Some real world practical advice please…

[Send2george2]

Hi all, loving my h9 max but time has come to set her up for some gigs I need some advice please. Apologies in advance for the length of this post… Ok here’s what I want to do in a typical track. I’m in a three piece I’m the guitarist. We play say a track by ex Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwell “love me slender”. I play most of the track largely with no effect, well except for a touch of wampler black 65 overdrive and a little reverb on my mesa lone star special. Hugh as ever uses a telecaster but as I keep mine in drop d tuning for keef tracks I just use my les paul. There are two parts in the song I wish to use my h9 max for, the first is a break which happens three or four times in the track, in this section I use an octaver on the harmoniser, on one instance it leads onto a lead guitar section with some fairly basic delay. In order from me to use the h9 live I have stored the two h9 effects down to the pedal, so far so good, positions 2 and 3. 1) before start of the track I cue up the octaver part by either selecting position 2 on my saved band tracks preset list. alternatively I use the iPad and just click on position 2 so that the pedal awaits my call. 2) first time round, I just stomp on the left pedal switch and hey ho, we have the correct octaver sound I need. 3) towards the end of this part the track “love me slender” requires me to go onto the delay algo on position 3. 4) so whilst playing the octaver part in 2, I press the right stomp switch to key up the delay at position 3, then when the time calls I press the left pedal to select the effect in order toI play the lead guitar part….all is well so far….(apart from my sausage fingers)… 5) at end of the lead part I press the left switch to turn off the delay. 6) the bass/ ovatave part comes around after another verse/chorus of h9 unaffected guitar. 7) so in order for me to select the bass octaver part again at some point I either select the effect on pos 2 on the iPad, or I press the big centre button and then the right switch to step down the preset list to position 2. 8) as the octaver part comes round I hit the left stomp switch again. 9) that’s thw end of effects needed for the track, so I press the left stomp switch and end the song on my normal guitar sound. Is this how you guys use the pedal in a live situation? Would I be better off setting up the preset list such that I have the octaver at position 2, delay lead on 3, octaver on four in order to save me decrementing? There is a lot of tap dancing going on and although I love the app I sometimes (for whatever reason) have on selecting position 2 or 3 mistakenly pulled up the full pedal display,…gets me in a bit of a fankle trying to recover my place in the middle of a track … Within which I’m also plating guitar and singing in…. Any real world practical advice how best to use this fantastic pedal in a real world band situation?

[Send2george2]

No sure how all that post got crammed together, there was formatting to make it easier. Hope someone takes the time to read it….

[gkellum]

send2george2 wrote:

Any real world practical advice how best to use this fantastic pedal in a real world band situation?

Well, the solution you described to your problem is workable.  Alternatively, you could use an aux switch pedal and assign one switch to the 'Load Previous Preset' function to give you an easy way to go down.  Some people are using MIDI foot controllers.  One way to do that would be to tie a particular preset to a particular footswitch;  another way to do it would be to get a MIDI foot controller with an up and down function which just increments or decrements the MIDI program change number when you press up or down.  Personally, I'd go with an aux switch.  They're cheap and easy to configure, and if you get a 3 button aux switch like the DigiTech FS3X, the other two buttons could come in handy for controlling the performance switch or whatever else you might want to use them for. 

[Send2george2]

excellent thank you… i shall try using an aux switch.. i have a dual one and a single. i’ll give it a go 🙂

[lmlyons]

It might be a bit costly, but it could very well be a solution that will pay for itself time and time again.  

I use a Ground Control Pro – along with a set of GCU’s that put all of my effects at the amps – which shortens the cable runs a lot, and allow me to setup so that I can queue up a song set of presets, and assign buttons which in turn commands 8 set of effects at a time.  There are other really good companies out there that supply this kind of stuff – you would do well to comparison shop if you are so inclined..    

So – I might create a program for  ‘A Song for y’all’.  In that patch, I set H9 number one to a chorus effect, and H9 number 2 to a reverb effect.  That button for that song might be for the verse.  Then button two sets H9 number one to a phase effect and H9 number 2 to a space echo.  That button for that song might be for chorus.  Then button three might be set for solo part one to turn on H9 number one to pitch bend – along with assigning my expression pedal one the duty to pitch bend, H9 number two is set to a leslie effect and assigns expression pedal number two the duty to speed up or slow down the rotation.  Then button four sets H9 number one to pass through and H9 number two to a hall reverb..   And then I create another patch for the next song, and so on.  What is nice is that GCU unit, it contronls the on and off of other pedals – I keep a rack drawer full of them and change them out when I want to.  No pedal board in front of me – ALL pedals are at the amps.  I’m just sending MIDI comands from pedal board.    

I keep MIDI dumps to put song patches in the exact order of the night I am playing – but, you don’t need to do that.  Its pretty easy to flip through the patch “song list” and call up what I need at any time.    I also have a jamb or what I call a recording configuration where I assign the top 8 buttons to turn on and off the other pedals, and the bottom four buttons to set each H9 to the patch I would want for that moment. Theres an UP DOWN selector that rotates through the different patches for the H9’s.

All in all – it keeps my hands on the neck, and head in the performance.    Hope that might have helped. 

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