For part 2 of the Godsmack gear blog I wanted to go over a few more of the of the guitar centric items that we got from the band. CLICK HERE to see the auctions! It’s interesting how much live sound has changed over the years. It used to be big stacks of amps and cabinets on stage with a long row of floor monitors up front, but now all that has changed. Nowadays, when you see a big stack of cabinets on stage they are often not even producing any sound at all! The sound engineers will mic up cabinets under the stage or off stage and isolate them so they can control the sound. They send that signal to front of house that gets pumped out over the PA system. Bands are using monitors less and less on stage and making the switch to in-ear monitors so they have more freedom to move around on stage, and they can also use the in-ear monitors to create a perfect mix for themselves personally without altering the sound on stage or having any impact at all on the rest of the band. This process has been made much easier by quality rack mountable effects and versatile switching systems like the one you see here.
The Digital Music Corp ground control is an advanced rack mountable, floor pedal controlled switching system. On the back of the rack mount unit is a couple of rows of 1/4″ inputs and outputs. You can route your signal through multiple amps and effects and then control how they are switched right from the Ground Control floor pedal. This provides the user with a ton of flexibility. Let’s say you have three different amp heads, two rack mount effects, and five pedal effects. You can use the GCX system to switch between any combination of these amps, effects, and pedals on the fly. When I started working at Daddy’s Junky Music many years ago now, this type of product didn’t exist. The demand for innovation ultimately led to this type of a design and it’s is very widely used and accepted by a large number of bands, both casual and professional. Now let’s take a quick look at one of the rack effects that they used.
This is a Line 6 Filter Pro. This is a one space rack mount filter effect with stereo inputs, outputs, and full midi control. The Filter Pro has a variety of effects and a built in Synth type effect. If any of you have ever used a bass or guitar synth, auto wah, or envelope filter then you already have a solid idea of what this unit does. It’s basically just more variations of these different types of effects and a ton more control options. They also sold us a handful of effect pedals. I’m not going to go into great detail on each individual pedal because most of you will know what they are already.
There are tons of other pieces that we got from them. I’m going to post again later today and go over some of the studio gear that they had. There’s a lot of good stuff on the eBay auction page. Scroll to the top of this blog and click where it says CLICK HERE and it will take you directly to the auction pages. If you have any questions about any of the topics covered in the gear blog or any gear related questions in general, just drop me a line at 800-373-8393 X100 or email bfoley@daddys.com.
