Friday night, I played a concert at our church which featured Tommy Walker as the headliner. if you don't know who he is, check this brief summary: http://www.tommywalker.net/about.html
He's a smoking guitar player, songwriter and just a nice guy. Turns out, along with his sweet custom Tyler guitar, he was playing a POD HD 500. He was running it direct to PA (our church has ~50K watt, line array, state of the art quality A/V system, monitors are EAW wedges onstage). I had a couple of minutes to talk to him about his setup. When I looked at his patch on the POD HD500, it had no amp, just set up for stereo delivery of his guitar to the PA. he used his onboard looper a fair amount of time and for his part of the performance, it was just Tommy and the gear. He told me he has a Fishman in the Tyler for the acoustic sounds and can blend them back and forth with the regular pups. In sound check he really showed off his chops and was very impressive!
Now, I mention all this as background for the following realization. It's been said here, once in a while, that all the gear is just tools to do the job. It really hit me, watching this guy perform, how true that is. He needed no band, no special amps, no complex effects rig; nothing but a POD and (granted, an excellent) guitar because what was important was what he was saying and singing about. I think this really holds true no matter whether one is in a religious concert, blues band, recording studio or whatever. The tool you need to do your job is whatever works. While he was sick that night and much of his voice was gone by the end of his part, he pressed on, did the job, used the tools at hand and said what he had to say. It was very inspiring to me in a variety of ways, but also, to think less on the tools and more on the message I want to say with music.
YMMV...carry on
p.s. i wish i had asked him how he managed to get his looped rhythms to play back at just a little less volume than the leads he played over top of them, so that they blended perfectly. not something i've had much luck figuring out
He's a smoking guitar player, songwriter and just a nice guy. Turns out, along with his sweet custom Tyler guitar, he was playing a POD HD 500. He was running it direct to PA (our church has ~50K watt, line array, state of the art quality A/V system, monitors are EAW wedges onstage). I had a couple of minutes to talk to him about his setup. When I looked at his patch on the POD HD500, it had no amp, just set up for stereo delivery of his guitar to the PA. he used his onboard looper a fair amount of time and for his part of the performance, it was just Tommy and the gear. He told me he has a Fishman in the Tyler for the acoustic sounds and can blend them back and forth with the regular pups. In sound check he really showed off his chops and was very impressive!
Now, I mention all this as background for the following realization. It's been said here, once in a while, that all the gear is just tools to do the job. It really hit me, watching this guy perform, how true that is. He needed no band, no special amps, no complex effects rig; nothing but a POD and (granted, an excellent) guitar because what was important was what he was saying and singing about. I think this really holds true no matter whether one is in a religious concert, blues band, recording studio or whatever. The tool you need to do your job is whatever works. While he was sick that night and much of his voice was gone by the end of his part, he pressed on, did the job, used the tools at hand and said what he had to say. It was very inspiring to me in a variety of ways, but also, to think less on the tools and more on the message I want to say with music.
YMMV...carry on
p.s. i wish i had asked him how he managed to get his looped rhythms to play back at just a little less volume than the leads he played over top of them, so that they blended perfectly. not something i've had much luck figuring out
