Super light session / 'do-it-all' rig?

jamesguitar · January 2018

Wanted to do a quick post on light gigging guitar rigs that cover all the bases. Am sharing my experience with this so far but would also like to hear yours; hopefully we can all pick up some new ideas and other players may benefit.

Why the need for a lighter rig? - Most of my mid-week gigs are in and around London, so I'm spending a lot of time carrying gear to and from gigs; which is a lot of walking, tube and buses etc as well as stairs/awkward venue load-ins etc. Not a lot of fun carrying heavy gear around every day unless you really need to, so have been experimenting with lighter set-ups that still cover all the bases. Here's where I'm at with this currently, but would love to see where you guys are with this -

Amp - as much as I dig the sound of my Fender Deluxe Reverb and Mesa rigs, they're too heavy for smaller gigs. With this in mind I'm now leaving them at my studio for recording jobs and taking a BluGuitar Amp1 and a DV Mark neodymium speaker cab out for most jobs. This set-up comes in at under 9.5kg, so is less than half the weight of the Deluxe Reverb and considerably lighter than my Mesa head and cab setups. Sounds great on any kind of gig too, so solves half the problem.

Pedalboard - I've experimented with Pedaltrain Nano/Metro boards with mini pedals etc, but keep going back to larger boards when I need more sounds. The smallest set-up I'm really happy with for 'do-it-all' purposes is a Pedaltrain Jr board (and it's tightly packed - around 11 pedals). It took a while to get the right sounds together for all job types and I'm very happy with the results, but with the board, power supply, pedals and Mono gig-bag this comes in at around 8.5kg; not terrible but definitely room for improvement. Would be interested to see what other players are doing with this...

Finally I've been eyeing up the new Line 6 HX Effects - looks like this thing could be a great solution for me; covers modulation, delays, reverbs and drives to a pro level and would weigh only 2.5kg with a light (plastic) expression pedal (or a little more if I decided to add Micro POG for octave duties). My whole rig (amp and effects) would weigh in at only 12kg and take up a small enough space to keep singers and other musicians happy both on stage and in shared car journeys. I'm keen to try it out, but also open to other solutions. If it works out for me then the new rig would be -

Pre-amp / Power-amp = BluGuitar Amp1 (100watts) - 1.2kg

Speaker = DV Mark NeoClassic 1x12 (neodymium, 150 watts) - 8.3kg

Line 6 HX Effects - 2.15kg
(Total = 11.65kg)

What else are you guys using and any recommendations or thoughts?

Kebabkid · January 2018

Sounds good, James.

What comes across here is by going smaller, it doesn't sound like you've compromised your sound

I've nothing much to add other than similarly to you, at one stage, I had occasional, awkward central London functions (poor load-ins, restrictive parking - never play the Cafe Royal) and I used to take my pedalboard (also a Pedaltrain Jr with 9 pedals on it) and was plugged into a Roland Micro Cube on the Black Panel model (Fender amp) and took a line out to the PA. It sounded fine and it meant I could carry one guitar, the pedalboard, Cube and a folded down mic stand in one hit.

There's been a lot of interest in the Helix HX and quite a few of us are waiting to see if it delivers.

All the best with your sessions and gigs.

smudge_lad · January 2018

It all depends on the type of music you're playing/sounds you're looking for, but in my experience 99% of an audience have absolutely no clue/understanding of effects/different levels of drive etc.

On top of that - with the volume at some places, even on stage with monitors etc, I can sometimes barely even distinguish myself when I've got a bit of delay or reverb on etc.

My main rig weighs a ton - Marshall head/4x12, at least two guitars, PT2 fully loaded with an ES-8, wah, 6 "normal" pedals and Zuma....

my light rig.....no amp (not always an option, I know) still probably two guitars and a pedaltrain Metro 16. I have tuner, dual OD/boost, main drive pedal and a delay. That's all I really need for my core sounds. The rest are the icing on the cake.

As @Kebabkid has said, it doesn't sound like you've striped much from your board, but maybe you can't afford to drop anything else

meltedbuzzbox · January 2018

My light rig is a Sans amp flyrig, weighs about 500g is an amp, a drive pedal, a delay/chorus, a boost and has reverb. Out to the pa and monitoring via fold backs.
Fits in my case too

ChrisCox1994 · January 2018

Dunno if its super light, but guitar on my back with leads in, two rock 22 combo in one hand pedaltrain nano 'board is pretty easy to manoeuvre around on public transport and super versatile with no compromises

colourofsound · February 2018

Is an amp an absolute requirement? If PAs are at most of these gigs you could opt for the full Helix...? I'm not a huge fan of the full digital modelling route but I think if I was in your position I would consider it; especially if it meant I didn't have to carry a cabinet around.

You could just have a guitar and a Helix; with the Helix doing all your Amp modelling.

Similarly, if you're attached to your pedals, try and fit an Amplifire 6 or Amplifire Box on your board to replace your amp.

OR, buy the new Milkman Amp that fits on your board that was announed at NAMM when it comes out

Blueingreen · February 2018

I have a Quilter Micropro Mach 2 HD that weighs iirc 21lbs. 100 ss watts. I think it compares favourably in sound, versatility and volume with a Deluxe Reverb. I've been using it as a clean pedal platform with a couple of dirt pedals but that's because it's easier to stick with familiar dirt options: I think with a bit of twiddling I could get a good range of good sounding dirt options from the amp itself. I've used it for gigs playing classic rock, small group jazz/fusion and big band swing. My ears have been happy and my back's been ecstatic.

Obviously tone is subjective and YMMV. If you're London based the Quilter stockist is Wembley Guitars so you have the option of checking one out. (I didn't buy mine there, I imported it before there was a UK dealer).

The down side is it's arguably expensive in the UK but I was willing to pay a premium because I wasn't seeing anything else that looked like it would so completely meet my requirements for volume, tone and portability. Besides it's still modestly priced compared to higher end tube combos.

I also bring a Flyrig 5 in my case as backup. I use it for band rehearsals, it sounds good even through most tired rehearsal room amps. I've never used it direct to pa but am pretty confident it would cope well.

I must admit I am very tempted by some of the modellers that are coming out now, either as a pedalboard into the Quilter or direct to PA.

John_P · February 2018

I use the atomic amplifire 3 as my backup and small gig set up. It’s on a pt metro with a wah and tuner. I can run it into the PA and/or via an amp, sounds good to me and takes up no space.

gibsongretschfan · February 2018

A Sansamp RK5 Flyrig and a Zoom Ms50g into whatever backline/monitor is available.

jamesguitar · February 2018

Kebabkid said:

Sounds good, James.

What comes across here is by going smaller, it doesn't sound like you've compromised your sound

I've nothing much to add other than similarly to you, at one stage, I had occasional, awkward central London functions (poor load-ins, restrictive parking - never play the Cafe Royal) and I used to take my pedalboard (also a Pedaltrain Jr with 9 pedals on it) and was plugged into a Roland Micro Cube on the Black Panel model (Fender amp) and took a line out to the PA. It sounded fine and it meant I could carry one guitar, the pedalboard, Cube and a folded down mic stand in one hit.

There's been a lot of interest in the Helix HX and quite a few of us are waiting to see if it delivers.

All the best with your sessions and gigs.

That sounds like a very practical rig - those Roland micro cubes are light! London transport really changes how you look at your gear - at one stage before moving to London I used to have a heavy Mesa Boogie rig (Roadking Head with 4x12 cab) running with a TC G System. That rig was over 80kg (not including drive pedals or guitars etc)!

The HX really does look like a potential game changer - I may stick it out til they go down from full retail price, but if reviews are glowing then may pull the trigger early!

meltedbuzzbox said:

My light rig is a Sans amp flyrig, weighs about 500g is an amp, a drive pedal, a delay/chorus, a boost and has reverb. Out to the pa and monitoring via fold backs.
Fits in my case too

The Sansamp stuff looks great. I’m not sure it would be enough for some of my gigs, but I like that you can tweak your sounds mid-gig without going through menus etc. Am tempted to get one as a backup rig and try it out on a gig. Already have the Keeley Mod and Tone workstations, so was dabbling with the idea of a mini board built around those too, but am not completely sold on some of the sounds.

colourofsound said:

Is an amp an absolute requirement? If PAs are at most of these gigs you could opt for the full Helix...? I'm not a huge fan of the full digital modelling route but I think if I was in your position I would consider it; especially if it meant I didn't have to carry a cabinet around.

You could just have a guitar and a Helix; with the Helix doing all your Amp modelling.

Similarly, if you're attached to your pedals, try and fit an Amplifire 6 or Amplifire Box on your board to replace your amp.

OR, buy the new Milkman Amp that fits on your board that was announed at NAMM when it comes out

I’ve dabbled with going ampless and wouldn’t mind on bigger gigs with a good engineer. Some of the smaller gigs don’t have foldback and I’m having to play by ear a lot and am usually sitting on the speaker cab. There’s a few house Band gigs I do where we get a lot of artists playing their original material; we’ve usually never heard the tunes before so have to get the harmony and sounds right as we go. It can be anything from Neo-Soul to country or rock, so I like to have a few different drives, a good compressor and control of reverb, delay and tremolo. Occasionally I regret not bringing a wah, so have a mini AMT one in my gigbag and one or two modulation options can be useful some times.

The Helix looks great, have been on the fence for a while. I’m only put off by the weight and size (it’s the same weight as my current pedalboard and I’d be running it through my amp still). Could be a bit too big for some smaller stages.

I’ve noticed the BluGuitar Amp1 has divided people a bit on this forum, but I’ve been using it almost a year now and have been very happy with it. I’m using it primarily as a clean platform which it does very well. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, but it always sounds great in a mix and the other musicians on the house band gigs prefer it to the Fender Deluxe Reverb. Am open to other options and the Milkman Amp pedal does look very nice with Anderton’s listing them as pre-order/May arrival.

John_P said:

I use the atomic amplifire 3 as my backup and small gig set up. It’s on a pt metro with a wah and tuner. I can run it into the PA and/or via an amp, sounds good to me and takes up no space.

I haven’t really looked in to the Amplifire rigs much to be fair - is it easy to tweak mid-gig? E.g. going between subtle harmonic tremolo to aggressive choppy tremolo etc like on the Flint? I like how compact it looks.

TheBigDipper · October 2018

@jamesguitar I'm a happy AMP1 user and likely to buy an HX FX to go with it quite soon - replacing most or all of a standard pedalboard. Then I stumbled across this thread. Did you get the HX and are you still using the AMP1?

Babones · October 2018

The Quilter 101 Reverb is a good call too. Lightweight, cheaper than the Blug and a good pedal platform. Angled control plate like a typical Fender too.

TheBigDipper · October 2018

Babones said:

The Quilter 101 Reverb is a good call too. Lightweight, cheaper than the Blug and a good pedal platform. Angled control plate like a typical Fender too.

Looks a decent alternative if you only need a single channel amp and don't want the other bells and whistles you get with the AMP1. Someone geared around that might be very happy with it. Anyone use one of these Quilters and care to comment? e

jamesguitar · October 2018

TheBigDipper said:

@jamesguitar I'm a happy AMP1 user and likely to buy an HX FX to go with it quite soon - replacing most or all of a standard pedalboard. Then I stumbled across this thread. Did you get the HX and are you still using the AMP1?

Yes, am using the HX FX on everything these days; have since picked up a Kemper for studio use, but still rotating between the Amp1 and the Deluxe Reverb for live work; the HX plays well with all 3.

The guy I run my studio with has just picked up a Milkman amp Pedal, so am curious to compare that to the Amp1; he’s away a lot, so not sure when we’ll get a chance. Have still got all the analog pedals, but they’re collecting dust!

Blueingreen · October 2018

I have the Quilter Micropro Mach 2 HD. It has more bells and whistles than the more basic Quilter amps, but I'm guessing the core sound is the same. The clean sound is in the Fender camp and IMO very good indeed.

The Micropro has conventional bass middle treble controls. If I were looking at another Quilter I would think that is one feature I'd want to keep.