I played two solo sets at Alpine Wines in Driggs ID last night.  I’ve done solo gigs before, but this was my first 2-hour solo gig, and the first on which I sang, used the looper, and used my amp modelers.  Overall it was a great show, one of my favorites.

The room Alpine Wines occupies is long and rectangular, with lots of right angles and hard surfaces, and I thought the acoustics would suck.  It turned out to be a very nice sounding room.  I ran 3 amp modelers on the floor–one for harp, one for vocals/acoustic harp, and one for my Firestick (3-stringed instrument)–and it worked very well, I think, with a caveat. 


Shot of stage showing RP and amp setup


Richard Hunter solo stage setup August 2010. Left to right: RP355 (harp); RP250 (vocals); RP200 (Firestick). Boss RC-2 looper to right of vocal mic. Peavey KB2 amp at far right.


The caveat is that my recording of the show has distortion on the vocal mic, and I’m not sure whether the distortion was in the recording device, the amp, the amp modeler, or the looper.  (I had the looper running in the FX loop on the amp, so I could run any of the elements of the sound through the looper.)  My guess is that it was the recording device, because I don’t remember hearing the distortion in the room while I was performing, and the distortion sounds like a digital overload.  But the RP250 that I was using on the vocal mic wasn’t intended for vocals, so the problem may be there. 

This show was a big experiment for me, and it was successful.  The electronics and vocals helped me carry a 2-hour show solo and keep it interesting all the way through.  One thing I learned is that the looper is an instrument in its own right, and you need to be very sharp with your timing to make it work.  Another thing I learned is that  beatboxing coming through an amp modeler sounds really, really phat.

Both sets had plenty of good stuff, and I’ve already put some MP3s up on this site. 

And I’m looking for more solo gigs.