Andy Summers' Current Gear Setup

Here is a view of Andy's current rack-setup, built by Andy's longtime personal assistant/tech expert/webmaster Dennis Smith.

If you've seen Andy live in the past few years, you may be a bit confused as to where all this gear is during his playing time onstage. It actually is slightly obscured behind him on the left side of the stage, with his Mesa-Boogie speakers placed rightside-up. In the dark it is hard to see, but it's all there. While he's playing you can actually see all the LED's on and the volume meters on certain units (such as the Juice Goose Power Conditioner) move. He usually places some bottled water on the rack's top casing (yet another advantage to rack systems - amplifiers don't make good beer coasters anyway!)

For a guide to this section, just remember that each number points to a different unit which is detailed below. The picture of the rack has been taken from an Andy Summers article by Virtual Guitar Magazine by James Santiago.

1) Mesa Boogie Stereo Simul-Class 2:Ninety (running 2 Mesa Boogie 2x12 Cabinets)

- 90 Watts per Channel, Simul-Class Power / can be used with 8x6L6 or 3x12AX7 tubes
- Independent Volume & Presence Controls per Channel
- Smart Power (Deep, Half Drive & Modern)
- Line/Instrument Input Select
- Fan Cooled

Originating as the ultimate clubbing amp, the 2:90 has become the stereo power of choice that countless touring guitar heroes have in their corner.

2) Juice Goose Power Conditioner

A valuable accessory for any rack-mounted system. The switched outlets on the back of each unit provide a full 1800 watts of power while the components inside provide a basic level of protection to help clean up dirty and dangerous AC voltage.

3) Rane SM 82 Stereo Mixer

The equivalent of a sixteen channel mixer in one rack space. Measuring only 5.25 inches deep, it can do the job of mixers costing several times as much while only occupying a fraction of the rack space. It is ideally suited for keyboards, synthesizer expander modules and drum machines, as well as such things as effects mixing in guitar racks.

4) Rane SM 26 Splitter/Mixer

A six-to-two line level mixer. It will accept six balanced or unbalanced line level inputs which are applied to six Level and Pan controls. An additional stereo Master Input allows a total of eight inputs. The result of the mix is sent to an overall Master Output Level control and appears at the Left and Right Output jacks on the rear. In its splitter mode, the SM 26B can take one or two line level inputs and split these to any of the six Mono Outputs on the rear. The Mix/Pan controls in this mode control the level from each of the two input buses to be applied to each Output.

5) Digital Music Corp. GCX Guitar Audio Switcher

Combining Andy's Digital Music Corp. Ground Control with this unit, a GCX Guitar Audio Switcher, forms a complete switching system. Andy can use each of the eight loops for in/out effect switching, A/B switching to select amps and preamps, or to control any type of foot-switch function such as amp channel switching. Adding a mixer creates a parallel effects system and use GCX loops to mute the inputs to your rack effects. This allows effects like delay and reverb to trail off naturally.

6) TC Electronic 1210 Spatial Expander

- Two independent Chorus/Flanger Effects
- Mono Compatible Chorus and Flanger
- Powerful stereo enhancement, utilizing the H.A.S.S Effect (The Principle of First Arrival)
- Syncable sweeps of the LFO clocks enhances the Chorus and Flanger programs
- Analog vintage sound with superb quality: 20-20,000Hz
- Adjustable Delay Time of 0.66 to 22 mSec.
- Phone (-10dB) and XLR (+4dB) Ins and Outs
- Additional set of phase inverted outputs available on Phone jacks
- Very low noise, Dynamic Range (100dB)

For an explanation on the interesting H.A.S.S. Effect that powers this unit, go here.

7) Mesa Boogie TriAxis Pre-Amp

- Uses 5x12AX7 Tubes
- 8 Modes/A Collection of all the classic and sought after Mesa-Boogie Tones (MK I/Vintage Fat Clean, MK IV/Hyper-Clean, MK I/Lead, MK I/Gain Boost, Fat Recto, MK IV/Medium Gain, MK IIC+/Classic High Gain & MK III/Searing Gain)
- 90 User Preset Locations/128 Midi Program Locations
- Midi In/Out/Thru • Midi Continuous Control (any or all parameters)
- Midi Data Transfer
- Phantom Power (for Footcontroller)
- Programmable FX Loop w/Stereo Returns
- 4 Programmable Function Switches (Controls Smart Power™ "Deep, Half Drive or Modern" on select MESA Power amps or controls other outboard gear)
- Stereo Main & Recording Outputs

8) Lexicon PCM-70 Digital Effects Processor

Released in 1985, yet it still remains in most pro-guitarist equipment setups! At the time it came out, Lexicon was already in its fourth decade of digital processing, which may help explain its longetivity. It was the benchmark for an entire new generation of audio processing and usability. This also was the first processor to feature Dynamic MIDI and real-time control of effects during performance.

9) Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer

- True stereo, truly clean pitch-shift
- Diatonic pitch shift (Eventide invented this feature over 20 years ago)
- Lush reverbs, effects galore
- Linear-predictive vocoder
- Built-in six voice polyphonic synth
- 19 waveform LFO function generator (almost makes this a true guitar-synthesizer)
- Total MIDI implementation
- Full 5Hz-20kHz bandwidth
- 44.1 kHz sample rate

As we guitarists know, Eventide makes the most powerful and innovative guitar effects processors around. During the Golden Wire/Charming Snakes/World Gone Strange era, Andy highly featured this unit, the H3000-D/SE, on his albums. He even brings it out once in a while again, although more moderatley (the cascading guitar slips that begin the 'Last Dance Of Mr. X' version of 'Big Thing' is a good example.)

10) Digital Music Corp. Ground Control

With all those pedals at his feet, not to mention his entire rack of effects, you may be wondering how Andy can control it all and get his tones. This is where this unit comes in. The Ground Control is a fully programmable MIDI foot-controller. Basically, this unit is always in front of Andy as he plays live, just like a conventional pedal. Andy has stored his favorite configurations of pedal/rack settings in this unit. If Andy wants a certain sound at any given moment, he calls it up from this unit and everything else in his gear will respond to it and give him that sound. This is possible because the Ground Control uses MIDI, a digital music language that can allow such changes to happen - almost every rack and pedal built these days has MIDI put into it, so it's universal. And yes, the screen says the name of the setting being used at the present moment, This unit will control eight effects at once, as well Andy's GCX Guitar Audio Switcher (#5 in his rack.) While power and flexibile, the Ground Control is still unbelievably easy to program and use, which makes it no wonder that musicians always go back to it even though the unit has been around on the market for 10 years.

By Greg Danielak - 2001