MetalSucks is sponsoring the current Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague U.S. tour (dates here). We’ll be featuring a “Rigged” column from one member of each band, taking you through their live gear setups piece by piece. Check out the Rigged pieces by ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis, Protest the Hero’s Luke Hoskin and Periphery’s Jake Bowen and Alex Markides. Today’s we’ve got Today I Caught the Plague’s Steve Rennie and Ben Davis run us through their rigs:

Greetings gearheads!

For this edition of Rigged, Steve Rennie and myself (Ben Davis) are going to break down the guitar rigs Today I Caught the Plague are using on our American tour with Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis and The Safety Fire.

While we were in the studio recording our latest album Lore we used a variety of different heads, cabs, pre-amps and effects. Live, however, Steve and I run essentially the exact same set-up. Our design philosophy is very old school; it’s small, simple, economically friendly and most importantly it works well and sounds great!

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MetalSucks is sponsoring the current U.S. tour of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague (dates here). We’ll be featuring a “Rigged” column from one member of each band, taking you through their live gear setups piece by piece. Ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis took us on a tour of his gear to kick things off, and last week Protest the Hero’s Luke Hoskin did the same. Today’s we’ve got Periphery guitarist Jake Bowen and Front-of-House engineer / tour manager Alex Markides in a double-team Rigged attack:

Greetings! My name is Jake and I play guitar in Periphery. Helping me write this article is Periphery’s Front-of-House engineer and tour manager Alex Markides; without Alex and his experience none of our current setup would be possible. We are currently on tour with Protest the Hero, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire, and Today I Caught The Plague — we’re having a great time so far and touring with these bands is a real treat. If you’re reading this you probably know what to expect but I would like to shine some light on the specifics of our live rigs. We have a lot more going on than it initially seems.

Jake: For the guitar racks, each of our three guitar players uses an Axe FX Ultra with a Line 6 G90 wireless system. The Axe FX provides all of the guitar tones we need including all of the effects; we each have a large set of patches programmed for specific parts of each song and those patch changes are automated by our laptop… but I’ll get into that a little later. The bass is being run through an Axe FX II with a Darkglass B7K in the fx loop.

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(Photo credit: musiclegends.ca)

MetalSucks is sponsoring the current U.S. tour of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague (dates here). We’ll be featuring a “Rigged” column from one member of each band in the coming weeks, taking you through their live gear setups piece by piece. Last week ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis took us on a tour of his gear, and today we’ve got Protest the Hero co-axeman Luke Hoskin:

Hi, I am Luke.  I play guitar in Protest the Hero.

My live rig is very simple these days. With all the hype surrounding Axe FX and other digital guitar processors, I have been motivated to keep it simple — and LOUD.

Below is a quick walkthrough of the gear I am using on this tour with Periphery, Jeff loomis, The Safety Fire, and our friends from home, Today I Caught the Plague.

Haters beware, I will backtrace all critical remarks left in the comments section!

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MetalSucks is sponsoring the upcoming U.S. tour featuring Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague (dates here). We’ll be featuring a “Rigged” column from one member of each band in the coming weeks, taking you through their live gear setups piece by piece. First up, here’s ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis, who will be making his first ever North American solo appearances on this tour:

The rig setup I’m about to detail will be a little bit different than what I’m going to use on the Periphery tour because I wasn’t able to send all my gear to the east coast for rehearsals… quite expensive. But it’s pretty close.

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Back in December we premiered a new track from Maldivian blackened death metallers Nothnegal, and now we’re going to take you behind the scenes of the live rigs of both of the band’s talented guitarists. Here they are, in their own words, piece by piece:

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Hey guys, I’m Dez, guitarist from The Safety Fire and I’m going to give you a quick run down on the gear myself and Jo use live.

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If you don’t know Ramming Speed yet, get with it. Not only did they play Day 1 of our inaugural Metal Suckfest (pics here), but they’re one of the most fun, heabangable, party hardy thrash bands in existence today. Here’s drummer Jonah Livingston on his drum setup, piece by piece, for our latest edition of Rigged:

My sound starts with my skins. If I play the same heads slightly longer than I should my drums begin to sound like they’re gasping for air, but with fresh skins and a little love they can produce a nice, heavy, buckety sound. The kick (22”) and rack tom (13”) are “Blue Diamond” wrapped Premiers from the only full kit I’ve ever owned. They must be around 15 years old at this point; when the hardware on my floor tom fell apart this year, I replaced it with a 16″ Slingerland which Scott from Saviours told me is probably from the ’70s. The kit is like an old house; it’s kind of falling apart, but it feels like home.

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Abysmal Dawn are currently touring North American with ze Germans in Obscura, along with Last Chance to Reason and Enfold Darkness on select dates. We figured it would be a good time to ask Abysmal Dawn guitarist/vocalist Charles Elliott to take us through his entire live rig, so that’s exactly what we did. After the jump, Charles gives us a tour of his live setup, piece by piece.

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Obscura are currently touring North American with Abysmal Dawn, as well as Last Chance to Reason and Enfold Darkness on select dates. For any curious shredders interested in knowing how Obscura guitarist Christian Muenzer dials in such sweet tones on such a consistent basis, we asked the man himself if he’d take us on a tour of his rig. As an added bonus, Christian also told us a little bit about his studio setup and how it differs from his live rig. Here’s Christian:

My gear set up for live shows and studio recording is for the most part the same, but it does differ in certain small details.

I play a rack system, and my setup is not too complex. I like to keep things simple, but there are certain things I can’t go without.

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Misha Mansoor hasn’t done his own Rigged column for MetalSucks, but anyone who’s interested in finding out what guitar gear he uses could easily do so from his many Gear Geek columns on MetalSucks and from the general fruits of the Internet. Much more interesting is this video piece he produced with Metal Injection on the band’s recent Frak the Gods Tour stop in New York City, in which he takes us behind-the-scenes of Periphery’s stage show. He covers the band’s setup and sound-check, the sound guy, backstage, explains their light show, speaks with the other bands on the tour… everything, and it turns out that Misha’s a hilarious video host despite having the flu. Someone get this guy a regular show on Metal Injection.

-VN

On September 15th we published Part 1 of an epic Rigged piece in which new Dream Theater drummer Mike Mangini embarked on a quest to take MetalSucks readers through every single piece of his massive drumkit. On September 29th we posted Part 2. It wasn’t our intention to have to split this Rigged feature up, it’s just that the dude’s got so. much. gear. and is so passionate and detailed about explaining how it all works that we simply didn’t have a choice but to split this feature up into three! We could publish a friggin’ book with this thing. So, FINALLY, here is the third and final part:

I want to end with the electronics. I’m using what’s called Tru-Trac pads that Pearl developed to use with their e-Pro drums. Pearl’s electronic drums are not trying to rival Yamaha or Roland’s fabulous electronic drums; those are awesome and those guys make absolutely great stuff, but Pearl is not trying to copy or rival them. Pearl decided that they wanted to have a drum set that could be smacked and it would feel like an actual drum set. It’s not that the other electronic kits don’t work and can’t be learned and adjusted to; it’s just not the same as hitting the acoustic drum. They know it. Everybody knows it. Pearl said “we’re going to make something different.” Because I’m an acoustic kit player and I play a lot harder than it looks like I’m playing (but you can tell if you look at the dB meter), what’s happening is when I hit these pads, I have a connection to them with the feel. That’s the reason I’m using the Tru-Trac pads. As far as the sizes are concerned and the amount, I have one with each foot and they’re all 10″ diameter pads. Why 10″? The bigger ones are heavy. I don’t want to be putting a large electronic drum way up high on a rack. Somebody has to lift that and god help me if it falls.

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(photo credit: Mark Holmes for Metal Discovery)

Devin Townsend has gone above and beyond for MetalSucks, and for YOU, oh devoted MetalSucks reader, Devin Townsend superfan and guitar player. Not only has Devin put together one of the most detailed Rigged entries to date, not only has he provided an incredibly in-depth description of his live signal chain setup, not only has he provided photos of his EQ settings… but he’s actually provided us with the very custom-made patch files he uses live. For you to download. Completely for free. If you like Devin Townsend and you’re a big nerd (which we’re guessing is everyone who likes Devin Townsend) you’re going to love this edition of Rigged.

Unlike most of our Rigged musicians who say, “As you can see, it’s quite simple!” Devin is honest about his rig: “What a freaking nightmare.” And with that, here’s Devin himself:

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Dutch progressive technical metallers Textures just released their new album Dualism last week; you can still stream the entire thing over at Guitar World. They’re currently touring the U.S. with Periphery, The Human Abstract and The Contortionist so we thought it’d be a good time to check in with guitarist (and producer!) Jochem Jacobs about the live rig he’s using. Turns out his fellow axeman Bart Hennephof uses the exact same rig, which not only makes setting up a breeze but gives us two Rigged features for the price of one. After the jump, we hand it over to Jochem to tell you guys about his and Bart’s rig:

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Even though this isn’t an official entry into our “Rigged” series, I thought it fit quite nicely so here ya go!

-KW

On September 15th we published Part 1 of an epic Rigged piece, in which new Dream Theater drummer Mike Mangini embarked on a quest to take MetalSucks readers through every single piece of his massive drumkit. It wasn’t our intention to have to split this Rigged feature up, it’s just that the dude’s got so. much. gear. that we simply didn’t have a choice but to split it up into three! So, without further ado, here’s Part 2:

So that brings me to the cymbal arrangements. The cymbal arrangement is setup where for the most part darker sounding cymbals are on the left side and brighter sounding cymbals are on the right — higher pitch right, lower pitch left. That determines whether or not I play righty or lefty. Let me give you an example: on a song like “Caught in a Web,” the musicians in the band change key signatures from whatever key signature that they’re in to one that’s up a couple of steps. When I go from a lower key signature to a higher key signature, I will often switch from my left side hi-hats (which are lower pitched) to the right side ones (which are higher pitched).

That is the one thing that is going to stick out as being distinctly different from me and everybody, and that includes Mike Portnoy. When it comes to playing Dream Theater songs, I’m not going to play on just one hi-hat. I’m going to be switching hi-hats when the guys change key signatures.

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Arch Enemy are currently out on their MetalSucks-sponsored North American tour with DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch and Chthonic (dates here). Devildriver guitarist Mike Spreitzer recently put together a Rigged feature for MetalSucks detailing his live guitar setup, and now it’s time for a little bit of bass love courtesy Arch Enemy low-end master Sharlee D’Angelo. Here’s Sharlee:

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Devildriver are currently out on their MetalSucks-sponsored North American support run with Arch Enemy, also featuring Skeletonwitch and Chthonic (dates here). Devildriver guitarist Mike Spreitzer — who runs the recently re-launched guitar-centric site AllAxess.com with his DevilDriver axe cohort Jeff Kendrick — has taken some time out of his busy touring schedule to guide MetalSucks gearheads through a rundown of his live rig. Here’s Mike:

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When I contacted Dream Theater’s press folks for a Rigged interview with new drummer Mike Mangini about his new kit, I didn’t realize I’d end up publishing a book.

But that’s the kind of dude Mangini is; incredibly passionate, earnest, easy-going, and without a doubt one of the nicest guys I’ve ever spoken with on record. He’s also a gear nerd of the highest order, and the drum kit he’s hauling around with him on tour with Dream Theater is no joke. Mangini’s set up is so complexand his explanations so detailed, we’ve decided to split up this Rigged feature into three parts to avoid the dreaded wall of text. Drummers in the MetalSucks readership are gonna LOVE what we’ve got in store for you.

Up first: Mike takes us through his quadruple kick set-up, his pedals (8 total), hi-hats and snares. He also talks a good bit about technique as it relates to his drum setup and playing ambidextrously. Here’s Mike:

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As part of our coverage of this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival – currently winding its way through North America — we’re bringing you a series of “Rigged” columns in which several of the tour’s musicians take you on piece-by-piece guides of their current live rig setups. Check out the guitar rigs of Machine Head’s Phil Demmel, Unearth’s Buz McGrath and Ken Susi, Hatebreed’s Wayne Lozinak and Dethklok’s Brendon Small. For you bassists out there, have a look at In Flames’ Peter Iwers‘ and Red Fang’s Aaron Beam‘s rigs. To conclude our Rigged coverage of Mayhem, here’s All Shall Perish shredder Francesco Artusato:

What’s up MetalSucks readers! Francesco Artusato here. I’m going to talk a little bit about my live rig with All Shall Perish that am using at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival this summer and will be using for future tours.

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(photo from Oregon Live)

As part of our coverage of this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival – currently winding its way through North America — we’re bringing you a series of “Rigged” columns in which several of the tour’s musicians take you on piece-by-piece guides of their current live rig setups. Check out the rigs of Machine Head’s Phil Demmel, Unearth’s Buz McGrath and Ken Susi, Hatebreed’s Wayne Lozinak, In Flames’ Peter Iwers and Dethklok’s Brendon Small. Here’s Red Fang bassist Aaron Beam:

My live and recording set-ups are exactly the same, and it is very, very simple. I play a mid-80s G&L SB-1 bass (which is the only piece of equipment I own that I have absolutely no recollection of buying) through a Sunn Beta Bass amp running a Traynor 4×12 speaker cabinet. The only pedals I have are the channel switcher that comes with the amp and a Boss TU-2 tuning pedal.

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