In this issue of RockView Rig Rundown we spend some time backstage with Five Finger Death Punch’s Chris Kael and his tech, Ryan. We were lucky enough to be able to get up close and personal with Kael’s touring rig on opening night of their 2024 tour.
Chris Kael’s Rig Rundown
Basses:
ESH CK-1 Prototype:
The body is a three piece ash with a hard maple and slices of Mahogany 34” scale neck. Currently we have two EMG 35DC pick ups that were most likely swapping out for some EMG 34P & a 35J shortly and a custom ESH piazo bridge with a single Volume and a blend knob.
B.C Rich Chris Kael signature (White/Black)
These two basses are the exact same just different colors. The bodies are mahogany with a 34” 5 piece maple neck, this bass is loaded with a EMG P/J set and we’re modded by me down to a single volume and updated with gold hardware.
Modulas Quantum 4
This bass holds a big place in Kael’s heart we had retired it for a bit but brought back on this recent run and is the longest standing bass in his rig. This bass has since been modded from its factory set up electronically and is as follows. It’s an Alder body with a graphite neck again a 34” scale the Bartolini stuff was all removed at one point before my time and replaced with all EMG the pick ups are the 34P and 35J.
Amps & Cabinets:
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 700
(2) Mesa Boogie Powerhouse 8×10 Cabinet (not pictured)
Pedals:
Neural DSO Quadcortex floorboard amp modeler
The rig:
The rig is very simple we recently moved into the digital world. In the signal flow we have a Shure Axient AD4D running to our Whirlwind Multi-Selector to our Neural DSP Quad Cortex with Seymour Duncan Powerstage 700 to power our two Mesa Boogie Powerhouse 8×10 cabs. The rack has a redundant system in it with a spare Quad Cortex and Powerstage 700. There is also a Radial Big Shot to switch between the two the only thing that would be done by hand is switch over the DI line. This is all powered by a Furman PL-Plus DMC and a P-1800.
The break down of our tone is forever changing but the base of it has been a capture of a high and low pass of a Neural Dsp Parallax (This was all done before the recent update and will be changed to incorporate the new plug in compatibility) with a B3K to get the grit and a little extra tone. There is a few extra little things that have been done to add to the clean tone such as a chorus and phaser for certain songs.
Kael in action with his black signature B.C. Rich (photo by Cody Strubel)
We would like to thank Chris Kael for being a part of the RockView Rig Rundown.