Is this a bad idea?

[Gregk]

Hello, for a while I've had an idea of doing a laptop live rig for guitar.

My idea was to run the guitar through my firepod with a power amp, and have it go through a real cab. So I can just use amp sims in my laptop.

OR, should I just use impulses and go through the PA?

OR, is this just a bad idea all together?

Thanks


-Greg

 

[if6was9]

not a bad idea at all - I've been experimenting with this lately and it rocks although i use a desktop as laptops are just too friggin tempermental.
if you get a channel swicher ( i got one for 20 quid new, behringer) you can run 2 separate channels. if you've di's and a few channel switchers you can run even more, i'm thinking of getting a 2nd swicther and di for clean, dirty and solo channels. you can match the volumes too so you can have a nice loud clean and a class solo sound with a boost.
also you can run effects- for example stillwells tempo delay syncs to the tempo of whats comin in so you get a perfect delay synced to your live soloing's bpm, sound fantastic.
only thing i've yet to find is a nice software reverb that will run without latency issues, not a biggy but it'd be nice to have a touch of verb on cleans and solos

I do it without impulses and i'm liking it though a cab.

 

[Gregk]

You kind of lost me there lol. Sorry, I'm not very experienced with this kind of stuff.

Ok, so if I get a two channel switcher, would I have two seperate tracks in my DAW each running the desired effects/amps?
So how would I configure that with my firepod? Would I have to split the signal?

Thanks again.

 

[if6was9]

If you run an switcher that allows you to have a footswitch that will go from amp a or b ( an a/b pedal) you can run your guitar into both DI channels of the firepod, but choose which is on and when, you can run 2 completely independant sets of plugins in different channels on your DAW and have 2 completely different sounds. The 2 channels in your DAW will have different inputs selected, you don't need to do any further splitting of the signal other than using an A/B pedal which will e acting the exact same or you in the end like a channel switcher.

You need to set both these in your DAW to the same hardware output on the firepod and connect this output to your poweramp. This way only 1 will sound at any time and you can control which with your A/B switch.
If you chuck another A/B switch into the equation and add another channel in your DAW set to the same hardware output you can add a 3rd sound but you'll need a separate DI for this as all the inbuilt DI's on your firepod are being used. For this to work you'll have it after the first A/B box on one of the channels. It'd get a bit confusing and you'd have to label them for onstage use. You don't have to stop at 3 though, If you wanted and had enough a/b boxes and DI boxes you could run upto 24 separate channels with 3 firepods daisychained all running through 1 power amp and cab,
why you'd want to go that far though I don't know!

 

[Gregk]

Dude, you rock!

2 channels is all I'll be needing.

So if I got this pedal, I would plug the guitar into the input 1, and the have the A1 and B1 go to the DI's on the firepod, right?
And then if I ever got more DI's I would have the other side as well?

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KIVNS0[/ame]

 

[if6was9]

yeah thats 2 a/b boxes in 1, making it even sweeter!
I've been running this set-up at band practise, while also running vocals through it to add a few things there, the vox running out a different output from the guitar. Been working cool but I always wish I had more time with the band before practise to set it up really sweet and get the most out of it.
It's class because once you get see how much is available to you in the box the possibilities are endless, No need for multi effects processors or the like, you get studio quality effects live, if you got a certain sound on your bands CD you can have that exact sound live simply by copying the effects chain!

 

[Gregk]

Thanks again so much dude! Now to go tweak.. and tweak some more.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

I would be worried about latency and crashing.

 

[if6was9]

Well I've been running this for about a month or so without any crashes- That said though the amount of times I've seen guys laptops fail while doing live stuff is just crazy, hence why if I take this on the road i'm going the whole hog and bringing my reliable pc.

As for latency, I thought it'd be a big issue but somehow it just isn't- I'm not running impulses since its running out to a real cab and poweramp. It seems to work so close to real time I can't hear the difference, even while playing fast sections and solo's