The Steel Guitar Forum

Ill be heading back to Branson to work with Mickey Gilley soon. Ill be plugging my steel in direct to the house and in ear monitor systems.

For those of you that play direct, what is your favorite gear to use?

Thanks!!!

I have two Behringer V-amp Pro rack mount units that I used in Branson years ago. One of them changed up my settings without warning so Im lacking trust in them for such an important gig... Im thinking a good upgrade might be a POD XT or similar rack mount unit... Is anyone using these for steel?

Countryman DI

I really love my Sarno V8 for direct sound. I use a stomp box reverb with it. Might be a bit pricey though. I have used an LR Bagggs paracoustic di for a direct signal in a pinch also. It sounded surprisingly good. Not the little bit of heaven like the V8 but more than acceptable.

Sarno V8 + Wet Reverb pedal

on a budget...you cant beat a used POD xt.

I use an Ethos Overdrive pedal which is designed to sound like a Dumble. All analog. It's very warm sounding and has a speaker simulator and a master high-end roll-off. I also use a POD XT -- great Swiss Army knife with lots of control.

I'd go with the Quilter Steelaire rack mount.
http://www.quilterlabs.com/index.php/pr ... -rackmount

And get the leg attachment.
http://www.quilterlabs.com/index.php/pr ... re-rc200-6

Most times when recording or going to the board , there will be an engineer that will tweak your tone to sound the best ....In this case , you can use whatever product you choose from Radial Engineering .....They offer transformer based DI"s and other DI's depending on what you are looking for tone wise .....There gear is top shelf and works very well .....Jim

http://www.radialeng.com/

Randy Beavers toured with Lee Ann Womack on the George Strait tour using basically just a Strymon delay, a Wet Reverb, an SMS V8 tube preamp and took the XLR out of the V8 directly to the PA. The soundmen loved it and said they didn't even have to EQ his tone. It blended and mixed very well in that scenario right out of the V8.

B

I used a Pod XT, then a Pod XT Pro for many years on the road with Jo Dee Messina: Roland Jazz Chorus amp model... Compressor mainly for makeup gain, and the "Pro" let me use a -10dB pad, so I didn't hit the front end of the model too hard. It worked well.

I'm allowed to use amps now, although miked off stage, but I've thought about giving the Pod HD500x a try, to eliminate tons of gear (that just gets beat to hell and back on a daily basis on the road). If I had to again, that is what I would use.

Good luck!

David Spires

I used an old Digitech 2112 for 10 or 12 years in a church band. No amp, and in-ear monitors. It had XLR outs, but I preferred the 1/4" output into a Countryman DI. It worked well, so I never had a reason to try anything else.

Another vote for the V-8. Benado Steel dream for effects.

Your mileage may vary.

V8 rules for direct. Also had good results with an old ashley instrument preamp if you can find one.

V8 all day, every day...

My Milkman Half&Half. I originally contacted Tim about buying the head version because I needed a way to run direct to the board while retaining a decent sound and was tired of fooling with my Mesa Boogie Studio Pre, which had a great sound in its own right but I knew the Milkman would be much easier to dial in and would be more fiddle friendly. It doesn't hurt that for the other half of gigs I have, that don't require running direct, I can plug the head into my 2x12 cabinet and have clean headroom for days with the 300 watt power amp.

Do the speaker outs work when the line out is plugged in on the 1/2 and 1/2 ?.....Do you have a choice of speakers on or off when tapped into the line out on this amp ? ......Thanks, Jim

I have a Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0 class D amp that works well as a preamp. It has a tube in the circuit, an XLR out, and works well as a DI without speakers plugged in. I've never had an occasion to use it direct with a steel, but I have with bass, and it worked really well.

The speaker out does indeed work when a wire is plugged into the line out on the half & half. Tim would be able to give a much better explanation but you can run the half and half with nothing plugged into the speaker line and a line running into the line out without damaging the transformer.

I've actually used the line out several times with a personal mixer plugged into the line out for my in ear monitors on gigs I didn't need to, I was using my 2x12 cabinet, because the rest of the band was so ungodly loud.

HI John ,
Thanks for the info ..... Much appreciated ..... I wasn't quite sure of how this would work because of the Pre being tube , and the amp being Solid State .....I wasn't sure if anything would blow if the line out ONLY were used and you clarified that for me and also clarified that both the line and speaker outs could be used together ......Again ....Much appreciated .....Sincerely, Jim

Thanks everyone for your input!

Lots to think about! Given my close proximity to St Louis, I believe I will go rattle Brad Sarno's cage! Lol! Id like to hear the v8!

The Pod XT also seems like a solid choice.

Michael, Ive been real happy with my pod HD desktop for a couple of years now going direct, I dont think alot of players use it though, maybe im wrong. Theres always a challenge waiting for you to try it or better yet understanding how to get that sound coming out of it corrected quickly in different atmospheres. Its light and takes up no room at all, Like you I would love to try Brads V8 only because of the different arenas out there.
Over all the learning and time invested is worth somethin, jumping from classic to new country is a snap with the push of a button with the HD modeling which I like that ability alot. I also found that Brads Freeloader device In front of it makes this unit even quicker to sound off.

Craig

I just tried this, as a pseudo-direct connection to my home computer speakers:

Emmons
to Sarno Black Box
to Goodrich Pot VP
to MXR Carbon Copy
to Wet Reverb
to Countryman Type 85 DI
to PreSonus Audiobox interface
to M-Audio BX5 powered speakers.

It sounds great to me. The Black Box seems to work well as a tone control. I believe I could go straight into a house PA from the Countryman, and that the sound quality would be similar (depending on the soundman).

I'm wondering what I would hear different if I eliminated the Black Box and DI and just used a Sarno V8 preamp. Any comments or thoughts?

Kemper Profiler .. Steel guitar to Freeloader .. to Hilton low boy .. to bixonic overdrive .. to MXR carbon copy delay to Hardwire reverb and a final Wampler delay . Then to Kemper.. i usually only run the MXR delay for fast tunes and the Wampler for long delay.. The Kemper has reverb set about 9% on a spring sound and i use the Hardwire set to plate large for big washes .. of course the distortion to rock with .. I can also switch the Kemper to about anything i want .. like Chorus or vibrato .. etc ..

Demeter Tube Direct DI

Fractal Audio Axe FX2
Johan