First Gig need help.......

Jam10 · May 2008

I have my first gig on May 24th, and my question is........I have a pedal board with 7 pedals on it and I was wondering do you keep your pedals set up the way you like them for the whole night or do you quickly adjust them for a particular song if you need a particular sound? I find it tricky to get all your volumes correct and get the exact tones you need for every song. Some songs require lot's of gain, some very clean, some with some crunch and a lead tone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

xtremehardy388 · May 2008

Jam10 wrote:

I have my first gig on May 24th, and my question is........I have a pedal board with 7 pedals on it and I was wondering do you keep your pedals set up the way you like them for the whole night or do you quickly adjust them for a particular song if you need a particular sound? I find it tricky to get all your volumes correct and get the exact tones you need for every song. Some songs require lot's of gain, some very clean, some with some crunch and a lead tone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

All right, I have my pedals set up the same the whole night. I adjust the levels/gain/controls as the night progresses. Usually, everyone in my band has their own setlist and we right 'tech notes' or reminders about pedal settings. Test the settings before the show, kinda like a soundcheck. Remember, the soundcheck will give you a ballpark estimate as you may need to change things on the fly during the actual show itself. I hope your gig goes well, I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone on the board when I say good luck and ROCK ON!!!

lucylespian · May 2008

Absolutely wishing you good luck as well.
I have no gigging experience, but general advice in life is
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, which in this case would mean to not have too many complications or things you need to think about.

ianvomsaal · May 2008

Jam10 wrote:

I have my first gig on May 24th, and my question is........I have a pedal board with 7 pedals on it and I was wondering do you keep your pedals set up the way you like them for the whole night or do you quickly adjust them for a particular song if you need a particular sound? I find it tricky to get all your volumes correct and get the exact tones you need for every song. Some songs require lot's of gain, some very clean, some with some crunch and a lead tone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

The 1st thing you should do is a dry run of the exact set that you're gonna play during band rehearsal (this is so you get the song order and pedal changes
down smoothly). I say rehearsal instead of practice because IF you still need practice playing your tunes, then you probably shouldn't be gigging them yet).
One thing you'll really need to do is work out all the pedal changes during rehearsal (get all the volumes & setting changes worked out beforehand), then just
mark your settings with little triangles of multi-colored tape (use a different color tape for each change - this makes changing your settings soooo much easier).

Here's an example of what I'm talking about click: Radial Tonebone HOT BRITISH.
This is a pedal on my pedalboard - I have two tone settings marked: 80's Marshall JCM800 sound (blue), and an Early Led Zeppelin sound (white).
Note the creamy dot on the footswitch and the word BRITISH - I did that with glow in the dark paint so I can see where to stomp on a dark stage.
I'd recommend that you maybe get a small dim lamp to put on your board - it's difficult to make pedal changes if you can't see your pedals.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

MichaelMcKevin · May 2008

ianvomsaal wrote:

click: Radial Tonebone HOT BRITISH.
This is a pedal on my pedalboard - I have two tone settings marked: 80's Marshall JCM800 sound (blue), and an Early Led Zeppelin sound (white).
Note the creamy dot on the footswitch and the word BRITISH - I did that with glow in the dark paint so I can see where to stomp on a dark stage.
I'd recommend that you maybe get a small dim lamp to put on your board - it's difficult to make pedal changes if you can't see your pedals.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

That's a really good idea Ian. I don't think I've seen that before.

BinFrog · May 2008

I keep my pedals in the same order all the time, and only tweak settings if necessary. The less you have to change around and tweak during the show, the less you have to worry about and the less chance of something going wrong. Keep it simple.

Jam10 · May 2008

Thanks for the advice guys. This is my first real gig so I'm pretty nervous.

BinFrog · May 2008

Jam10 wrote:

Thanks for the advice guys. This is my first real gig so I'm pretty nervous.

Enjoy it. You'll loosen up sometime in the middle of the 2nd an 3rd songs. I've played in front of people (at gigs or open mics) a good 15 times now and I still get the jitters, only much less so. It's more just getting anxious to get up there and play now. By the 2nd or 3rd song I am good to go.

Anon · May 2008

my pedals stay in the same order 24/7. it's already been said by people, but keep it nice and simple, don't change things around, you'll only end up stressing about that. ian gave some good pointers i'd never thought about that might be worth trying.

keep telling yourself that a big bunch of the people watching have probably not played an instrument before, and if you mess up, they are more than likely not going to know.

sending you best wishes.

rock on.

BinFrog · May 2008

Pj_Gurl wrote:

keep telling yourself that a big bunch of the people watching have probably not played an instrument before, and if you mess up, they are more than likely not going to know.

Exactly. You will always be your own worst critic, and at your first show nobody really know you or your music anyway. If you mess up, avoid making the "oh sh*t" face, and just play through it. No-one will even notice.

Jam10 · May 2008

That's some good advice. That's why I love posting on this board. You guys have helped me out huge!

xtremehardy388 · May 2008

Have fun!!! Seriously, if you're having fun with it, the crowd will notice and feed off it. Instead of using tape (like Ian suggested) I use marker (easily wipes off if you don't use permanent). If you mess up, usually, people don't notice. Like BinFrog said, you'll probably loosen up by the 2nd or 3rd song. Rock on!

who's_pearljam? · May 2008

You'll be fine!

Like Ian said, and what you did, is great. Mark your positions on the pedals, and your amp. When I used to tour, I used white out on the amp settings because they were always getting twiddled with in transit.

Also, like Lucy said, keep it simple!

Take stock of your pedals and do you really need them all? Most stage problems are with pedals and connections. The simpler the better for your first gig! You'll be nervous and you might not want to factor changing pedal settings between songs.
It seems easy now, but when 22,000 people are watching, haha,,,

well, Jonny Greenwood does it pretty well, anyway!

Saw Radiohead the other night and that dude is the king of midstream tweaking!

And remember when you're on stage, if your guitar cuts out, it's going to be most likely a cord/ cable connection somewhere in the chain, so start with the guitar jack and work your way from the first connection from there (first pedal, probably) as people tend to step on cords and trip and.....

ok, well, I'm giving you the problem scenarios because these have happened to me many many times and if you can deal with those things, then you are going to have a blast.

Either way, you are going to have a blast!

xtremehardy388 · May 2008

Yeah, like Whos_PearlJam said, problems with connections happen. Last Friday, for the encore, I got NO sound out of my amp and all the connections were okay. I guess the main delay pedal I was using was messing up so I just decided not to use that pedal. It didn't affect the show but it helps to just test everything before the show. White out is a great idea, by the way, I'll have to try that out. Amp settings are usually shifted, even minorly. Also, bring an extra pack of strings!!!! I've broken tons of strings at shows and either had to change them during the break or, when I bought more guitars, I had to improv with those. Also, have picks at the ready. I'm either throwing or dropping them so I store mine on the board in a little slat.

First Gig need help.......

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