Donovan Banks

I was once accused of hiding behind my effects. It hurt me a little because I like to think that I don't. Then one day my GT8 broke and I had to play without it.

I thought I could get away with it, after all, I only need a clean sound and a lead tone. My amp at the time had 2 lead channels which was more than I needed. That gig was a mess. I had no tuner to reference from, so my guitar was out despite my best efforts (I blame the wind. Thats my story and I am sticking to it)

That played on me a lot. What if it were to happen again? So I went and bought an amp with effects built in. I went for the Vox VT50, but could have easily gone for any of the Roland Cubes or the Line6 amps. Even so I reckon I had better learn to do without any effects at all.

I pitched up at a band practice without my amp or my pedal last week. I had to use my band mates Crate amp. It has a lead channel and a clean channel and I made do. Everything sounded fine, even though I use quite a few volume based effects I had to fiddle with the pickup switch and the volume control a lot more than usual but it happened.

Than yesterday, I carried my amp and all my effects but I think I hit new lows in life when I realised I didn't bring a guitar. It was too late to drive all the way back home and I knew nobody nearby with a guitar I could borrow. So I had to make do with playing on an acoustic guitar. It was an Ibanez MASA commemorative acoustic guitar. There isn't much info on this particular guitar but I can say that this one needs a slight neck adjustment, but all round it's a very nice guitar that belongs to our drummer.

So there I played. I changed a few gain and eq settings to try avoid feedback and I played what is normally electric guitar lines on an acoustic guitar. Soloing was a little tough because it has one less fret than I am used to and the cutaway is hard to get into. Add to that an action that you can park under and there you have it.

Why I write about this is that as an amateur musician, trying to get to the higher ranks, it can be good to be fussy about your gear, but if you are rushed into a studio, you might not have tome to go searching for your perfect guitar or to try find the best feel or tone. You could be in the right place at the right time and the right band will be in the studio. You wouldn't want to tell your favourite band, sorry I can't help you out, I don't have my lucky underpants guitar.

Try playing well on anything, that way you can do it at any time when asked.

I played on Saturday evening with Swell band at a birthday party. Lately with Swell we have been focusing on getting the on stage sound right. This weekend we seem to have nailed it.

The truth be told though, it seems we solved the problem by throwing money at it. Each of us had our own monitor, and we were mixing on a fairly advanced desk.
I had my trusty Vox rather close to me but thanks to the variable wattage I turned the amp down to about 30W and miked it for the Front of House sound.

I had to adjust the gain settings on my favourite lead patch on the Boss GT8 to prevent feedback and then the angels were singing.
Sometimes this is necessary. Much like EQ and reverb gain needs to be set for the venue. Too much will cause headaches and too little will sound weaker than you want it to. The tone you get in the rehearsal room is tough to mimic elsewhere.

I also decided that I was going to hold back a bit on my playing. Too often I try and be too flashy or fast and end up losing the plot. I played simple lines and kept with what I was 100% sure of. As a result my confidence was high and I left feeling like a king.

I used to always have my amp standing on the floor when I played. I battled to get my sound right for ages.
What was happening was that the majority of the sound was hanging out on the floor, and what was coming to my ears was only certain frequencies, mainly higher tones.
So I got an amp stand and now I aim the amp at me, much like a monitor.

I currently play in 2 bands, Swell band, and Zero thirty one.

Friday night (4th September) ZeroThirtyOne did our maiden gig at the Winston Pub. It was rocking!!! I got the flying V into a playable shape and used it on the night. Aside from being an odd shape that guitar plays amazingly well and I am proud to say I rocked out that night....



But it was short lived by an outside gig I did the next day. I plugged in my GT8 and found it was broken. The volume control had been pushed into the chassis and broke off the circuit board rendering it unusable. It is fixable but I will advise you all (anybody out there?) what happens
The wind was howling that day and I found it messed with the resonance of my guitar. Strangely enough it stopped my strings from vibrating as much as they normally do and I sounded terrible. I will have to experiment with this phenomenon and conquer it. Until then I'm afraid outside gigs are a bit much for me.