Gear Rig Seasplash

Each member shows and explains the rigs they are using

Michel's Guitar, Piano and Vocal Rig

Guitar Rig

Actually, I do not use something crazy like the great guitar-artists in the world. Much like Steve Lukather, I've become quiet with adding some new stuff. Hence, my guitar rig is small, but works great and solid. Find gear specifications listed below. My main amp is a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier (50/100). I like its tones so much that it is a must for my rig. But one of the greatest things by the new Dual Rectifier is its pedal board. With the board I've got a great flexibility on changing stuff. Besides the three chanel, solo and fx options I now can jump on mute too. The FX-Chain works also good. Since I'm using only a delay in the serial chain, I don't need a midi-changing system for my dynamic pedals. Talking about them, I use a MXR dyna compressor (red comp), a MXR Phaser (90), Boss SD-1 and a MXR Chorus Zakk Wylde. I use the chorus mostly playing clean to get a 80s / 90s guitar sound. By the way, the Dual Rectifier goes through a simple Marshall 1960 A Cab. Maybe I'll get a 1960 Vintage B cab and stack it up. The vintage cab tone has more mid-frequencies than the 1960 A. A bit more special about my rig is that additional to my main Mesa amp I use a Line6 Spider II cab amp just for clean stuff. With a Morley A/B box I can switch easily between both amps. You might think it is stupid to use a additional amp just for clean. But the advantage of the additional Line6 is that first, I can preset my beloved sound for my guitar, second, in the foh I set the Line6 in the middle of the panel. Now for live this setting sounds tighter than having my amp paneled just on stereo. So when I play clean rhythm and Juline makes some Solos the sound is quiet stronger and when I come in with some heavy drive, I jump on the A/B box to the Mesa amp which is set stereo at the foh. By the way, for both amps I use simple SM57 to get the signal through. The acoustic guitar also easy goes DIed into the mix-console. As DI-Box I use a LD-102. They are pritty good.

My guitar monitor gets the signal directly out of the mix-console in a Yamaha CM12V. I have another one just for vocals.

Guitars

With my guitars it has become more or less the same story with the amps. In the beginnings of Seasplash I was kind of a guitar geek and bougt mostly all kind of Gibson guitars, some Fenders, Jackson, Yamaha and so on. Building up my rig I noticed that some guitars didn't fit in into the sound I wanted. So I sold the rest of it (rest means: Gibson SG, Gibson Explorer, Gibson Flying V, Gibson Les Paul Standard 2008, Jackson Warrior EMG, Fender American Special) and bought a rarely hand made Paul Reed Smith (PRS) McCarty 57/08 Goldblack. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest guitars in the world. You might think that I'm the kind of guitarists that plays only the most expensive guitars. But ironically, I have one Fender Telecaster Standard (made in Mexico) left which fits perfectly into my sound. I used the Telecaster as main guitar on the new Dead Diamond record. How ever, upcoming guitars I might bye are Gibson Les Paul custom (just to have one :D), a PRS Modern Eagle Quattro, a Hollow Body Guitar (not sure yet whether it's going to be a Gretsch or a Duesenberg) and going back to the 70s a Epiphone G1275. I want to play this beast because I am a big fan of 12-String guitars, haven't used them as much as I wanted. On acoustic guitars I'm always with Takamine and Yamaha. Both are great and solid. You don't need more.

Because I need flexilibilty on stage, I'm using for every kind of stuff on me wireless systems. So for my guitar I use the Shure BLX14R racksystem, which goes only for little stages but works great. With two bodypacks and one receiver, this stuff works solid and great.

Piano

Well to the piano rig there is not much to say. We never wanted to use really upsapced stuff, so any kind of keyboards and synthis don't fit into our music. That's why I wanted a nice stage piano with hammered Keys. I bought a Yamaha P255 in black which works great. It has got some strings, organ sounds, and different piano sounds too and they sound amazing. You hear that on every record we made. Also for live I do not need more than just one Behringer Stereo DI-Box to get the signal into the FOH and that's all. One stustain pedal of course, but nothing more.

Vocal Rig

Now on vocals I have tested and studied a great varity of mics. Though one criteria was to be flexible, it has to be a mic-version with a wireless handheld. Since I am a fan of shure, I now use also the BLX024R system with a Beta 58 capsule on it. Shure's mics are in every perspective great, and every typ of mic is solid. In the beginnings of Seasplash I used for live gigs Mipro-Systems which are also really great. The handheld mic I used had a condensator capsule which surprisingly went well with my voice. But the dynamic Beta 58 fits well live. A SM58 could have also worked out, but our soundpresserlevel on stage is very loud. So to compete against feedbacks on stage, the Beta 58 in my opinion is more solid than the SM 58. Further, I do not use crazy stuff in my signal. I have of course a compressor in it (now its a Behringer MDX4600) which works actually not bad, but I think I'm going to work with summit tube compressors like a TLA-50 or even a TLA-100. The sound of these compressors is so great that it blows you literally away. And they don't have anything crazy to set on. And of course a bit of reverb makes up voice.

Since our soundpresserlevel on stage is high, we worked from the beginning on with in-ear monitors. You hear everything tight, smooth and the loudness is gentle. Some artist do not like to hear themselves over in-ear but we love it. We set our in-ear sound excactly the same as it comes out of the FOH. So we hear the same as the croud does. Then I feel myself as a part of the croud which cheers me up to give everything I have on stage. Perhaps you noticed that I talked about my floor monitors for guitar and voice above. This sounds pretty stupid, but the brute sound which comes out of the monitor speakors makes me feel more alive and within the sound. Also it is thought to be a back up in case the in-ear monitors go north. Our In-Ear system is a Mipro with one Station and 3 Receivers (Gilles does not want a in-ear monitor, he likes the pure brut sound coming out of his monitor speaker).

So I hope you understand how I work now. Stay tuned and keep rockin!

Cheers

Michel

Gear List:

- Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier (50/100) -> channel 1: 50W, channel 2+3: 100W

- Marshall 1960 A Cab

- Marshall 1960 BV Cab (coming up)

- Line6 Spider II Cab

- Yamaha CM 12 V

- Boss SD-1

- MXR dyna comp (red)

- MXR Phaser 90

- MXR Chorus Zakk Wylde

- Boss Tuner

- TC Electronic Flash Back Delay

- Morley A/B Box

- Yamaha P255 Stage Piano

- Shure SM57 (BLX14R)

- Shure Beta 58 (BLX24R)

- Mipro In-Ear Wireless System

- PRS McCarty 57/08

- Fender Telecaster Standard MN

- Gibson Les Paul Custom CH (coming up)

- Epiphone G 1275 double neck (coming up)

- PRS ME Quattro (coming up)

- Duesenberg Starplayer TV (coming up)

- Takamine EF341

- Yamaha FX