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Rig Rundown: John Scofield & Avi Bortnick

Überjammer John Scofield walks us through his far-reaching pedalboard and we also go deep with Avi Bortnick and his modern take on funk guitar.

PG's Jason Shadrick is on location in Iowa City, IA, with John Scofield and Avi Bortnick on their Überjam Deux tour. In this video, Scofield mentions his love for AC30s, dealing with travel issues on the road, and walks us through his entire pedalboard. Rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick shows us how he combines the modern with the traditional in his rig by incorporating samples and drum machines along with his array of pedals.

John Scofield Gear

Guitars

For more than 30 years, Scofield's main guitar has been an Ibanez AS-200, but due to some travel issues he wasn't able to have it on this particular gig. On the latest album, Überjam Deux, he also used a Fender Custom Shop Relic'd Strat and a mid-’70s Ibanez T-style guitar.

Amps


When backline is provided, Scofield requests two reissue Vox AC30TB amps and then chooses one to use during soundcheck. When possible, his preference is for pre-2006 models.

Effects


In the Überjam group, Scofield needs a rather large palette of effects. This pedalboard, put together by Mason Marangella from Vertex Effects covers all the bases. The signal enters the board through a Vertex input buffer and then through a true-bypass loop that contains the DigiTech Whammy XP100. From there it goes through a TC Electronic Polytune Mini, Vertex Axis Wah, J. Rockett Blue Note overdrive, and a Vertex-modified Boss GE-7 Equalizer. Next is a breakout insert interface going into a Vertex-modified Boss CE-3 Chorus, Neunaber Technologies WET Reverb, and another Vertex true-bypass loop (for the Boomerang Phrase Sampler and Electro-Harmonix Micro Synth). Finally, the signal ends at another interface (single output buffer/splitter, splitting mono signal to two amplifiers).

Avi Bortnick Gear

Guitars and Amps


For his rhythm work in Überjam, Avi sticks with a Strat made up of a Highway One model body and EMG SA pickups. He strings it up with a .010 set of D'Addarios and plugs into a 2x12 Fender Twin Reverb.

Effects


Avi needs to cover a lot of tonal bases in Überjam, including triggering all the samples in real time, so his rig is a combination of the traditional guitar/pedal/amp setup and a more modern software-based approach.

The guitar first goes through an A/B switcher that toggles between the pedals on his board and a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 USB interface. From the interface it goes to his Apple MacBook Air (running Ableton Live and MIDI Guitar) and the Korg Electribe.

Once the guitar leaves his A/B box, it goes into an Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer, Wright Sounds Fuzz-Stang, Vemuram Jan Ray, DOD FX17 Wah/Volume, Boss CE-2 Chorus, Boss TR-2 Tremolo, MXR Carbon Copy, and a Strymon El Capistan.

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