There are a ton of products and pieces of gear available to guitarists these days. It doesn’t show any signs of slowing down either. When I started, I had a rig built for loud venues. 100 watt heads and 4×12 cabinets seemed pretty normal to me. I had to build a new rig for the quieter stage volumes. For that I chose a few key pieces of gear.
My Worship Guitar Rig
This is the workhorse of my rig. For quite a while I used it with the 4 Cable Method into my Fender Rock Pro 1000 100 watt and 4×12 Speaker Cab. It worked well, and it did its job. The downside was that it was LOUD. It was hard to tame that beast. Thats when I decided to try the direct out to a powered monitor method.
I tried various powered monitors by peavey, mackie, and a few others. The problem for me was the fact that it mixed my stereo left and right amps, cabs, and fx into one mono channel. That is a TONE KILLER. The options left were to buy a second powered monitor(one right, one left) or to try running direct stereo out to the house PA System. I chose the second ultimately because the powered monitors were coloring my tone and I didn’t care for sound quality.
About the same time that I decided to run direct to the PA, we also got a new sound tech. He was implementing a full in ear monitor system to our PA. Ultimately those in ears are what got me to stick with the direct out method. I got my stereo guitar amps, cabs, and mics directly in my ears. Its been great and I haven’t looked back since.
My Worship Guitar Rig
My Worship Guitar Rig
With a few modifications this has become my go to guitar. Its a Telecaster Style guitar made by G&L (Founded by Leo Fender). So what did I do to it?
– Swapped the single coil for the Dimarzio Tone Zone T.
-Upgraded the tuning machines to Hipshot Griplocks.
-Added 3 push/pull pots for extra tonal functionality.
Thats about it. If you want more info on the guitar check out my full review.
My Worship Guitar Rig
These In Ear Monitors really changed the game for our team. They basically replaced on stage wedge monitors within two weeks. They made the change super easy for us and we all now prefer using in ears.
The really great thing about having an in ear system is the software or user interface that comes with the system. We went with Presonus. Now every member of the team can create and edit their own in ear mixes via the iphone/android Q-Mix app. It would suck so bad to go back to stage monitors. Trust Me.
For more info on affordable in ears check out https://www.axedr.com/best-iem-under-99.
My Worship Guitar Rig
So when you get in ears, you need something to amplify the signal going to yours ears. For this our sound tech chose the Presonus HP2 Headphone Amp. Its easy to use, it has a stereo/mono button, uses battery or regular power, and its been very reliable for years. It does what its designed to do and its reasonably priced.
That sums up my rig. I hope it helps you to build a rig of your own. It might take you a while to dial things in just the way you want them. Just keep tweaking and you’ll get there eventually.
Sincerely,
The Axe Dr.
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