My guitar rig

"My Guitar rig...This blog post is not going to plunge into Native instruments Guitar Rig, even though this great piece of software deserves a big blog post to cover all its nice features. I may write a post about it in the future...

I received a couple of emails asking me to provide more information about my guitar rig...It's time to unveil all my stuff I use to get...well a tone on my electric guitar. You will find out later on that I can get many tones from y equipment (like most guitar player)

My guitar rig

The TC Electronic G-System is truly the core of my guitar rig as this device handles guitar amp channel switching and effects in a small package.

I use 2 Boss FV-500H pedals to control volume and effects such as pitch-shifting to get a Digitech Whammy like effect.

If you look at the diagramm above, you will notice 3 black lines connecting the G-System and my Carvin V3 amp. It's all about 4 cable wiring....

4 cable wiring

What's the hell is 4 cable wiring? Just read the list below. It's worth a thousand words.

• cable 1 : guitar → fx processor main input
• cable 2 : fx processor Send output → guitar amp front input
• cable 3 : guitar amp loop Send → fx processor Return input
• cable 4 : fx processor main output → guitar amp loop Return

This wiring allows you to place specific effects before the preamp stage of your guitar amp and other effects after the preamp (or before the amplification stage, if you like).

A typical guitar effect chain in a 4 cable wiring setup would be :

• Compressor, filter and wah-wah right before the preamp
• Delay, reverb in the loop

4 cable wiring can be also achieved with other devices such as DigiTech GSP1101, BOSS GT-Pro and a couple of other guitar processors, just to name a few.

Signal flow

The signal of my guitar follows a pretty long path, travelling back and forth between my TC Electronic G-System and my Carvin V3 amp. However this complex network doesn't cause loss of tone, groud loops and audible delay (latency)

Guitar → Dunlop Cry Baby 95Q → TC Electronic G-System Guitar Input→ Carvin V3 front input → Carvin V3 Loop Send → TC Electronic G-System return Input → TC Electronic G-System main out → Carvin V3 Loop Return → Carvin V3 main out.

The amplified signal either goes to a Marshall 1936 cabinet for playing the guitar or to a Palmer PDI-03 rack for recording purposes. "DAW" stands fo Digital Audio Workstation, which is my PC running Cubase 5 along with an M-AUDIO - Fast Track Ultra interface.

Effects, amp and tone

Clean tone

Carvin V3 channel 1 + TC Electronic G-System effect : Reverb and compressor if needed

Sometimes, I turn the Boss AC-3 pedal on to turn my electric guitar tone into an acoustic guitar tone.This pedal doesn't make wonder as the acoustic simulation is not perfect. If you want a good acoustic guitar tone, pick up an acoustic guitar, period! However, I really like this tone as the result is something between a clean guitar tone and an acoustic guitar. Something different...

Crunch tone

Carvin V3 channel 2 + TC Electronic G-System effect : Delay

Delay is set as follows: 375ms, feedback: 30-40% max, mix: 30% max

Lead tone

Carvin V3 channel 2 + TC Electronic G-System effects : Delay + Boss DS-1

The lead tone is basically the same crunch tone but the Boss DS-1 pedal activated. I use this pedal to slightly boost the signal and get a muddier sound.

Hi-Gain tone

Carvin V3 channel 3 + TC Electronic G-System effect : Chorus

Bridge pick-up on to get a sharp tone. The chorus tends to tame the hi-end and adds some low-end. The result being a sharp but no overly bright tone with a fat tone without excessive muddiness. Very balanced! Yeah I love this one!