Thanks Slawie! I'm glad you like the song, and the sound track comment is encouraging in that I'm hoping the songs tell a story, and are not heard as just fingering exercises. Of course I still need to do the fingering exercises!
To answer your request for a description of the rig, here is the signal path as it stands at the moment, always subject to slight adjustments.
On the SII, the volume on the bridge pickup is a good bit higher than the neck pickup; maybe 8 and 6 respectively. The filter on the bridge pickup is generally somewhere between 10 (fully open) and 8, and the Q also between 10 and 8; generally. The neck filter is generally rolled back to somewhere around 3, and the Q at 0; generally. Recently, I've rolled back my master volume to about 8 so that I'm not overdriving my gain structure (more on that below).
From the SII stereo out to the DS-5R.
From the DS-5R stereo out to the F-2B. The neck pickup's signal goes to channel 1 and the bridge pickup to channel 2; each pickup's signal gets further shaping to arrive at the desired overall curve. Neither pickup gets soloed, so the tone of either pickup by itself is not a consideration. The neck pickup channel's settings are bright switch off, volume 4, bass 4, mid 6, treble 5.5. The treble pickup channel's settings are currently bright switch on, volume 4, bass 5.5, mid 8, treble 6.
Mono out to the SF-2. The SF-2 is setup as a three channel mixer, one channel being a low pass filter, one being a high pass filter, and the third being an unfiltered signal. The gain on the low pass filter is around 2, the frequency is set at around 110Hz, and the Q at around 1.8. The gain on the high pass filter is around 6.5, the filter around 600Hz(? hard to tell), and the Q around 5. The gain on the unfiltered channel is about 9.
SF-2 mono out to the Sans Amp Tech 21 Preamp. It's kinda difficult to describe the settings since, unless you have one, the descriptions would be fairly meaningless. There are essentially five different types of gain structures which are combined to produce the desired overdrive tone. I have three settings that I have worked up which introduce a somewhat subtle amount of overdrive at this stage, and a couple which add a bit more overdrive for one or two of the tunes; one or the other of these overdriven settings is always on. These settings are midi selected with footswitches on the pedal board.
From the effects loop out on the Tech 21 to the T.C. Electronic M-One XL. (There's also a Lexicon MPX1 right before the T.C., but it's currently not being used and may soon be removed from the rig.) Here the signal is split into stereo. All of the effects are settings I worked up over time.
The first effect is tremolo, which is always on but very subtle. There is a midi switch on the pedal board to cut this on and off, and one to change the mix of wet and dry signals in the effect from subtle to noticeable.
Next is chorus, and this too is always on, but also has an on/off footswitch if ever needed. The mix of wet and dry signals in the chorus effect is controlled by an expression pedal. This effect is very subtle on some songs, a bit more noticeable on others, and very noticeable on a few.
Next is reverb, again always on, on/off footswitch, with the effect level controlled by an expression pedal. The effect is generally quite noticeable.
Next is delay, and again always on, on/off switch, with the effect level controlled by an expression pedal. This effect too is generally quite noticeable.
Next in the path is volume, controlled by an expression pedal.
From the T.C. Electronic stereo out to the BBE Sonic Maximizer 422A. Both channels are setup the same with the Lo-Contour set to +1, and the Definition currently set to +2.
From the BBE stereo out to the effects return of the Tech 21. Here there are direct outs for each channel if needed.
From the Tech 21 stereo out to the QSC PLX 2402, setup in stereo mode. The overall frequency curve is setup to work well when the volume levels on the PLX are set at 3. When the volume levels are set to 1 or 2, adjustments to the settings on the SII and switching Tech 21 settings usually works adequately. Each channel of the PLX drives a Bag End D10BX-D.
The rig is really a bit big for just going down to a coffee shop for a solo gig. But it's where I'm at for the moment. Of course at the heart of the whole thing is the Alembic. There are times at 2:00 in the morning when I'm practicing where it just sounds amazingly beautiful, despite my inability to put my fingers where they're supposed to be. The tone it creates and the frequency range that it provides are, again, just amazingly beautiful.
