48sin describe themselves as “four guys who love music” or “a rock band with a computer” and while you can hear both of these things in the music there are also other, subtle influences. Recently three of the band’s four members spoke to Gearwire about their live set up.

Patrick Windsor (vocals/guitars/programming), Blake Croson (bass/programming) and Aaron Boynton (vocals/guitars) took some time to talk about their studio set up—and some other stuff. Drummer Justin Flannigan was playing hooky.

Boynton talked about how, in the studio, his gear is the same as live—excepting his pedals and one other exception.

“On the last recordings we did I used an Avatar 2x12 cabinet, but it sounds almost identical to my Orange.” he says.

Croson also says that what he does studio is not much different than live.

“We spend a good amount of time programming synths, drums, whatever, with outboard and software synths. We do our best to bring every sound out from the studio and on to the stage.,” says Croson. “I kind of hate it when bands record all these great melody and harmony parts, or lots of extra percussion parts and they are totally lost live. They don't have enough guitar players or a keyboard player and so your favorite part of the song isn't even there you’re your at the show. I don't necessarily think that programming TONS of stuff and then just hitting play on a DAT or sequencer is the best answer, but it's definitely the lesser of two evils.”

Croson adds that they obviously do not mic their cabinets live and the stage mic is different.

“But in terms of the sounds and the musical parts, everything you hear on the CD you're going to hear live and then some, only a lot louder and with a lot more low end,” says Croson. We actually do more stuff with synths and sequenced drums live than on the recordings.”

He points out that the glue holding everything together is logic—both for live and in the studio. And he doesn’t mean just the music.

We have DMX light show we're working on right now that is run via Logic. I've got this DMX mixer that takes midi signals from logic and tells these lights what to do and when so it's all in sync with the music,” says Croson. “Our goal (or at least my goal) is to deafen and blind people at the same time.”

Finally we get to gear the band doesn’t have but would like to own.

“I'd love an Orange Tiny Terror mainly for convenience. That thing is the coolest amp ever made,” says Windsor. “A 15 watt class A tube head that can be thrown into a backpack! It's the perfect backup (or main!) amp -- super small, sounds amazing, and won't break the bank! I'm going to keep this short since I know Blake has a list longer than a hungry tapeworm.”

Croson is not shy about this being true but he spares us the complete list.

“That I do, but I'll spare you most of it.? I'm in the process of modding my basses right now.? I have a custom built distortion pedal I made out of an electrical box,” says Croson. “It's hard to mount shit in an electrical box so it's always screwing up, but it sounds great. I just finished rewiring one of my t-birds for new pickups and a built in distortion circuit. When it's all done I'll be able to use a pickup toggle type switch to turn my home made distortion on and off. I'm also hoping to add a midi to CV box at some point so I can use analog effects like Moogerfoogers on my bass and on Patrick and Aaron's guitars in sync with the songs.”

Boynton is a copy-cat. He does have some original wants.

“I'd also really like an Orange Tiny Terror as a backup, I recently had some head trouble and had to do some extensive driving to get it fixed, so now I'm paranoid I'll have to rely on friends again, says Boynton. “I also have my eye on a Boss Fuzz pedal just to make a disgusting crunch on some of the heavier riffs, and I'd also like a Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal. I've been using my delay pedal to get a reverby-effect, but I'd rather just have the reverb in some sections.”

More with 48sin on how gear effects performance soon.