My rig to start this section off. Parts of this rig was used for gigging (not the amps) but some of the pedals. I just used overdrive, phaser and delay live so kept things simple.
My rig to start this section off. Parts of this rig was used for gigging (not the amps) but some of the pedals. I just used overdrive, phaser and delay live so kept things simple.To start with the guitars. The first one is the classic spalted maple BC Rich Mockingbird Classic with Rockfield pickups and neck-thrue design. This guitar is awesome and it will never leave me. It is as hot as it gets and sounds just amazing. The second is ground zero, or 'Lucille'. It is for sale as it was the second guitar customed for Krachwerke. This was a good Vintage LP copy but now it is a sweet jewell. I like the Vintage guitars. They sound great and are very reliable. They are not cheap anymore either. Most of them now come with Wilkinson pickups and gear which is great. This did not but I left the pickups on as they sound as warm as a blanket.
The one in the back is a completely customised fender copy (note how I write fender with no CAPS :-) ). It has a new Ibanez style neck and Wilkinson Zebra Humbuckers which I think are my favourite pickups at the moment. Rewired for just HH 1tone 1 Vol and 3 way switch. This is my go-to guitar!
The pedalboard is now also a testing ground for pedals. Guitar goes into an ancient Rocktech phaser because it has a buffer which does not colour the sound in the slightest. Out of the rockteck it splits. One path goes to the ZOOM G1Xon. The other goes via the analogue pedals. First delay, then the OCD copy and then the Joyo California sound.
Both the outputs of the Zoom g1xon and the Joyo california go into separate channels of a mic mixer. Here I can blend the two tones to my liking or cut one out if I so wish. I do this because I like to use amp simulation into the amps. The marshall in the background has a bust pre-amp so the output goes straight into the power-amp, IE effects return.
The result is fantastic to be honest. In fact it sounds much better than the Marshall originally.
I really like the joyo amp sims. I tried the American sounds as well and it is my favourite. To me they are ok amp sims but I think they are amazing overdrive pedals with really nice sounding tone options. They are true bypass and well built. The ZOOM g1xon is also way better than its price would lead you to believe. All the effects on it are great and the amp sims on it are very usable. They also have the feature of being set to an appropriate output. So if you want to plug it into the amp main input, power amp, power amp of combo or stack etc and it does make a useful difference. I actually purchased it because it has a 30sec looper built it which is all I really wanted. If you compare the whole zoom g1xon with any looper out there at only around £60 you will see why it is a good move.
In live situations and when I am playing around with writing stuff I do not mix the the signal back into one amp but put each output (zoom and california) each into their own amp. This allows two controllable amps and one amp can run the loops separately. This works very well.
