Using Gibson's Digital Les Paul on stage

Still, a reviewer's job is to be objective, and it didn't take long for me to realize that Gibson had a tiger by the tail. The more I worked with the HD 6X Pro, the more I liked it, and the more I appreciated its depth and power. In fact, it became the crucial centerpiece of the band EV2 — a 'power duo' consisting of yours truly on guitar and Public Enemy's Brian Hardgroove on drums (or, as über-engineer Eddie Kramer jokingly called us, "the Black And White Stripes"). But to understand how the Digital Les Paul became such a big part of our live act, we first need to understand what makes this guitar tick.

The Digital Les Paul plays, sounds, and even looks (mist-blue finish aside, which is gorgeous) like a Les Paul. But in a way, it has a split personality. It includes the standard humbucker magnetic pickups of a Les Paul, along with the traditional two volume/two tone knobs and three-way pickup switch. This part of the system terminates in a quarter-inch jack, so if you want to, you can use the digital version just like a standard Les Paul that sounds the same as the 'real thing'.

While the concept of a divided pickup is nothing new — Roland's GR 500 used one 30 years ago, as did ARP's ill-fated Avatar guitar synth — the one in the Digital Les Paul sounds extremely good, with a true 'electric guitar' vibe. It also has unusually good crosstalk characteristics, so you can pile on high-gain distortion devices without getting too much interference from the other strings.

The Digital Les Paul also avoids bulky multi-pin cables by digitizing the string outputs and terminating them in a locking Neutrik RJ45 (Ethernet/CAT 5 cable) connector on the guitar itself. This can also carry the Classic Mode output, so ultimately, what comes out of the guitar is a common, inexpensive, lightweight cable for which you can find a replacement at just about any electronics, computer, or even hardware store.

The MaGIC (Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier) network over which the string signals travel actually accommodates more than just the string signals. The guitar has a mini-jack input, ideal for plugging in a headset mic, and this signal also gets sent down the network cable. Furthermore, there's a stereo mini-jack output for a headset or, more germanely, in-ear monitors. This picks up a signal from the network. While this may seem like a bit of a Frankenstein concept, in reality the jackplate along the bottom of the guitar manages to include all of these, as well as a thumbwheel volume control for the monitors, fairly unobtrusively.

To take advantage of this network, the other end connects to a breakout box. This offers individual outputs for each string (as well as grouped outputs for strings 1-3 and 4-6), an output for the Classic Mode sound, another output for the mic, and two inputs for sending to the monitor jack on the Digital Les Paul. The box is powered by 48V phantom power, so we're talking about serious power supply rails with serious headroom. I think this is part of the reason why the divided pickup sound quality is so good; the transients come through unscathed.

During the course of reviewing the guitar (you can read the review at www.harmony-central.com/articles/reviews/gibsondigitalguitar_review/, as well as hear some audio examples), I got into plugging the breakout box into an audio interface input, loading Cakewalk's Sonar as a host for plug-ins, and experimenting with different sounds. I was particularly fond of running the bottom three strings through octave dividers, and layering chorused or distorted sounds from the other three strings on top of that. It's a sort of 'Nine Inch Nails bass meets Andy Summers rhythm guitar' — a huge sound that doesn't need a lot to keep it company in a mix; just playing against drums produced a pretty satisfying sound. At the time, I had no idea that that particular sound could form the backbone of a band.

The divided pickup sits between the bridge and the treble pickup, so that bending the strings doesn't affect the output as much as if it was located somewhere else

As it turned out, Brian was involved in the Santa Fe Muzik Fest, a three-day music festival, because Public Enemy was the headlining act. I mentioned that I was looking for local venues to do my remixing/fader slamming/Ableton Live-based DJ act, and he said there was a slot open in the festival due to another band's logistical problems. But since we had discovered we had a lot in common musically and personally, Brian suggested maybe we should do something together — we both had done 'pickup bands' before.

As to deciding the format, I mentioned that the Digital Les Paul was capable of making really huge sounds. I felt that I was just starting to realize the full implications of what it could do, and that it could take audiences to entirely new places. Brian was intrigued, and after debating whether to add other people, we decided it would be more of a challenge to see if we could make things happen with just the two of us. The appeal of playing without a safety net also got me hooked, as a little bit of danger adds an edge when playing live.

So while Brian was touring, I started working on a setup. The first attempt involved sending the bottom three strings to a DigiTech RP250 Octave Divider, the top three strings to a Line 6 POD XT, and the magnetic pickup outs to a DigiTech GNX3000. It seemed like a robust, simple setup, and it gave me what keyboardists have had all these years — splits and layers. This also worked well with my playing style, as I use a thumbpick and my fingers. I could articulate bass lines on the bottom strings, hit the top strings with my fingers for a rhythm sound, and for solos, kick in the GNX3000, use the pick, and hit 'pedal-point' bass notes on the lower strings.

For an amp, I wanted a system with a flat frequency response, as I was getting the sound I wanted (including cabinet emulation) out of the processors. I had used the Bose L1 previously for PA/vocals and remixes, so I pressed that into service. Although I thought this would just be a temporary arrangement in our rehearsal space, as described later we discovered something about it that made the L1 a crucial part of the act.

When we first started jamming, it was obvious we were on to something. Brian loves drums, and he's a monster player with a tremendous sense of style and timing. His being a multi-instrumentalist (bass and guitar) turned out to be a tremendous advantage when playing with the Digital Les Paul. Brian plays very contrapuntally and melodically, so the drums actually ended up filling in a lot of those melodic 'holes'.

Brian was blown away by the Digital Les Paul. Later on, he said how much fun it is to play with "one guitarist who sounds like ten". Although it was our first rehearsal, we started to think this was a valid format — but getting together an optimum stage setup took a lot of experimentation.

You can see all of the breakout box connections on the front — there's nothing on the back, which is kind of convenient. The bottom row is for the six individual string outputs, and the RJ45 connector that connects to the guitar is the big jack toward the right

At subsequent rehearsals, it became clear that running the three bottom strings through a single octave divider wouldn't work, as playing more than one string caused the RP250 (or any octave divider I tried) to freak out into a blob of sound. This meant I had to be extremely careful with my picking; hitting a wrong note at the wrong time could kill a song, and I wanted to be able to play with some degree of abandon.

I tried running the three bottom strings through three pieces of hardware I had that could do octave division, and the sound was glorious. If I hit all three strings, instead of sounding muddy the result was a big chord. But what with lugging around three stomp boxes that could do octave division, a POD XT to handle 'rhythm' guitar, a GNX3000 for leads, the guitar's breakout box, and the DigiTech Vocalist Live 2 vocal processor (see 'In search of big vocals' box), my hardware setup was getting excessive. I don't like complicated stage setups, and I didn't want so many things that could go wrong.

So it was time to bite the bullet, run the audio through a computer, and use plug-in effects. This still didn't seem ideal; I needed a computer, the breakout box, an audio interface, and as for copy protection — would I be asked for an authorization disk in the middle of a gig? Still, it seemed like the only way to go.

First question: Mac versus Windows. Windows won due to the ease with which some Windows laptops can be replaced or repaired on the road (ironically, back in the mid '90s I used the original Mac Powerbooks because they were easier to repair than Windows laptops, but over the years this situation has reversed).

Second question: Which notebook? I didn't want to use the Rain Recording computer I take on the road for my solo-oriented DJ performances, writing, doing emails, and the like. I felt I needed to dedicate a computer to EV2, and fortunately, I had an old Pentium 4-based DAW laptop sitting around — not the spiffiest computer in the world, but a hot machine in its day and capable of doing what I needed.

Here's a picture of the final setup, from the soundcheck at the Santa Fe Muzik Fest. Going clockwise from the mic stand, there's the DigiTech GNX3000 on the floor, the Vocalist Live 2 for vocals, the pedal board and, to the right, the Bose L1 guitar-amp-that's-not-supposed-to-be-a-guitar-amp. So why am I holding the guitar neck almost parallel to the L1's speaker column? We'll get to that later.

The power supply has four protected outlets, and a Velcro base for adding effects. But note that this was only for the computer-related elements; the GNX3000 isn't much smaller than the pedal board itself, so it sets up to the left of the pedal board. Having the Ethernet cable come toward the guitar from the right, perpendicular to my body, gave me the freedom to move around without tripping on the cable. (The MaGIC network can handle hundreds of feet of cable. Incidentally, due to the use of a network cable instead of audio cables, you don't have to worry about hum and other interference issues — you can drape the Ethernet cable on top of a transformer, and it makes no difference.)

The Planet Waves Cable Station came to the rescue for custom cables This system lets you buy right-angled and standard quarter-inch plugs, as well as cable lengths and a cable cutter, so you can put custom cables together in literally minutes. You simply cut the cable to length, insert an end into a jack, tighten a setscrew, and then repeat for the other end of the cable. Done. I ended up using a mix of right-angled and straight plugs cut to just the right length, and they definitely neatened things up.

The computer is in the lower left-hand corner, and the small rectangle to the left of the computer is the Emu 1616m PCMCIA card. Toward the right, the 1616m audio interface is attached above the MaGIC breakout box. The other small boxes are AC adapters.

I'd always had good luck with the cardbus-based Emu 1616m with my Rain computer, and using a PCMCIA card meant no Firewire or USB issues. I didn't like the idea of a card hanging out the side of the computer, and a fairly bulky cable going to a separate audio interface box, but the interface's small size was a plus.

Although the 1616m has enough outputs to accommodate the Gibson MaGIC breakout box, they're a little inconvenient to use. The front panel has two inputs, which receive the outs from the first and second strings. The other four string outputs go into the rear, which is also where the output runs into the amp.

I had hoped Sonar's real-time pitch-stretch algorithm could do the necessary octave division, but the sound was nowhere near as good as the RP250, so it was time for an amp simulator. There are certainly plenty of choices: Native Instruments' Guitar Rig, IK Multimedia's AmpliTube, Waves' GTR, and Line 6's GearBox plug-ins. I've used them all, and they're all very capable and have their own advantages and limitations. Which one would be right?

My first thought was what would be best if there was a computer meltdown while on the road. I couldn't count on Internet authorization in the middle of a gig. Guitar Rig will run for a certain amount of time without authorization, but eventually, I wanted to carry two computers and be able to switch between them at a moment's notice. GR does allow two authorizations, so I could have it on each computer and be ready to go. Another advantage of Guitar Rig 2 is it has lots of 'futuristic' sounds, like step-sequenced filters, which I thought would be a very cool complement to the futuristic nature of the Digital Les Paul. However, I had to keep my laptop's capabilities in mind. The more functions you add, the harder it has to work.

Next up, I really like the sound and functionality of the Line 6 plug-ins, but they require bringing a Line 6 interface that I wasn't going to use (however, the new TonePort UXB might be ideal). So that was eliminated, as I could tell that pedal board space was going to be at a premium.

Amplitube 2 uses a dongle, so it's also easily transportable between computers (load the program on both computers, then just switch the dongle if you need to switch computers). GR gives a lot more options than Amplitube, but ultimately, the octave divider sound was crucial and I liked the one in Amplitube 2.

Here's Sonar 6's Console View. To the right of the seven channels are two busses, and fully right, the interface output that feeds the amplification system. Note the Digital Les Paul custom track icons. Why seven channels for a six-string instrument? Well, the fourth string gets sent through an octave divider, and also to a send that processes strings 1-4 with compression and modulation

I loaded up six instances of Amplitube 2, and got an instant CPU meltdown, with nasty crackles, dropouts and glitches. But then I realized that the 'rhythm' guitar didn't need three separate instances, because I was going after a fairly clean, bright, chorused sound. So I removed three of the AmpliTubes, created a bus, inserted one AmpliTube in the bus, and sent strings 1-4 to the bus. The CPU consumption was now down to 80 percent.

Setting all preferences to minimum CPU power and making sure all the rack effects were off brought the CPU power for each instance down to about 15 percent. Removing Amplitube from the bus and using Sonar's Sonitus FX chorus and compressor instead to give the clean guitar sound gave me the magic 50-percent figure. The bass sound was full, big and defined, and the rhythm sound shimmered almost as well as it had when I was using the Pod XT. (The Pod XT did have a sonic edge thanks to the amp models, but as the rhythm guitar sound is the least important part of the mix, this was a compromise I could make for the sake of a simpler setup.)

I thought I'd nailed the setup, but after playing for a while loud pops and crackles came through the speakers. This correlated to hard disk activity, which seemed strange because I wasn't recording anything, and the plug-ins certainly didn't have to access the hard disk. It occurred to me that maybe disk indexing was on. It was, so I unchecked, rebooted, and loaded the Sonar project. Once again all was well, but only temporarily.

I then realized it was necessary to track down all possible active processes in the machine and stop them so that the computer just hosted plug-ins and did nothing else (see sidebar). I turned off System Restore, disabled Automatic Updates, turned off all protections that scanned the hard drive (the computer was certainly not going to get a virus sitting on stage), and used the 'msconfig' command to disable most startup processes. The last step was editing the power saver feature so that the computer didn't go into standby until after 9,999 minutes. These steps resulted in a totally stable setup.

This shows the Stomp Box section of Amplitube 2, which is pretty much the only section being used — the software is basically serving as a host for its effects processors. Note that the EQ has all the highs rolled off, as this gives more reliable triggering with the octave divider.

At one point during one of our last rehearsals prior to the Muzik Fest gig, Brian thought the guitar wasn't loud enough (imagine that — having a band mate say "The guitar isn't loud enough, turn it up!") so I cranked the volume on the Bose L1 channel with the GNX3000. To my delight, that slight volume boost turned the L1 into a controlled feedback monster. And I mean controlled.

If you're not familiar with the L1, it's a system where the bass cabinets are on the ground, while a tall column with lots of small speakers handles the mid range and highs. Bringing the Digital Les Paul in closer to the column gave super-sweet feedback — there was no squealing, and due to the location of the bass speakers, there was also no bass feedback that took over from the overall sound.

We used the Control Pad for only one song — to play a synth bass line loop from the ReDrum drum machine in Reason 3.0. However, as Brian was triggering each iteration of the loop, the timing was more 'human' than if it had just been constantly repeated.

As to the concert, well, what can I say? It was a total blast! My 12-year-old daughter brought a camcorder, as did a friend, and both took some videos. The wind noise was a real problem, but I was able to salvage some of the footage — check out the video excerpt at www.soundonsound.com/gibson.php com for a taste of what EV2 can do.

For a first gig, it was quite an experience. We saw it mostly as a proof of concept, as we'd never played in public before as EV2. But when it was over, we knew it was the start of something. One thing that made it particularly worthwhile was when we got off stage, and two guitar players in bands slated to play later in the festival came up to me. One of them said "That was the most awesome guitar sound I've ever heard in my life!", while the other nodded in assent. I explained a little about what we were doing, and he wasn't the only one to comment on how "huge" we sounded. Pretty good for just drums and guitar! It was fun, satisfying, and hopefully, the first of many gigs to come. 0

In search of big vocals

The Alesis Control Pad is set up on top of the floor tom to Brian's left. Below the tom, toward the bottom right, you can see his Mac laptop, which played back the synth bass line we used. We programmed the controller so that no matter which pad he hit, it would always play that sample

We licked the problem of getting a big instrumental sound with two people, but there was also the need to get a big vocal sound. The solution was running my vocal mic (a Shure SM58) through DigiTech's Vocalist Live 2, so my voice could generate harmony and unison parts. The Vocalist Live 2 has the ability to generate harmonies based on the chords it receives from the guitar, so I patched the Classic Mode output from the breakout box into the VL2's guitar input, then patched the VL2 guitar thru to the GNX3000. Between Brian singing, and my being able to sound like two vocalists, we were starting to get a big vocal sound to match the instrumental sound. And now, I've upgraded to a Vocalist Live 4, so Brian will be going through the VL2. We'll be able to have a total of eight voices if we push things to the max.

Optimizing Windows XP for live performance

Here are some Windows XP optimizations you can do to make your computer super reliable in a live performance situation:

Give priority to ASIO: Right-click on My Computer and choose Properties. Click on the Advanced tab. Click on Performance Settings, then on Advanced. Under Processor Scheduling, select Background Services, and click on OK.

Turn off indexing: To prevent excessive drive searching, double-click on My Computer to show the disk drives in your computer. Right-click on a disk drive icon and select Properties. Click on the General tab. Near the bottom of the window, uncheck Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching. Click on OK.

Remove unnecessary startup items: Click on Start, then click on Run. In the Run box, type 'msconfig' (without the quotes). Click on OK. Click on the Startup tab. Uncheck anything you don't think you need, including performance degraders like Microsoft Fast Find, RealPlayer, iTunes Helper, and the like. After un-checking what's not needed, click on OK.

Turn off system restore: You don't need to have it on all the time, as you can always set a restore point manually if needed. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Click on the System Restore tab. Check the Turn off System Restore on all drives box. Click on OK.

Using Gibson's Digital Les Paul on stage

Craig Anderton