Depeche Mode’s Live Setup Revealed
While the obvious star of the show is the hi-tech setup, Martin Gore’s burgeoning guitar rig is a whole gig in itself, as guitar tech Jez Webb explains.
Jez Webb: Martin Gore’s Guitars
Wow. There are a lot of guitars here.
Jez Webb: “There are a lot for a synth band. A few more than I was expecting. I should have read the contract a bit closer…”
The keyboard kit, the Radars, everything seems very state of the art over there but here… amps… stomp boxes…it’s a bit more rock ‘n’ roll.
JW: “Well everything’s off stage. This is the heart of it, the old TC Electronic G System which we used on the last tour as well and has worked well for us. Every song has its own patch, and some of them have three sounds in them. It gets a feed from Pro Tools and that switches the patches.
“Before that I had to switch all the sounds, which is a bit of a pain if you’re trying to tune the next guitar ready too! The output from the TC Electronic G-System goes into this switchable audio loop which is also switched by Pro Tools. The pedals here are always on, permanently kicking their output into the switcher and their output is switched in and out automatically when it’s needed. The pedals are mainly distortions because the G doesn’t do distortion. Then Martin’s got a wah pedal and a fuzz pedal on stage too and that feeds into the loop here too. So hopefully I don’t have to touch anything.”
TC Electronic’s G System is the beating heart of Martin Gore’s guitar setup.
Seems that every hi-tech part of the tour is backup crazy, but not over here eh?
JW: “Well I do have a bunch of spare pedals if one goes wrong. And there’s a backup TC Electronic here. And a backup loop system here! But the worst thing that can happen is that one of sounds goes out without the required distortion effect on it until I can swap in another. The wiring at the back of the rack is pretty complicated but Whirlwind made a connector for me. I can leave everything in this rack connected and the output from the entire guitar system comes out on this patchbay here. And I put in a couple of auxiliary channels too and we’re using those for the couple of pedals Martin has on stage.”
Where does the effected guitar go next?
JW: “I’ve got a stereo feed coming to two amp heads here, then onto the cabs, which are miked and which are all off stage. When I first started working on the tours – back in ’93 for the Faith and Devotion tour – it went straight to the desk.
“There were no amps or anything, as that was the first time Martin had toured with guitars. I think he only played on three songs. But he’s certainly come on from then!
“Now we’ve got the two amps and two cabs here, covered up and miked with a Shure SM57 and a Shure KSM32.
“He’s got two 2-by-12 cabs with one of each mic on each cab. We need that for the sound. It would sound a bit ropey if we just went direct and they’re a very rocky band at the moment.”
And this bit doesn’t look too hi-tech… [gestures towards a large beaten up workbench, complete with tools, vice and soldering iron]
“I’ve had that 20 years! This is where I’m tuning: if he breaks a string, if something needs fixing. That said, very little goes wrong here. I think on this tour he’s broken one string, and then he just carried on [laughs].
“And touch wood [touches workbench] we’ve had no disasters. So far!”
Source: musicradar.com
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This is awesome stuff but, where was this published before.
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