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Setting Up & Maintaining Your Gear
(11 May 02)
Misc. facts and advice
OK, here are some other random tips to bear in mind about guitars, amps and effects:
-Keep your cell phones away from your multi effect units and units like sequencers and samplers. The field generated by those phones may damage the memory or memory units (floppy disks) of those. I am not kidding. I once went to play a show and realized that several tracks on my sequencer had been erased.
My cell phone was too close to the floppy disc. Same happened a while later with the sampler... we had a sequence running and all of a sudden there was this terrible noise coming through the PA, and the sequence stopped... the field of the cell phone had damaged the memory.
-Get good cables. I know those are sometimes expensive, but I do think it is ridiculous to invest a bunch of money into guitars, amps and effects and connect all those with cheap cables which break as soon as you step onto them. And itīs not only the lack of durability... a lot of cables make a sound difference, too... I noticed an increase of trebles when using my Monster Rock cable, while my Cordial cable added a rather warm, mid-heavy sound.
-It often is best to get a guitar that is all perfect... the look, the feel, the pickups and all that. But often, it is also ok to get a guitar that plays and feels good and sounds good on top of that, and then replace certain things. When I started out, I couldn'r really afford a good guitar, so I got myself the best guitar I could afford with the bit of money I had, then I replaced certain components to make the guitar even better... Even a cheap or mid-prized guitar might sound better once you put in good pickups. It stays in tune better with locking tuners. Of course it would be best to buy a guitar that is perfect all the way right from the start, but often it might be very expensive to get one of those, or hard to find one that has exactly what you imagine... so itīs ok to get one that feels and sounds good as a starting point, and then build upon that... make modifications until the guitar is just right for you !
-When you play a studio- or livejob, make sure you have all kinds of spare parts and tools with you. I know that that is expensive sometimes, but it will give you a good feeling and will help you to concentrate on whatīs important (the music) when you know that the guitar is set up good and that you have the spare parts and all kinds of stuff to deal with problems.
I am talking about spare-cables (one for each one you are using, so you donīt have to solder backstage, but can just replace the broken cable), enough batteries for your effects and all the other things that require batteries, spare power-cables, a lot of spare strings, enough picks, the usual tools (allen wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, tape etc.), maybe phone numbers of a tech you can contact in case of emergency, manuals... That might seem like a lot of money and effort to get all that together, but itīs worth the effort. When I am playing out (in the studio or live) I usually donīt have to worry about things like that and therefore can concentrate on my playing all the way.
And itīs ridiculous to interrupt a show for minutes because you aint got a spare cable and have to solder your only one.
-Another thing about cables... if you do have a lot of stompboxes, get good patch cables... a lot of pedals will change the sound of your setup and add noise. If you do have cheap, low-quality patch-cables, that effect will get even worse. And those patch cables have to be durable because they might break once you step onto them.
-If you do have a rack, make yourself (or get them done) custom-length cables. I measured all the lengths I needed to wire my rack, then I got myself a few feet of cable and a bunch of Neutrik-plugs and then soldered those cables... they are exactly at the right length. It looks ridiculous and takes away sound quality when you cross a 6 inch distance in the back of your rack with a three foot cable.
-If you do have a big setup with many 19"- or pedal-effects, and something goes wrong on stage, like you all of a sudden have got no sound anymore, unplug everything and plug the guitar straight into the amp. Donīt waste time by going through your whole huge setup to look for a mistake... itīs a nuisance for the audience to wait, and most likely you will be too nervous to find the problem anyway. So plug straight into the amp and play through the rest of the show that way... it might sound different than before but will get you through the show.
-If your 19"-effect allows you to do so, make a "MIDI-dump" in between. That is, transfer the presets to a disk or somewhere else so you can store them safely. If there is a problem regarding memory loss, you can restore the presets by sending them back to the effect by way of MIDI. If you canīt do that, write down the settings of your presets so you can reprogram them once something goes wrong. I do have a folder with all my presets written down. One day, I switched on my Eventide harmonizer and noticed that three of my most important presets were gone. I had no time to bring it to customer support since I had to play a show an hour later. So I reprogrammed the presets (based on the data I had written down in that folder) and stored them twice so I could use the other saved preset once the first one gets lost like the ones that already were lost.
-About your tuner: When you tune, donīt put it onto your amp or close to other power supply units... the magnetic field of power units might alter the way the tuner works and therefore it doesnīt work correctly anymore.
Alrighty, thereīs a lot more stuff to talk about, but Iīll stop here... I gave away a lot of information that I consider important already, and maybe all those things will help you already. I might continue another day with another article and talk about things like putting in new pickups, soldering, adjusting string action etc.
But for now...
Farewell and keep on picking !
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Eric started playing the guitar at age 10. He attended GIT and studied with Scott Henderson, Brett Garsed, Dan Gilbert amo. Eric is involved in several bands and recording projects and his instrumental debut - Hidden Creek - plus his instructional book Talking Hands - A Guide To Contemporary Lead Guitar Techniques is available HERE
Visit his website at www.ericvandenberg.net
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