Venom Inc.'s Tony "Demolition Man" Dolan - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 478

[Applause] hey how you doing this is the demolition R from Venom Inc and here we are in Chicago right fresh present and we're at the Cobra Lounge looking forward to Chicago it's nice and sunny and we're ready for a great show tonight we're going to keep rolling until we hit the bottom of the hill where we're rolling to so I want to show you my B guitar this is my B guitar this is uh b l the Demolition Man of course this is H the Big G they call it the Big G so I have a extra long neck because uh I need to see over the fences like because if you're trying to you know again there someone's pool how do I know how big it is what if I jumped in and it's shallow so I have an extra long neck so we can see over he tells me how deep the pool is and then I go in just at night time when nobody's around so it's good but yeah she uh she's got book pickups coil pickups uh but I Bly I got a plug here so I can boost up by unplugging that but because I'm the Demolition Man I'm so messy I've just fixed everything so volume's fixed the plug's fixed so I just stal with both pickups so I get the brightness but I get the power and the depth from it so I'm always boosted always getting that really uh deep sound and then I keep her in the treble situation so I've got that ping to cut through as well so I get a bit of bottom end and lots of weird form at the top not too much you know not too much treble um but if I do need that I can boost it from my P Board and with the strings um you know I don't I'm not sponsored by strings so I kind of vary say how I feel but I prefer the steel one strings cuz there's a brightness to it I'm a really heavy hitter so I probably change strings maybe at two or three Shores maybe every every Shore depending on how hard I'm hitting cuz my pics that I use they're specially made so they're like but they 2.8 so they're thick they're thick fuers but I do destroy them as well because this is an intense thing so uh but because of the long neck and because we're tuned to seaw um I go for a heavier string so 50s uh to like 115 or beyond that is probably where I go for so I go for a heavier gauge um sometimes I'll buy drop B strings or five string base uh set of strings and I just lose one and so I've got a really thick string on there so that she really has that power so I'm going to kneel down because I should because I am a well I'm not really but as you can see anyway my pedal board which I have okay so I have a chromatic tuna so I prefer the tuna uh I do like turkey and I do like the beef uh the barbecue beef is really good but I do prefer tuna because I have to watch my we SL at my Edge so I have some tuna then I have a tube screamer uh now back in the day the guitarist swore by these and usually old school guitarists like the tube screamer and ianz did a classic tube screamer and this is a mini mini version of it so you can't put a battery in it it's just PL but for for doing a tourway you need to put stuff in your bag you want to have carriable stuff in 3DX so these things are fantastic I don't use it a lot but if I have problems with an amp of the room and it's a bit dull um it gives me an extra treble boost so it when he goes into solo cuz there's only three of us I want to then play shapes like like I'm a guitarist underneath him so I Bas through stuff accent him on certain parts but when they go to solo I need the sound to be wide which is why I use the bo with the with the big strings and have that bottom end and then if I need a bit of top because of the runs there I can hit that and I just get that so you get it sounds like it's a guitar base happening but it's rhythmic so I can fill in the void while he's playing when he comes back down at a Sol I take off and we're back to where we were so that's kind of the theory behind it um and also because I use the tubes in London and you scream if you use the tubes in R hour and I got Tube Screamer that's what I am I'm a tube screamer now the next one is a chorus and that's a beer chorus of course again classic boss but the reason I use that is because I hit the verses they're so boring and everybody likes to get to the chorus so I thought chorus so but weird thing is is when you when I hit it nothing happens I can't hear any chorus of any song and then I realize I have to do it into the microphone but it does make the bear sound cool so I use it mainly on the back of countless battery or buried alive if I need to maybe on Warhead at the end phrasing on Warhead it gives a a kind of nice wear form to it makes it feel a bit um spooky and uh it just fills the ambience because I think you know the the anomaly with all kind of metal is that you know it's ah which we do that too but sound the lack of sound can be as powerful as the sound so if you're going and then it go that space is like wow that's that's really powerful to drop down and so when you T something like that you have a bit of chorus on there when you play a note and it just floats across the audience it gives you that like you know like for is 13 where they all sitting and you know he's just got out the swamp and he's on his way but they all just paring and they think it's cool and so it's that kind of wow it's coming it's coming it's coming is what you want and so that helps with that Dynamic feel and then the last thing is a fear shifter the reason I got the fear shifter is because I don't know what the it's for and it does absolutely nothing but sounds really weird and I thought that's brilliant and I should have something that people go oh you use a F shift I go yeah but that's why it's there and it's green and it looks cool cuz I've got two green things and greens are really nice color cuz it's like healthy and stuff and that's my preious Stu so the amp I'm using on this tour because I'm sponsored by orange so I'm sorry orange but I needed to travel a bit lighter so I've just got these These are the dark glass they're the Omega and this is a 500 series the alpha omega is from a custom audio mutation so he's distributor and actually it's Kuran who's the guitarist and the main guy with 72 Legions who are on tour so I was I was going to bring my uh uh my elf my CS were elf and I thought oh I need something transportable and then he is a distributor for these now I used this in Dallas when we rehearsed before the first half of the tour where we did the West CO and I was so impressed by this so I tried at the 500 and she's monstrously cool the features are are amazing uh and the sound so I actually don't really use the pedal board when I'm using this but I keep the pedal board right just in case I have a problem if there's a problem with the amp and I have to straighten myself up and go into like an Ampeg and SVT is what I would normally use SVT Pro Series um I I bypass the EQ because all my pedals are set to give me the same identity as the amp so I if I have a problem with that I can switch in there just use volume hit my pedals when I need them and I've got the same sound there's no difference um but this is uh like I say a 500 but I'm upgrading to the 900 because the 500's great but the 900 is four more so that's got to be that's got to be fair isn't it because like if if these amps went to 10 and then they went to 11 it's one louder well I i' I would have four louder than that so four is better than like one isn't it and that's that's the values and and of course straight into a classic you know I think the amps are important because they kind of part of your identity both some instruments work different with different amps so always experiment with the AMS and see what you like I'll get a very different response and to have to dial in different features on this to get the same sound I would get with that or if I used an orange but again because I'm old school maybe a bit lazy I want Plug and Play So if I can go to any venue have all the tuning everything di in the way I want it plug in and go bang and it sounds like me I'm done that's my sound check boom one note I should here that's what I sound like and that's it so simplifying it but a classic you know A10 stack brilliant brilliant you can't get better than that so that's my rig so that's a bit of wrap for me thank you so much thank you guys for watching H thank you for watching OB vas which was the best time we ever had and thank you for coming and watching our gear run through so come and see the shows we're in uh we're in show three now we go off to um I think Iowa City St Louis we go all the way to Tampa um New Orleans we're coming back and going to Boston coming through R there's loads but if you go to our website you can see the full list uh on our social media you're looking for Venom Inc um if you go to Instagram it's venom in official site we're right there all the details are there the posters are there links to everything and and if you'd like to go to the website we got Venom in .co.uk and that's got ticket links up there listings if you want to do the meet and greet we do it a bit different bring as many things as you want signed bring your mother if you want and I'll sign her too just bring what you want we'll bring you in for the sound check you can see what happens when we're saying up then we'll run through some stuff you can be part of the party but please come stay mail if you don't want to come that's cool but if you can come I'll see you there