What does it take to create the world’s greatest guitar sound?
What I’m about to share with you has been the single biggest breakthrough in my live electric guitar journey.
For years, I used a single 12” cab with a Dr Z Carmen Ghia (18W). I didn’t run it particularly hot, yet the result was always the same — the sound engineer would tell me to turn down.
Over time, this became more and more common. As live bands switched from floor monitors to in-ears, removing both monitors and bass amps, my guitar started to appear even louder on stage.
The problem is that a guitar cab beams very intensely. Off-axis it might sound fine, but as the sound engineer walks across the stage, they’ll inevitably reach a spot where the guitar is blaringly loud.
That’s when they stop, look at me, and say:
“Well, that’s gonna have to come down.”
Enter the Fryette Power Station
To lower the volume but retain the tone, I started using a Fryette Power Station. It’s a brilliant bit of kit, but heavy — and something about taking that kind of studio gear to gigs never felt quite right.
Once I’d lowered the stage volume, another issue appeared: I couldn’t hear myself clearly next to the drums. So, I developed a monitor system where I could control my guitar’s level in my own mix and add the rest (vocals, keys, maybe bass) from an aux send on the desk.
This way, I could turn the amp down via the Fryette but bring it back up in my monitor, balancing my guitar against “everyone else” using a small mixer.
The signal chain looked like this:
Guitar → Pedals → Amp → Fryette → 1×12 cab → SM57 → Joemeek VC3Q preamp → DI (to FOH) → link through to Rolls MX28 → Matrix XT800 power amp → Monitor(s).
I know — it sounds a bit extreme. But there are no shortcuts to perfect tone, and it all starts with being able to run your gear the way you want to.
The Gear Mountain Grows
This setup worked, but it was getting a bit ridiculous — even though I’d managed to fit everything neatly into a rack and a second pedalboard.
By this point, I’d moved away from the Dr Z and picked up a Tone King Imperial with a custom 2×10” cab.
The Tone King has a built-in attenuator, so I thought I could finally ditch the Fryette.
That didn’t last long. The attenuator in the Tone King strangled the amp — it just felt lifeless. So, back came the Fryette, and my mountain of gear grew once again.
The Barefaced Revelation
Then a friend (Lewie Bonner) used a Barefaced 1×10 cab on a gig where I was doing sound. It absolutely blew my mind.
The little 1×10 instantly became my favourite speaker. The Celestion G10 sounds phenomenal, the cab weighs next to nothing, and it just feels right. Finally, my rig started shrinking.
A few gigs later, I realised I didn’t even need the Fryette anymore. The small cab had solved the beaming problem. Sound engineers were happy, and as long as I had a monitor, I could hear myself perfectly.
In-Ears: The Next Chapter
If you thought the story was ending there… you don’t know me very well.
It turns out that what makes a guitar sound great on stage is hearing the cab off-axis, blended with the reflections from the cab and monitor.
Once you go on in-ears, you lose all that — you’re only hearing the direct sound from the SM57. It’s not a pleasant tone, and it’s easy to see why most guitarists on in-ears switch to digital amp rigs.
Sure, it might sound cleaner in the ears and save them from lugging heavy gear, but out front it often lacks power — no air moving, no mic’d depth. Still, most players are happy to carry less, play lighter, and drown in reverb.
But you’ve probably guessed — that’s not good enough for me.
Blending Mic and IR
So, out came the Fryette again, and this time I added the OX Stomp so I could blend an impulse response (IR) with my mic’d tone using the Rolls mixer.
Honestly — it sounds amazing on headphones. The power and punch from the microphone combined with the width of the IR is incredible. You really have to experience it to understand.
Since the little cab had removed the need for attenuation, I started using the Fryette purely as a DI, feeding its line out to the OX.
Eventually, even I had to admit that lugging around such a heavy DI was madness. I switched to the Palmer ILM, and it’s been perfect.
The Current Setup
Here’s the rig as it stands now:
Guitar → Pedals → Amp → Palmer ILM → 1×10 cab → SM57 → Joemeek preamp.
From there, I split the signal using the two outputs on the preamp:
- The OX Stomp takes the DI from the ILM (with speaker sim disabled) and feeds channel 1 of the Rolls mixer in stereo.
- The SM57 from the Joemeek feeds channel 2.
- The other output from the Joemeek goes to a Radial Mix 2:1, where I mix in the aux feed of “everyone else” → Matrix power amp → one monitor.
This means my monitor mix contains my guitar without an IR — just the cab, mic’d and hitting me directly in mono, with no latency. It feels incredibly immediate, and I can move around to find the perfect off-axis sweet spot.
To front of house, I send a blend of the mic in mono and the IR in stereo. If I’m on in-ears, I hear that same blended signal.
Since the Rolls mixer still has a spare channel, I can already see myself adding a second amp, Barefaced 110 cab — mic’d up, feeding the third channel, and another ILM for the OX’s right input.
You might need to read all that again, but if you do, you could just find yourself with the best guitar sound you’ve ever heard.
My friend — the one who introduced me to the Barefaced cab — calls it the world’s greatest guitar sound.
He hasn’t heard the two-amp stereo IR blend yet though. Will you beat both of us to it?
For my next experiment, I’ll have to get my old Dr Z out again — and the Fryette, of course. I do have another Joemeek preamp and a Sennheiser E906, and I’ll also need my Lehle splitter as well — there really are no shortcuts to the perfect sound!
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