Guitar Amp "Insurance"

If you play electric guitar then you might be able to identify with this. I play guitar and sing in my church band each and every week and depend on my gear. I only have one guitar amp currently and it’s a workhorse. But two weeks ago, said amp started to have electrical spurts of noise and was going wacky on me; totally unuseable live since it could “explode” at any moment. My other guitar players have only one amp as well so there was no extra amp to fill in for me until I could get mine fixed. So what did I do?? I turned to a $30 piece of gear that is now my guitar amp insurance.

Via Incase Flickr

The Wonder Pedal

A few weeks back I did a video review of the Behringer GDi21 amp modeling pedal. It’s a great little box that I use for overdrive on my pedal board. I’ve also used it for recording on my band’s recent recording project. But when my amp blew and I didn’t have a backup amp or time to get it fixed before Sunday’s service, I turned to the GDi21 as my “amp.”

The great thing about this pedal is that instead of running it quarter inch in and out like a stompbox, you can run it as DI with balanced XLR out straight to the mixing console. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. My guitar goes into all my pedals, with the Behringer being last in my chain (as if it were my amp). Then I run a mic cable out of the GDi21 straight into our snake on stage. The result? No one noticed a difference. It’s getting the job done just fine! I can switch amp models if I need to, switch mic placement as well, and then EQ to taste! All on one pedal right in front of me!

Small Price To Pay

To be honest, it’s a lot more fun to have your amp on stage pushing a wall of sound than to just run direct to your monitors and front of house, but having this pedal as more than just overdrive, but an actual backup amp is incredible. You can’t beat the deal of spending only $30 to keep a “backup amp” in your guitar case. Think of it as life insurance for your amp.