Giggin' On Tulsa Time - Ask Zac 97

well hello friends and welcome to
0:40
another Ask Zac what you just saw there
0:42
was a clip of me
0:44
gigging with Paul bogart in Tulsa
0:47
Oklahoma at the
0:49
track 5 venue at the hard rock casino
0:53
and hotel there again in Tulsa Oklahoma
0:56
all right today is kind of a dovetail
1:00
to the episode on uh preparing for the
1:02
gig so this is kind of the payoff uh of
1:05
you know kind of
1:07
when you when you do your work and also
1:09
you continue to do that through uh
1:12
through the uh the the run that you're
1:14
doing with an artist uh you end up uh
1:17
you know getting the payoff of a happy
1:19
artist happy client and they uh and they
1:22
invite you back so I'm gonna tell kind
1:24
of the story about uh about about
1:27
gigging and about the gear i used i
1:29
ended up taking the fender tone master
1:31
and it did fantastic i did along with
1:33
the
1:34
the old ac30 used them together so gonna
1:37
talk about that give you the whole
1:39
shooting match so this is going to be a
1:41
fun one so while you're thinking about
1:43
it go down in the corner and subscribe
1:46
if you haven't done that already
1:48
if you enjoy you know the episodes well
1:50
please hit the the like button because
1:52
that helps the algorithm
1:54
and if you've already subscribed i
1:56
really appreciate you supporting the
1:58
channel so there's multiple ways there's
2:00
good old tip jar information in the
2:02
description
2:03
or you can go to ask zach.com where you
2:05
can learn about merch like this or you
2:07
can become a friend of ask sack and i
2:09
really appreciate
2:11
those people that support the channel on
2:13
a monthly basis basis it's greatly
2:15
appreciated all right
2:18
so let's just dive in
2:19
so of course I've done all sorts of prep
2:22
work for uh playing with Paul bogart my
2:24
friend who's an artist that's uh now
2:26
you know he's kind of floats between
2:28
Nashville and Tulsa
2:30
and
2:32
he contacted me about playing a two
2:35
three hour gigs
2:37
you know out in Tulsa and there would be
2:39
no rehearsal now i had played with him
2:41
in the past it been like a year or two
2:43
since the last time i played with him
2:45
so it wasn't like a
2:47
you know a shocking or overcoming you
2:49
know kind of ordeal to do this i mean it
2:51
was a lot of work
2:52
but uh
2:54
you know yes and i i love his material i
2:57
love his songwriting
2:59
i love the covers that he does i really
3:00
enjoy playing with him so i
3:02
absolutely said yes and then i got about
3:05
doing all the hard work of you know
3:06
learning material
3:08
you know also found out that the fiddle
3:10
player wasn't going to be there so i
3:11
needed to cover his parts also so then i
3:14
had to kind of go back over all the
3:15
tunes and make sure i knew all of the
3:18
fiddle cues like if the fiddle was doing
3:20
an intro so i had to learn that part
3:22
also
3:24
so i did all the prep that i could
3:26
and then they had bus call or
3:30
yeah or van call whatever one you call
3:32
it we were traveling in a transit van so
3:35
that's kind of a
3:36
uh you know it has some storage area in
3:38
the back and there's enough area where
3:40
you can stand up and it seats eight or
3:42
nine comfortably so and there were
3:44
actually only three of us traveling at
3:46
that point
3:47
so we met up at eight o'clock eight a.m
3:50
at a target on the uh on the west side
3:54
of of Nashville so we met in the parking
3:56
lot i loaded up all my gear
3:58
and we we got in the in the transit van
4:01
and started for Tulsa which is about a
4:03
10 hour drive from from Nashville
4:06
so it's at this point that uh i knew we
4:09
had you know time to sit there in the
4:11
van
4:12
and i wanted to do more prep work to
4:15
make sure that things went off without a
4:17
hitch
4:18
so here's what i did
4:20
i brought along
4:22
this uh
4:23
takamini classical guitar that I've had
4:26
for many years and i like it because you
4:28
know i have i paid about 350 dollars for
4:31
it it's got a pickup on it which i
4:33
didn't need for this but
4:35
um
4:36
you know this guitar has paid for itself
4:38
many many times over you know i've used
4:40
it for sessions and also i end up using
4:43
it a lot for weddings and funerals so it
4:46
seems to be
4:48
an instrument that's used at the
4:50
beginning of a chapter and at the end
4:53
no puns intended there but so the reason
4:56
i took it
4:58
was so that we could go over all the
4:59
kickoffs and endings of every song while
5:02
we were in the in the car for 10 hours
5:04
so i had the set list
5:06
and had the drummer and the bass player
5:07
right there and so we could go over
5:10
every song and so he could he could do
5:12
the count off like he was going to do it
5:14
and also describe the ending so we went
5:16
through every single song that way so
5:18
it's three hours worth of material so
5:20
you know and again we're just going over
5:23
intros and endings and so again
5:26
that's another thing that made it to
5:28
where
5:29
on the show
5:30
i was able to enjoy it instead of being
5:32
stressed out because i knew what was
5:34
coming you know it wasn't like oh oh
5:36
what's going to happen next it was like
5:38
i was prepared even without a rehearsal
5:40
so it's kind of like we rehearsed in the
5:41
car on the way there
5:43
so we uh stopped off in
5:46
little rock for lunch at Dave's burgers
5:49
which is a great place
5:51
and then we traveled on to Tulsa getting
5:55
there
5:56
about 6 30 or so in the in the evening
5:58
and of course we're gonna play at nine
6:00
o'clock that night so we go straight to
6:02
the casino which this was the Ramona
6:04
casino which is a little bit north of of
6:07
Tulsa
6:08
and so we went straight there and we
6:09
loaded in
6:11
and got our you know stuff set up
6:14
then we had just enough time to
6:17
to go check into the hotel take a shower
6:20
change our clothes come back to the
6:22
venue
6:23
and by that point it's about
6:26
it's about eight o'clock
6:28
so we decided well we haven't had any
6:30
dinner yet let's order some food so they
6:32
had a grill there in the casino and we
6:34
went there
6:35
there wasn't anybody there
6:37
you know it was it was a ghost town so
6:39
we thought fantastic we're gonna get our
6:41
food and we don't have to start playing
6:43
till nine we've got a whole hour to
6:44
relax
6:46
and eat our food digest it you know
6:49
get up and play
6:51
well we order our food we all order
6:53
simple things you know like sandwiches
6:55
burgers things like that
6:57
and
6:58
we all you know get a fountain drink you
7:00
know coke or whatever and we're sitting
7:02
there drinking soda
7:04
and 30 minutes go by
7:07
and then another 10 minutes goes by and
7:10
one of us goes up and checks with the
7:11
counter
7:12
and said where
7:14
hey can you give us an update on our
7:15
food we ordered you know 40 minutes ago
7:18
and the guy said look all these people
7:20
came in right before you and ordered
7:21
food and then they went back out in the
7:23
casino to gamble so you've got all these
7:25
people in front of you so we realized at
7:28
that point that we were not going to get
7:29
to eat dinner before we had to start
7:31
playing at 9 00 pm
7:33
so we're all starving so we look around
7:35
and they have some candy bars there
7:38
and you know we're all grown men
7:40
and yes we just
7:42
drank a bunch of coke and you know soda
7:44
of different kinds we were all caffeined
7:47
and sugared up then
7:49
we all eat a candy bar
7:52
and
7:53
so yeah so we went up and started
7:55
playing and
7:57
you know first set went off well and of
7:59
course you know after we had played for
8:01
an hour then they had our food sitting
8:03
in styrofoam containers and it was cold
8:06
so again
8:08
this this is what the road is like i
8:10
mean you know it's just you know there's
8:12
always unforeseen things that happen and
8:14
the worst thing you can do is get upset
8:16
about something like that
8:17
what
8:18
keeps people wanting to be around you
8:22
is being able to roll with the punches
8:24
and being a little well i guess we don't
8:26
get our food I'm just going to grab a
8:27
candy bar and eat it I'm going to be
8:29
like a kid and so you move on and then
8:31
when your food's you know cold and stuff
8:33
you say it's cold but man sure does hit
8:35
the spot you know
8:36
you know I'm glad we had some food so
8:39
we played the uh the the three one hour
8:42
sets
8:43
went off without a hitch i sang a couple
8:46
of songs so he had told me beforehand
8:48
that he wanted me to sing a couple songs
8:50
so i sang like elvisis that's all right
8:52
mama i did the old flat and Scruggs tune
8:54
hole what you got because I'd I'd heard
8:56
Ry Cooter and Ricky Skaggs do it years
8:58
ago uh live and uh so i would do that
9:02
song i did a couple instrumentals i did
9:04
hideaway did tennessee waltz couple
9:06
other instrumentals to kind of help
9:08
things out also saying some harmony
9:10
vocals which again you know i uh
9:13
you know there was no rehearsal so
9:14
luckily they were you know some cover
9:16
tunes and or songs that i'd heard and i
9:19
you know would just uh
9:20
you know get up get up there and
9:22
and do my best so but it was it was a
9:25
lot of fun
9:26
and uh yeah so that was the uh the first
9:30
day so the second day we were playing at
9:32
another casino which is that's where the
9:34
the footage that i showed you is from
9:36
it's from the second casino the hard
9:37
rock
9:38
so uh there was a much bigger stage that
9:41
was higher off the floor had a really
9:42
big nice dance floor had you know kind
9:45
of bars on each side of the uh you know
9:48
long wooden bars on each side of the
9:50
dance floor with a couple of bartenders
9:53
and really nice production really nice
9:56
lighting they had a lighting guide that
9:58
when i would take a solo he would
10:00
spotlight me
10:01
and things like that uh yeah really pro
10:05
high level uh guys and i was really
10:07
impressed with the guys at the hard rock
10:08
casino at the
10:10
track five
10:12
so we set up there
10:14
and uh
10:15
and at this point um let me give a
10:19
little aside on the tone master
10:21
so
10:22
you know i decided at first i had
10:24
thought i'm going to take all vintage
10:26
stuff because i haven't played a you
10:27
know i haven't played out in a while
10:29
besides doing some recording or some
10:30
just stuff around town i haven't really
10:32
played out where i could crank some
10:33
stuff up
10:34
and i thought well i'm just going to
10:36
take vintage guitars and i'm just going
10:38
to take vintage amps and the more i
10:40
thought about it the more i thought
10:43
that just that's just going to be
10:44
stressful you know when i've got like
10:47
two vintage amps whenever you know from
10:49
the 60s and i've got two vintage guitars
10:51
that i'm trying to watch over and i'm
10:53
concerned about them being stolen or
10:55
something happening to them so i just
10:57
thought
10:57
okay i'm going to take one vintage amp
11:00
and i'm gonna take one vintage guitar
11:02
so
11:03
i kind of went back and forth and
11:04
finally i decided i'd really been
11:06
enjoying the vox and i'd never got i'd
11:08
recorded with it but i hadn't gotten a
11:10
gig with it i knew it was solid so i
11:12
decided okay taking the vox ac 10. so of
11:14
course
11:15
this is a vox ac 10 that i got from dan
11:19
strain danocaster
11:21
and it had a weird funky cab and then
11:24
i had kyle bolendorf
11:26
custom make
11:27
a uh a 112 um you know combo cab for it
11:31
and it's wonderful
11:33
so decided to take this and i'll just
11:36
you know give you one other thing that's
11:37
that's kind of necessary with these old
11:39
amps is that especially british amps
11:44
from the 60s
11:45
they really don't like to be on 120.
11:47
they end up sounding frantic they just
11:49
kind of sound they sound like you know
11:51
like a like a dog with its face against
11:53
the glass you know
11:54
yeah it's just too much
11:56
so you really need to drop the voltage
11:58
somehow now
12:00
i have this which this is a little
12:03
a little box that rg keen built for me
12:05
rg keen is one of the uh
12:08
engineers at true tone and or he is the
12:11
chief engineer at true tone and he also
12:13
helped kind of launch the boutique
12:15
industry he's a wonderful guy
12:17
and so what this is is this little box
12:18
where you just you know you bring in the
12:20
wall voltage via an iec cable and this
12:23
goes to your amp
12:24
and it drops the voltage about six to
12:27
seven volts
12:28
and that's perfect so if you have 120
12:30
coming out then you get closer to 114
12:33
which actually makes a big difference in
12:36
the sound of that vox amp instead of
12:38
saying it frantic it sounds kind of calm
12:41
cool and collected as it were
12:44
so i had the uh the vox and then the
12:46
then the situation was okay what's my
12:49
second amp gonna be
12:50
and i decided you know after mulling
12:53
things around i didn't want to take
12:54
another vintage amp and i thought
12:56
well i really loved the tonemaster and i
12:59
actually loaned it out to a friend of
13:00
mine and he was digging with it a bunch
13:02
and some friends of mine had even seen
13:04
him use it and said he sounded fantastic
13:06
so that was kind of like well i mean i
13:07
loved the sound of it anyway in the
13:08
videos that i'd done
13:10
so i thought hell i'll take the i'll
13:12
take the tone master it's you know that
13:14
way you don't have to mic it
13:16
you can just use the xlr on the out and
13:19
and you can choose whether to have the
13:21
the speaker on or off and still be
13:24
sending it signal
13:25
another thing i decided was i was going
13:26
to go stereo and so i was using both
13:28
amps at the same time
13:30
and the reason i decided that was
13:32
because we were only a four piece band
13:34
and normally he does a five piece and by
13:36
going stereo we could kind of pan things
13:39
left and right with the two amps and i
13:41
could kind of fill up a little more
13:42
space again without being like
13:44
obnoxious you know i could uh could run
13:47
that so that's what i did and
13:51
at the first casino
13:53
i would always turn the vox amp off
13:56
during the break
13:58
and uh
14:00
and one time one of the sets we went
14:01
back up i forgot to turn this back on
14:03
and i was only hearing the uh
14:06
the the deluxe and i had its speaker
14:08
activated so it was you know it was live
14:11
and i had one of my ears out so i didn't
14:12
even notice that the vox wasn't on and
14:15
and it sounded fantastic so
14:17
big kudos to fender big kudos on the on
14:20
the tone master uh you know now that
14:22
i've you know recorded with it i've of
14:24
course done videos with it and i've
14:25
played out with it it does wonderful and
14:28
at the second casino at the hard rock
14:31
they were very concerned about stage
14:34
volume and so
14:35
they were okay with me having the ac 10
14:38
up you know because i had it up about
14:40
halfway so that it get so it'd compress
14:42
and get a nice sound they were okay if i
14:44
had this live as long as i turned the
14:46
speaker off on this one and so that's
14:48
what i did so i still had the signal
14:50
coming off the xlr but uh
14:54
yeah and so it was really nice to have
14:56
the two amps in stereo the tone master
14:58
was fantastic the vox was fantastic the
15:00
two sounds together were a really fat
15:03
sound and i was uh
15:05
quite quite happy with it it was nice to
15:07
have an amp that you kind of felt like
15:09
was a little more you know bulletproof
15:12
than the old amp though uh you know
15:14
neither one gave me any problems so i
15:16
was very thankful for that so kind of
15:18
back to the plane at the hard rock
15:21
um
15:22
yeah it was it was just a lot of fun it
15:24
was a beautiful venue
15:26
i was really glad that again i could
15:28
turn the speaker off on that so i could
15:30
keep the you know the
15:32
front of house guy happy with me so he
15:34
wasn't thinking you know here's the
15:35
arrogant guitar player
15:37
you know blowing you know blowing the
15:39
stage volume off the map and just you
15:41
know making it hard for him to mix
15:43
so uh yeah it was uh
15:46
a whole a whole lot of fun
15:48
i've gotta check my notes here make sure
15:51
that i mention a couple things before i
15:53
dive into the rest of my gear and pedal
15:56
board and stuff like that
15:58
so
15:59
i was really glad that danny thompson
16:01
came out so he's a
16:03
viewer of the show and he came out to
16:05
the hard rock show and we were able to
16:06
hang out some and i actually showed him
16:09
my esquire
16:10
and uh yeah it was a lot of fun so thank
16:12
you danny for uh for coming out to that
16:14
show so it was fun
16:16
all right let's talk about uh the rest
16:18
of the gear so of course
16:20
i had the the tone master and the vox
16:22
those were my amps i was using them you
16:24
know both at the same time whether this
16:25
speaker was on or off this was mic'd
16:28
this had the xlr coming off of it then
16:30
in front of that
16:32
i had this pedal board
16:34
so and this is based on my normal pedal
16:36
board of course i have duplicates of
16:38
everything yes i admit it
16:40
so
16:41
so this is my favorite tuner the you
16:43
know the strobis stomp uh actually what
16:46
is this no this is the sonic research
16:48
turbo tuner that's what it is and i've
16:51
used this for many years i really like
16:53
this tuner a lot
16:56
i would i think if now they have a
16:58
smaller version which i would i would
16:59
get that but
17:01
the mirage compressor is a favorite i
17:03
learned about that from john leventhal
17:04
it's a good smooth compressor that
17:06
doesn't get real squishy and stuff but
17:08
it's good at leveling things and
17:10
and helping the front of house guy and
17:12
your bandmates
17:15
helps you not have as many you know
17:16
crazy peaks or anything that uh
17:19
make him want to turn you down
17:21
uh analog man modded boss tremolo pedal
17:24
just kind of smooths it out
17:26
uh of course my favorite overdrive pedal
17:28
is the most torsion this is a rehoused
17:30
one by xts
17:33
i don't recommend rehousing it unless
17:35
there's something wrong with it so this
17:36
one the the footswitch went out on it
17:39
and so i had it rehoused and exact tone
17:42
is the
17:43
is wonderful at doing such things and
17:46
so it has a nice switch on there
17:48
and uh yeah love those guys
17:51
then you have a regular old boss volume
17:53
pedal this is the fv30h
17:57
and then next we get to where things
17:59
kind of switch around
18:01
or get unusual is you have this access
18:04
electronics buffer it's a bs2 now this
18:07
company isn't around anymore but mario
18:09
the owner he works for um mesa boogie
18:12
now
18:13
so what this is is
18:16
because i wanted to go in stereo
18:19
i uh i needed to have a way to separate
18:23
the amps ground
18:25
so that i didn't have hum
18:27
okay
18:28
so some people
18:30
will
18:31
use one of these guys and basically
18:34
remove the ground pin
18:36
and this is a bad idea this is a real
18:38
bad idea because it's dangerous
18:41
and it's not a good solution when you're
18:43
using two amps you know to use one of
18:45
these guys so there are better ways
18:48
and the better way is this
18:50
so or some type of device that has an
18:52
isolation transformer because basically
18:54
you need to isolate the two amps from
18:56
each other okay
18:58
so this box has a buffer in it and then
19:01
it has a normal output
19:03
and then it has well actually has three
19:05
outputs but i'm just using two of them
19:06
so you have a main output that goes to
19:08
one amp and then it has a second output
19:11
that has an isolation transformer and a
19:13
phase reversal switch okay
19:15
so what this does is allows you to use
19:18
two amps without having you know hum
19:21
which normally you'll have a low level
19:22
hum when using two amps or it can even
19:25
be worse it can be nasty
19:27
also you've got a phase reversal switch
19:29
right here so
19:31
while having both speakers live you can
19:33
just hit this switch back and forth to
19:34
make sure the amps are in phase if
19:36
they're out of phase just like out of
19:38
face pickups it will get rid of your
19:40
mid-range and your tone will be really
19:43
hollow sounding so it's real easy so
19:45
that's really nice
19:46
so this you know something like this
19:49
is really necessary if you're going to
19:51
use two amps because that way you get
19:52
really really quiet
19:54
and also you're able to make sure that
19:56
they're in phase
19:58
so
19:59
signal goes through these so both amps
20:01
are getting all of the pedals up to the
20:03
volume pedal and here's where things
20:05
split
20:06
so from here
20:08
the fender tone master gets the main out
20:11
so that means it's just getting these
20:13
pedals and that's it and then on the
20:15
tone master i'm using its built-in
20:17
reverb okay
20:19
then this output with the isolation
20:22
transformer is going through these two
20:24
delay pedals and into the vox ac 10 and
20:27
of course the ac 10 has no reverb on it
20:30
and so that way i've got one side that's
20:33
got no delay but has reverb and then the
20:36
and it's a fender and the other side is
20:38
a vox amp
20:40
with no reverb and it's got delay now i
20:42
wouldn't use both of these at the same
20:44
time so the dd2 was set to a quick slap
20:46
back and then the echo park was set to
20:49
like tape delay and for a longer you
20:52
know delay time that i could tap in
20:54
and so that way i could get a really you
20:58
know big sound that wasn't washy and had
21:00
a really good you know impact to it
21:04
so that ended up working out really well
21:05
and of course
21:07
got to give props to uh
21:09
to true tone so
21:11
this is the one spot pro cs6 so
21:15
so thanks bob
21:17
yes of course i work for true tone so
21:19
i'm gonna put that down
21:21
so that was that was my my pedal board
21:23
and again it worked out flawlessly
21:26
my backup was a
21:29
tube screamer with a uh with a battery
21:31
in it
21:32
and so that way if anything went wrong i
21:34
could just grab that and plug you know
21:36
cables in of course i had extra cables
21:38
and strings and all that stuff
21:40
and i was really grateful that i brought
21:41
extra extension cords because i ended up
21:44
needing an extension cord for my pedal
21:46
board and then another one for my amp
21:47
because at one of the venues they
21:49
they the power was not close by so i had
21:53
that
21:54
guitar wise i took the 57 esquire and
21:58
it it was fantastic it was uh it was you
22:01
know really fun to play
22:04
and
22:05
yeah it was
22:06
yeah i wouldn't say it was scary at all
22:08
or stressful but it was like i was
22:10
concerned about it and so because of
22:12
that
22:13
i'll uh
22:15
so
22:17
i always use
22:18
gig bags and the reason i use gig bags
22:21
is because they're easy to carry around
22:22
and i can keep the guitar with me
22:24
now of course if
22:25
if you're on a big tour or you're if
22:28
you're needing your guitars to be with
22:30
the rest of the equipment then you
22:31
really need a road case because
22:33
hard cases will just get destroyed
22:36
you know
22:37
sitting with road cases road cases have
22:39
to be with road cases if you put a hard
22:41
case like a fender tweed case
22:43
in in in the back you know in a van or
22:46
in a trailer or whatever with other
22:49
stuff it will just get demolished yeah
22:51
so you really have to have a road case
22:54
or you have it in a gig bag and you take
22:56
it with you you know in you know in in
22:59
the area that you're traveling in
23:01
so i had the esquire in this in this gig
23:03
bag and this is one that my
23:05
my in-laws my wife's parents gave me for
23:08
christmas after i got the esquire and so
23:10
i love putting the esquire in here
23:12
and the other reason i like it is
23:14
because i with the esquire i take it
23:17
with me everywhere i go because it's an
23:19
old guitar and it's worth you know it's
23:21
worth a little bit of money
23:23
and uh for that reason i take it with me
23:26
everywhere or you know i make sure that
23:28
it's locked up really well
23:30
and so even even if we would go to
23:32
dinner or something like that
23:34
you know i i try not to leave it in the
23:36
room or leave it in a car for any length
23:38
of time and in fact when we were playing
23:40
at the casino the first casino because
23:42
the stage was real low and they didn't
23:44
have security right there i took the
23:46
guitar with me during the breaks so when
23:49
we were eating our cold sandwich you
23:51
know on friday night after we'd eaten a
23:53
candy bar i had the guitar with me so it
23:56
was in in the booth at the at the little
23:59
grill so there was a 57 esquire sitting
24:01
there
24:02
so
24:03
yes uh otherwise i had uh had my crook
24:06
paisley guitar
24:08
and uh you know because it it is similar
24:11
output similar sound
24:13
and uh yeah and that was that was kind
24:15
of the
24:16
the get up you know with that
24:19
and uh it was it was just a lot of fun
24:22
um
24:23
yeah
24:24
you know another thing was you know of
24:25
course the whole time i had to keep up
24:27
with my work emails with true tone and
24:29
so i had my had my work computer with me
24:31
i used my phone as a hot spot so that
24:34
way i could keep taking care of orders
24:36
and stuff like that over there on friday
24:38
and over the weekend
24:39
and yeah it was just a ton of fun and
24:42
then all then you get back to town and
24:44
you're back to back to normal business
24:46
and it was great so i want to thank paul
24:49
bogart and i want to thank cody martin
24:51
and daniel ryan
24:53
who i got to play with that was just so
24:55
much fun and such a treat and hope hope
24:57
we get to do it again soon
24:58
thanks so much i'll see you next time