Donovan Banks

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.

It is no secret that I am a HUGE John Mayer fan. Not so much because I am fat, but that I love his work.

I have been trying so hard to get his tone right. I played a little bit with my GT8 and VOX VT50 and came very close to his tone in "Somethings Missing." but now I am very stoked.

I was playing around with the sound of  "I dont trust myself (With Loving You)" and found the Boss Slow Gear on the GT8 can get you fairly close.

This is what My guitar sounds like so far. I am trying to get it as close to the original as possible. I don't even know why I just want to conquer this...

Using the GT8 and the Slow gear effect, quite a bit of EQ as well but the slow gear is set with Sensitivity at 47, and rise time 79.

here's my sample...
http://www.box.net/shared/dt7isgqi09

its a little louder than the backing track.
If any GT8 owners can get it closer let me know.
For the record the Preamp was the Tweed, gain 22, bass 83, mid 60, treble 43, presence 7, level 48
and added some reverb and very slight chorus in.