TheGigRig finalist in British Engineering Excellence awards

Well this is very cool, and quite a suprise, but we are very proud to announce that the GigRig ltd was selected as a finalist in this year’s engineering excellence awards... who knew!

This is a quote from BEEA... 'The GigRig was selected for two main reasons... As a new company the GigRig ltd has demonstrated engineering excellence and innovation based precisely at customers needs... The other attribute that impressed the Judges, was the GigRigs attention to the environment, not just with Compliance to standards and re cycling, but with the patented invention of the Virtual battery'.. “The virtual battery will remove 100,000 PP3 Batteries from the environment every year”.. Said Kate Bellingham, former tomorrows world presenter and journalist, in her presentation of the final five companies.

Now i'm just waiting for the knighthood!!!

an encouraging word on your hunt for tone

Amidst the chaos and stress of getting ready for NAMM I recieved an email from a client thanking me for the advice on puting his dream pedal board together. We get a lot of similar emails but I'm grateful for each one because I know how much it means to them. Getting to a point where your sound is your voice is a real moment in any guitarist's career. I've been fortunate enough to do thousands of different gigs from stadiums to boozers all over the world and if there is one thing I know its that when my tone is on form it has a tangible effect on people, a connection is made. And if my sound was off, the opposite was true. I've seen great players miss out on gigs because their tone was off. I have personally got gigs over much better players with better hair because of perceived tonal quality. People, this stuff is important. TheGigRig was not born from a business plan, but from my own efforts to improve my own sound, but I've met so many players who share my passion. I'm still learning new things every day because its a journey. But I can say that once you experience great tone, it can literally change your life.

The art of HUSHsshhhhhh part 2

Sometimes, infact most times buying an expensive low powered amp is not always viable, it may not even give you the sound you want. Yes, my 59 AC10 twin rocks, but it's still not quiet, and the bottom end just doesn't feel the same on the tiny low powered amps, so how do we get our big rigs to rock out at low level.
I'll share with you a little trick that i've used very succesfully around the office. Firstly, i'm not a big fan of attenuators, i know many swear by them, but for me the fundemantal change in tone is too drastic.
Here's a nifty little trick to try.
I set my rig up as I would normally and turn it up to a decent stage volume, (oh it sounds so good!)but at this level it is completely impractical for anything except full on rocking out.
OK, now from the output of my rig which normally goes into my amp i put a fab sounding low gain OD pedal. I've had great results with a King Of Tone, HotCake, Kingsley Jester, even a Blues Driver. I set the pedal up to be almost transparent so you can't tell when you have it on or off. After this is done i simply use the master volume on the pedal to turn down the entire rig.
The cool thing about this approach is the pedal compresses like the back end of the amp when it's cooking so you still get a bit of that natural feel even though the volume is really low.
Try it and see what you think!

playing queit - the art to hush

I played in bands for many years fronted by female artists. They were fantastic but a consistent problem was stage volume. After this it was bands with the boys and balls to the walls rocking out! Now with the new prog project the levels are much more controlled. Instantly, as soon as the volume drops that old 'quiet tone syndrome' comes back. So how do you do it? Get that tone at low levels? There are so many elements to great tone but one thing that stays consistent is the relationship between the amps' output stage and quality of tone. One of the most popular modern boutique amps being made today is the 15 watt ac15 style amp. The advantage these amps have is that you can turn them up without killing people. And when that output stage gets working you get that lovely output stage clipping that sounds so fab. Pair this with a matched low powered speaker and those great tones start to emerge. However, 15 watts is still by no means quiet. its generally ok if using a drummer but sometimes the use of a less efficient speaker is needed to get the amp cooking.
Over the next few days we'll have a look at some more techniques to get the best tome at low volume.

more madness on the way

I wish i could tell you more, i really do, but let me just say i haven't slept in 3 days, we've been working around the clock on a new tone toy and it is going to be stella! Hopefully we'l have it ready to go for NAMM, in fact we hope to have a couple of new toys ready for NAMM in Jan, so i'll keep you all in the loop, pun semi intended.

So what's new in 2009?

Hi everyone. Well we've kicked off this year with a bang and have some fantastic new products in the pipeline. It's all pretty much hush hush at the moment but we'll have four new products in our catalougue in the months to come. Through all these products and indeed our existing products there is a thread, a common theme that I hope you'll consider. We want you to sound as good as you can for one primary reason so you can experience the pleasure of playing with great tone. Unhindered by Lord of the Dance impressions and released to express yourself musically, this is what we're all about. I saw an amzing video of Nels Cline (Wilco guitarist) doing an improvised spot with an artist painting abstract imagery behind him. It was incredible and is an image of someone completley free on the instrument. It just takes a bit of creativity, and a touch of courage, then add some tone...and you can rule the world.

XTC's Dave Gregory's back, and the man is on fire!!!!

Last night I fulfilled a liftime dream. My band and I performed with Mr Dave Gregory at the Vic in Swindon. For any of you that don't know Dave, shame on you;) Dave is best known as the guitarist with XTC, the band whos music changed my life...literally. Since I was 20 years old the man has been my hero, he was the guitarist I wanted to be. Once you heard his parts and solo's that he contributed to Andy Partridge's songs you could no longer imagine any other possible worthwhile 6 string contributions. The man is a genius. I was playing an XTC song at the Manly Boatshed 7 years ago when a beautiful young woman says to me, I'm from Swindon, where XTC are from. That woman is now my wife and through circumstance we end up living where else but Swindon. Fate intervenes and a few years ago I meet my hero, and as he may well be the only person I've ever met who's passion for the instrument is greater than mine we become mates. On top of his passion is a level of talent that is bewildering. So I invite Dave down to the amp shoot-out we did at the website a few months ago and he sits in with the band. It all just kind of fell into place. I put it to Dave that we do a project...and he says yes!

So after a few weeks of rehearsal, last night we played

Dream Brother - Jeff Buckley
Reelin in the Years - Steeley Dan
Frankenstein - Edgar Winter
Red - King Crimson
Scissor Man - XTC
Towers of London - XTC

It's the start of a new project called 'The Tin Spirits'

For those of you that were there last night, well I don't need to tell you how great the man was, indeed a humbling experience.
I'll be getting some YouTube footage up on the website soon. Thanks to everyone that came down, stay tuned for more!