Minimal Rig Tone

I finally got a chance to try out my minimal rig setup at practice the other night. The Pedaltrain Mini that I use has the Egnater footswitch, an MXR 10-band EQ pedal, and a TC Electronic Polytune tuner.

Leaving the EQ on all the time, I just used the Egnater Renegade combo footswitch to go between channels 1 and 2 for clean and distortion, respectively. The EQ is set so that the mids are boosted, and it gave a nice gritty tone while in front of the clean channel. Rolling the volume knob on my PRS Customer 24 back slightly cleaned it up fairly easily too.

The EQ in front of channel 2 gave the distortion some nice beefy saturation without being too muddy or harsh. There was just enough input gain on the channel to give it some chunk, while rolling back on the volume knob easily went to solid rock distortion which was good for 6-string strumming.

The room had a lot of natural reverb due to the angled walls in the house we were playing in, so I had the reverb set to zero on the Egnater for both channels. There was nothing in the effects loop, and I occasionally used the Master 2 volume switch for leads. I was the only guitar player that night so it wasn't always necessary, but it's handy when there are two guitarists and you need to cut through a little bit during leads.

Tilting the Egnater combo back against the wall and a single guitar stand finished the setup for practice. The best part is that all of it only required two trips to the car when loading in or out. One for the combo amp itself, and the other for the guitar, folded up guitar stand, Pedaltrain bag, and my regular backpack with instrument cables and small accessories. Sometimes simple is better.