Peeking out of the trench.

We have been hard at it this last few weeks; rehearsing, re-arranging and generally re-visiting the rather large Rebel Wheel song-book. This last album was actually album three for us and while we seldom touch the material from the very first album, the other two have almost two hours of stuff. Of course we don't do all of it, but I try to keep at least 90 minutes of tunes available for onstage use. Given the amount of changes this band has endured that is actually a whole lot of work to keep the set-list ripe.

Right now we're closing in on 50 minutes of material freshly re-organized for our "touring" three-piece ensemble. It has been quite a daunting task to re-approach these tunes and arrange them for a trio format. A lot of the leads that would be otherwise played by keyboards or sax have been assigned to guitar and as we are trying to keep this unit stream-lined and capable playing any venue amongst a host of other bands (in other words severely gear-limited) we aren't bringing any keyboards onstage this time out. Usually we have three pretty complex rigs just of keyboards, controllers and triggers. Originally I intended to limit the guitar effects to just a channel switcher and a volume pedal, but recently I have been dusting off my rather extensive pedal-board to help capture some of the techno-elements (like effected odd-metered drum-loops and ambient soundscapes) we have used.

The old system went something like this.

Keyboard Rig 1:

M-audio Radium 49


and an M-audio Axiom 61


into a Dell laptop running Live.


On Live there would be a seperate VST instrument on each channel that I would access via the lap-top keypad. I had it set so that keystroke number 1 would access song 1 and whatever keyboard/vst or combination of keyboards/vsts I would use (etc etc). Each vst's track volume was controlled by the sliders on the appropriate controller so that I had the complete set mapped out on the two keyboards. I also used some rotary sliders to control the amount of effect was being used as sometimes I'd used grain delays to screw around with a sound.

Typically the session looked like this:
Number 1 keystroke:
Track1: Klak bass (Minimonsta) Radium
Track2: Klak pad (Mtron) Axiom

Number 2 keystroke:
Track3: Wordplay lead (Sonik Synth 2) Axiom

Number 3 keystroke:
Track4: Arachnophobia Combi (Zebra 2 Bass and Albino 3 pads) Radium
Track5: Lead Arachnophobia (Albino 3) Axiom

Number 4 keystroke:
Track6: Threads lead (Analog Factory) Axiom

Number 5 keystroke:
Track7: Mary Combi (lower Albino 3, Upper M-tron) Axiom For Cross-eyed Mary middle section.

Number 6 keystroke:
Track8: D1 lead (Minimonsta) Axiom

Number 7 keystroke:
Track9: D2 Combi (Lower zebra 2, pads and Upper Albino 3, leads) Radium
Track10:D2 Lead (Albino 3) Axiom

Number 8 keystroke:
Track11:D3 (M-Tron) Axiom

Number 9 keystroke:
Track12:Awaken Arp (Albino 3) Axiom
Track13:Awaken Combi (pads; Albino3, Flute lead M-tron) Radium

Number 10 keystroke:
Track14:Karnage (general ambience for Evil Clox) Radium
Track14:Live Pack (general ambience for Evil Clox) Axiom


I addition to that, I used an external usb number pad to trigger drones and ambiences. Those also had sliders that were controlled via the keyboards (the Radium and Axiom keyboards have 8 sliders and 8 knobs each to control any midi number).

Trigger 1: Hags 1 drone and ambience
Trigger 2: Hags 2 " "
Trigger 3: Hags 3 " "
Trigger 4: Arachnophobia middle ambience
Trigger 5: D2 Reaktor 5 Vectory percussion (set-up to play at 86bpm)
Trigger 6: D4 Intro (loop and ambience)
Trigger 7: Evil Clox Pulse (set-up at 110 bpm)
Trigger 8: Free
Trigger 9: Awaken drum loop

In addition a Dave Smith Evolver was used via the midi out from the Radium with the knobs mapped to generally control filters and lfos etc.


Key-rig 2 wasn't quite so complex, it was a Roland Phantom with all of Ange's leads and pads set up in sequence (ie patch changes in ascending order following the set-list). Key-rig 3 was even simpler yet: A E-mu vintage keys controlled by a Fatar rig and key-rig 4 was just an Alesis Micron. All the rigs (except for 2) had their patch changes controlled by my FCB-1010 and outs going into my Traynor K4 amp and then to the house.

Here is a picture of the set-up:

While that set-up is emminantly flexible on a huge stage setting it is less so in the type of venues we will be playing this summer so I gave it all a boot. Well rather, I have it all packed up nicely in cases and will use it when Ange re-joins and we do gigs as a 5 piece. Right now it is trio all the way and a MUCH simpler set-up.



The guitar rig will have to wait until tomorrow.