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Looper's Delight
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Hi there, I used to suffer with this too. There was a time when my live performance rig required 4 trips to the car. Now it requires just 1. I got a very large rolling suitcase from one of the Mexican markets in San Francisco's Mission district. I keep my gear is wrapped in towels to save on space. The most fragile gear is in boxes with bubble wrap. They are stacked in order of breakability/replaceability. The dealbreaker for me is that I needed something I could carry on public transportation. That was a big element of me switching primary instruments, too. The only downside is that it still takes me 20 minutes to set it all up. I've looked into pedalboards. What I really need is an enormous pedalboard that packs up into a rolling case that also has room for floor pedals. (The pedalboard would be a table.) Things I've learned for airplane travel: 1) It's much, much cheaper to have two full-size suitcases than it is to have one full-size suitcase that is over weight. (On my last tour, the overweight bag was $110, where an extra check-in bag would've been $35.) 2) Get a small rolling suitcase for carry-on, and put the most valuable or hard-to-replace items in there. Checked baggage tends to go through a lot of abuse. Last I knew, carry-on baggage did not have a weight limit. 3) If your check-in or carry-on contains a very suspicious-looking instrument, it's a good idea to paste newspaper articles or descriptions of it on the outside of the case. My solution for performing with a large variety of gear? Don't. At my venue I've seen many shows where people bring a large variety of instruments. They tend to get so distracted in making sure they use everything that the performance becomes more of a demonstration than a concert. Do you really need a smoke machine? -- Matt Davignon mattdavignon@gmail.com www.ribosomemusic.com Podcast! http://ribosomematt.podomatic.com Rigs! http://www.youtube.com/user/ribosomematt