Unlike some of you, I now only do 5 jobs a week, normally. Two are house jobs. On the one or two a week that are singles, I traditionally used an arranger, small PA, 1 cabinet, a hot spot and a nylon string guitar plugged directly into the PA.

Recently, I got a beautiful Guild jazz guitar and wanted to use it on the singles. Problem is, you can't just plug the single humbucker instrument into a PA and have is sound like anything. I also didn't want to give up my nylon string for quiet bossas and Earl Clugh type solos.

Now, I have added a small Fender tube amp for the Guild and am taking a Nord to use for the excellent pianos. I place it on my right hand. Often, I add a 2nd cabinet and use a little powered Roland monitor.

That's a bit more than the bare essentials I would need to do the job.

None of my jobs are 1 hour deals. Most are two hours, minimum, with an average being three hours, My question is, how many of you take more than the bare essentials to gigs? What else do you use? Why? In a perfect world, what would you add?

Luckily, my son sets most jobs for me, and, when I have back-to-back jobs, it's generally the trio, and he is the bass player. He co-ordinates set-up and tear-down. A 2nd son, who runs our sound company, tears down and sets up sound if the job is bigger...up to 6 1000 watt Crowns, 10 pieces, etc.

How do you decide what to use on OMB jobs?


Russ