Scott Henderson Discussion

[Mojolang]

Scott,

1) I cloned your rig from the 2011 (or was it 2012) tour. I loved the SD9 through hot rod w/G12.

Now I am using an OD-100CL+...currently tone tubby ceramics but going to change to the celestions (2x12). That said, it's harder for me to dial in a tone I like as much. Do you have any suggestions on how you use channel 2 of that amp with the RC and SD? I do indeed need to noodle more...

2) I was thinking about running that rig stereo with a fuchs ODS50 through the Deville. Prohibitive gear carrying aside, is bi-amping amazing for tone (sounds like it when Bonamassa does it)?

3) I am leaving for LA tonight going to be in town for the week. Any killer vegetarian restaurants?

[Scott Henderson]

My settings for Channel 2 (crunch channel) with pedals are:
presence 6, bass 2, middle 5 treble 4 volume 4 gain 7
Sometimes presence 5, treble 5
Your settings might vary because of playing style, which cabinet and speakers you use, etc. I use a 4x12 sitting directly on the floor so I need very little bass from the amp.

I'm not crazy about stereo rigs. There are too many mono PA systems out there, so the audience isn't going to hear it like you do. Even if the PA is stereo, the people on the right will only hear your right side and vice versa. Not a great idea in my opinion.

Even when I hear stereo guitar on records, (for example, using very short L-R delays to "widen" the image, it sounds like an effect to me. I use it from time to time just for something different, but in general I pan the guitar a little to one side and pan some delay to the other side and it sounds stereo without trying to make the guitar into a stereo instrument, which it's not.

Gyu-kaku! It's known as a Japanese BB restaurant, but they have lots of good vegetables to grill. That place rocks!

[tribalfusion]

[Scott Henderson]

I'll admit that I liked the sound of a stereo rig behind me for a couple reasons. The ADA chorus I was using in stereo made the clean tones huge sounding, and having a small delay between the left and right side diffused the notes and made legato playing cleaner sounding, as well as making the image bigger.

What changed it all for me was, I began to realize that without all the stereo imaging, my actual tone wasn't really that good. I was using .009 strings which even with humbuckers sounded horribly thin, and the guitars and amps were crap compared to what I use now. After I got my first OD-100, I started playing mono again and it became more about the sound of the instrument, not the effects. Also I'd heard tapes of gigs where the engineer was summing my L and R together, or micing just one side, and that's what the audience was hearing - sounded terrible.

I can still pull off legato phrases using .011's and single coils - I don't miss stereo or humbuckers one bit.

[tribalfusion]

[Scott Henderson]

Allan is the only one I know of who still does the live stereo rig. It fits his style of playing, and the couple times I saw him at the Baked Potato it sounded great because it's a small room and you hear mostly what's coming off stage.

On HBC, I tried the stereo image thing on a couple tracks, and even without humbuckers, it sounded like the tone on the old Tribal Tech records. It's a very recognizable sound and it really cleans up all the mess of distortion guitar by diffusing the notes, but it still sounds like an effect to me. So that's how I treat it these days, as a cool effect to use when it fits the music.