Rigged: Allegaeon Guitarist Greg Burgess

The new Allegaeon record, Elements of the Infinite, features a new drummer and guitarist in Brandon Park and Michael Stancel respectively, but the other guitar slot remains staffed by Greg Burgess. We got the scoop on his rig, which is pretty far on the modern end of things: all direct, laptops, and PA monitors. Here’s what Greg had to say.

Well prepare yourself for a gear run down by a complete gear idiot. Brought up as a classical guitarist I know pretty much nothing, but have attempted to absorb what other people do. The correct translation of this article should be Greg Burgess, he likes guitars and stuff.

So lets start with the guitfiddles themselves.

The awesome people over at Jackson Guitars were kind enough to bestow upon me these lovely instruments! Seriously I’m in awe they actually give a bone head like me these. My main guitar is actually only a few months old, it is the USA SELECT B8 Deluxe. 27 inch scale length tuned EBEADGBE. Thing sounds great!! Comes stock with Dimarzio D Activators, and is actually making me like guitars over 26.5 inches. Before the pain wasn’t worth it, now… it may be worth it. (Insert dick joke here). My main 7 string is a SLATXMGQ3 – 7 Soloist. This was actually the first guitar they ever sent me, and I still love it. 26.5 scale length, tuned standard BEADGBE. Comes with a authentic Floyd Rose, and EMG 707’s I think. Beautiful maple quilt stained red. Gorgeous! My back up was my main 8 string prior to the B8. it’s the SLATFXQMG3 – 8. Again, 26.5 inches, tunes EBEADGBE, flamed maple with an amazing green paint job.  Seriously love these guitars the only thing I would change about them is the frickin’ names!! So I can tell people in casual conversation what guitar ‘m playing and I don’t have to rattle off some 18 letter serial number that no one will remember.

My live rig is as simple as I can make it with trying to keep up with modern technology and still failing at it. My rig is a Line 6 X3 Pro. The predecessor to the Line 6 HD. This is basically this is the poor man’s AxeFx. It runs direct to front of house, and I think sounds great. My tone is basically a 5150 and a Mesa Dual Rec stacked on top of each other, with a tube screamer running before each of them. Going into that is a Line 6 – G 90 Wireless Unit, thing dominates!! As well as I keep the drum triggers in my rack, you can see the Alesis DM5 that we run our kicks out of. For the front row, and for anyplace that we play that doesn’t have monitors, I have a Mackie HD powered monitor for stage sound. Thing is loud and compact. It looks goofy as all hell, but works really well. Now on the floor I have a Behringer FCB1010 Foot Controller, that has been programed to throw patch changes to my X3, as well as triggering samples from my laptop. Ya know all those bass drops/fart samples/and Lady Gaga bits that we have to throw in every night. The laptop is running Abelton Live. I have to use a Midi Solutions midi spliter to get the midi commands to both the X3 and the Laptop, since apparently the midi through option is dumb, and both pieces of technology basically act like little children running around with fingers in their ears ignoring one another. I send both the patch changes and the midi note triggers to both the X3 and the Laptop and they ignore what they don’t understand.

That’s my rig. Thanks for sitting through my garbage grammar, and nonsensical ramblings.

Allegaeon’s Elements of the Infinite drops June 23rd via Metal Blade Records. You can listen to and preorder it at this address.