On this episode of DTB’s “Gear Masters”, Jack Simmons, vocalist/guitarist of the alternative pop band, little image, shows off the gear that he uses onstage, while on tour with The Academy Is. little image is currently supporting their newest single, Real Estate.
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We just try to keep it as dead as possible. We don't really love a super bright sounding acoustic.
Coming out of this mic, I'm going into the Troika, which is something we added on to my rig recently.
I'm mostly hitting up here. That's typically my world.
Hey, I'm Jack. I play in a band called Little Image, and this is my rig rundown.
For starters, this is my main guitar I'm playing on this tour.
This is actually just a Squier. It has fake custom shop stuff on the neck.
Me and Brandon actually found this thing at a local place in Dallas for like $300.
We put some really good electronics and pickups in it.
It's just a nice little guitar that we can throw around and not worry about messing up.
I use the pickups we put in this thing. They're very similar to a Lawler type pickup, hand-wound pickups.
Brandon found some from this smaller company. I can't remember the name.
I use 10 gauge strings. Ernie Ball Paradigms. Love them.
I pretty much rock the bridge pickup at all times and just have full volume for driving moments.
I cut volume to get cleaner tones, but tones all the way up at all times.
I love this thing, man. It's great.
I just rock standard tuning pretty much all the time.
I capo sometimes for a couple jams, but just standard tuning.
We are only playing this on one song on this tour, but this is my trusty old acoustic that Fender sent us.
It's just one of their basic line acoustics. We love it. It gets the job done.
We use old strings on it. The oldest we can find, the better.
We've had these on for a couple years. We just try to keep it as dead as possible.
We don't really love a super bright sounding acoustic, but this thing's great.
It's just a nice, affordable Fender acoustic, and we love it. It's great.
Right here we have this Mustang bass. It's the JMJ Fender bass.
This is actually Brandon's. I'm just using it for one moment.
We run this through my guitar rig.
It's just a fun little jam moment on this new song that we're trying out on this tour.
We love it. Pretty basic setup here. Just the one pickup setting.
I keep all the settings pretty standard. Everything on.
Then I throw some drive and some sauce on it.
Pedalboard. We're coming into this decimator. It's just, in my opinion, the best noise gate that you can get.
Into the Tumnus, which is my main overdrive that I'm rocking.
Then I believe we actually jump over to the chorus from that, which is just a Boss Super Chorus.
I'll pop this on for certain moments.
I've done a lot of research on chorus pedals, and I've tried out a bunch of them.
This is my favorite one that I've found.
I like that you can change the EQ on it, and the effect level, and the depth. It's just really nice.
We're coming out of that into the Starlight, which is the UAD Starlight.
It's just a delay. It's really cool. I use the tape emulation on it a lot because it sounds amazing.
It's basically an Echoplex, which is one of my favorite delays of all time.
Then we go from that into the Chroma Console.
I was using the Chroma Console a little bit more for fuzz and drive, but it's just a little too squishy, I feel like, for the live setting.
It's a little overkill, but I'm using it just as a verb on this tour.
Coming out of that, we're going into the Helix.
I'm using this as my main amp rig going to the house.
Then going from that, I have a few effects here, just a drive, a reverb, chorus, and a delay.
They're just standard effects that I'll click on here and there.
Then we're going out of that as the amp sim into the Aux Stomp, which is, in my opinion, the best cab simulation you can get.
For amp rigs, I think it's just amazing. We love it.
Brandon showed it to me recently, and it's just been my secret sauce. I love it.
No cab simulation here, just amp simulation coming out of this.
Then all the cab simulation is coming from this guy.
We're rocking an AC-30 type amp on this guy.
I was running a more deluxe type amp for a little bit.
I feel like the AC-30 cuts a little bit better for the style that we're going for.
So yeah, we switched it back to the AC-30.
Nothing like a Tele and an AC-30. It's just perfect.
It's a match made in heaven, if you ask me. I love it.
From there, we're going out of the Aux.
We have a signal going from one side of the Aux box to the house as the main house amp sound.
Then the second out is coming to my deluxe reverb over here.
We tried to use no stage amps for a little bit, just to try the sim thing full on.
We really missed stage volume.
So we got these bad boys and we love them. They're just great.
We have a different dial-in setting on these than what's going through the Helix.
So we actually have a blank send going from the Helix to that B-side of the Aux stomp.
Sending out to here so we can dial in a totally different tone here from the Helix.
So that there's not any weird over-compression going to the amp.
This is the mic I use. It's taken quite a few tumbles.
So we have it taped up right now, but this is the DeFacto by DPA.
Pretty staple mic. I think a lot of people use this mic.
In my opinion, I've tried a lot of mics and this is just the best one that I've found for my voice. Love it.
I have an effects mic here that we have just a lot of vocal effects running through.
This thing's seen better days. This is an old Telefunken M80.
I think we've had this thing since we started the band, but we've been slamming that thing left and right.
Coming out of this mic, I'm going into the Troika, which is something we added onto my rig recently.
This is just a vocal delay thing that Jack White's company, Third Man Records, made.
Honestly, we saw the video for it and that day we were in Nashville rehearsing and we called the store.
They were like, we have one in stock. So we went and grabbed it.
I've always wanted to have some sort of delay vocal thing for my rig.
Yeah, we just have it sitting on my keyboard here. This is my keyboard.
I kind of do mostly sampling from this thing. I'm not much of a synth player myself.
I kind of just pretend for the most part. I can play the parts, but never really know how to play piano.
Never learned. So I'm mostly hitting up here. That's typically my world.
But every once in a while I'll hit a little something.
Picks of choice. I use the 70.73 millimeter yellow Dunlop Tortex picks.
I rocked a couple different sizes. I used to use the orange ones for a little bit,
but I've always just kind of come back to the yellows for some reason.
It just feels right. It's the perfect weight for how I play and I love it.
You can check us out on Instagram. It's just at Little Image.
At Little Image is pretty much for everything else as well.
You can check out our website for any tour dates we have coming up.
Littleimagemusic.com and this is an honor to do this.
We've always wanted to do this and we love gear and we're just happy to be here.
So thank y'all for having us.
