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Rigged

RIGGED: REVOCATION’S DAN GARGIULO (GUITAR)

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 5:00pm by

Rigged
Dan Gargiulo - Revocation(Photo from Old_Skool_Metal_Head’s Flickr)

Welcome back to Rigged, in which your favorite metal musicians take you on a step-by-step rundown of their entire live rig. Revocation are currently touring North American with Forbidden, White Wizzard and Havok — brought to you by MetalSucks (dates here) — so we asked both Revocation axemen Dave Davidson and Dan Gargiulo to take us on a tour of their gear setups. Check out Dave’s gear here, and Forbidden guitarist Steve Smyth’s here. Here’s Mr. Gargiulo himself:

*Ahem* Now if I may bring everyone’s attention on me for a moment, I’ll tell you guys a little something about my super sweet setup.

I recently began using a Jackson KE2 live, strung up with D’addario 10-52′s. Those thick low strings add some punch and definition to all the power chords we’re strummin’, and like Dave said, they feel great to tremolo pick on. Not only does this guitar look and sound killer, but I feel safe knowing that it’s pointy enough to use as a deadly weapon in case my life is threatened.

Dan Gargiulo - Revocation

I run my guitar through just two pedals live. A Boss TU-3 Chromatic tuner and a Boss NS-2 Noise suppressor. Yes, these pedals are both made of steel.

Dan Gargiulo - RevocationDan Gargiulo - Revocation

From there the signal goes to my amp, a Peavey 6505+. This amp offers me crushing tone and still retains clarity even with my gain pretty high. It’s also quite durable. Like Dave, I also use a Marshall Lead 1960A Cab. I’ve heard differing opinions on this cabinet but after trying many others I feel that it suits our sound very well (and looks cool).

Dan Gargiulo - RevocationDan Gargiulo - Revocation

I’ve always preferred a simple, no-frills rig, and it makes setting up and breaking down your gear every night a heck of a lot easier and faster.

- Dan Gargiulo / Revocation

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alejandro-Aldana/683878171 Alejandro Aldana

    it seems like more and more guitar players are’t using distortion pedals nowadays.

    • Matt

      Yeah generally when you have tube amps that run over $1000 you really don’t need to run a distortion pedal. The distortion part is already built in…..AMAZING!!!!!

      • GoingDeaf?

        The problem with this is that everyone ends up having the same/similar tone. There are 100′s of distortion pedals but not very many high gain tube amps. Seems like 75% of bands are using Peavey 6506/5150′s, with a few Mesas hanging around from the Nu-metal days and Orange/Marshall filling out the stoner/doom market.

        A nice tube power amp with a distortion pedal can be just as good and gives you more of a unique sound.

        • Matt

          If you know how to EQ your amp you can still sound unique without a distortion pedal

          • Zompacalypse

            Correct. Find your sweetspot. If you still find that lacking or generic, then you add some outside flavor. Given the drastic changes a touring musician sees from venue to venue it’s smart to keep your rig as simple as possible.

          • GoingDeaf?

            No matter how you EQ your amp, it still has the characteristics of a PeaveyMarshall/Mesa whatever…. Not implying that one is better than the other, just that there is a lot of the same tone out there these days.

          • http://sodaandyoda@hotmail.com mar

            agreed. i personally dont like using distortion pedals or even overdrive pedals. i think one should find a good tone out of whatever amp they’re using and then work on their playing technique. some people dont realize that their playing technique, rather then adding bells and whistles to your rig, can give you a “unique” tone. i believe it starts with your hands.

        • David

          There are tons of ’boutique’ amps out there…it’s just that most are geared toward the aging boomer crowd with money to spend. For them, the ‘hi gain’ sound is not pleasant and they would rather have a more vintage tube sound (ala Bassman,JMP,Plexi, AC30). You’ll also see more punk and rock bands that have ties or are influenced by the earlier rock and roll sound, sporting vintage or boutique equipment.

          However, there are some hi gain and metal options. The dude from Baroness plays a couple Bad Cats. Bogner’s another brand.

          I’m still waiting for someone to bust out a vintage or modded Traynor.

        • http://sodaandyoda@hotmail.com mar

          what do you mean by unique?

          • Frank’s Beard

            Tone comes from the fingers and uniqueness comes from the imagination. However, sometimes you need to chain together 5 fuzz boxes whenever a song calls for it.

            I’m all for keeping it simple, in fact I prefer my Marshall to digital amp modeling that seems to be rising in popularity. But no sense in ruling out stompboxes. They should never replace technique, but I feel you also can’t rely on technique alone. A few well placed notes with differing timbres and textures can speak volumes more than mindless technical licks.

            But I feel like we may be saying the same things in different ways.

        • http://twitter.com/realofficernarc aaron m.

          or you can find other ways to tweak your sound. for me, i decided that i like to use a combination of amplifiers. preferably a vox amp and a bass amp (no prefered brand), splitting the signal between both using a landmine distortion pedal. it sounds ridiculously massive. sure, it’s not so great if you’re keen on djenty shit, but i like doom and sludge so it doesn’t matter.

          of course, you can only do so much if you’re just using built-in amplifier distortion. but using distortion pedals isn’t necessarily going to rectify that either when you consider that despite the fact that there may be a lot of distortion pedals out there, most people wind up picking up like, a boss metal zone or some shit like that. not that it’s a bad pedal. it just doesn’t sound completely identifiable.

          but is that really such a bad thing? like, worrying about having a shitload of vintage pedals from makers who no longer exist can really be a problem if you are keen on having your sound be a certain way. like, what happens if you lose one? i know some people who would have a shit-fit. that’s actually the reason why king buzzo uses the pedals that he does. so if he loses one on tour or it shits out on him, he can replace it no problem.

          i mean, in the end, it’s just distortion. i guess you should worry about your distorted sound a bit, but worrying too much about it is just a waste of time. most people aren’t really going to notice subtle differences in the sound, particularly in a live setting.

          i mean, the distortion should never make or break a song. just look at fucked up’s “david comes to life”. HORRIBLE fucking guitar tone. great record. and in the end, the ideas on it outweigh the fact that the guitars sound like they were played through a 10 watt amplifier.

  • hatahs

    I like this band and everything..but it is stupid how this website just sucks this bands dick over and over and over as if they’re the next coming of led zeppelin or something

    • Just Saying…

      If I am not mistaken this article is written by a member of the band. I don’t think he can suck his own dick just by giving a run down of his gear set-up.

  • Kurt Cocain

    It’s also fun to have at least a wah pedal. I have a fairly simple set up- dean vendetta 4, digitech rp-355, (I also have rps 250 and 200 but don’t use them in my current set up), BBE Sonic Maximizer rackmount, Line 6 Spider III head, and a 2006 Crate cab. Monster cables. I wanna invest in some obscure analog and tube pedals (Radial, EH) but don’t really have much dough. Eventually I will.

    • DLS13

      Better off buying a real head before you start splashing on more pedals. Get good tone first, then mess with it, dont try and dress a poo up like supermodel, itll still be a poo underneath.

  • Leonb

    Hatahs: A blog is a forum to espouse opinions on. It’s not the fucking New York Times.

  • scrambles7

    I thought Revocation was a trio?

    • CreptorStatus

      They are but use a live touring 2nd guitarist. So they can play the songs correctly.

      • Danexmurder

        Dan is straight up in the band now.

  • Thegreatadrianing

    Line 6 is good enough for meshuggah so go fuck yourself.

    • uLy

      And meshuggah’s tone is as lifeless and mechanical as it gets. Don’t be stupid.

    • http://sodaandyoda@hotmail.com mar

      meshuggah used line 6′s high end veta 2 head. but i dont think they’re really using those anymore. fredrik thordendal was in guitar world, a few months ago, talking about his rig setup and he talked about using the axe fx and about building his own tube amp.

  • Kurt Cocain

    Line 6 makes the best digital heads on the market. You can get any tone you want, from vintage 60s Vox to mesa rectifiers. The tones in the digitech rps are awesome as well, and the effects are hard to beat, being able to narrow the delays down to 10ms, mimicking vintage head and cab tones that sound almost exactly like the real thing. It’s awesome to have a variety of tones and effects than having to stick to the same old boring sound. Sure you can mess with the EQ, but can only get a certain number of tone variations out of a tube amp.

    • uLy

      oh here we go… dude, i’ve tested this stupid argument with line 6 advocates for years. Their amps don’t come anywhere near sounding like the real thing and once placed in the same room as any of the popular tube amps it gets fucking crushed.

      i love seeing high school kids roll in their line 6 half stacks just to get demolished by a real 5150 screaming through a mesa or marshall 4×12.

      enough already. recorded tone is not the same as a live tone.

      • Druidus

        Hahahahah. I know what you mean dude. I’m one of those high school kids with a line 6 amp. I fucking hate the thing. I bought it a couple years ago before I really knew anything and I can’t wait to have the cash to get a new one.

        I can’t jam with anyone that uses a tube amp simply because my solid state piece o’ shit obviously can’t keep up the crush that tube amps have. Tube amps can handle loud as fuck volume, digitally produced tones shit the bed once you crank em’ to 5.

    • David

      I owned a Line 6 for a long time, probably 10 years or so. One day, I was looking to spruce up my sound, and a friend told me he had an old tube amp sitting in the shed. When we fired that thing up and played it my jaw dropped. I ended up buying 2 of ‘em used .

      I’ll still use the Line 6 for some clean tones. But, yeah, modeling only gets you part of the way there.

      David

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-J-Henningsgard/1024517365 Steven J. Henningsgard

    Dude’s got the classic metal guitar setup, and makes it his own through his playing style.

    If you’re going for that Djenty hyper-realistic/articulate tone, digital preamps are probably your best bet. However, if you’re going for a thicker, more natural tone, you’re gonna want the real thing (Marshall JMP, 2-channel Mesa Dual Rec, Orange, etc.).

    As for distortion/overdrive pedals in front of a money high-gain amp, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it (and I’m not talkin’ DOD or Boss Metal Zone, here). Used properly, a good gain pedal of some sort will give you a whole new range of tones and textures to play with. That said, if the tone’s not in your hands, it sure as shit isn’t gonna come out of the speakers, regardless of amp/pedals/guitar/etc.

  • John

    My rig:

    Washburn HM Series Idol with Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz
    Parker P42 Stock
    >
    Digitech Bad Monkey (only used to cut highs and boost mids for solos, barely any gain added)
    Korg PitchBlack
    Boss NS2
    Boss DD6
    >
    Egnater Renegade head with KT77′s for the dirty channel and 6550′s for the clean channel, reverb on clean channel, mids scooped on the dirty channel because…
    >
    Splawn 2×12 loaded with Weber Sig B’s. Most mid rangy, growly speaker known to man. I can scoop my mids all the way out and still cut through the mix better than any other amp I’ve ever heard live. Perfect clarity.

  • http://www.thatsnotmetal.com Brenocide

    Jackson Kellys are really fierce looking guitars, and extra win is awarded to you for upgrading to DiMarzios, but I find the neck-dive on that model to be pretty inexcusable. Let the thing go for a second, and you’re just about guaranteed to let that very pointy, very chippable head stock go plummeting to concrete oblivion. I know it can be remedied, by changing your strap buttons around, but if it’s a guitar like yours upwards to $2,000+, I’m hardly willing to go running for the power drill. They’re more comfortable to sit with than other explorer types, and I’ve always loved Jackson necks, but I’d rather concentrate on playing my instrument rather than holding it up. That’s supposed to be the strap’s job. I’d favor the Dinky any day. Except for that relatively minor, nitpicky bullshit, you have a glorious set up.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brooks-Babineaux/47900821 Brooks Babineaux

    Line 6 does not sound like the real thing. Period. I’ve messed with their Pro racks, POD XTs, etc and none of them come close to sounding like my dual rec. The closest thing I’ve heard is the Eleven Rack by Digidesign, which is great for recording then reamping.

    As far as NOT adding a distortion pedal to a tube amp: if you play metal you should do it. Take an ibanez tube screamer, put the tone in neutral, drive all the way down, and level all the way up then run it into the front of your tube head. It will force the power section (6L6s in my case) to lend more to the distortion flavor. Most people are using this approach or a variant of it.

  • kirk

    here’s to simple setups: guit > tuner > head = the way to go for me.

  • metallicbrian

    Who here’s reppin the HM-2? I have the Behringer copy but it sounds almost identical to the Boss pedal. Plus I got it for 18 bucks off ebay so fuck the police. Buzzsaw or GTFO.

  • lustmord

    I was gonna point out that this site seems to have a huge boner for revocation, but I see that I’m not the first to notice.

  • chris r

    This site has a boner for revocation because theyre a good band.

  • http://www.jamiecooper.net jamiecooper.net

    what makes your sound unique shouldnt be the equipment, those who are truly unique sound just as unique using whatever gear is availible