Here's the link to the file/chart re: PJ's Riot Act studio gear...

http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/PearlJam/gear/images/pjgearriot.pdf

Also, Laura, I sent you an e-mail the other night but I didn't realize your computer was still causing problems, so I apologize if I've "backed you up" any worse.

Hey Monoxyde,

I'm not doing too badly... Thanks for the holiday wishes. Happy Dec. 14th!

I think I know the Ovation-style bass you're referring to, but to be honest, I'm tremendously ignorant of anything technical. The only real "knowledge" of his equipment that I have is from the standpoint of being able to match a song to the bass he uses on it, based on the visual characteristics of the bass, and in some cases, knowing which bass is what, again, based mainly on pure visuals (colour/identifying characteristics, etc.) plus the sound it makes. Brands, makes and styles unfortunately are far, far beyond my comprehenson... Sorry.

"Lullified"... Hehehe! I like that term! I'm aware of Lull having done extensive work on Jeff's basses. I don't think it would hurt to shoot him an e-mail. Also, I'd send something off to the Synergy Tech Guru as well (whom I believe is actually George Webb himself). It may be quite a long while before he gets to answering your question, so that's something to consider, but there is still a chance that you could get a response in one of the Rumor Pits or official site updates in the future, and I think he'd definitely be the best source.

Anyways, I managed to track down the BP article from this summer, but I have no idea if this will help, as it deals most specifically with his live setup...

http://www.bassplayer.com/archive/0803/0803_BassNotes2.htm

Jeff Ament With Pearl Jam

For 12 years, Jeff Ament and Pearl Jam have been fortunate to play the world’s best stages, and the same tech, George Webb, has been working with him the whole time. So it’s no wonder Ament and Webb have live sound down to a science. “He and I have gone through a long process over the years together,” says George, who first worked with Jeff before Pearl Jam came together in 1990. “We’ve gotten into a routine—we know what to expect out of each other, so the pressure and anxiety of doing a show isn’t nearly as great as it once was.”

Still, being Ament’s tech and Pearl Jam’s overall equipment manager has plenty of challenges. “Pearl Jam doesn’t always stick to the set list; Ed [singer Eddie Vedder] calls a lot of ‘audibles,’ so we have to stay on our toes.” Jeff has 12 basses onstage: three vintage Fender Precisions (including a sunburst ’59 once owned by Canned Heat’s Larry Taylor), two ’90s Modulus custom J-style basses, a 2000 Modulus custom Silvertone replica, two ’90s fretless Wal Basses, Hamer 8- and 12-strings, a ’70s Ovation Magnum, and an Azola Acoustic Baby Bass electric upright, plus a 1966 Gibson ES-330 guitar, which Ament plays on “Smile”—but he doesn’t use every bass in every show. “Jeff likes to get into a groove; when he starts getting comfortable with an instrument, he hangs with it for a while. If there’s a series of songs with standard-tuned, fretted 4-string, he tends to stick with what he’s got. He doesn’t like to change just for changing’s sake.”

When a swap does need to be made, George first rolls off the volume on Jeff’s Sony WRR840 wireless receiver, switches on the new instrument’s transmitter pack, hands Jeff the new bass and takes the old one, turns off its transmitter pack, and then turns the receiver volume back up. “We keep all of the transmitters on the same frequency,” says Webb. “I know that isn’t the ‘cool’ way to do it, but it works best for us. With all of the audibles, it’s just easier to have everything on one frequency all the time.”

From the receiver, Ament’s signal enters a complicated chain he and Webb have fine-tuned over the years (Fig. 1). Jeff’s pedalboard includes two MXR M-108 10-band EQs: One is dialed in for a bright sound, and the other has the high end rolled off and the lows boosted for a thicker tone. Each runs on its own effect loop out of an Aspect Designs switch box, so Jeff can run his signal through one EQ, both, or neither. When Ament steps on a second switch box, another MXR EQ, this one with six bands, feeds a Fulltone ’70 pedal. “It’s more of a guitar distortion,” says George of the pedal. “He gets an old, Acoustic 360-like fuzz tone from that loop.” The signal then passes through two Fulltone Bass-Drive pedals (“one is really overdriven, the other not so much”) followed by a Boss reverb/delay. “He uses that for a kind of synth-like, reverse-gated-reverb tone. He’ll hit a note and it’ll go from nothing into this sweeping sound.”

Returning to his rack, Jeff’s signal goes through a second channel on the Furman VU meter (not shown in diagram) and then gets divided into four paths by a Jester Enterprises Hydra tube splitter. The first path goes to Ament’s vintage Ampeg SVT head, which powers two SWR custom 6x10s without horns. The second path goes to a backup SVT. Path three goes to a SVT-2PRO head, which powers a 6x10 monitor sitting next to Matt Cameron’s drum riser. Path four goes to another SVT that sits atop Jeff’s rack; it powers George’s own 2x10 monitor (so he can make sure Jeff’s stage rig is working), as well as a floor-fill 4x10 wedge for the front of the stage.

When Ament plays his Azola electric upright, the chain is much simpler: A cord runs into an Ashdown ABM 500 EVO head, which powers its own 6x10. Jeff gives the house four signals: A main-bass direct signal from his Avalon, a main-bass mic signal from one of the 6x10s, an electric-upright direct from the Ashdown head, and a mic from the electric-upright’s 6x10.

—Karl Coryat

Dredging up an old thread here, I know, but I just discovered this page and thought monoxyde and the other gear enthusiasts might find it interesting...

http://www.giventowail.com/new/gear/gear_db/index.php

Got this article earlier today and thought it might be of help to those researching the technical side of things... It's from Pro Sound News and covers the workings of the 2003 tour:

Pro Sound News; 6/1/2003; Young, Clive

Byline: Clive Young

Ever since its start in the early '90s, Pearl Jam seems to have always done things its own way, and the group's tour in support of its latest disc, Riot Act, is no exception. While most acts would settle for releasing a live album after the end of a tour, the Seattle band is releasing a double-CD live set for every concert on its North American jaunt, with each one issued just days after the concert. It's an ambitious undertaking, but one taken in stride by Brett Eliason, the band's longtime live engineer.

The recordings, half-jokingly referred to as bootlegs by all concerned, are recorded and mixed concurrently with an evening's show, essentially making them the most elaborately produced board tapes ever. "We did this the last time out as well," said Eliason. "On that tour, we built a recording studio into the front lounge of a bus, and I mixed the show at front of house. John Burton was recording the show, and afterwards, I would begin to remix and finish up the next morning. We never had a day off; it was pretty rough, and that's part of the reason why I was very excited about this approach."

"This approach," then, is a sizable recording setup in a specially built isolated room within one of the production's trucks. A set of eight Grace Design 801R preamps send audio down a 400-foot snake to the truck; there, Eliason watches the band via a video monitor and mixes 44 channels (including audience mics) plus effect returns, to create the house mix on a Midas XL-4 console. From there, the mix gets sent to the traditional FOH position, where Mike Scerra gets 20 subgroups-16 subgroups of instrumentation and four subgroups of effects-into his Midas Heritage 3000 console. All that is put through a kicking PA supplied-as is all the house audio gear-by Seattle-based Carlson Audio.

The PA in question is centered around an EAW KF760 line array, comprised of 24 KF760 long-/medium-throw and 24 KF761 short-throw modules, with 24 SB1000 subs. Crew chief/system engineer Allan Bagley explained, "When we're playing the sheds, we hang a row of three KF750s and a KF755 on the bottom to cover the last 20-30 degrees on the outside, as they're a little wider than the 90-degree coverage of a typical line array." When the band plays arenas, usually in the round, the 750s and 755s cover the rear center and offstage rear on each side with the addition of a few JF200e 2-way cabs. The entire rig is powered by a slew of QSC 6.0 and 4.0 amplifiers.

Back at the truck, Eliason's mix is recorded in various ways by a slew of Apple Macintosh computers. Multitrack files are recorded via Digidesign Pro Tools on a 1.25 GHz Macintosh G4 desktop tower to Cheetah 36-gig SCSI drives and then get backed up on 120-gig FireWire drives. These are saved for archival use, and potential remixing down the road, as the band also tapes each gig using five DV cameras, and has released a few shows via DVD in this fashion.

For the bootleg process, two stereo feeds come directly from Eliason's desk. One feed passes through an Apogee PSX100 digital converter, where it's turned into 24-bit/48K audio which is then fed into a Digidesign Pro Tools LE rig on a 500 MHz Mac G3 PowerBook. There, Burton saves the results on a 120 GB FireWire drive. The files are later uploaded to a virtual private network provided by WAM!Net, where they wind up on the desktop of Ed Brooks at RFI CD Mastering in Seattle. When Brooks is done completing the mastered disc images, they're sent to Sony Disc Manufacturing in Terre Haute, IN; CDs get pressed and placed in pre-designed generic packaging, and reach fans' mailboxes within 10 days of a show.

Of course, for some fans, a 10-day wait is much too long-accordingly, another stereo feed comes off the Midas desk and goes through a MOTU 828 A/D converter into a 1 GHz Mac G4 PowerBook, where Burton uses Peak Audio to convert the songs into MP3s using LAME encoding. Those files are saved to another 120 GB FireWire drive and are later uploaded to Pearl Jam's website within a day. Fans who purchase a show's CD set on the website are then given a link to a page hosting the corresponding MP3s, which they can download to tide them over until the discs arrive in the mail.

While it makes for some great recordings-and certainly good will between a band and its fans-it's nonetheless an unusual process. Eliason admitted, "I've done a lot of work in mobile trucks for broadcast and such, but with this band that I've mixed for 12 years now, it is odd not being out in the audience and having that immediate energy. The trade-off, however, is that it's the only way we could do this process to turn around the bootlegs as fast as we are. Also, I'm able to control the environment, so I'm able to zero in on the mix every day, which is really nice. The hardest part of this was trusting that it would translate into the room, and Mike does a great job of keeping on top of it. He puts his faders at zero and starts from there. I give him subgroups in case he feels he might need a little more kick or vocal in the room, or need to overcome something that might be going on in there."

With all the effects and such handled on the truck, the FOH position is relatively light on gear. "All I have is a console and a drive rack," said Scerra. "The opening act gets one side of the desk and the rack, and I have one insert, which is a BSS DPR901 on Ed's vocal."

With all the large EAW boxes and sizable racks of gear on hand, it's perhaps ironic that one of the more important audio pieces present is comparatively tiny: an Apple iPod MP3 player. Eliason explained, "It's more for fun, but we check the MP3s on the iPod, and we also use it for our walk-in music. Several of the guys in the band use iPods, so they create playlists for us; Jeff Ament's real big into it, where he'll create a playlist for walk-in music, and we can just walk over, plug the iPod into his computer, grab his playlist, go out front and play it."

With the tour running through mid-July, Eliason will have a lot of walk-in music playlists to run through; he'll also wind up mixing more than 70 different shows for the CD releases. That's just fine with him: "The first one was certainly really rough, but since then, it seems to have locked together. I like the energy of it, and now that we've gotten a feel for it, it seems to be working really well."

Pearl Jam Concert CDs

www.pearljambootlegs.com

Carlson Audio

www.carlson-audio.com

Rat Sound

www.ratsound.com

EAW

www.eaw.com

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Vital Stats

Pearl Jam

Carlson Audio/Rat Sound

House Mix/Recording Engineer: Brett Eliason

House Engineer: Mike Scerra

Monitor Engineer: Karrie Keyes

Crew Chief/System Engineer: Allan Bagley

Assistant Engineer: David Stevens

Technican: Jamie Harris

Mix/Recording Console: Midas XL-4

FOH Console: Midas Heritage 3000

Monitor Console: Yamaha PM4000M

House Speakers: EAW KF760, KF761, SB1000, KF750, KF755

Monitor Speakers: Rat Sound

House Amplifiers: QSC

Monitor Amplifiers: Crest

FOH Equipment: dbx 160X/160A; BSS 404; Aphex Dominator; UA 1176, Empirical Labs Distressor; Manley Variable MU; Allan Smart stereo comp; Neve 33609; Aphex 622; Lexicon PCM-60; Eventide H3000; TC Electronic M3000, 2290; Roland SDE3000; Panasonic SV3700; HHB CDR 830 BurnIt Plus

Monitors Equipment: Rat Sound S (TAD, EV-loaded), L (EV-loaded), M (McCauley, EV-loaded), Rat Trap (EV, JBL-loaded), Micro Sub (TAD-loaded), Custom (McCauley, TAD-loaded)

Microphones: Audix OM7, D6; AKG 460; Shure SM91, SM57, Beta52, Beta57, Beta98; Audio-Technica 4050, shotgun mics; beyer M88; Sennheiser 409, 421; Little Labs DI; Avalon DIs; Hi Tech Audio DI; Octavia

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Massive Monitors

At stageside, Karrie Keyes, Pearl Jam's monitor engineer for the last 12 years, uses a rig provided by Rat Sound (Oxnard, CA), designed over the course of many tours to meet the band's needs. "The rig consists of 16 mixes," said Keyes, "with a combo of biamp and triamp wedges. We use a lot of TAD 2-inch drivers with Waveguide horns to achieve loud, clear vocals at the center of the stage; nothing compares to the TADs. Klark Teknik DN800 crossovers complete the package. We are also trying out the new Radian Microwedges this tour, with great results."

Guitar player Stone Gossard and vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder each get four mixes. Gossard uses a biamp Rat S wedge utilizing the TAD/Waveguide/KT combo and a single Electro-Voice DL15X for his vocal; Vedder uses a pair of them in a similar fashion. Next, both players each get their instrument mixes from a triamp Rat L Wedge, loaded with a pair of DL15Xs, a single EV DL10X, and an EV Ndym-1 driver, again on KT crossovers. The end result is that by using one wedge for vocals and one for instruments, they are able to get clear mixes and separate the vocals, plus the vocal EQs don't affect their instrument EQs as a result.

Next, Gossard has a triamp Rat Trap loaded with a pair of EV EVX150, two DL10Xs and JBL 2-inch drivers on KT crossovers, which serves for his instruments as well as his vocal and Vedder's vocal. Gossard's corner of the stage is closed out with a Rat Micro Sub, loaded with two TAD 16-inch speakers, providing low end of the bass and kick drum only. Meanwhile, Vedder's setup is filled out with four Rat S wedges, used as rear-fill for his vocal and instrument cues, and a pair of Rat custom cabinets, used as mono-fill side-fills aimed at him to provide his vocal. The triamp boxes are loaded with a single McCauley 15-inch, a McCauley 10-inch and the TAD/Waveguide/KT combo.

Stage right is home to bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Mike McCready, and it's a relatively quieter space. Keyes explained, "Both Jeff and Mike have hearing issues, and we try our hardest to keep volumes down and the high end to an absolute minimum." Accordingly, Ament uses a triamp Rat M wedge loaded with a McCauley 15-inch, an DL10X and an Ndym-1 driver, but they're only using the 15-inch, and then only for low end from the kick drum. Next, he has a triamp Rat Trap providing his and Vedder's vocals; a Rat Micro Sub, loaded with two TAD 16-inches to provide more low end of the kick drum; and a Rat-designed bass wedge, with four 10-inch speakers. "It's controlled from the bass rig though and not monitors," Keyes noted.

McCready's only mix comes via a Rat L wedge to hear Gossard's guitars, choosing to hear his own guitar ripping from his guitar amps and the rest of the act via ambient sound. Meanwhile, drummer Matt Cameron hears a full-band mix via stereo Rat Trap cabinets, each loaded with a EVX150, two DL10Xs and an Nydm-1 driver; and a single Micro Sub, carrying dual TAD 16-inches for low end. Finally, the band's guest keyboardist, Kenneth "Boom" Gaspar, gets a full-band mix from a Rat M wedge. The entire rig is powered by Crest amplifiers.

"We use a Yamaha PM4000M for the monitor console," Keyes reported. "Not my first choice, but the board has been part of the evolution of their sound. It's what they've gotten used to, and when we use another console, the sound is never quite right. We currently are using 43 channels in monitors." Also on hand at stageside are Ramsa SX-1 preamps and a single Lexicon PCM60 for Vedder's vocals; BSS 960 EQs; and no comps or gates.

The result, said Keyes, is that "it is pretty organic, raw, clear and fun. Everyone in the band wants to hear things differently, so we have many split channels at the board, so that each guy can have it the way he wants it. There are also many guitar cues, with different EQs and volumes, so I split a lot of guitar channels, too."

So, considering that there are so many boxes up there, has the band ever tried personal monitors? "Yes," said Keyes. "The response was, 'They are great for listening to my CDs.'"

http://prosoundnews.com

Copyright 2003 United Entertainment Media, Inc., a CMP information company. All rights reserved.

COPYRIGHT 2003 CMP Media, Inc.