About
Forte Beers Merar EP
2025 Tour Highlights
2025 Tour Highlights
Midnight Guitar Rig
With Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Jason Robert Brown composed a score deep with Jazz, Blues, Gospel, and Funk (for starters). It was pure joy to play this score every night with a 12-piece band brilliantly conducted by Thomas Murray, with no click or tracks (which have become a mainstay in this industry). Additionally, we each played with our own Genelec monitor mix, as opposed to headphones or in-ears.
For guitars I used:
2009 Gibson ES137 Custom
1998 G&L Legacy with Z-3 pickups
1990's Larivée OM5 Steel String Acoustic
Played through:
Tech 21 Acoustic FlyRig for the Larrivée
Kemper Stage for Electrics with Earthquaker Devices Palisades and Interstellar Devices Octonaut Hyperdrive pedals for different distorion tones
On the Kemper I used 3 different amp profiles: Fender Deluxe (MB), Top Hat Club Royale (Tone Junkies), and Vox AC30 (MB)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The whole musical team for this incredible production
The rhythm section (L to R): myself, Paul Mutzabaugh Keys 1, Christian Dillingham Bass, JoAnn Daugherty Keys 2, Tom Hipskind Drums
The 12-piece band with Tom Murray our MD
I got to meet John Pizzarelli at the Opening, his wife was in the production!
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - Butterflies
My Tommy Rig
Guitars: Larrivee OM Acoustic and Gibson Les Paul Standard 60's
Quick rundown of my rig for Tommy for interested folks:
Guitars:
2022 Gibson Les Paul Standard 60's with PAF pickups by PickupsByPeteFlynn
1990's Larrivee OM with LR Baggs Anthem pickup/mic system
Electric Rig:
HiWatt T20/10 MKII Amp Head into homemade cabinet with Celestion 12" Greenback speaker. The cabinet is mic'd inside a road case behind the pit.
Pedalboard:
Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2+
Dunlop Mini-Crybaby Wah
Menatone Red Snapper pedal (ca. 2001, always on, provides crunch tone that cleans up when I play softer)
Earthquaker Devices Palisades Overdrive pedal (such a great pedal, I'm using the most open mode with no compression, and nice thick overdrive - very British sounding through the HiWatt. I also have approximately 4 db boost on the Palisades for my leads and sound effects)
Line 6 HX STomp (I'm using this for my echo/delay and analog chorus, which are often engaged at the same time on this show. I love the verstility of the HX Stomp, great tool)
Strymon Engineering BlueSky Reverb pedal (this pedal also stays on for the whole show, using a lush plate reverb with smooth decay. Strymon reverbs are my favorite for guitar)
Ernie Ball VP Jr. volume pedal (comes in after the effects so I can pull out the reverb trails when I need to)
My backup guitar is an Epiphone '65 Cassino Elitist with P90's, that sounds great and can cover for the acoustic as well if needed.
Backup amp is my personal favorite, Top Hat Club Deluxe, the Greenback in the cabinet is the speaker from the Top Hat combo amp.
That's the gist of it. The Guitar 1 book has a great mix of electric and acoustic moments, and requires many tools in my belt to play each time. The beast is the fast pace of the show, with an amazing dedication to having the music seamlessly set up the story. It's thrilling to play this book each night, and to hear the audience reactions. My only wish is that I could see it!
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