Lights - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 626 - video Dailymotion

Digital Tour Bus

Become a member (it's FREE) at https://digtb.us/signup Buy official DTB merch at http://digtb.us/merch  On this episode of DTB’s “Gear Masters”, the electropop artist, Lights, shows off the gear that she uses onstage, while on the Come Get Your Girl Tour with Softcult. Lights is currently supporting her newest single, Come Get Your Girl.  PLAY THE SAME GEAR: Ernie Ball Music Man Mariposa Electric Guitar - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/QY6g9Y Suhr Custom Telecaster-Style Electric Guitar - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/Pz6ZQ6 Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Electric Guitar Strings - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DWkr6q Neural DSP Quad Cortex Digital Amp Modeler - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/YVqZ6R Neural DSP Cory Wong Plugin Suite - https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/archetype-cory-wong Ableton Live - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/dy7Azy Spectrasonics Omnisphere - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/yZm51y Strange Electronic Setlist - https://www.henrystrangesystems.com/product-page/setlist Apple MacBook Pro - https://amzn.to/3R0kLib iConnectivity PlayAUDIO12 Audio/MIDI Interface - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/enAGWZ iConnectivity mioXM MIDI Interface - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/GbZ5NB Sound Devices Wireless System - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/JkmaNN Sound Devices Handheld Wireless Microphone with Custom Capsule - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/B52QM4 Dunlop Tortex Standard Guitar Picks (.88mm) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/WOGLkn Dunlop Tortex Standard Guitar Picks (1.0mm) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/n42zQa  VIDEO INFO: Film Date - March 6, 2026 Location - Concord Music Hall in Chicago, IL  KEEP UP WITH LIGHTS: Facebook - https://facebook.com/lights Instagram - https://instagram.com/lights TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@lights Twitter - https://twitter.com/lights  FOLLOW US: Website/Email List - https://www.digitaltourbus.com/#/portal/signup YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/digitaltourbus Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/digitaltourbus/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@digitaltourbus Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/digitaltourbus/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/digitaltourbus Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/digitaltourbus/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-tour-bus-llc Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/user/digitaltourbus  VIDEO SUMMARY: 00:00 Introduction 00:37 Skip Intro 01:06 Guitars 03:19 Keytar 04:37 Amp/Playback/Wireless/Etc. 09:54 Picks 10:56 Chair 11:55 Microphone  ABOUT DIGITAL TOUR BUS: Digital Tour Bus is your backstage pass to your favorite touring artists! With daily video releases, we cover all genres, and have had the pleasure of featuring the likes of Matchbox Twenty, Twenty One Pilots, Megadeth, MGK, Papa Roach, AJR, Pierce The Veil, Simple Plan, A Day to Remember, and thousands of others over the past 15 years. "Bus Invaders" takes you inside an artist's home on the road, "Cooking at 65mph" showcases the culinary skills of artists on tour, "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage, and "Stage Threads" dives into the meaning and i

Transcript

00:00So we've created this as our intro to Up We Go as just a fun gag and a throwback to

00:05the past.

00:05Robby does the honors for me every night.

00:10Boom, and then I perform from the chair.

00:38What's up? I'm Lights, and we're at the Chicago stop of the Come Get Your Girl Tour.

00:42About halfway through the tour, it's been amazing.

00:44We've put together such a wicked set, and it's the first time I've actually worked with some stage travel choreography

00:52and some new little props and little things that both bring back old lights things,

01:00kind of running across the eras, but also some new things on stage too.

01:03So I'm excited to show you what we have going on here on stage.

01:06This is my main guitar. It's a Music Man Mariposa. I love it.

01:11I put these on it so that I can see in the dark.

01:13They glow in the dark, if you can believe it, and they tell me where the frets are.

01:16It's really helpful. That's a hack.

01:18So this is probably one of my favorite guitars that I own.

01:22Our playback professional, Robbie, knows what kind of strings I use on this thing

01:25because he changes them every few days.

01:27What kind of strings are we rocking on this thing?

01:28Okay, right now we are rocking the 9.5s in the Ernie Ball.

01:31We're keeping everything Ernie Ball.

01:33So the 9.5s are 46s, which is wonderful.

01:38I mean, for the scale length and everything, it works really well.

01:41Keeps it nice and 80s vibe.

01:43Yeah, we're doing a lot of new wave, dark wave type sounds, which is really fun.

01:47And it's got a really small neck, so it's really easy for me to play.

01:50I was just telling him how you make these glow in the dark for me every night.

01:53This man, shout out Robbie.

01:55We always have it on this pickup all the way down and on the brightest setting.

01:58I really like kind of a bright light sound, not something too dark that gets lost

02:02in kind of like the mix of everything.

02:04All the guitar tones actually come from the Neural DSP stuff that we're running through Ableton.

02:10All automated.

02:11All the tone changes are automated.

02:12And that's also the software that I used, the Corey Wong suite.

02:17That's what I used for the record too on A6 and A6 Extended.

02:20So those are tones that I built with Brody here, our MD, who's also in the band.

02:24We built out the kind of the tones that are across the board, what we use live,

02:27and what we use on the record.

02:29And it's all very light, kind of chorus-y, 80s sounding tones that just like kind of accent

02:36the heavy sort of bass synth stuff that we do.

02:38And it's a really nice little combination.

02:40Like I don't get to hear it a lot in music, and so we have a lot of fun with

02:43those tones.

02:43This here is my backup guitar actually, which is not giving it the credit it deserves

02:48because it's an amazing guitar.

02:49This is a Sir Custom.

02:50And we worked with Sir actually on the Skin and Earth era tour to make two Sir Custom

02:56guitars, the pink with the red logo, and we have a purple with the pink logo.

02:59And they're awesome guitars.

03:01So beautiful.

03:01I love the tele body.

03:02I love the tele sound.

03:03I've always been a big fan of that.

03:04Really nice and light, like great for the dark wave stuff.

03:08But the joy of playing the music band has kind of overtaken this one for this tour.

03:14So this has become the backup, which is sad because it's an amazing guitar.

03:17I love my Sir Custom.

03:18So this is the gem of the tour.

03:21It's kind of a gag at this point.

03:23This is my KX-5 80s MIDI controller keytar.

03:29It has no onboard sounds.

03:31It's literally just a MIDI controller.

03:32But I used to play these back in the day and lost them.

03:36I lost them for like over a decade.

03:37I didn't know where they were.

03:38Managed to unearth them weeks before the tour under my parents' stairs collecting dust

03:43in a soft case.

03:44I have two of them.

03:45So we kind of scrambled last minute to find a way to integrate them into the set.

03:49And it is such an old technology.

03:50It's literally old MIDI.

03:52And we're running everything on Ableton, everything automated, everything like time-coded.

03:56So we're like, how do you put something like this into the set?

03:59And these geniuses here, Robbie and Brody and everybody, worked hard to figure out a way

04:03to do it and have adapters on adapters.

04:06And we're wiring it through MIDI and actually recreated the opening synth line, synth patch

04:14for Up We Go on Omnisphere, I think.

04:16Did we do it on Omnisphere?

04:17Omnisphere.

04:17Yeah.

04:18Omnisphere all the way.

04:18Most of the patches we run are on Omnisphere.

04:20And Brody's really good at putting, recreating all the patches from all old records and stuff.

04:25Some of those tones are lost to time, you know.

04:27So we've created this as our intro to Up We Go as just a fun gag and a throwback to

04:32the

04:32past.

04:33It's actually clunky and not that easy to play, so.

04:35So this is Brody Tavares.

04:37He has been playing in the band for like 10 years at this point.

04:39How many years now?

04:40Like 12?

04:41It's almost 12 years now, but we've known each other since high school.

04:44He is our MD.

04:46He programs the set.

04:47He helps me build out all the tones.

04:49He played on the last record.

04:50And we wrote a couple songs together as well.

04:52So, oh, and he plays bass and guitar.

04:55Yeah.

04:55So he does a lot.

04:56Right over there.

04:57Man of many things.

04:58And he knows a little bit more about what's going on in here.

05:01We run Ableton Live because it's super stable and we can automate all the tones.

05:07So I don't have to like change tones with a foot pedal anymore.

05:10There's nothing on stage anymore.

05:12It's really clean and everything really flows.

05:15And you can talk more about that.

05:16Well, I mean, just take a look.

05:17It's right here.

05:18We have a, we're basically running a redundant system, two MacBooks running exactly the same

05:22session.

05:23We're hooked up to the iConnectivity Play Audio 2U.

05:26Shout out iConnectivity.

05:27This stuff's the best.

05:29So using that as outputs of the tracking and stuff like that, as well as using a redundant

05:34system.

05:34So if one computer fails, it automatically switches to the other one.

05:38We're running all of our MIDI changes through Ableton.

05:40Coming out, like for example, all of Light's guitar tones.

05:43We're coming through a quad cortex right here.

05:46These trusty neural DSP quad cortexes.

05:48Come get your girl.

05:48The first song, you know, it's loaded up, ready to go.

05:51We made a tone for the record called the Big L.

05:54Big L.

05:55It's on everything.

05:56So we use Big L for everything.

05:57Various versions of Big L.

05:58Some with more reverb, some with less.

06:00But it's, it's so, so good sounding across the board.

06:03We're all wireless as well.

06:04So like all of my gear over there is running on an Ethernet cable to a Mio, another iConnectivity

06:09product.

06:10All program changes firing to the other side.

06:13Everything's connected to wireless and it's really seamless.

06:15We haven't had a problem yet on this tour.

06:17So I mean.

06:17How often does it switch, I'm interviewing you now.

06:21Zero times.

06:21How often times does it switch to redundancy?

06:23Zero times on this tour.

06:25It has in the past when we used older Intel computers.

06:27So I mean with the new stuff, it's very, very solid.

06:30Very stable.

06:30I highly recommend it.

06:31Is that why we use Omnisphere?

06:32Omnisphere is very stable as well in the system.

06:35And every, all the synth sounds we use are all like reprogrammed into here.

06:38We're just playing MIDI to trigger it.

06:40And it's honestly, it sounds better than the real thing sometimes.

06:43It kind of does.

06:44It's just big and so full.

06:45Yeah, so basically for all of the neural patches for lights as guitars are based on the record

06:53tones and we use the Cori Wong plug-in for most of it has that can do that like 80s

06:58kind

06:58of dark baby stuff.

06:59So what we have programmed in here is basically plug-in formats in the, in the quad cortex.

07:06So the Cori Wong compressor into the Cori Wong amp number two with a little bit of EQ and

07:11then a cab number three, um, we split that up in the patch and then the chorus, um, this

07:18would be the delay.

07:19It's in a stereo delay at all times.

07:21And then the stereo reverb.

07:23And I have two because there's one that has a shimmer and one that doesn't.

07:25For some songs we add the shimmer because it's part of the song.

07:28And then for some songs just to clean, clean, uh, reverb on there.

07:31So depending on the song, we change different levels and it's all automated in the patches.

07:35So different parts of the song gets cleaner and the verse is made bigger in the chorus

07:38kind of thing.

07:39But for the most part, it's very similar across the whole show.

07:41So it keeps some sort of like similarity and a level kind of sound.

07:46So it's been cool.

07:47It's been cool to like recreate, like sort of rebuild some of the old stuff too.

07:52Yeah, some of the old songs that we wanted to feel consistent with the new stuff because

07:57the new stuff has such an identity and such a sound that, you know, even with songs like

08:01Almost Had Me or Same C, which come from previous records, we're able to like bring these tones

08:05into those songs and perform them in almost a new way that integrates better.

08:09Yeah, it really bridges the gap between the old sound and the new sound and it sounds really

08:12good.

08:13Super cohesive.

08:14Yeah, yeah, we can shout out Strange Electronics setlist and it's awesome.

08:17And I have this setup to utilize their Play Next and auto-stop features so the set kind

08:22of stops when we want it to stop and the correct lighting cues happen because it's all time-coded.

08:29And other than that, like we've spent a lot of time touring over the years and you kind

08:34of get a sense of like how long a pause should be between different songs and stuff like that.

08:38Or maybe there should be like a build.

08:39So we together built a lot of transitions, just sounds that kind of like take one song

08:43into the next song, kind of put the listener into that world quickly and then we can

08:47go into that kind of thing.

08:48So it's very easy to do with this setup.

08:50We don't have to rely on like someone hitting it way too late or something like that.

08:54So it's been working awesome for us.

08:56It's like it happens in kind of chunks.

08:57Like we have this set chunked out kind of where it limits the amount that I can ramble.

09:03So it's like it kind of built in.

09:05If I had control, I would cut her off all the time.

09:06He would.

09:06He does.

09:08But I also have a side project where I DJ and I've really learned that how to make

09:12things seamless and I wanted to integrate some of that, like that idea into this set where

09:16it's like, let's not let it be like song and song and like we're just playing next

09:20on an iPod.

09:21Let's make things special from the record.

09:23And so we, yeah, we've built out vocal chops that carry over and pitch down and moments

09:28that extend the next song to the next.

09:29So it feels like the seamless chunk of music, you know, that actually really keeps the flow

09:33of the show going.

09:34It's probably our best set ever.

09:35It feels like every, every section is kind of like a mini album or something like that.

09:38Yeah, it's, it just kind of has its own crescendo through like emotional narrative and you get

09:45like these low times and these high times and it's really fun putting it together.

09:49Like all this stuff works so well and he's brilliant.

09:53We have a good time.

09:54I don't know about that.

09:54All right, picks.

09:56I, I have always been using this Dunlop, this 88 millimeter Dunlop and actually I value

10:02these so much because at home I actually only have one and I've been preserving it.

10:06It is like my precious.

10:09There's, they're abundant.

10:11Robbie has me so many every night and I hand them back to him because I think they're so

10:15precious.

10:16There you go.

10:16Look.

10:17We haven't run out yet.

10:19But they, we haven't run out yet because I give them back to you.

10:22But, uh, they have a grip, which is really important because we get really sweaty and

10:25then the pick starts slipping out.

10:27So that's really useful.

10:27And the 88 is the thickness I use.

10:29What's the one you use?

10:30I'm on the ones, same model, just the ones.

10:32And I technically turn the pick for a lot of the base parts to get that like grindy like

10:3680s stuff.

10:37That was one of your little hacks when we were working on the record.

10:39The Edge, shout out The Edge.

10:40Do one of these.

10:40Little hack.

10:41We have these ones too.

10:43Wait, what is this?

10:44You've never seen those?

10:45No.

10:45Oh, that's Brody's dog.

10:46I've never seen that.

10:48If you catch one of those at the show, that's my dog for real.

10:50That's cute.

10:51Cute as hell.

10:52What else do we want?

10:52Oh, yeah.

10:53Okay.

10:53The other really fun thing is this.

10:56So, um, it's just fun to bring out new moments in the set, things that people haven't seen

11:01me before.

11:01I know with everything that goes on in the world right now, we get bored really easily.

11:05We're just overwhelmed all the time with cool things.

11:07When I go to shows, I get bored easily.

11:09So I just want to create special moments.

11:10And one of them I thought of for this tour was my gamer chair, my light up gamer chair.

11:16When I work in my studio, when I produce, when I'm sitting there writing and rehearsing for

11:20the set, I'm sitting in a chair very similar to this.

11:22And I was working on the set that we had built and I was practicing it and going, man, it

11:27would

11:27be cool if I could just do this from my chair.

11:29So we bring out the A6 gamer chair.

11:33Robbie, you want to do the honors?

11:34Oh yeah, here.

11:36Here we go.

11:37Robbie does the honors for me every night.

11:42Boom.

11:43And then I perform from the chair.

11:45A shout out to all the nerds and gamers out there.

11:47All the producers who spend a lot of time in chairs like this.

11:50Sometimes you just bring it to the job.

11:51You know?

11:52Here it is.

11:54Let's see the mic.

11:55Yeah.

11:57We use sound devices stuff and they're awesome.

11:59We have two of these custom capsules that have the logo on them.

12:02It's funny.

12:03Our fun of house guy, Chris Kaplinski.

12:05Amazing.

12:05He's got such a good eye for everything.

12:08Plus one of the best sound guys, in my opinion, in the world.

12:11We have an orange capsule as well and he doesn't like me using it because it makes my face orange.

12:14So we stick with the black capsule.

12:17But it's a beautiful sounding mic and I love it.

12:20And it frees me up to walk around, go into the crowd, jump through the barricade and have

12:23fun.

12:24We love their staff sound devices.

12:25That was a little look at what the Lights Live show is.

12:28It's really fun.

12:29We try to make it a special experience every time we come through.

12:32So make sure you catch a show when we come through your town.

12:35You won't be disappointed.

12:36It'll be such a fun night.

12:37Find me at Lights on all the socials or at IamLights.com.

12:42IamLights.com backslash hashtag tour.

12:46That will take you right to the tour pages.

12:47But we always are on the road.

12:49We're always having fun.

12:50And there's so much more to come.

13:11IamLights.com backslash.com.

13:22IamLights.com backslash.com.

13:24You

Lights - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 626

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