The Musician’s Institute grad—who’s backed up the likes of Miley Cyrus, Fat Joe, Ty Dollar Sign, Dallas Austin, Remy Ma, Aussie Troye Sivan, and (normally) touring with Panic at the Disco—bassist Nicole Row carved out some time just before releasing her debut solo single “Headspace,” to virtually welcome PG’s Chris Kies into her Cali tone retreat. In this Rig Rundown, she goes through her stable of Ps, Js, and custom basses, details how the neck profile dictated her connection to the Jazz model, and details her powerful pedalboard that amps up the snarl, bite, and oomph.
Possibly Nicole’s freshest bass is this custom Marco Bass Guitars TFL 4 model that she scored during quarantine and has yet to gig with it. While luthier Marco Cortes does have base models he builds off, he doesn’t produce the same instrument twice so some notable highlights on this model are the handwound single-coils, 34.5" scale, maple neck and fretboard with large block inlays, and its relic’d forest green finish. She plays exclusively with her fingers and uses Thomastik-Infeld strings in 4- or 5-string sets.
“If it’s my choice and my sound, it’s this bass.” Nicole’s sweet baby is this 1990s Fender Marcus Miller Signature Jazz Bass outfitted with an onboard Sadowsky preamp that “bumps and is really funky and bright” (probably why she only plays it in active mode). She’s owned this one the longest so she feels most comfortable playing when it’s in her hands making it her fly bass, her session bass, and her show bass.
“This bass would sit well with Vulfpeck because it’s bright and excels at staccato funky parts,” says Row about the above Fender American Performer Jazz Bass in the popping satin surf green.
Here is Nicole’s contemporary Fender P that’s been upgraded with a set of passive Bartolini P-bass pickups.
If you’ve seen Nicole Row onstage supporting Brandon Urie and the rest of Panic at the Disco, you’ve seen her thumping on this Fender American Elite Jazz 5-string. “I’ve started to really rely on it with Panic because it cut through (the mix) and has more high range than most of my basses.”
Nicole met luthier L. Ellis Hahn at NAMM while she was still apprenticing under bass-building legend Roger Sadowsky. She’s since navigated her own career and started designing under the L.E.H. Guitars banner. So far she has one model (available in 4- or 5-string) called the Offset and features a 34" scale, 21 frets, a weight-reduced body with chambers towards the neck for improved balance, a Nordstrand 3-band preamp custom wired to “boost only” with graphic fader EQ, and Nordstrand BigRig5 (bridge) and NP5 (neck) pickups.
Typically, on tour with Panic, Nicole would be rocking the 1000-watt Eich T-1000, but for at-home (and most non-arena gigs) she’s happy playing the above T-500.
Again, on tour she cranks her Eich heads through cabs stacked with 10" and 15" speakers, but for home jams like this Rundown, she’s been bonding with their 112XS cab outfitted with a ceramic speaker.
By bass standards, this is a massive board! However, these half-dozen pedals allow Nicole to cover all her bases (pun intended) for any gig, session, or audition. For her Panic days, two of her most-kicked pedals are the Aguilar Fuzzistor and Darkglass Vintage Microtubes for band’s nasty, snarling indie-rock anthems. She uses the EBS OctaBass for its lower-voiced grumbles and when stacked with other pedals can mimic a vintage synth. For silkier, underwater tones, she’ll engage the EBS DPhaser and when it’s popping off in funkytown she’ll hit the MXR Bass Envelope Filter. And at the behest of her bass-playing homies, she recently acquired the Noble Dual Vacuum Tube Preamp/DI Box.
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Rhett Schull’s a busy guy. Between being one of the most prolific YouTubers in the guitar sphere, working as a trusted hired gun, and creating his own original music, including last year’s EP The Early Days, he’s an avid cyclist. Just a week before we met up with Rhett at Eastside Bowl in Madison, Tennessee, for this Rig Rundown, he was slated to ride a 100-mile race in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Those plans were dashed when 70-mile-an-hour winds stoked a wildfire near town and burned just over 26,000 acres. But the show must go on: The next night, Schull played a gig in town, a special release for people reeling from a brutal natural disaster.
Schull’s a certified gear aficionado and tone wizard, so PG’s Chris Kies headed to Eastside Bowl to have him walk us through his current live rig. Check out the Rundown here, and stay tuned; Schull’s got more music coming later this year.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Special Serus
Schull’s wife pointed out this Novo Serus J hanging on the wall of a guitar shop back in 2017, and it was love at first strum. Made from tempered pine and loaded with Amalfitano P-90 pickups, plus sporting an unmissable pink sparkle polyurethane finish, it’s a real looker, and one of Schull’s favorite guitars.
Third Man Thumper
After Schull did a video on the Fender Jack White Pano Verb amplifier, Fender sent him a Jack White Triplecaster Telecaster, part of his signature series of gear with Fender launched last year. Schull calls it one of the most versatile guitars he owns, with each of the three pickup options virtually splitting it into three separate guitars.
Firebird-Watching
This beauty from Gibson’s Custom Shop came to Schull following NAMM in 2020. On tour, he needs something with humbuckers and something with single-coils. Then, he thinks of what’s exciting him. These days, it’s this Firebird V, which doesn’t have a typical Firebird tone, but cuts closer to something like a Telecaster at times.
Rockin' Two With a Two-Rock
Schull runs two amps onstage, but he doesn’t run them in stereo; he believes the stereo image doesn’t translate as well in a live situation where listeners are spread across the speaker system’s field. With this Two-Rock Classic Reverb Signature and an AC15-ish David Edwards Apollo, Schull gets a “broadband” sound set for big, fat clean tones, like one giant amp on the edge of breakup.
Fun fact: Edwards surprised Schull with the Apollo when Rhett went to Florida to work on some videos.
Rhett Schull's Pedalboard
Schull’s 2024 EP is very effects-heavy, so he commissioned the pedalboard-whisperers at XAct Tone Solutions to build him this double-decker station based around an RJM Mastermind PBC/6X switcher. Some of the stomps, like the Chase Bliss Mood, are activated by MIDI, and all the different sounds from each song—from intro to chorus to bridge to finish—is set up in the RJM. If Rhett wants to go off script, he can hit the function button, which lets him engage pedals on a one-by-one basis. A Line 6 HX One is a “wildcard” pedal in this rig, filling in gaps as needed.
In addition to those machines, the rig includes a Chase Bliss Dark World, GFI System Synesthesia, Hologram Electronics Chroma Console, Boss Space Echo RE-202, GFI System Duophony (which mixes the Dark World and Synesthesia), Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp MkII (used for boost, EQ, fuzz, or overdrive depending on the song), Old Blood Noise Endeavors Beam Splitter, Source Audio ZIO, Memory Lane Electronics Tone Bender clone, and a Mythos Argonaut. A mysterious Japan-made Noel dirt pedal, finished in striking red and gifted to Shull by JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott, rounds out the collection. Utility boxes include a TC Electronic PolyTune3 Noir, Lehle Little Dual, a pair of Strymon Ojai power supplies, and a bigger Strymon Zuma supply.
