. :0)

bugera is made by behringer i believe, and they dont really saturate in a pleasant way when pushed. thats every single one of there amps. sorry if that butthurts somebody, but sometimes the truth is better than fiction. no tube swap, speaker swap is gonna make that change. itll make an expensive turd sandwich if your hungry though

are you gigging at all?

at some point after the first acquisitions youll need to start nerding around trying out every type of each modulation/delay pedals you can, so you can learn how limited your amp is. since everything works differently with everything else, you need as many factors to work with as possible to really give it your best bet in constructing something epic. remodding everything a few times is $$$ so you gotta know what to tell the modding dude you need to do in real clear terms.

[gone phishing]

Haha yeah I may go with a wah and tube screamer for now. But yeah you're right about Bugera. They're behringer's tube amps. Sure they're decent, but they're still just shitty chinese amps.

But yeah I'm gigging a bit more than usual. I just started up a pretty decent band which will hopefully be gigging.

[Poster]

edit - oh ok just saw that you WILL be gigging. Bars I assume? Your not like in the studio with some label band right? Touring rig is more complex. for doing showcases, open mics, little gigs, you need to be MOBILE so you can get in and the fuck out of there without losing anything, or it not working when your getting a chicken sandwich for you concert.

well do 1 cheap roadcase cut a little tall and lets get the board to fit on top of whatever amp? one box that works all the time. Might be really cool to do a night train, mini pedal train, affordable hand made 1x10 cab in a case. :0) why bother if it aint cool man

[gone phishing]

Yeah thats what I will most likely be doing. So you suggest a pedal train?

[Heady Jam Fan]

People love pedal trains, I like my Furman as well. If you get a chance to try a pedaltrain with an expression pedal, its not a bad idea, some people complain about the angle.

I didn't know Bugera was made by Behringer - not to be prejudice but I would doubt the quality. I looked at the amp for the first time when you posted about it and I thought it was some kind of modern take on a Deluxe Reverb.

When it comes down to it, your amp is your tone. I think that is the most important part of any rig.

[fulltone1989]

I made a DIY pedaltrain that worked pretty great, hard to find a case locally but you can get a nice case online cheap I'd imagine. I ended up getting a PT-1 because I wanted more space and was lazy but its a cheap and easy way to replicate the pedaltrain design. I wouldn't get too wound up looking at all the extra inputs and outputs that some people do. To me it's one more thing to go wrong.

[IamWILSON]

Gone phishing -  Some advice about your guitar.  I have an ag75 as well, but just use if for jazz playing.  Have the tech at your shop check the frets to see if it needs fret leveling.  IMO, that is the most important part of any guitar.  If the frets aren't leveled, you will get some fret buzz, which in turn is killing the vibration of the string(s) and already causing the first fault in the whole chain of tone.  I will say though, that my ag75 was the only guitar I've bought in a long time (new or used) that did not need it, but you'll never know till it's all checked out.  It will usually allow you to lower your action a little more if you desire.  Fret leveling is really the secret to making a $200-$500 guitar sound and play great. 

My other thought involving your guitar is that its got a big sound chamber and can be very resonant.  When you start playing through a hot, sooped up rig, you'll likely have a big problem with feedback.  If this happens, you can have your tech remove a pickup and basically shove a block of foam in the guitar and fill the area by the top soundhole (w/ guitar in playing position), in effect, covering the soundhole and making the chamber slightly smaller, and reducing feedback.  I know if I plugged that guitar into my rock rig before having the foam in there. the guitar's feedback was almost uncontrollable.  Many jazz guys even do it and they aren't even playing through big loud rigs. 

[webephishin]

I figured this post would fall under this category of a thread....could someone give me some tips on how to reduce this nasty, ear-piercing feedback i've been getting ever since i threw in a 2-knob keeley compressor to my rig?  I keep the sustain knob at about 8-9 oclock and the level is at about 3-4 oclock.  I don't know if I'm just standing too close to my amp or if its just the amount of drive i have going when both ts-9's are on.  Even after sustaining a note for too long (an example would be during the long notes in 2001) the high pitched feedback comes in relatively quick.  You can hear when trey plays it that the feedback comes in at a perfect time...could it be because my volume knobs are cranked on my guitar?  Because when I turn those down, I can't get the desired length of sustain out of my notes...help?!

[the_great_lemon]

Maybe try bringing down the volume level on your comp and/or bringing down the gain level on either or both of the TS's.