The Stage Rig… Well, Half Of It

For Brad’s Country To Country performance, he was travelling with half his usual rig! “Yep, in the US, there’s a lot more,” laughs tech, Dave Rouze, as he shows us around the rig and stage…

Brad’s ‘Plexis’ are in fact custombuild 100-watters from US company Category 5. One of them drives a 2x12 cabinet on stage alongside a 2x12 Dr Z DB4, with both amps running all the time. The third cabinet is a spare.

“The combination of the two amps is everything,” comments Rouze. “We don’t do stereo, but as I said, this is only half of it. In the US, there’s a lot more – an additional DB5 and either an AC30 or another EL84 Category 5 for some other sounds. It’s all about the mix of the sounds for the tones he wants: the EL84s and the Marshall sounds, or the DB5 and the Vox and so on. The DB4 is wide open, and the Plexis are run with a power soak.

“The reason he has them angled away from him is that he wants to feel the air moving, but having them fire straight into the vocal mic has always been a conflict for the front of house guy, naturally! It makes all the difference in the world, because the vocal mic has great side rejection and these things are very directional.”

Onto Brad’s effects rack, and from Shure wireless units, the pedals are then controlled via a combination of a Voodoo Labs Ground Control matrix and the RJM Effect Gizmo that also deals with amp switching and routing. All effects go to all amps and Dave controls the vast majority of Brad’s pedal switching. And the pedals themselves…

5 1 6 2 7 3 1. Dumbloid: “It doesn’t sound anything like a Dumble,” says guitar tech Dave Rouze, “but it is a really greatsounding pedal, not super distorted, and he uses that for some lead sounds. He really likes it” 2. Wampler Plexi Drive: “This is a...