If you haven’t already gotten enough Jeff Schroeder guitar-rig information, follow along as he guides readers of French mag Guitar Part on a video tour (part 1, part 2).

Thanks to HU reader JZ for the tip.

So how is that new rig working for Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder?

Yesterday was the first day that I really got a chance to spend time with it and it sounds phenomenal. The modded Randall preamps sound great. I was real happy with them before and now I’m even happier.

The Axe-Fx is great too. Not that hard to use and has endless possibilities. Granted, it does take some time to program, but for me having versatility is key. I really wanted to design a rig that would not only be able to cover all the sounds for the songs we’re playing on this upcoming tour (and believe me, it’s a lot of them. 40+ over two nights) but would also allow me to grow into new sonic territories (I know that sounds cheesey, but y’all know what I mean). Suffice to say, I’m beyond pleased with what we were able to get here.

You can read more of Jeff’s tech talk here and here.

Here are pictures and a description of a guitar effects system freshly built for Smashing Pumpkins axeman Jeff Schroeder by David Friedman. (Not the anarchist-anachronist- economist David Friedman but the Rack Systems Ltd. operator David Friedman.) As Friedman eloquently puts it:

The path is guitar into the rack wah with a cable,then it hits the gcx with the 6 pedals pictured, the 7th loop is the Axe Fx front end {for pedal simulations} then it goes to the Rm4 preamp.

Well, yeah. You’d have to be pretty stupid to do it any other way.

Thanks to a partnership with Nxtbook Media, EQ Magazine’s October issue — including a massive profile of the Smashing Pumpkins — is available for viewing online. Writer Richard Thomas traces the band’s entire career (sans the interstitial Zwan/solo period), listing gear and recording techniques used in the studio from Gish through “Superchrist” and incorporating interviews with Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, Butch Vig, Flood, Alan Moulder, Bjorn Thorsrud, and Roy Thomas Baker. Here’s but a tiny sample of the extensive historical material:

“Flood felt like the band he would see live wasn’t really captured on record,” says Corgan. “So a lot of Mellon Collie was tracked by the band at deafening volumes. I mean deafening. There was so much SPL [ed. wut?] in the room that it was physically uncomfortable. Your ears, your emotional resistance, would wear down.”

Flood also discovered that Corgan was a much better singer pitch-wise when he didn’t use headphones, so he switched Corgan up to a Shure SM58 and had him sing in front of open speakers.

There are essentially two pieces of forward-looking news, both found near the end of the dozen-plus-page exposition:

“I know the next record is going to be really psychedelic,” says Corgan. “I don’t think the Sabbath influence is going away anytime soon, but I’m thinking more late ’80s/early ’90s English shoegazer mixed with ’60s psychedelia and ’70s funk. I can hear it in my head, but that doesn’t mean it’ll ever get out of my head.”

What, no ’00s or ’50s influences? (And did he say, “funk”? Haha…) The other item:

[P]reparation [is ongoing] for the release of a Gish boxed set, which may include everything from demos and B-sides to revisited versions of old songs. The group also has archived performances of their first 40 shows, warts and all. As they have no label contract in place, the size of the boxed set is to be determined, which is good news for superfans, as Corgan is no stranger to releasing Herculean sets of material. The Pumpkins will also embark on a small-scale tour to support the release, which means Gish songs, Gish gear, and intimate Gish-sized venues. Need more message board fodder? [ed. blog fodder, actually plz] Corgan plans to give each and every Pumpkins album the same treatment. [ed. kthx]

NewBay Media’s EQ Magazine features the Smashing Pumpkins in its October issue, and its website has posted two teaser stories, one on “Billy Corgan’s notable guitars” and a collection of interview excerpts that won’t appear in the print edition. From the latter piece, here’s Billy on one of his historically less-notable roles — that of Smashing Pumpkins bassist:

I was influenced by mostly new wave people: Simon Gallup from the Cure, Peter Hook. In my emerging adulthood I grew up with a lot of new wave and alternative, so I looked at that bass as “the” cool bass style. So if there’s any personality in my bass playing it’s that Peter Hook, ‘use the weird note’ thing. I always wish my bass playing had more to say, but in my head it all goes together like pieces of a puzzle. I understand how the bass works and doesn’t work with all the other pieces in my head, so it [is] probably the thing that gets the short shrift on certain things. Some ideas could have easily been played on the bass, but they were just more effective on the guitar.

More controversial will be this musing on the pressures from within and without to produce good work:

There are a tremendous amount of opportunities for a free artist, meaning free from a label structure, to do lots of interesting things. I think the danger is when you start playing to the front row of your audience. The audience that’s going to be there no matter what you do. I think it’s going to take a level of sophistication to continue to be progressive, dangerous, experimental, forward-thinking, and at the same time not lose everybody in the haze of non-directed creativity. You’ve got to get out of the Utopian idea of, ‘Now that I’m free I can just do whatever I want to do,’ and I think it splits your mind. I think the middle doesn’t exist anymore. You can be artistic, you can be mainstream, or you can be both, but you can’t exist in the middle. I think there were times that did work for us, but I don’t think it works for us anymore. We’re going to have to consistently prove to people that there’s a reason why we are a unique band. We still have to be able to show up and write a great song.

Last week, fellow SP.com writer Hack published a piece about Elemental Labs’ light wall which Billy Corgan featured on his solo tour prior to the reformation of the Smashing Pumpkins.  It seems his inspiration for the piece was a heads-up at Netphoria about this short documentary on Pitchfork.tv regarding Chiptunes, a genre which previously escaped my attention.

Oh.  My.

I know I’ve recently been on the record about how I admire the Pumpkins for taking new distribution routes and using gaming technology for the greater good.  But hacking your Gameboy?  Using it as a synthesizer and a sequencer?

Oh, I am so torn.  I want to love, but I want to mock.  Mock or love?

According to this site, bassist Ginger Reyes of the Smashing Pumpkins is “loving her new Ashdown bass rig and is blown away by the power, tone and clarity she is now getting night after night!”

I know it’s hard to tell whether that’s an advert for gear or a Viagra promotion, but if you’re interested in her specs, apparently she is using the following: ABM 900 Head, Klystron 1000 Head, ABM 810 Cabinet, Klystron 410 Neo Cabinet and a Klystron 115 Neo cabinet.

Head on over to Dolphin Music for links to all her equipment if you’re so inclined.  Or, perhaps, gaze at the least sexy picture ever of G’s rack, above.

Though the blogs are a-twitter with plenty of soundbytes regarding the Watchmen trailer, one diversion of note comes from The Road Warrior Guitar Tech’s blog, who recently deconstructed Billy Corgan’s setup.  His explanation of the technology the Smashing Pumpkins use is great for the layperson (like me!) who enjoys some light reading about the juice that powers a show.

Side note:  Hi-five to the tech manufacturer that named the “Midi Octopus.”

Billy Corgan explains why his new signature Strat is “sort of a standard Fender guitar”:

What’s attracted me to working with Fender to try to make my own guitar is not to make a guitar to make you sound like me—because that would be the last thing I would want anyone to do, because I certainly am not interested in sounding like anybody else; it’s to make an instrument that would develop the person’s individual expression.

I think what’s difficult for people in this modern culture, with such high-gain rock application, is understanding how to play a style that expresses their individual personality and yet still keeps them sort of within the sound that’s current, which is very, very high-gain. And what I’ve worked with Fender to try to do is to create an instrument that will both allow the individualistic expression at a very high level, so that there’s nothing on the guitar that will hold you back—which is always the most frustrating thing, I think, for a guitar player—and at the same time allow your personality to shine through and play high-gain rock, which I think Fender’s been a little behind the curve in addressing.

There’s much more in the full interview at Fender.com.

Fender.co.uk updated their catalog to include full information about the new Artist Series Stratocaster that Billy Corgan is promoting in his new relationship with the guitar giant. Pictured at right in flat black maple (click for the thumbnail for full hi-res glory), the sonic weapon is also available in Olympic White.

The Stratocaster line is one Corgan has used his entire career, spanning all the way back to pre-Gish days. His original 1974 Strat was used to record Gish; more on the infamous theft of that guitar here. Apparently, the paisley guitar was stolen in Detroit — does anyone remember the full story about that theft?

So writes Lauren Henry in the Wimmera Mail-Times:

Michael Coppel Presents publicist Fiona Lakin confirmed the hired sound equipment was for the Smashing Pumpkins.

“The equipment has now been brought to Melbourne where it will be assessed and replaced if needed,” she said yesterday.

Ms Lakin said the concert would go on as planned.

She said band members were aware of the accident but because the equipment was hired, they were not unduly worried.

“It might be different if it was their personal effects,” she said.

Ozphoria’s blog just alerted me to this article from Australian Win Television which reports the following:

MEANWHILE, A FORTY-SEVEN YEAR OLD BALLARAT MAN HAS SUSTAINED SERIOUS HEAD AND NECK INJURIES AFTER HIS TRUCK CRASHED NEAR HORSHAM EARLY THIS MORNING…

The sole occupant of the truck was on his way to Melbourne to deliver sound and light equipment for a Smashing Pumpkins rock concert tomorrow evening, when his rig rolled at Wail, on the Western Highway, at around six-thirty a-m.

He was taken to the Wimmera-Base hospital where he remains in a stable condition.

Most of the equipment was strewn onto the road, beyond repair.

Tomorrow night, the band is scheduled to play in Melbourne, though it is unknown what effects this development will have on the tour. We’ll keep you posted; our thoughts are with the driver and his family.

[Note: To view original article, select “Central West” as your location and it should auto-forward to the article.]

UPDATE: Ozphoria has spoken to a representative of Festival Hall who reports that tomorrow’s show will go on as planned with newly-rented equipment.

This article in today’s Entertainment Technology Press recounts more tech specs about the current tour’s light show. I promised over a month ago to try and keep up with how the Smashing Pumpkins keep bringin’ the light for those so geekily-inclined, but I’ll admit — I can hardly keep up with this article!

The band’s lighting designer, Greg Shipley [pictured with the lighting team at right], goes into great detail about the tech specs and the gear used, not to mention the logistics involved and the fact that the design has gone through six unique iterations. One interesting point is that the show design does prominently feature LED sources - apparently, a greener alternative in the industry:

Shipley is a big fan of LED sources, and loves their speed and intensity. The power saving properties are also very important as many acts wish to set an example of energy conservation to their fans.

The Pumpkins’ involvement with Live Earth, their XM interview, and their auctions for environmental causes all resonate with this “going green” mentality — not to mention the less-than-tongue-in-cheek album artwork.

Do you know of other media where the band has come out in support of environmental causes?

I remember noticing TheFuturistic stands upon which rested the microphones, keyboards, and electronic drums of Billy Corgan’s 2005 tour. Semi-mysterious blogger Cwan (!) yesterday posted an old article of unknown origin that explains:

Along with himself and his solo band, [Corgan] will be incorporating local metal sculptor Dessa Kirk’s work on stage with him during the performance [at the Vic Theatre]. Kirk specially made 16 vine like pieces for the show, which will grow from the floor to harness the keyboards, and wrap around Corgan’s microphone and mic stand… Corgan and Kirk have actually been fans of each other for quite a while. In the late ’90s, Kirk collected Cadillac scraps and welded them into enormous metallic lilies. Corgan saw them at a gallery show. They eventually met years later at Whole Foods and he told her, “Don’t ever quit making your work.” Kirk believes this happenstance to be kind of profound. “It sounds kind of hokey, but when someone you admire likes your work, you feel like you’re doing the right thing.”

By clicking on “The Stage” at Kirk’s website, you can see some more photos of their collaboration.

While JJB’s recent post on the statistical breakdown of the fall tour showed my personal favorite live song to be a staple number, there’s another type of light that was totally… brought — the light show.

We’re about a week out from the start of the European tour, which kicks off January 30th in Prague, and one can only imagine all the preparations currently underway — not the least of which is shipping that rig overseas and through customs. Over the course of last year, I was quite impressed by the quality of the light shows and how varied they were. Almost embarrassingly, I could tell from one night to the next what was different. In case you wanted details on the setup from last year, we’ve tracked down a website that details the specs and theme of the Pumpkins’ Martin setup:

Lighting for the European dates included MAC 2000 Washes, MAC 2000 Profiles, Atomic strobes with Atomic Colors scrollers and LED tubes. Lighting supply for the European tour was by Bandit Lites UK with Bandit programmer/lighting technician Greg Shipley handling lighting design duties.

“The band likes to feel surrounded by their set. After I designed and presented several plots the band chose the final design that we carried for the tour. I chose Martin lights for many reasons but durability would have to be at the top of the list. The European tour was out for one month and there were no issues whatsoever with the Martin gear,” Greg stated.

Used for backlighting and as floor lights, Greg mentions brightness and zoom ability as exceptional MAC features. Greg would like to thank Shawn Lear “for being a great crew chief,” as well as John Wynne and Tom Crosbie of Bandit Lites UK.

HU highly anticipates what lights they’ll be bringing next week — if you’re attending European shows, I’d love to see your pictures of the rig!