Tones for homes vs. rigs for gigs - how ready are you?

[cruisemates]

How many of you have a practice (bedroom or office) rig you use at home for learning songs, and then a bigger rig for gigging? And will you please describe them?

I personally have a Marshall DSL 401 for home (as well as a JTM 30 backup). But for bigger gigs I have a Marshall JCM 800 2205 (head) with a 2x12 cabinet.

All of my cabinets have Celestion Golds - but my 2x12 is the one Gold with a Scumback.

I am now wondering whether to use the 2205 or the DSL 401 on stage. I just had the latter serviced and it sounds great, I can add a speaker cabinet, and we will be miked anyway. 40 watts is close to 50 (although the transformers of the 2205 make it super loud).

Anyway - with all the discussion about tone, gigging, etc. here, I am just wondering how many people have gig-ready setups that are different from what they use at home - and I am curious about the gig rigs and also if you strive to have the same tone at home as you have for the gig and what you do to accomplish that?

[spookybonus]

For home i will use the same amps that i gig with but with a 2x12 cab. For gigs i will lug out the 6x12, 4x12 or both.

[ReddRanger]

I don't strive for gig tones at home and mainly focus on learning.

My home rig is a Roland Microcube.

My gig rig(s) are a '73 Fender Vibrolux or Bassman Reissue LTD.

[robare99]

Home rig

Marshall CD10

Gig rig

Marshall JCM800

[?&!]

I have MicroCubes or Vox Mini3s in every room in my home. They are definitely good enough for practicing, and they both have some truly excellent tones. As far as playing live, I have a Retro Channel RR1 head, with an Avatar 1x12 with a Gold for small gigs, and a Bogner 4x12 with V30s for big gigs.

I can't imagine playing a 2x12 tube amp at home. My wife would KILL me.

[colin617]

For home practice -- Fender Super Champ XD

For gigs -- Reeves Custom 50 (without Power Scaling) and Reeves 212 (Vintage Purple speakers)

[Average Joe]

I hardly ever plug in when I'm home: first of all, an unplugged strat or at least a 335 will be loud enough for me to practice on, and secondly I live in an appartment complex where blasting a big amp wouldn't fly. When i do plug in at home it's either into a micro-cube or a Soldano Atomic 16. I've gigged the soldano a good bit as well, when I know there's a PA, or when playing in an othervise accoustic setting. My main giggers are a Matchless HC30 clone build locally or a Rivera R30

[Ultron]

my Alex Attenuator has turned all of my gig rigs into home rigs too. Highly recommended.

[mojotele65]

I use the same for home and gigs 72 silver face TR. sometimes if the rehearsal space is not set up, i will use my back amp Peavey Classic 50. oh, and if it is late, then I use my Pod HD500.

[Frank Prince]

Home rig is Axe-Fx Ultra plugged into one of those little 6 channel portable Yamaha PAs.

Gig rig is is Axe-Fx Ultra plugged into Atomic Reactor FR amp.

[Dickie Fredericks]

I have a spare bedroom for the gear and recording stuff. I use it to learn songs and do lessons and record stuff.

Rig #1 (home rig)
GSP1101 w/ Control 2 to FOH

Rig #2
Same as above into a Marshall JCM900 Combo

Rig #3
Same as above into the Deeering.


Goes from small to large gigs. Works great.

I also carry a Pocket Pod around for those "just in case" times.

[dudu]

My home rig fits into my backpack - Koch Pedaltone into Apogee Duet.

[tiktok]

Pedalboard into VibroChamp at home. Same pedalboard into something bigger for gigs.

[mannish]

microcube at home tranynor ycv40 (or whatever it is) for gigs

[scottlr]

Mostly recording at home. Usually with a Vox ToneLab.

For quieter places I have a 66 Princeton that sounds great with an OD pedal in front, and is very easy to haul around.

For loud I have a 90s Blues DeVille, a 67 Super Reverb and a 64 Bassman, depending on how my back feels and/or if I have help to lug it. :D

[Glowing Tubes]

Fender 64 Deluxe Reverb for home
Pure 64 Meanstreet for gigs

I do play my gig rig at home sometimes when trying new gear i.e. guitars or pedals.
My wife reallly LOVES that. :waiting

[arem]

My gig setup (Sovtek MIG100 into a Fender 4x12) lives at the practice space, but even when it was at home I never plugged it in. Just too loud. I usually play unplugged, but if I want to plug in at home I have a sweet little Ampeg Jet. Sounds nothing like my big amp, but I don't expect it to.

[connectionsguit]

Home Rig is a Line 6 Pod with a set of headphones, I don't care so much about tone when I'm practicing, and often practice without plugging in at all, to concentrate on what i'm trying to achieve rather than getting the perfect tone.

Live Rig is Line 6 M13/Rodenberg Gas 827 into a Rivera Chubster 40. Because we gig 3-4 nights a week, this rig stays in the van

[robare99]

my Alex Attenuator has turned all of my gig rigs into home rigs too. Highly recommended.

I can't be bothered dragging my amp inside between gigs. It just waits in the garage for the next gig.

[epluribus]

Home rigs:

Depends on which room. My garage/workshop can handle anything up to a loud 50W--great room by sheer accident. Also has small PA in it. All the rig tuning/building happens in there, so the rig list would be huge. My first amp lives in there...a Univox 1221. Inside the house...single-ended Champ-ish homebrews and modelers with headsets. Once in a blue moon maybe the Deluxe Reverb II, the Spitfire clone, or the 20W FrankenTone 1474, but even those overdrive the rooms.

Biz Travel:

Pocket Pod or a Pandora PX5D. Shure SCL5's to handle the uncompressed intrument signal.

Playing out:

It's all DI to PA. The Digitech GNX4 is okay, but not great...hard to give it presence in a mix. (Works really well as a pedalboard tho.) The real workhorse is a Cyber Twin, DI'd doing double duty as a fill or as a guitar-only monitor. (So-so living room amp, excellent stage amp.) The patches are done in libraries, one each for different types of rooms...big, small, quiet, verby, auditorium, etc. You also begin to remember the type of mix they have to sit in and the playlist. But that just gets you in the ballpark...you always end up tweaking them to suit the band and the room--part of the beauty of the amp...put it on a laptop, tune the patches at sound check or on the fly if you have an extra guy that knows the gear, and save the library. Top with an FCB1010 for control and it's about eight billion rigs and rooms in one box.

The Big Iron:

A TSL122 and a B-52 AT100. Never used 'em live, but they've been out with several buds who do such stuff. (Though the TSL at half-throttle in the workshop is still a thing of beauty.) I just wanted to learn the build techniques, so I bought 'em both inop and rescued 'em, eventually sold some of their brethren. Sunn Solarus and a Rock-Ola still on the resurrection/mod list...

Speakers and cabs:

All the amps have speaker in/out jacks, so anything can power anything--but watch yer wattz. Z-Matchers, a Weber Mass, and a small mountain of cabs and speakers so you can size the rig to the gig. (Celestion, Fane, Emi, Weber, Jensen mostly, AlNiCo and Ceramic, several models and types. Lotta transplanting.)

Different tones work in different places, but IMHO the idea is to make them dramatic equivalents of each other, tone for tone, so that what you think you played in the bedroom works all the way back in the cheap seats. And no, they don't sound the least bit the same till they get into their respective environments. Learning to translate tone in your head is an interesting endeavor... :)

--Ray

[ldizzle]

Home rig...gig rig...
Same thing to me!
MAZ 18 2x12 and an AC30
I get pretty close to the same tones at home but lack the umph and compression of stage vol.

[michael30]

Home rigs:

Hartke Kickback 120
'68 Fender Bassman + 2x12 Bandmaster cab
Polytone 150W combo*

Practice space rig:

Hartke 3500 + Hartke 2x10" & 1x15" cabs

Gig rig:

Hartke Hydrive 5210 combo + Hydrive 115 cab
*I'll use the Polytone on low-volume gigs

[Cymbaline]

Home rig:
Line 6 Pocket Pod into my computer, connected to my home stereo. This works well as I have the line out of the pod connected to the microphone jack of the computer, and use the Windows mixer to adjust the levels so I can play along with songs. Doesn't sound half bad.

Live rig:
Carvin Legacy 1/2 stack w/Greenbacks, with HotPlate attenuator for smaller rooms, and various pedals (Wah, delay, chorus, EQ for volume boost).

[Dr. Jimmy]

Home rig is a POD with a few pedals in front of it run into an old 16ch mixer that I plug my ipod into, allows me to practice with headphones on. Live rig is centered around an old Peavey Classic 50 and a boardful o' pedals......

[huw]

Home rig?

When I play at home I'm usually practising, or learning new stuff. That's valuable time I won't waste fretting about whether "my tone is happening" or whatever.

I take the guitar out of the case & I play it.

I know what my amp sounds like, and I know how the controls on the guitar work. I do that stuff at rehersal or on a gig. At home all I think about is where to put my fingers on the strings.

[defcrew]

The only difference in my home versus gig tone and technique is that at the gigs there are more witnesses to the crime. I really think I have mastered the art of pure crapola in either arena...even unplugged which is how I generally play at home though when using an amp it is the same one I gig with. In all seriousness, it pays to experiment with your rig away from the stage, so to speak, but a rig is kind of like what Patton said about battle plans--all plans go out the window once the first shot is fired. In the greater mix all the carefully nurtured tones we all obssess on get a bit lost. It's more about touch and playing the right notes and volume. My .02, anyway.

[gixxerrock]

My home rig still is mainly 50W tube amps that are gig ready. The main difference is a hotplate and patching in different pedals based on whims. Also use a Traynor Dark Horse or Cube 60 at home sometimes.

The main difference is I have enough cables, power supplies, pedals, guitars, amps etc... to put together 3 working rigs. Stuff like cables, power cords are organized and rarely get unpacked when I get home from gig or rehearsal.

[loudboy]

Home rig?

When I play at home I'm usually practising, or learning new stuff. That's valuable time I won't waste fretting about whether "my tone is happening" or whatever.

I take the guitar out of the case & I play it.

I know what my amp sounds like, and I know how the controls on the guitar work. I do that stuff at rehersal or on a gig. At home all I think about is where to put my fingers on the strings.

This.

My gig rig is set up so that I know pretty much how it's going to sound.

Home, I'll use the guitar unplugged and the computer speakers down low.

[dangeroso]

I'm fortunate in that my loud amps have great master volumes, and work great in home practice as well.

I use a BadCat Lynx and Rivera Fandango.

[SpaceFlunky]

for home i HAD a 75 vibro champ. Gotta find something small like that again. If i happen to have an extra OD/fuzz or delay pedal ill use it at home.
For gigs i use either a Ampeg Vt40, Ampeg V2 or a Supro Statesman.
Pedals pretty much stay the same for home and gigs. I dont use many and most of them stay on my main board.

[cruisemates]

Interesting - a lot of people are not that concerned about "tone" away from the gig. At home they have a pod or cube. I have a Roland Cube and I hated it the first time I tried it - that transistor sound just didn't cut it.

That is why I use small Marshalls at home, with Master volumes, they do give me pretty much the same response as the gig rig.

I also have a Vox ADT15 (?) - the small 15-watt modeling amp. It is not bad - it has some interesting sounds, but it seems more like a toy than a real amp.

[epluribus]

Interesting - a lot of people are not that concerned about "tone" away from the gig. At home they have a pod or cube...

Struck me odd too, not what you'd expect to hear on TGP. Plus I'm pleasantly surprised to see so many people diggin' DSP and SS. Fosse-natin'...my home rigs tend to be the tweakiest ones, cuz some of those tweaks just don't project onstage. But that said, I hate using MV just for volume control...too much tube-drive goodness to be had to lose it dialing the levels down. Better to size the power section to the room and let it cook...IMHO, natch! :)

[uitar99]

vibro champ xd at home and a mesa express 5:25 at gigs

[Igneous]

Rivera knucklehead k55 with mesa oversized 4x12 with a peavey xxx 2x12(allgt1275) for jamming-vowed I would downsize as I am an ageing rocker but theres no fun in that
For home- a valve jr with a long plate tungsol in v1 and a mullard el84 power tube with three mods(changed resistors and a brightness switch) all driven by a tube screamer going into a Pharoah fuzz

I cant decide what setup I like better!