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PG's Jason Shadrick is on location in Madison, Wisconsin where he catches up with Dweezil Zappa of Zappa Plays Zappa. In this segment, Zappa demonstrates his pedalboard and Axe-FX II setup and details his prototype Gibson Frank Zappa signature SG.

Guitars
For the single-coil tones, Dweezil brings out a mostly stock Eric Johnson signature Strat. In order to quickly move to an acoustic sound, Dweezil installed a bridge with a piezo pickup. He's also playing a prototype of a (hopefully) forthcoming signature model from Gibson. Based off of Frank Zappa's "Roxy"-era SG, it sports a white headstock, a series/parallel switch, and a phase switch–both located on the lower bout.

Amps
The heart of Dweezil's tone comes from a Fractal Audio Systems Axe-FX II. In previous versions of his rig he actually ran two units simultaneously due to the CPU demand that his custom presets required. However, on this “Zappa Does Zappa” tour he runs everything through the top unit and the bottom is used as a backup or for any guests that might sit in. In order to recreate his father's famous tones, Dweezil goes back to the master tapes to study and cop every little detail in order to program the Axe-FX II presets.

In order to play incredibly intricate music, each musician in the band is able to control their own monitor mix via a touch-screen tablet along with a Behringer mixer. This allows everyone to adjust on the fly depending on the song and stage volume.

Effects
All of Dweezil's effects are run through the front of the Axe-FX II, rather than the effects loop. Along the top is a Bogner Ecstasy Blue, JAM Pedals Fuzz Phrase, SolidGoldFX Formula 76, TC Electronic PolyTune Mini, SolidGoldFX Electroman, JAM Pedals Big Chill Tremolo, and JAM Pedals Red Muck. Along the front of his board is the MFC-101 MIDI Foot Controller for the Axe-FX II and four expression pedals–the first one is for volume and the other three change function depending on the preset.

On the far right side of his pedalboard, Dweezil uses a custom JAM Pedals wah along with an expression pedal to control different variables on his JAM Pedals Big Chill Tremolo. In addition to this wah, he also uses a wah within the Axe-FX II depending on if he wants it before or after his distortion pedals.

Comments

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JOOLZ on 02/06/2013	Dweezel played my venue last summer, the SAC system at FOH crashed at the moment it was turned on, i was told by their engineer Glyn that the hard drive crashed. They had NO back up. Being open minded but an analog desk fan I was looking forward to seeing the system in action but it did not happen. We ended up at the last minute patching all the inputs to my Midas desk (they continued trying to reach a human by phone to try to resolve the issue)and everything worked well. Their FOH engineer did not enjoy using my Meyer PA, but at least it worked. In defense the monitor system they were carrying did seem to work okay.
Max Johnson on 01/11/2013	Jay, don't doubt you had problems but sac is not unstable. Neither of my two sac systems have ever crashed. But any software can crash, even the software driving an M7 (yes I've had this happen). That's the reality of digital systems.
Jay on 01/10/2013	Have used it - back when Tesla was also using it. It was a piece of crap then, and I hear it still is. No wonder they're not using it anymore either. So bad he actually went to an M7 instead of it! You should get your facts right. First time it bombs on DZ, I'm sure he'll dump it too. Nice toy, but not ready for prime time.
Eric on 01/09/2013	None of this would have happened if Rebecca Dirks were there. This is a great series you guys have dedicated to working professionals and their gear. Please be a little more professional with your own gear. :)
I'mjustaBill on 01/08/2013	Had to take a dramamine to watch this one. Mr. Camera person, it's call a "Two Shot", it's really simple, it works well, please google it. Look, the artists doing these videos deserve to be presented in the best light possible. That means good sound, good picture, good editing and an overall polished presentation. This thing is 35 min long. 35 min of Mr. Zappa's time to present and do this thing and it's almost unwatchable! Does anyone from PG read these comments? Do they care about the publication, readers, viewers? Who knows. Seriously, get off the single hand held mic's and the shoddy camera work...the artists, subscribers & future subscribers, viewers etc. will thank you for it...and I don't think I'm alone or being overly critical. Thank you Dweezil for doing this, I've been following ZPZ since 2006 and indeed you've gone though many a guitar rig and I find your continual discussion of them always fascinating and full of interesting bits of goodness. The secret word is 'Flangeolo'(tm).
Jack Wad on 01/07/2013	you are full of DOG POO Jay. The SAC and SAW SYSTEM is more stable than any program out there. You might try it.
Fck u Jay on 01/06/2013	WOW...Jay,don't be an ass....It's maybe because you don't know how to set up a simple system, that even my granny knows how to tweak additionally.
Guy on 01/05/2013	Fascinating stuff! I really have never been a Zappa fan but now I am digging stuff up on ITunes to check it out. Love that prototype SG and hope Gibson will release it to the general public and not make it a custom shop piece that will put the price out of reach for a lot of us. Thanks for sharing Dweezil, Really enjoyed this one!
Kimo on 01/05/2013	Amazing! Not just four chord rock indeed!
BEAR on 01/05/2013	BAMBOOZELED

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