Church worship presets

Pre-sets won't get the job done, but custom patches are simple if you understand today's sound. I have used the Zoom G1X Four in worship with electric guitar for almost two years. While setting it up, I listened closely to current tutorials and matched the tones. Most important: Remember it begins at the source, your guitar. Get as close to what you want with your pickup and tone tweaks first. Then go to the GX1.

In modern worship electric guitar, four things popped out in recent online and video conversations. Start with these and you will be close (in this order):

1. AMP -- After listening to top players talk, I realized the amp model matters a lot more than I thought. A high- to medium-gain amp is preferred by most top worship guitarists. On the GX1 that boils down to the Matchless DC30 (MATCH30) or Vox AC30 (UK 30A). Both are clean and bright. Start your patch string here. Big consensus on that from the best players.
2. COMPRESSION -- This also matters more than I thought. It increases and fattens the signal a bit at the instrument level. Many use the Universal Audio 1176 (UA 1176 running a subtle 4:1).
3. DRIVE -- Overdrive is used subtly, and a warm sound like the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (NYC MUFF) on low gain is recommended by worship players.
4. MODULATION -- Preferences come and go. But the current ambient sound starts with overlapping reverb and delay. In reverb, most prefer a subtle Hall reverb (HALL). In delay, most prefer analog (ANLG DELAY) using dotted-eighth-note delays with fewer repeats (four). Overall they are using less delay than in the past. Note Vibrato (VIBRATO) also is being used a lot today. Occasionally you hear Chorus creep back in along with Tremolo. But those are season-to-taste decisions.

I add Zoom ZNR (noise reduction) at the end of each patch to stay quiet on high-gain effects. In the end, I only need to use five patches in worship. All start with the same amp, compression, and analog delay settings for a consistent flavor. Drive and modulation provide the spice. ZNR eliminates any high-gain buzz. My five core patches for worship:

• Ambient -- overlapping Reverb and Delay
• Swell -- a swell-in version of the first patch using SLOW ATTACK for reverb
• Vibrato -- replaces Reverb in patch string with VIBRATO
• Overdrive light -- replaces Reverb with Muff (no sustain and low gain)
• Overdrive heavy -- replaces Reverb with Muff (light sustain and medium gain)

Note I set up a Bank just for worship electric guitar patches, making it easy to pedal between them. The first patch in that Bank is a true Bypass patch with only ZNR and the pedal set up for volume control (I use it when not playing). Hope that helps the conversation.

 

Good question on bass! Truth is, I play bass more than half the time in church and have set up some presets for it -- though the Zoom BX1 Four has an Ampeg VST model that is great. I set up a patch string in the GX1 like this:

1. Amp and Cabinet models -- The GX1 has models for a Fender Bassman amp (FD-BMAN) and cabinet (FD-B4x10), which I found works best. I put those two first in the string. You also can bypass the amp model and use a pre-amp boost like EP STOMP instead. But the Fender pairing makes sense. Most important, I found adding a cabinet model makes a huge difference with the bass.
2. Modulation -- I add some subtle Reverb (SOFT ECHO), which gives it nice depth.
3. Noise Reduction -- I put ZNR at the end of the string to keep it all quiet.
4. Pedal -- Because you get low-end rumble just handling a bass, I add the pedal for volume and tap it off before and after we play. That way I don't worry about doing something distracting (I'm a klutz).

That's it, really: Amp and cabinet with a touch of echo. Like any instrument, it is best to start by getting the tones as close as possible from your bass guitar pre-FX. To me simple is best in bass, because your role is not to stand out but rather to facilitate worship. That being said, my active pickup does let me add in a little grit when needed. (Note I haven't played around with compression in bass but will update when I do.) Good stuff. And may the Lord be your biggest difference when playing.

 

Thank you Stan, I'm an acoustic guitar player in our church and just picked up the electric not too long ago. all the options and technicalities of equipment was kind of overwhelming so this breakdown really helped. God bless you.