Electric Guitar in Worship - Pedals/Effects/techniques

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Permalink Reply by Liam Byrnes on May 30, 2008 at 8:18am

Impressive set up! Thanks for letting us know (drool). I've always wondered about the LPB1 as it is the cheaper option from the Fulltone Fat Boost pedal, so nice to get an endorsement from someone who obviously knows their pedals! With regards to top end delays, Ive heard the TC Electronics Delay is amazing, have you (or anyone) ever played with it?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Weeks on October 19, 2008 at 6:02pm

I just set up rig with Visual Sound delay/chorus, Boss flanger, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Digitech EX7 Expression Factory, Morley PWA Wah. Just for 6 songs in church! Yet I sometimes play 5 nights in a row with just a cable into a Fender Blues Junior. The answer is - it does not matter! I have been told by Worship leaders to put away the WahWah - highly inappropriate! And this morning I was asked to use the WahWah in the second verse, please.

I do have a personal preference - I like to be able to hear the musician, despite the effects. That is how you express yourself, from the heart. Consciously, and unconsciously.

Attachments:

• pedal board4.JPG, 6.1 MB

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Permalink Reply by Rob B on November 4, 2008 at 10:21am

How do you find the morley?
I had one (actually still have it, just don't use it) but have replaced it with a budda wah. A bit more pricey but I found the morley far too.....nice? A little bland even? The budda seems to have a lot more character, all the best bits of the old crybaby without the clunking switch and hissiness (if that's a real word).

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Permalink Reply by Alex Ball on October 19, 2008 at 9:12pm

Hey,

Ibanez Jem JDBK
Line 6 Spider II amp- it's got most of the line-6 pod effects and modelling built in, so I don't use any other pedals.

There's a myspace page for the Hillsong's guitarists. They talk about pedals, effects, guitars, amps, tone, pickup selection and other wonderfully geeky stuff.

Seems the Ibanez Tubescreamer is used by all their guitarists. I used one years ago, wanna try and get my hands on one again.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Ransome on October 20, 2008 at 8:40am

I succumbed at the weekend and bought a Boss GT-10 as my `GT-5 was over 10 years old and I kept having to use electrolube on the volume pedal pot to keep it working.

Took it along on Sunday intending to use the GT-5 but ended up setting up 3 patches in about 5 minutes on the GT-10 and using that instead! I will let you know more when I have used it for a few weeks and read the manual.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Kent on October 20, 2008 at 9:19am

where's the muff people?

where's the muff?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Pettifer on November 4, 2008 at 10:48am

On Sunday I went a bit gear crazy, but it worked fairly well. I have bought a Roland GR33 off eBay and Sunday morning was my first use of it in a real situation. I set it all up as follows...

Line6 Variax 300 equipped with the Roland MIDI pickup. I also plugged the jack output from the Variax into the pickup via the short jack to jack you get with it. So the Roland cable went to the GR33. I also plugged in the Variax into my PODxt Live via the special cable. This provided the power to the Variax. The PODxt output went into my Laney TT20 via the FX loop (effectively bypassing the pre-amp stage) - this is my usual electric setup these days. The Roalnd GR33 has a guitar out, which I sent through my "Acoustic" pedals. These aren't really acoustic pedals, but what I use when I plug my acoustic in. They are all Boss single pedals, tuner, chorus and looper, I basically engaged the tuner to mute the output for most of the service until I wanted to use acoustic tones from the variax. The output from this went back into the Roland GR33. The GR33 output was then plugged into a wedge speaker. I had a spare electric (PRS Soapbar SE) plugged into my PODxt in case it all went belly up.

It's fair to say I took up quite a bit of stage space...! The rest of the band consisted of worship leader with acoustic guitar, two backing vocalists, keyboard player playing piano sounds, bass and drums.

The sounds I used on the Roland GR33 were all synth pads. I used 3 of the stock patches for various songs. I generally brought it in and out as appropriate. I also provided the flow / continuity between a few songs playing a chords sequence just on the synth. At other times I was playing electric guitar sounds on their own or with the synth behind. This requires a little thought to how you play and the synth patches used. During one song I switched to an acoustic tone on the Variax, turned the PODxt volume off and sent the signal through my "acoustic" pedals. I was generally picking to complement the worship leader's strumming and again had a synth pad behind.

All worked well - I had a minor issue with the Variax at one point, but this resolved itself. I'm a little concerned generally about Variax electronics on occasion. Congregation feedback was positive. Other members of the worship team in the congregation thought it worked well and didn't know that I was actually providing the pad sounds! My personal lessons learnt include really making sure I can hear the sounds being produced from all the gear, working on setting up the Roland patches, making certain I know what's coming up next and being ready to change patches (I was to introduce a song on electric and was totally not ready!), and growing two extra legs and feet at least! A lot of the time I was using the "hold" pedal on the Roland to hold synth tones - a bit like sustain - but also needed to be pressing volume up and down on my PODxt and change patches and other things... quite tricky! :-)

I will learn more lessons next time I do it I'm sure.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Kendal on November 4, 2008 at 11:44am

Wow! You must have a brain the size of a planet to work that all out! I can imagine the result must be really great but I know I couldn't handle that! It does sound really good though. I like the idea of the pads. I used to have a Roland Guitar Synth many years ago but never quite got it to do what I wanted. Having said that this may have been 20 years ago (had they invented them then?) so I suspect the usability must have gone up loads since then.

I note your comment on Variax electronics. mine has packed up completely and when I can allocate the cash for the repari I'll be sending it in to get fixed. My feeling though is that I'm unlikely to feel confident in it, we'll see. Part of my reason for having a Variax was to only carry one guitar. Therefore if I have to carry a spare it kind of defeats the object!

What's the triggering like on the modern guitar synths? Mine wasn't great on my guitar but to be fair the chap I sold it do put it straight on his guitar and got better triggering so I shouldn't blame the synth too much!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Pettifer on November 4, 2008 at 12:02pm

I understand the tracking has improved more recently. It's certainly OK for playing pads behind guitar or on their own. There is a noticable small delay when playing sounds that have a near instant attack, but would still be OK. This is all using the GK2 pickup that came with the GR33, which is magnetic based I believe. The pickups in Godin guitars, which are piezo based, are meant to be even faster, but I don't have one of those!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Kendal on November 4, 2008 at 12:08pm

Interesting that they still use the GK2 pickup. I'm pretty sure that this was the pick up I had. They must be pretty happy with it. Unfortunately I can't remember the model of the synth itself. It was a rack unit but I just can't rememebr the number at the moment.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Pettifer on November 4, 2008 at 12:12pm

Ah - well mine came with the GK2 (possible GK2a? not sure what the difference is) because it was second hand. They now do a GK3 - not sure that's any faster tracking.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Mageehan on November 4, 2008 at 11:15am

I love the sound of electric guitar in worship - it can add so much dynamic. I'm seeing more of a trend in British worhsip to use an acoustic guitar more for the band then FOH, indeed it's often so low in the mix it's not generally heard...and In American worship I'm seeing more people lead from a keyboard.

Still, here's my setup:
> 1962 (reissue) Fender Telecaster (Japan!) - Black with Ivory edge binding and scratch plate
> Tele was upgraded with Bare Knuckle Pickups - The Boss .... Brilliant pickups!
> Mesa Boogie Express 5:25 (used on 5 watt setting)
> GigFX Mega Wah Pedal
> Boss TU2 Tuner
> Boss CS3 (blue) compressor
> Roland/Boss RE20 Space Echo (tap delay and reverb)
> An Ebow

The amp has 2 channels so it and a footswitch so its easy to change between clean and crunch. I'm so happy with the setup, I played a conference the other day and its great, so small! I had a foldback wedge and then the amp next to it angled up at me (much better for controlling feedback), and loved every minute.

I think i might add one more pedal in, that would be a boost pedal of some sort, lead parts don't quite cut through enough.

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