At this point, I was pretty much groping in the dark about how best to use the Digital Les Paul. I heard certain sounds in my head, but didn’t know how they would translate into reality. I also had a lot of questions about what gear would work with it and what wouldn’t.
The “star” of the guitar is the divided pickup, which can send a separate signal from each string.
You can see the hex pickup (also called divided pickup) sitting between the bridge and the treble pickup.
I spent most of the weekend considering options, and ultimately decided to start simple. The MAGIC breakout box has individual outputs for each string (as well as grouped outputs for strings 1-3 and 4-6, but I wanted more flexibility than just two outs).
You can see all the connections on the front; there’s nothing on the back, which is kind of convenient. The six individual string outs are the bottom row, and the RJ-45 connector that connects to the guitar is the big jack toward the right.
Note that this is a locking-type Neutrik connector, so if you use a cable with a locking plug as shown above, it’s really hard to pull the cable out accidentally. Normally I’m not a fan of multiconductor cables – they’re expensive, hard to replace, and bulky – but CAT-5 cables, as used for Ethernet applications, are inexpensive, easy to replace, and lightweight – bingo.
Anyway, I sent the bottom three strings to a DigiTech RP250 Octave Divider, the top three strings to a Line 6 PODxt, and the magnetic pickup outs to a DigiTech GNX3000. It seemed like a pretty robust, simple setup.
For an amp, I wanted a flat system as I was getting the sounds I wanted out of the processors, before the signal hit the amp. I had used the Bose L1 previously for PA/vocals and remixes, so I pressed that into service. Little did I know that would eventually become an essential part of the act.