The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi all,

I'm primarily a guitar player,but have been playing pedal steel for about a year now. I'd like to figure out how to create a decent dual rig for touring with as small of a footprint as possible. Toying with the idea of going the Milkman The Amp route with a light 1x12 cab and an A/B between the two instruments, but I wanted to check in here and see what other folks had come up with as a solution (and pedal placement, etc). My current amp is wonderful, but not really ideal for the pedal steel. Open to any suggestions on amps, pedals, routing, or telling me I'm in way over my head welcome!

I'm mostly doing Americana/indie rock type stuff (with this rig, at least). Here's the current gear I'm using:

Guitar side:
Ernie Ball VPJr/tuner

Steel side:
Goodrich L120

both of these signals run into an A/B/Y box that goes into this board:
MXR Dyna Comp
Benson Pre-amp
Ibanez TS9
electro-harmonix Stereo Pulsar
electro-harmonix Small Stone
MXR Carbon Copy

Amp:
Rivera Chubster 40

I gig with guitar and Pedal Steel, steel mostly, I play through a Peavey Nashville 112 in a custom Tommy Huff cab with an Eminence EPS-15C speaker, MXR Carbon Copy, and a Baby Bloomer, with two inputs on the amp it works great, especially my Tele with the bridge pu cranked, great Tele tone.

Hi Todd, I also do double duty gigs. After ditching two heavy amps,I at first went with what you're considering, A/B Switch thru quilter head thru separate cab. Worked great as long as I remembered to hit the switch before the song started.I eventually ended with up with this new fender amp,and it is it!

Steel- Freeloader and Zoom ms50g on leg- amp
Tele- amp
23#'s and sounds great, thought I would miss the mid control,but hasn't been an issue. Minimal footprint, easy to operate for my aging mind!

I'm still using a component rack system with a preamp/processor but if I were looking for current double duty 2 channel amps, I might consider the modeling Quilter Mach 3. I believe it's available in either head only or combo. Has 2 identical channels so you can select an amp sim and eq one for guitar and one for steel.

Thay also have the Aviator Cub which has one clean and one overdrive channel.

These are ss amps so if you're a tube amp guy, maybe not for you.

I've not demoed either of these personally, but they've gotten a lot of chatter around here. Maybe check out some of Doug Beaumier's posts on them. He's a pretty avid Q user.

Hey Gil! Those Tonemaster's are cool! Do you run each instrument into different inputs?

Thanks for the response Jerry!

That's sort of my other play... I have a Kemper Stage I've used for fly gigs at festivals etc where I'm plugging straight into the mains. It might just be easiest to create profiles for the specific instruments and grab some sort of power amp and cab for club shows.

Yeah Todd, I run the steel in the normal channel and use the zooms reverb and delay. The six stringers thru the vibrato channel. The stock celestion speaker sounds great, I'm still experimenting with the ir switching features going xlr to the house.

Todd Farrell Jr wrote: I have a Kemper Stage I've used for fly gigs at festivals etc where I'm plugging straight into the mains. It might just be easiest to create profiles for the specific instruments and grab some sort of power amp and cab for club shows.

That's where I'm at. I play electric and acoustic guitars, lap and pedal steels, electric and acoustic mando on gigs. The Kemper Stage has been a godsend, in terms of getting great tone on each, without hauling multiple pedalboards and amps. I highly recommend the Kemper Power Kab with the Stage. They mate up perfectly and sound terrific on-stage. The only monitoring I've used that accurately translates the profiles I tweak and save in my home studio.

Jim Fogarty wrote:

Todd Farrell Jr wrote: I have a Kemper Stage I've used for fly gigs at festivals etc where I'm plugging straight into the mains. It might just be easiest to create profiles for the specific instruments and grab some sort of power amp and cab for club shows.

That's where I'm at. I play electric and acoustic guitars, lap and pedal steels, electric and acoustic mando on gigs. The Kemper Stage has been a godsend, in terms of getting great tone on each, without hauling multiple pedalboards and amps. I highly recommend the Kemper Power Kab with the Stage. They mate up perfectly and sound terrific on-stage. The only monitoring I've used that accurately translates the profiles I tweak and save in my home studio.

I was THIS close to pulling the trigger on a Power Kab on Reverb a few weeks ago but bailed. It may be the easiest route all around. Michael Britt sent me a bunch of really good pedal steel profiles, I’ve just never run it on steel live. First time for everything, I suppose.

Another vote for Fender Tone Masters. I bring my TM Twin to more than half my gigs. I like it so much that I just picked up a second one to leave on stage at my steady gig (where I leave my whole rig set up). In addition to being light (33lbs) and having two channels (with mid controls), it has an excellent XLR out.

I run both rigs through a Milkman PS300. I EQ the amp for steel and compensate on the 6 string side with a GE-7 on my guitar pedalboard.Amp input 1 is for steel, 2 for guitar. I much prefer to stand to play six-string, but there's a kludge for playing 6 string while sitting at the steel.

I use a bunch of different amps (mostly BF Fender) depending on venue and transporation. Ideally it's separate amps for PSG and 6string, but usually I'm just using one. I'll use both amp channels if they are available but lately I have scaled down to a Blues Jr. sometimes. Only one channel.

I'm gravitating to using 2 small pedal boards. Guitar board on the floor. PSG board where I can reach it.

For single amp channel setup, the output of the 6string pedalboard goes to an A/B switch along with the PSG. The output of the A/B switch feeds the VP input. Coming out of the VP is the "combined" pedal board with time based (reverb/delay) pedals at the end of the chain. I eq/use a GE7 like Dave describes in the previous post. The only trip wire I encounter with this setup is hitting the A/B when going from guitar (turned down) to steel (wide open) with VP down and high gain/distortion on the combined pedal board. One second of sudden death feedback. I've got an A/B with indicator LEDs but I'm cheap and use one with no LEDs/battery.

Last night I carried 2 amps but ended up just using a Bassman 50 (2 channel) for the first time in a long time and realized I'm going to need a second reverb pedal now.

Milkman just released a stereo version of The Amp (2 in/2 out), which would make a great steel/guitar platform. It would also give you the option to run each signal to its own cab if you wanted. Though of course you can run both signals into the same cab as well.

I’m using a Kemper Profiler to run my electric guitar, mandolin, and six string banjo as well as my Steel Guitar. I am using the Little Walter 50 profiles from Michael, Britt for my steel and they sound amazing. The Kemper is an absolutely incredible device good at pretty much all things.

I am using a Kemper Profiler Amp. It allows me to play steel, electric guitar, dobro, and acoustic guitar .....all with an absolute amazing tone. I hate that it took so many years to find a rig like this!

What profiles fo you use for pedal steel guitar.

For those of you using the Kemper or a one input amp,..How are you switching between instruments?

I’m using Little Walter 50 profiles from Michael Britt for all my steel rigs. I use a 1/4” jack combiner from Saturn Works to combine the inputs from my guitar wireless and steel into the Kemper. Works great.

Charlie Thompson wrote:For those of you using the Kemper or a one input amp,..How are you switching between instruments?

On the Kemper, I generally just use one cable and mute with the tuner when switching.

For amps, I use a Boss Line Selector LS-2, because it has volume controls for each input (or output), so I can even out the level differences.

I'm using some Michael Britt stuff as well, mostly a Twin Reverb. I've never used the Kemper live though, I'd need to find a power am and an FRFR speaker, and that just feels like a lot of work haha