The Ocean have an immense live sound – they're one of the greatest heavy progressive bands around when it comes to delivering their ambitious concept albums onstage, and their musical mindset carries through to their rigs too. Now, thanks to this exclusive new rig tour video below they've shot on tour in the US, we can find out exactly how it all works.
At the centre of the guitar rig is a MacBook running Logic Pro that has the whole show's setting in sequence via a session file – "This machine controls the Quad Cortex which is our amps and effects via a MIDI program and control changes," explains The Ocean's Robin Staps.
Filmed at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco (camera & edit - Drew Storcks) in March, 2024 during the band’s recent North American headline tour with Shy Low and The World Is A Beautiful Place And We Are No Longer Afraid To Die, the rig tour offers a fascinating glimpse into the challenges and considerations behind gear choices of a touring band, which are to a large degree defined by the logistics of flying between the continents and the implication of being able to bring only minimal gear along.
The move to digital modelling was a result of Robin's Diezel VH4 tube amp then Mesa/Boogie TriAxis and 290 power amp becoming unfeasible for costly global freight travel. He and fellow guitarist David Ramis Åhfeldt first moved to comparatively featherweight Kemper profilers but last year switched to the Neural DSP Quad Cortex to further reduce weight. The Kempers weighed in at 7kg each, now the two guitarists share one 2.5kg Quad Cortex. "It's allowed us to eliminate one entire rack from our travel setup so that's great, and the unit sounds fantastic," Robin adds.
The role of Logic Pro goes much further in The Ocean's live shows too.
"It also controls our synchronised lighting which is in time with the music,"adds Robin. "It plays the backing tracks of a a bunch of instruments that we are not bringing with us – like all the brass on Holocene, for example, or the strings on the 'Centric records. And, most importantly, it's giving us the click track which is not going to the PA, obviously, but only to our own ears, making sure we play in sync with this. We don't need to touch it during the show at all, it just plays."
The Berlin-based post-metal band has a different Logic session for every tour with a dedicated setlist. In the video above, the band explain how they have to make sure the volumes for tracks are consistent through the set, and then they can rehearse with it ahead of a tour.
The results certainly deliver the goods, and there's much more revealed in the video above.
The Ocean are on tour in Europe right now and play the following dates:
09/09 - DE, Karlsruhe - P8
10/09 - CH, Winterthur - Gaswerk
11/09 - DE, Munich - Backstage
12/09 - DE, Aschaffenburg - Colos-saal
13/09 - DE, Dresden - Beatpol
14/09 - AT, Vienna - Flex
15/09 - PL, Krakow - Kwadrat
More info at theoceancollective.com
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