Pictudes of Alex "old" rig/pedals?

[Fender56]

Hi!!

 

Does anyone has a picture of the old Alex rig, around the Moving Picture era, when he was using the Boss CE-1, EH Electric Mistress, MXR Distortion + etc? It is written in the booklet/tour book that he actually used those pedals, but I've never seen them in any picture, apart its silver-looking foot controller box. His pedals must be in hidden in an enclosure or a drawer near his amp, of something like that. Not visible...

 

A guy from the Hiwatt forum says that he already saw a picture, or from a video, and he was even able to tell the setting of each pedals, but no news from him. Here is his post:

 

 

Since I wrote that post, I've seen Alex's settings much more clearly now. I was close before, but now I've positively got it.

 

DR103 Knob Settings from Left -> Right (o'clock positions)

2 - 7 - 12 - 3 - 12 - 3 - 3

 

These settings make sense, as they seem to intentionally give right about the maximum clean volume with lots of punch, which works well with his effects.

 

Effects

 

Guitar -> MXR Distortion + ->EH Electric Mistress -> Roland CE-1 -> MXR Micro Amp -> DR103 Normal Channel

 

Effect Settings

 

MXR Dist +

Distortion - 12 o'clock

Output - 12 o'clock

 

EH Electric Mistress

Rate - 50%

Range - 30%

Color - 60%

 

Roland CE-1

Input - High

Level - 10 o'clock

Chorus - 10 o'clock

 

MXR Micro Amp

Level - 12 o'clock

 

With these effects, this sequence, and these effect and amp settings, you will clearly hear Exit...Stage Left. One thing that becomes apparent now that I go back and listen to the audio is that Bill Lawrence pickup in the white Sportscaster has a big punch.

 

 

 

So, is there some pictures of his old rig around?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Babycat]

Can't help you there, but welcome to TRF! :hi:

[Rush-O-Matic]

A guy from the Hiwatt forum says that he already saw a picture, or from a video, and he was even able to tell the setting of each pedals, but no news from him. Here is his post:

 

With these effects, this sequence, and these effect and amp settings, you will clearly hear Exit...Stage Left. One thing that becomes apparent now that I go back and listen to the audio is that Bill Lawrence pickup in the white Sportscaster has a big punch.

 

Which is funny, because on much of that album, including their most recognizable song, Tom Sawyer, he doesn't play the Sportscaster. What is that, a LP Florentine or Howard Roberts Fusion? I think it's the latter but, I don't know the differences that well.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Live he played the Howard Roberts on ESL for Sawyer. The studio video for Sawyer shows Alex playing the 355 for the rhythm and a black ES for the solo. Plus on the 2112/Moving Pictures Classic Albums episode Alex goes through the multitrack master from Sawyer and there are 3 distinct guitar tones combined for most of the song that he isolates to demonstrate how that tone was achieved.

 

On the studio Limelight video Alex plays a black Strat with a PAF in the bridge. This later became one of the Hentors after Signals, as did the white Strat used live that had the Bill Lawrence on ESL and the red Strat in the subdivisions video. All still had Fender on the headstock until GUP which is when the Hentor idea was put forth. :)

[MarkScudder]

On the studio Limelight video Alex plays a black Strat with a PAF in the bridge. This later became one of the Hentors after Signals, as did the white Strat used live that had the Bill Lawrence on ESL and the red Strat in the subdivisions video. All still had Fender on the headstock until GUP which is when the Hentor idea was put forth. :)

 

This is correct. The white and black Strats that became the Sportscaster and Porkflapsocaster, respectively, had some sort of Gibson humbucker in them (I'm sure Cyg is right about it being a PAF). Alex was trying to make his Strats sound like Les Pauls at the time. The Lawrence L500L has a different sound than the PAF that's a little hard to classify; it's almost in a sweet spot between sounding like a traditional humbucker and having two single coils (say like two Strat singles), one out of phase, turned on at once.

[rushfanNlv]

One of the key elements to the Alex sound is the way the amps are set up. Notice that he always uses at least two of the same amp, even back in the day. One amp is set up screaming hot while the other amp is set up to a cleaner tone. He would also send a direct signal to the house via a cranked twin reverb. Taken from an interview during the GUP time "Yeah, well, I think when you do that, when you get a combination of a few things, too often you mike 1 amp or you mike 2 amps or 3 amps but you set them up the same and you get 1 basic sound. But if you mix it up, you get 1 amp that’s really screaming and another amp that’s crystal clear that you would never think of using that sounds direct almost. Another amp has got maybe more bass to it.

Then something like the Rockman, it’s got that limited compressed sound to it and you can throw them all together. You have a sound that you can fool around with and play with. In some halls, you might push more of the direct sound. In other halls, you might pull the direct sound down a bit. I really think that’s the way to go, and that’s what we ended up doing on this record. I think on Grace Under Pressure, it was a more accurate live guitar sound than we’ve had in the past because we used different miking techniques and whole different approach to sound:.

Edited March 20, 2015 by rushfanNlv

[hunter]

What do you guys think about this?

[Maverick]

What do you guys think about this?

 

I think he should tune up before recording.

[JARG]

What do you guys think about this?

 

I think it's a pretty cool-sounding box.

[Maverick]

What do you guys think about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=31&v=M96XhGyxJlw

 

I think it's a pretty cool-sounding box.

 

It did sound pretty good for $300, Strymon's normal price for a box that size.

[Maverick]

What do you guys think about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=31&v=M96XhGyxJlw

 

So overall, I think the tone was pretty convincing, but the playing was rather pedestrian.

[MarkScudder]

[never mind] Edited April 30, 2015 by MarkScudder