Catharsis rehearsed this weekend for the upcoming European shows. Here’s a quick rundown of the gear Jimmy and I used.

My gear:

I used my Laney GH100L, a borrowed Marshal 1960 cabinet, and a small set of dirt pedals you’ve seen before. For the shows, I may remove the Polytune and use a Snark clip-on tuner instead. I’m trying to lighten my load as much as possible.

Jimmy’s gear:

Jimmy used his 50 watt 5150-III head, his Marshal 1960 cabinet, and an Amptweaker TightRock straight into the effects loop return! This is a novel approach I hadn’t considered before, which relies on the amp having an effects loop. Since we’re borrowing amps at these (and probably most future) shows, I’m a little skeptical. But this pedal sounds great in the instrument input or the loop.

The TightRock is a cool pedal with loads of unique features, including an effects loop that’s activated when the pedal is disengaged. You can use it to A/B between distortion sounds, for “only clean channel” effects, or to send a clean signal to a different amp (by not using the return). The distortion sounds great, and I’ll definitely have to look into getting one of these or the FatRock.