Fresh off the release of their new album, Leveler, Pennsylvania's August Burns Red are currently on tour as part of the Vans Warped Tour.
Even in the midst of a busy tour, August Burns Red lead guitarist JB Brubaker found the time to send us some pictures of his gear and tell us about the philosophy behind his setup.
From JB: "I’ve been playing Ibanez guitars for years now and I prefer the prestige series necks because of how skinny and fast they are. Great for shredding. The Peavy 6505+ and 6505 amps have been a staple to the August Burns Red sound since our first full length. We’ve always played these amps live and have used them to record all our albums. The Ibanez TS-9 and EMG pick ups are also instrumental in getting 'my tone.' We’ve been using Mesa Boogie cabs since 2007 and have used them to record guitar on all our albums."
"I recently switched to Midi controlling for all of my effects pedals. I found that with our new material I had to do too much 'tap dancing' on my pedal board to get the sounds I wanted and I needed something to that allowed me to change channels on my amp and lots of pedals at once."
"Enter the RG-16. This midi interface has made my life a lot easier. Now if I want to go from, say, my lead channel with my NS-2 and TS-9 to my clean channel with my compressor, DD7, RV5, on and my NS-2 and TS-9 off, I just have to hit one button on my Mastermind Midi Controller. It makes my life a LOT easier and makes tone changes a breeze. The setup was pretty complex and required the building of a ton of custom cables. The cable making was easy though, thanks to the custom cable making kits that Planet Waves makes. "
My rig has come a long way over the last few years. For a long time I used only an overdrive pedal, noise gate, and tuner. It’s funny how the longer I’ve played the more obsessed with gear and effects I’ve become."
Rack Stuff: -Monster Power Conditioner -Sennheiser G2 Wireless System -Gator Sliding shelf for pedals -RJM Music RG-16 Midi Interface
Pedals: -RJM Music Mastermind Midi Controller -Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor -Ibanez TS-9 -Boss DD7 Digital Delay -Boss RV5 Digital Reverb -Boss TR-2 Tremolo pedal -Maxon Compressor -Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner -Boss FS-5U Tap Tempo pedal for control DD7 -Ibanez Screamin’ Demon wah pedal -VooDoo Laps Pedal Power 2 power supply
In case you missed our gear tour with ABR bassist Dustin Davidson, click here.
August Burns Red released Leveler on June 21, 2011 through Solid State Records. You can check out more from the band on their Facebook page.
Josh Hart is a former web producer and staff writer for Guitar World and Guitar Aficionado magazines (2010–2012). He has since pursued writing fiction under various pseudonyms while exploring the technical underpinnings of journalism, now serving as a senior software engineer for The Seattle Times.
