RIGGED: TODAY I CAUGHT THE PLAGUE’S STEVE RENNIE AND BEN DAVIS

April 12th, 2012 at 4:30pm
MetalSucks

MetalSucks is sponsoring the current Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire and Today I Caught the Plague U.S. tour (dates here). We’ll be featuring a “Rigged” column from one member of each band, taking you through their live gear setups piece by piece. Check out the Rigged pieces by ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis, Protest the Hero’s Luke Hoskin and Periphery’s Jake Bowen and Alex Markides. Today’s we’ve got Today I Caught the Plague’s Steve Rennie and Ben Davis run us through their rigs:

Greetings gearheads!

For this edition of Rigged, Steve Rennie and myself (Ben Davis) are going to break down the guitar rigs Today I Caught the Plague are using on our American tour with Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis and The Safety Fire.

While we were in the studio recording our latest album Lore we used a variety of different heads, cabs, pre-amps and effects. Live, however, Steve and I run essentially the exact same set-up. Our design philosophy is very old school; it’s small, simple, economically friendly and most importantly it works well and sounds great!

Steve: We both have been running Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier heads through Orange cabs since the beginning of Today I Caught the Plague. The Dual Rec has proven itself to be quite versatile for tones when it comes to conventional tube amps. Having three separate channels with full EQ, gain, volume, and presence controls — as well as channel tone toggle options such as raw/vintage/modern (2 high gain channels) and clean/pushed (clean channel) — has enabled us each to capture three great natural tube tones. The Orange cabs have such amazing bottom end while still having awesome clarity, and they’ve been great for us.

It’s a pretty stock set up for the most part, but we’ve added a couple of pieces that totally transform the Dual Recs’ natural tone. We both run modded Ibanez Tube Screamers which give the tone lots of bite and snap, tightening up the tone. We’ve also added a custom pre-amp/ signal boost box made by our good friend and electrical engineer Tony Medina. This “little magic box” is a signal gain boost that sits at the end of our pedal chain. It boosts the signal and adds some compression before it hits the amp. This gives us much more sustain and allows us to use way less gain on the head to achieve a gnarly high-gain tone. Yes, this little magic box is gnarly and is the secret to our rig.

Ben: My main guitar is an LTD EC-1000. It’s modelled after an ESP Eclipse and I absolutely love it! Unlike most Eclipses and EC models, the EC-1000 has passive seymour duncan pick-ups in the neck and bridge. When combined with my Jazz III picks and right hand picking style, this makes for a tight, punchy rhythm tone you just can’t get from active pick-ups. My back up guitar is an Epiphone Les Paul custom. I ended up switching out the stock Epiphone pick-ups and throwing in a Dimarzio X2N in the bridge and a PAF Pro in the neck. Because of the high gain pick-ups and thick mahogany body I used this guitar on all my rhythm tracks for Lore. It weighs a ton though so I avoid using it on stage.

Steve: I’ve been using an ESP Eclipse for the last six years. It’s been the perfect guitar for me. I’ve switched out the EMG pick ups for DiMarzios (an X2N in the bridge and an Air Norton in the neck). I find the passive pickups have more balls and better dynamics than active pickups. They sound more natural. As a backup, I have an LTD EC-401 also loaded with DiMarzio pickups (X2N in the bridge and a D Activator in the neck). It’s basically a cheaper Eclipse, but it gets the job done well when necessary.

Ben: My pedal board is super straight-forward. I run an Ibanez Tube Screamer, a Boss DD-6 Digital Delay (which I have set up to add more sustain and smoothness to leads), and a Boss TR-2 Tremelo pedal, an effect not commonly associated with metal guitar players. I’ve managed to find some really unique uses for it, though; a perfect example would be in our single “From Bulwark to Bane,” where I use it in the clean section. And last but not least, my personal favorite, the Digitech Whammy pedal.

Steve: My pedal board currently consists of a Line 6 DL4 Delay, a Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb, a Boss TU-2 Tuner, an Ibanez TS7 Tube Screamer (modded), and a DigiTech Whammy.