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August 2005 SOURCE: VETTAVILLe.NL |
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Bose L1 review by Scott Carlson... 25-08-2005
The EquipmentI've been gigging with a PS1
(w/ one bass unit), Podxt Live and Variax 700 for most of 2005 and
wanted to share my experience with others and also hear what others
have discovered using them together in a live environment.
Volume & (no) FeedbackThe only concerns I have had with volume is that some of the younger audience clubs have wanted the band to play at volumes which tire out my ears from the stage (we are a trio using three PS1s), yet the club has always been pleased with the overall volume from the band and not many have asked for such high volumes. Feedback has not been a problem once we used the mics suggested by Bose and only creeps up when we play too loudly on small stages where the units are 2-3 feet behind us. Although everyone has different taste, it's difficult for me to believe that a decent guitar player can't get their tone to sound excellent through this setup to at least 95% of the audience. The remaining 5% will be fellow guitar player tone freaks, and die hard SRV fans, who appreciate slight differences in tone that an average audience doesn't care about as they enjoy drinking/dancing on a night out. I have a little experience with the former crowd as my band was an SRV tribute band for the past few years before changing focus to classic rock covers in 2005. While doing the SRV tribute I used high quality tube amps and analog effects from all the popular people on the internet (Analogman, Keeley, Reese, Klon). Although I admit that the rig sounded great when set up properly, I don't think it sounded better enough to miss all of the pre-gig setup hassles I abandoned by switching to the PS1, Podxt live and Variax. Up and away in 20 minutesMy setup now takes 20 minutes and all the equipment fits in the trunk of a regular car. I power the PS1 through a furman power factor pro and regardless of the quality of electrical current available at a venue, I now have a guitar rig that consistently sounds live like I intended it to sound.
The Mode MoodAfter much experimentation, I've settled on using my Podxt Live in the Bose output mode instead of Studio Direct. There is no strong reason I can give for this decision but you need to choose either one or the other if you intend to use all the patches at a live gig. I had an easier time developing patches that I liked in the Bose output mode (maybe because you don't need to tweak mic type, mic placement and % of room). The downside to exclusively using the Bose output mode is that all song patches I have carefully tweaked while listening through the PS1 don't sound as good in other applications (ie, recording direct, direct out to house PAs, rehearsing with the band through headphones) as they would with the AIR modeling.
The Creative Patching ProcesI start out creating a new cover song patch by researching what equipment the guitarist used on the recording, then I play a recorded version of the song in my iPOD through the Aux Input of the Podxt Live and work toward matching the guitar tone as closely as possible with the pod and variax. I usually also further tweak it live because what sounds good by yourself does not always sound good when playing with drums/bass. I find that most of my patches through the PS1 start behaving like a real guitar amp (ie, sustain notes & feedback if I want it) when I use the Pod's main compressor (not stompbox compressors) to boost gain (from 4-14) with 0db threshold. After playing around alot with the Pod's main EQ, I've settled on using it flat on almost all electric guitar patches and using the amps tone controls and/or the stompbox "fx boost + EQ" when I need tweaking beyond the amp. Since I've been working on guitar
patches for almost all cover songs we perform, I try to match all levels
before hand but always set volume pedal min on 50% so that I can adjust
as necessary during songs and have plenty of room for solos. I use
the Podxt live's mono output into channel 4 of the Bose system with
the level set at about 2-3 and appreciate that I don't need to worry
about overdriving the channel input even with the volume pedal at 100%.
Playing LivePlaying live the Podxt has been very reliable but early on I had difficulty activating only the buttons I wanted. In contrast to my analog pedal switches, the Pod's switches were larger, closer together and only required light foot pressure. A few times while both singing and adjusting volume with the pedal, I inadvertantly activated the adjacient tuner switch and killed all sound from my guitar. I fixed this by purchasing the Line 6 external pedal and using that exclusively for volume control on all patches. This has also had the benefit of always leaving the other pedal available for wah use without changing the overall volume when first activated. It used to drive me nuts activating the wah and getting a simultaneous boost to 100% volume. WahBlahI can't say that I'm completely happy with the tone from the podxt Live wah as compared to my Reese TMC3, but I hope line6 updates the software in the future and allows for greater control over Q frequency and bass/treble. In the meantime, I find solace in the belief that 95% of the audience won't notice the difference even if I could adjust the wah in the future. I also got used to lightly touching the patch buttons with the side of my shoe to avoid hitting surrounding ones. The only other consistent problem has been using the Podxt Live at outdoor daytime gigs. The sun reacts with the orange LED window in such a way that you can't read what it says anymore. I solved this problem with a five inch high cardboard square (from shoebox) that fits around the Podxt live display and I tape it there for live daytime gigs to shade the display. Let it SyncAlthough the Podxt Live doesn't have a metronome for rehearsal, I've set all of my cover and original song patches with delay settings set to note values and then input the song's actual tempo in bpm at the "pedal/tweak/tempo" screen. When the patch is then selected, it shows me the preferred song tempo by the rate of the blinking red LED near the Tap button even when delay is not selected as an active effect. Setting the tempos invdividually
for songs also has the side benefit of making the Stomp, Mod or Delay
effects which use tempo to sound consistently great. I can always adjust
tempo live with the tap switch if the band performs the song at a different
tempo and then the patch tempo reverts back to the original song tempo
if I don't save the new tap setting anyway.
Variaxiting possibillities
Also, the variax pickup selector doesn't create the same sound on the Spank model as it does when you rapidly flick it on the SRV strat during a song like Voodoo Chile. In the meantime, I bring my real strat to gigs as my backup to use on all SRV tunes and then use the variax for everything else. I've been frustrated with string breakage on the Variax and have not been able to solve it by using graph tech saddles like my other guitars. After the years of copying SRV's style, I tend to use an agressive pick attack and this shortens the life span of most strings.
Elixer for the VariaxPrior to performing with the variax, I used inexpensive bulk generic strings on all my guitars and changed them after every gig, but these broke within the first hour of playing the variax. I then started using more expensive Elixir and/or Firewire guage .011-.049 guitar strings and can now get through one 3-4 hour gig without breaking a string. Also, a few months ago a guitar tech carefully filed the saddles smoother and that has helped as well. Maybe a future variax model will feature graph tech saddles. The acoustic models sound great on the variax and I use the patch that someone from Bose posted. It's very cool to play a Queen song like "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and switch guitars mid-song from acoustic to Tele by stepping on one switch during the lead.
Stay TunedI love going from an open G tuning to regular tuning just by stepping on a Podxt live pedal and never take my Gibson ES335 to a gig anymore for slide work. Also, I like to tune down a half-step for my vocals and our female bass player prefers cover songs in their original key. With the variax, I can remain in half-step down tuning throughout the entire gig and play in regular tuning for her lead vocal songs just by stepping on one button. The foregoing versatility has saved me from hauling 3-4 guitars to each gig. I don't miss the whammy bar on my variax as the maple neck is securely attached to the body and easily takes the abuse of using your right or left hand to bend it forward to lower string frequency. I didn't like the metal volume/tone control knobs on my variax 700 because you couldn't look down and see what state they were in.
Making ChangesI recently replaced
them with traditional knobs with numbers and would recommend this to
anyone who likes to adjust vol/tone during songs. I haven't really
experimented much with Workbench but would like to know if anyone has
created a guitar patch that sounds like Brian Mays red special. I also
haven't used Line 6's "Edit" program much except to save my patches
in order of setlist and move them around before a gig if something
changes.
The Band Gear
Review by Scott Carlson; used with permission for Vettaville.nl more info Source: Scott Carlson / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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Variax - Registration while using Monkey... 10-08-2005
When you are updating your Variax through the Monkey app. As small error will come up while trying to get your Variax registration done. The registration confirmation error on Variax family members has been around for a while. If you've registered, it's confirmable independently through "My Account". It's only when the Monkey goes to check your status that the wrong value is returned. Line 6 willl get fixed at some point, so please click "remind me later" in the mean time and one day it just won't appear.
more info Source: Line 6 / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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Michael Lennon InVettagation - Part 1... 03-08-2005
Venice, a band with stunning vocal abillities from the L.A. / Venice beach area. This InVettagation informs about different aspects of Venice about their vocals, use of Line 6 gear and different tunings. So here's an InVettagation on 4 hardworking guys from the sunny side of Venice Beach California. Turns out they had one of the Beta models of the Variax 500 used in their Blue Paint video. Welcome to the rest of the InVettagation. In this InVettagation an interview with their guitarplayer, Lennon family member, singer, songwriter and responsible for their recordings. Thanks go out to all the Venice bandmembers, their crew and management, they have been very kind and helpfull. For starters, a short info on the Venice chronicles. Michael can you give me some background? Whell Venice consists of 4 family members Kipp Lennon - who's on lead vocals, Mark Lennon - also lead vocals, Pat Lennon - electric & acoustic guitar and vocals and myself Michael Lennon - electric & acoustic guitar, vocals. Kipp and myself started the band in 1977. The next year Mark joined and we got Pat onboard three years later. Kipp and Pat are brothers, as are Mark and myself.
Venice's music can be described as either Rock, Folk-Rock, Country-Folk-Rock, Adult Contemporary or Vocal Group, depending upon the source. Our sound is often compared to the Southern California sound of 1970's groups like the Eagles, Crosby Stills & Nash and Fleetwood Mac.
Is there a kinda of a statement that Venice tries to get across? A Statement? Not nescessarily, I think we wanna speak honestly and truthfully about our life experiences when we write our songs. We want to get the people to know that they're not alone in their feelings whenever they are happy or sad or different states they are in. We write songs about the things that we experience, we write about the things we go through and it ends up to being things that other people go through in their own lives aswell. Somethings about our own lives it could be taking by different people. For example we could write about a child and someone could think it's about their girlfriend. We try to write the songs more generally and not so specific so that people can apply it to their own experience of that same situation. Wheter it's the love for a child or a grownup. even it's a bout the death of young or old person or a loved one.. whell whatever it is. So I don't know if we're really making a statement. I think it the main thing that we do is stay honest and write about what we're talking about. we don't try to make up stories to make a hitsong or something. we really wanna try to keep it real. We find that the most succes comes when we do that. The songs that connect the most are the songs that are so simple... They capture a reality in life but in a unique way. Like saying "the family tree will always grow" instead of saying "we will have kids" or they will die and we will have kids. So we try to do something artistic and creative with it and keep it really simple. So it's not really a statement it's more a motto or our goal.
more info Source: Vinny / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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Michael Lennon InVettagation - Part 2... 03-08-2005
Welcome to page 2 and the rest of the InVettagation. In this InVettagation an interview with their guitarplayer, Lennon family member, singer, songwriter and responsible for their recordings. Thanks go out to all the Venice bandmembers, their crew and management, they have been very kind and helpfull.
You say you keep it simple in your songs, but you use some strange tunings in your songs... These are sometimes out of the ordinary, why? I think it started whith being lucky to know David Crosby and Jackson Browne personally. To play with people like that and being around them and see David tune a guitar in the wierdest possible way.. I mean David Crosby tought Joni Mitchell the wierd tunings and then she made up a bunch of her own. To being lucky and able to sit down a couple of time and he showed me some of these wierd tunings whell it really stimulated my musical ideas and insight. Because of the different tunings I didn't know where to put my fingers I would acidentally hit a chord and thinking WOW that's beautiful or I love this tuning or that one. You know songs like the family tree, the road to where you are, one quiet day were all written close to a tuning called DADGAD. Of all of the wierd tunings it's one of the more normal ones. The family tree is actually DADAAD because I've changed it and made up my own tuning. So that it worked the way I fingered it.
SoIn the video this tuning is +1, so this Workbench tone is 'tuned' to the video for your convinience.
So I was tought those, I did it, and when I was praticing and fooling around I ended up writing three of our songs that are still on the setlists most of the time. It's interesting because it's a Venice song but the tunigs made me think in a different way. It opened my eyes and it shed light on something that I hadden't thought about before. I had to rediscover something that creatively really stimulated me. The tuning in Family Tree is a little bit of a strange tuning but if you watch how I play them. I litterly have my thumb wrapped around my guitarneck and I'm sliding up and down. Meanwhile I'm using the open high strings but moving the bass-strings which it root-five-root. Which is just like playing bar chords but then I have that droning open notes going with it that gives it this beautiful open sound. See the different pictures 1 to 8 to have the idea and the videolink beneath them for the fingersettings of the intro.
more info Source: Vinny / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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Michael Lennon InVettagation - Part 3... 03-08-2005
Welcome to page 3 and the rest of the InVettagation. In this InVettagation an interview with their guitarplayer, Lennon family member, singer, songwriter and responsible for their recordings. Thanks go out to all the Venice bandmembers, their crew and management, they have been very kind and helpfull.
Welcome to the rest of the InVettagation. In this InVettagation an interview with their guitarplayer, Lennon family member, singer, songwriter and responsible for their recordings. Thanks go out to all the Venice bandmembers, their crew and management, they have been very kind and helpfull.
There are influences from the Beatles in "Welcome to the rest of your life" song and Steely Dan in "I'll keep my fingers crossed" how come? It's funny that you bring that up since The Beatles, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Crosby, Still & Nash, Stevie Wonder are hughe influences for us. Great people to grow with, learning their songs and listening to their records because this is great stuff. So that influence is always there. On "I'll keep my fingers crossed" where many people seem to think that it's Steely Dan, started out from the Stylistics song. The song goes "Whenever you call me, I'll be there that goes (Micheal's singing to me know) Wheneevr you need me I'll be there ... I'll be around. If you then listen to I'll keep my fingers crossed you'll go, ooh, yeah that's what it is. We litterallly listened to that song to go, that's the 'feel' we gotta have, that's the kind of thing we want. Of course we knew we wouldn't sound like that, because we're Venice but we never talked about the Steely Dan thing untill someone else brought it up. So we weren't trying to sound like the Stylistics either but we were influenced by that record because Kipp has that kinda voice when he sings that kind of R & B influence like Donald Fagen. I think it just comes out that way. We were kinda suprised when people started bringing that up and when I hear it know I can hear that you would think it would sound like Steely Dan. But it wasn't ever the intention to sound like them that was, what was funny to us.
Vinny, I know you always want something special, so here's an original 'used' setlist. I've added the guitars I use with the song and in what tuning and where the capo is placed. I guess ideal for your InVettagation. Thanks Michael, for adding this bonus, that'll please your fans and readers of this Invettagation.
Final question Michael, how's the Venice sound created? In short Vinny? Make track, put Venice vocals on it and you're done... (laughing) No, In general the sound is created by me and then topped with a drummer, a bass player and a keyboard player. On other times it reamins just me and I bring in a computer. The skeleton of a track is made by me, I mean the arrangement, the approach and the sounds. Then other great muscians are brought in to either elaborate or to make the part better. Or in some cases not to do anything and use the original part. So that's the beginning of it. Then of course we put the Venice vocals on top of that and then we sound just like we sound like... We have our own approach to do our harmonies and the arranging of our harmonies and usually it's very consistantly recognisable. From occasion we try to change it on purpose. But it will start with a track that I will build myself to get the direction for everyone that we agree on.
Thanks Michael for getting back together, see ya next time... Vinny, as always, the pleasure's all mine, keep in touch.. If you want to know more about Venice, visit venicecentral.com
Ever thought of a tabbook or something? We are thinking of making a tabbook with Venice songs since theres a lot of returning questions for it. I really wanna do this but I have to find the time. So maybe in a near future we can work on it I actually already tought about it to have a Venice DVD with an extra bonus DVD with all the tabs and a video of me playing the songs with the exact fingerings. Because more people could use that, since not every-one can read music or tablature. So if people can watch me do it then it could be "understood" by more people. We are gonna do a sheetmusic book / tablature book and do little video with it. In it I can literally explain how I came up with the idea or how it got me started, evolved and then play the part itself. When I was younger and I listened to songs I always wanted to figure them out and you could allways buy the sheetmusic but it sometimes isn't transcribed correctly, like how I'm really hearing it. But I could watch someone on TV doing it one time and I could go, "ooh, o.k. he's playing the third position bar chord. Once I know where he is I can figure things out pretty good. I always wanted the buy photo's and always wanted that there were photo's. Now with the age of Internet there's a lot of great possibillities, so.. I'm hoping to make it a more of an audio/visual thing then just a book with a bunch of notes on it.
Michael I know you're involved in songwriting together with the rest of the band, can you shed some light on the proces? Of course Vinny, happy to elobarate for you. What we say that we try to have a song 'fully realized' as we put it. Sometimes there are songs from just one bandmember with lyrics and music and it fits right in the other Venice songs. With fully realized we mean that the one person took it from point A to B without being stuck in the middle. Sometimes I could have a guitar idea, and it's a beautiful idea, like Family Tree for example. The music was written. I had the guitarpart, I had the melody to sing. I just didn't know what the words should be, but knew that they should be about you know, that what comes from your heart. I got together with Kipp and John Vester, played them the music and hummed them the melody. It touched them in the same way without even having words.. I just thought wow. Then we worked on it and it became fully realized. We reached from where I was going to point B but didn't know how to get there necesarily, let's say I got halfway there and they helped me to get through the rest of the way. Some songs like "Think Again" is different. Mark just woke up one morning and had this melody in his head and was starting to write down these words. He have to know he doesn't play an instrument but he can pretty much tell me what he needs. He just says, do that chord and stay on it, bit longer.., now switch. Then he says, whell there's one other chord and he sings me the notes to that chord. So he sings me the notes to play without playing guitar. It's pretty amazing... In this proces we could change one chord or say: you should take those words out and repeat another part because we think it better. But generally he wrote that song and it fits into Venice, the harmonies come in and it sounds like something we would write. The proces is never the same it's always a bit different and changing. There's songs that Kipp and I write together. There are songs that all three of us write together. There's songs that Pat comes to us like "Blue Ocean Park Waltz". He just brings us the whole idea called the waltz and we changed it to Blue Ocean Waltz, we write a few other parts to it. So it's really always changing and that's exiting to not being stuck in the same proces every time. It's always evolving and new ingredients and new ways of doing it. Then al of a sudden you bring a computer into the mix and you acidentally hit a button that turns the guitar backwards you know all that stuff is always stimulating our creativity and changes things. We always try to find new combinations, not only in gear but also in the way we build a song. more info Source: Vinny / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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Michael Lennon InVettagation - Part 4... 03-08-2005
Welcome to the rest of the InVettagation. In this InVettagation an interview with their guitarplayer, Lennon family member, singer, songwriter and responsible for their recordings. Thanks go out to all the Venice bandmembers, their crew and management, they have been very kind and helpfull.
There are influences from the Beatles in "Welcome to the rest of your life" song and Steely Dan in "I'll keep my fingers crossed" how come? It's funny that you bring that up since The Beatles, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Crosby, Still & Nash, Stevie Wonder are hughe influences for us. Great people to grow with, learning their songs and listening to their records because this is great stuff. So that influence is always there. On "I'll keep my fingers crossed" where many people seem to think that it's Steely Dan, started out from the Stylistics song. The song goes "Whenever you call me, I'll be there that goes (Micheal's singing to me know) Wheneevr you need me I'll be there ... I'll be around. If you then listen to I'll keep my fingers crossed you'll go, ooh, yeah that's what it is. We litterallly listened to that song to go, that's the 'feel' we gotta have, that's the kind of thing we want. Of course we knew we wouldn't sound like that, because we're Venice but we never talked about the Steely Dan thing untill someone else brought it up. So we weren't trying to sound like the Stylistics either but we were influenced by that record because Kipp has that kinda voice when he sings that kind of R & B influence like Donald Fagen. I think it just comes out that way. We were kinda suprised when people started bringing that up and when I hear it know I can hear that you would think it would sound like Steely Dan. But it wasn't ever the intention to sound like them that was, what was funny to us.
Vinny, I know you always want something special, so here's an original 'used' setlist. I've added the guitars I use with the song and in what tuning and where the capo is placed. I guess ideal for your InVettagation. Thanks Michael, for adding this bonus, that'll please your fans and readers of this Invettagation.
Final question Michael, how's the Venice sound created? In short Vinny? Make track, put Venice vocals on it and you're done... (laughing) No, In general the sound is created by me and then topped with a drummer, a bass player and a keyboard player. On other times it reamins just me and I bring in a computer. The skeleton of a track is made by me, I mean the arrangement, the approach and the sounds. Then other great muscians are brought in to either elaborate or to make the part better. Or in some cases not to do anything and use the original part. So that's the beginning of it. Then of course we put the Venice vocals on top of that and then we sound just like we sound like... We have our own approach to do our harmonies and the arranging of our harmonies and usually it's very consistantly recognisable. From occasion we try to change it on purpose. But it will start with a track that I will build myself to get the direction for everyone that we agree on.
Thanks Michael for getting back together, see ya next time... Vinny, as always, the pleasure's all mine, keep in touch.. If you want to know more about Venice, visit venicecentral.com
more info Source: Vinny / vettaville.nl | ||||||||||||||||
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