Wow! What a show. I really enjoyed the energy and the amazing, balanced, tone coming through the house mix. The official post-show FLAC files also maintain all the in-person impressions I had from the show. Good job, Dead & Company sound guys/girls! I also feel bad when they are being judged by YouTube's audio compression during the live stream, which, who knows what the contribution bitrate and settings on the encoded feed is to YouTube and what compression goes on within YouTube. "Thou shall now judge sound quality through YouTube" should be a thing.. Anyway.. GEAR!
Edit: Created a new 2018 Dead and Company page on my site here
Pedals
I managed to snap a few pictures from the pit to help paint the picture of what the pedal board and amp settings are. Previously with the Nugs.tv streams, it was hard to actually see what was going on with the pedal board. After reviewing my pics after the show, I found a hidden pedal! The legendary MXF Carbon Copy Analog Delay! Above is my photoshop render of the pedals and arrangement. No overhead photos have surfaced on the internet to show what settings might be so I'm not going to guess. BONUS POINTS for anyone who would like to anonymously contribute to the greater-good by sending in pedalboard/amp pics by contacting me here.
Signal Chain
MXR MC404 CAE Dual Inductor Wah Wah: https://amzn.to/2M80JMd
Boss TU3 Chromatic Tuner Pedal: https://amzn.to/2yrFLFZ
Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive (Non-Horsie): https://reverb.com/p/klon-centaur-non-horsie
Ibanez TS-10 Tube Screamer Classic Overdrive: https://reverb.com/p/ibanez-ts-10-tube-screamer-classic-1980s-green
Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron Plus XO Envelope Follower Pedal: https://amzn.to/2M7gIda
Boss OC-3 Dual Super Octave Pedal: https://amzn.to/2ypr4TT
Way Huge WHE701 Aqua-Puss Analog Delay: https://amzn.to/2MGiKSQ
MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay: https://amzn.to/2lnS6Sk
Strymon Flint Tremolo and Reverb: https://reverb.com/p/strymon-flint
Amplifiers
For amps, John has seemed to stabilize on 3x Fender Deluxe Reverbs. All have been through Alessandro's shop for service or rewiring. After going through all my pics from the show, I've composited a list here of the settings. There was quite a bit of tweaking during the early part of the show and these pics are from the later half. Most of the changes done on-the-fly was for the reverb on the first Deluxe.
Bob Weir's Amps
Guitars
Nothing too crazy to note here but for this show, John had his original PRS F-hole Super Eagle and the PRS Silver modified 594. The Silver 594 was used for bluesy and darker tones while the Super Eagle came out for the more neutral songs. One thing I found out is that the 594 has 58/15JM Pickups in it! So basically that means the amazing guitar that you see on stage, cannot be purchased 1:1 (boo!) because I would consider it!
Work In Progress
I'll do my best to keep up with the gear as information becomes available. My understanding is that the road crew and photographers have to sign NDA's so anyone affiliated with the show likely will not contribute to the discussion directly which is a bummer because I'd love to learn the most accurate information available. My plea is making gear information "open source" contributes back to the player community in an positive, forward-path way. Contact me if you have anything to share to help us all out. :-)
