emo/hardocre/alternative/post-rock rigs and discussion

[jlearman]

I'm interested in what gear the more modern emo/hardcore/post-rock/retro guys are using. I'm thinking of bands like Thrice, Sunny day real estate, copeland, broken social scene, jimmy eat world, hey mercedes, Franz Ferdinand, etc, etc.

Specifically, I'm wondering if paying big bucks for botique amps, true-bypass everything, and custom made guitars matters for music that is so loud, overdriven, and has so much going on. (as opposed to classic rock/blues/country stuff, where a guitar is much more in the front of the sound).

Oviously there's no TRUE answer to this, as it ultimately comes down to your taste/opinion, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

Not really interested in your rig if you're playing van-halen, SRV, Skynard, and hendrix stuff.

 

[JoeyD]

Ive always thought that botique stuff is a bit of a joke (after looking at those insane price tags) considering most sounds of any era are just made with the regular technology available at the time. But hey, but its jyst cuz i cant afford them.

Im playing a les paul studio through

Dunlop Cry Baby (more for feedback and set the frequency at this hump effects... not wah wah)
Boss DS-2 (Which i bought when i first started out and is a complete peice of ****). I use it for grainy/trebely low gain sounds, it sounds real messy.

Then into a Mesa Boogie Lonestar which has the most beautiful jazz cleans right through to beat up sounding/reverby slightly overdriven wash (and you can get quite a bit of gain but i generally dont go there).

In the Loop,
EH Pulsar which is a great trem for your buck, has a rediculess sweep of rates and shapes and can do some tripped out sounds.
CE-2 Chorus for when i want to get cheesy
DD-3 For all my delay/feedback needs. My favourite sounds come out of this box.

Its a messy sound, think the last broken social scene album or wolf parade. But it's also very versitile, it can do pretty much anything other then metal, and who wants that? Maybe im too amature, but I'm very happy with the tones I get through my "tone-sucking" pedalboard.

 

[jokerjkny]

Originally posted by jlearman
(...)
Oviously there's no TRUE answer to this, as it ultimately comes down to your taste/opinion, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
(...)

i think you answered your own post.

but its whatever you can afford. i saw lee renaldo gig w/ a peavey bandit, and i asked him why, to which he replied, cause it was on sale.

 

[jlearman]

its whatever you can afford. i saw lee renaldo gig w/ a peavey bandit, and i asked him why, to which he replied, cause it was on sale

Good point, who doesn't consider price when buying gear? However, I've spent some hours scouring the net for the gear of bands who fall in this category, yet who are huge, and rich, and can buy whaterver they want. 9 times out of 10 I see a DL4 on their board. 5 of 10 I see an mm4.....etc etc... So, there's definitely somewhat of a preference (be it by ignorance or frugality) out there for "lesser" (i.e. not $500, true-bypass, or 'botique') gear.

Also, I was just hoping to see what kind of sounds/gear people in this genre are leaning towards. I'm looking for a new amp & a few effects, and just not 100% sure where I should be looking.

For example, maybe most are willing slap it down for a particular overdrive/distortion sound, but maybe not at all for modulation/delay stuff.

anyway...just curious and thought it would be a fun thread.

 

[LithiumLulu]

My band plays mostly old-school thrash metal/punk, but on my own I explore more esoteric genres. Here's my homemade pedal board.

From right to left: dist, comp, eq, delay, wah.

I don't really go in for the chorus/flange/phaser type effects. They sound cheesy to me.

I use whatever amp I can scrounge (anything from a Fender TR to a Randall half stack).

 

[nashvillesteve]

It'd be great if someone that plays in a Sonic Youth cover band (if any such bands exist) could share their rig as well...

 

[Moe45673]

In guitar1 mag they post a bands/artists rig every month. Tons of bands use DL-4s, boss tu-2s, stuff like that. Of course, they do have 20,000 dollar rack/midi systems and amps, but there you go

 

[gregovertone]

Thrice-
dustin=gibson SG>jcm800
teppi=tele/lp >fx> ac30/jcm800

jimmy eat world
jim- LP > ts9 > plexi
Tom- SG > ts9 >orange

hey mercedes
both
SG > MArshall

 

[loudboy]

Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes and those style of bands seem to be big on Fender HR Devilles and Deluxes.

A lot of the emo bands we get in the studio seem to go for our JCM800s in a big way.

Loudboy

 

[Aquinas]

My original stuff kinda falls into that category, but I have a lot more guitar-foreward stuff (think Dinosaur Jr). My rig is $$$, but then again I am rich...

I play:

AmVRi '62 Jazzmaster (main guit-fiddle by far)
Hamer Artist Korina
PRS Hollowbody Spruce (very rarely - but I'm starting to like it again, especially the utility of having a thicker electric sound with the piezos for some songs)

into (not in order):
CC2 (Vibe/Fuzz mainly)
RMC3
Zero (Main "heavy" tone)
Zvex Octane (leads and SFX)
Foxrox ZIM (main overdrives for lead and medium rhythm)
AM Clone Chorus
Fulltone Supa-trem
EHX DMM
DD-5

with 2 amps, depending on mood: THD Flexi 50 w/THD 2x12 or Bad Cat Black Cat 30r 2x12 combo.

My music is my own - rather unique and textural, tending towards a Fugazi-meets-Dinosaur Jr-meets-Uncle Tupelo sound. I do have a lot of hardcore influences as well, mainly stemming from the Minutemen and Husker Du.

However, if money was an issue and I was setting up a simple, rather affordable rig for that type of music, I would get:

SG Special w/P-90s
OD (probably a modded TS - AM Silvers sound great at med/high gain)
Fuzz (some type of Muff or Tonebender, for leads and texture)
Delay (DL4 or DD-20 for utility, or DMM for tone)
Medium gain amp for use without master (JCM 800 type or Vox AC30 type, perhaps Orange or Fender. A Super Reverb could be really cool...)

 

[jokerjkny]

honestly,

these kinds of bands dont really have a signature sound to tease out like an SRV or an EVH or (insert guitar god here). thus, IMHO, any rig would do. the song's the thing.

sure, my fav band of the moment, Love Drug use Dr. Z amps, but IMHO, they could probably rock with whatever the club had at the time.

 

[Mojoman]

Originally posted by jokerjkny
honestly,

these kinds of bands dont really have a signature sound to tease out like an SRV or an EVH or (insert guitar god here). thus, IMHO, any rig would do. the song's the thing.

sure, my fav band of the moment, Love Drug use Dr. Z amps, but IMHO, they could probably rock with whatever the club had at the time.

I think you are exactly right with this........you can use anything to make this music.....the song is key....but as a gear whore I will be in my band with all my favorite toys!

 

[j_el_jee]

Yeah I just saw Thrice again and Greg had their rigs listed correctly from what I could see. I think they sounded better this time than they did on the last tour when they were using Bogners - and I love the Ecstacy!

I think one dude from Thursday is using Matchless.

For that type of music I think a Marshall, stomp box, and some humbuckers will get you 98% there.

 

[Barge Concepts]

I have to imagine that most touring acts choose mass produced gear for its durability and ease of replacement.... If your Fender/Boss/L6/Marshall product dies on the road, you can probably find a replacement with in 5-100miles. That's not as easy if you're running a Dumble/ZVex/BargeConcepts D ) rig...

For my own rig of outthere sounds, I like Alesis units with bypass/feedback boxes and lots of delay (echopark, verbzilla, dd20, and either a PBJ or CD10).

 

[jlearman]

lots of good points in here....

Seems clear that most people find really high end gear a bit useless for this type of music. But what players in this category would you consider to have great tone?

 

[AL30]

Ian MacKaye - Gibson SG --> Marshall

Guy Picciotto - Rickenbacker --> Marshall

AL

 

[LithiumLulu]

Anyone know what Greg Ginn uses? I know he had an Ampeg Dan Armstrong Lucite guitar that had a lot of mods during the main Black Flag years.

 

[AL30]

I read somewhere (and I can't remember where...) that Ginn hated tube amps. He used solid state amps. Yep !! It was probably a good idea too - with the notorious Black Flag touring/practice schedule he would've spent a small fortune on tubes.

Maybe I read it in "Our Band Could Be Your Life".

AL

 

[JP]

Hey guys, remember allot of these bands are on a limited tour budget. Gear needs to be easyily serviced or replaced. That's why you see allot of Boss & Line 6 gear being used.

The back line in itself is another issue. They may be renting amps depending on the size of the tour and space for gear.
You can't go wrong with a Marshall JCM800-900 or Fender
Twin reverb. You can find them in every town if something where to go wrong on the road.

The bigger the tour & tour budget the more gear you can bring out. Lush pedalboards,amps and guitars galore! It's great when you have a huge support staff to mantain the gear. Most small tours, the tour manager gets stuck doing all these jobs.

 

[rorschah]

You wanna know the real reason a lot of these dudes don't need boutique gear?

Half the freakin' questions on this board are, like, "how do I get the sound of a cranked stack of xxxx at bedroom/barroom/studio/small club venues". So much of this stuff is to simulate the sound of a cranked amp.

When you can actually get up at a medium-sized venue and actually get to turn your amp up to ten, much of the rest becomes irrelevant.

This especially counts for punk and post-punk, which I think lives on the sound of old hard blues/old rock/pure amp-overdrive stuff. The metal scene needs other gear, of course. But I think punk had its birthplace in the late 70's in a mood of hostility towards the big hard rock/prog rock scene, and all its electronic trickery, so the original sound of punk is pretty straight-to-amp. Birthplace of the aesthetic, yadda yadda yadda.

Actually, one thing I notice - in a lot of the noise/whatever bands i've seen, the distortion stuff is strictly mass-produced (because they've got that cranked amp) but a lot of the other effects are odd/pricey/home-made. Like oscillators and phasers and stuff. Because that's the stuff you can't get from a cranked amp.

Ever heard Stephen Merritt's stuff, Magnetic Fields? Heavily heavily produced, weird and zany sounding production under pretty indie stuff. He uses everything. I mean, freaking science lab oscillators and stuff. I was once chasing this beautiful twoinging sound on one of his albums. Pedal? I finally found an interview about that very track and that sound, where he revealed that the sound was a Slinky strung up between two bar-stools with a home-made pickup under it.

-thi