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On this episode of DTB’s “Gear Masters”, Nick McLernon, guitarist of the metalcore band, Make Them Suffer, shows off the gear that he uses onstage, while on tour with Like Moths to Flames, Windwake, and Aviana. Make Them Suffer is currently supporting their newest self-titled album.
PLAY THE SAME GEAR:
Jackson USA Soloist (6-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/nXPMDo
Seymour Duncan JB Pickup - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/6ynj2V
FU-Tone Bridge - https://www.fu-tone.com/
Jackson Pro Series Soloist SL2A (6-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/vPQMeO
Bare Knuckle Silo Pickups - https://tidd.ly/4lvVAPs
Gotoh Hardware - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DyOoDo
Josh Smith Signature Jackson (7-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/QjADVM
Bare Knuckle Impulse Pickups - https://tidd.ly/3RhQtV9
EverTune Bridge - https://tidd.ly/3YqIf0Q
D’Addario NYXL 6-string (.74–.13) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/55yrO9
D’Addario NYXL 7-string (.84–.13) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/kO96Ln
Neural DSP Quad Cortex - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LKO6ej
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 170 - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/qzmMr5
Shure GLXD16 Wireless Tuner System - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/xLrMAA
Behringer X32 Digital Mixer - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DyOoDj
Behringer S32 Digital Stage Box Splitters - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/QjADRP
Sennheiser In-Ear Monitors - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/raLMAQ
VIDEO INFO:
Film Date - February 21, 2025
Location - Bottom Lounge in Chicago, IL
KEEP UP WITH MAKE THEM SUFFER:
Facebook - https://facebook.com/makethemsufferau
Instagram - https://instagram.com/makethemsuffer
Twitter - https://twitter.com/makethemsuffer
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
00:53 Guitars
10:54 Pedalboard
13:53 Rig
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, Machine Gun Kelly, Papa Roach, 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, and "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage.
Affiliate Disclosure:
Some of the links in this description are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you make a purchase. Your
Buy official DTB merch at http://digtb.us/merch
On this episode of DTB’s “Gear Masters”, Nick McLernon, guitarist of the metalcore band, Make Them Suffer, shows off the gear that he uses onstage, while on tour with Like Moths to Flames, Windwake, and Aviana. Make Them Suffer is currently supporting their newest self-titled album.
PLAY THE SAME GEAR:
Jackson USA Soloist (6-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/nXPMDo
Seymour Duncan JB Pickup - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/6ynj2V
FU-Tone Bridge - https://www.fu-tone.com/
Jackson Pro Series Soloist SL2A (6-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/vPQMeO
Bare Knuckle Silo Pickups - https://tidd.ly/4lvVAPs
Gotoh Hardware - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DyOoDo
Josh Smith Signature Jackson (7-string) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/QjADVM
Bare Knuckle Impulse Pickups - https://tidd.ly/3RhQtV9
EverTune Bridge - https://tidd.ly/3YqIf0Q
D’Addario NYXL 6-string (.74–.13) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/55yrO9
D’Addario NYXL 7-string (.84–.13) - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/kO96Ln
Neural DSP Quad Cortex - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LKO6ej
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 170 - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/qzmMr5
Shure GLXD16 Wireless Tuner System - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/xLrMAA
Behringer X32 Digital Mixer - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DyOoDj
Behringer S32 Digital Stage Box Splitters - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/QjADRP
Sennheiser In-Ear Monitors - https://sweetwater.sjv.io/raLMAQ
VIDEO INFO:
Film Date - February 21, 2025
Location - Bottom Lounge in Chicago, IL
KEEP UP WITH MAKE THEM SUFFER:
Facebook - https://facebook.com/makethemsufferau
Instagram - https://instagram.com/makethemsuffer
Twitter - https://twitter.com/makethemsuffer
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
00:53 Guitars
10:54 Pedalboard
13:53 Rig
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, Machine Gun Kelly, Papa Roach, 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, and "Gear Masters" unveils the equipment musicians use on stage.
Affiliate Disclosure:
Some of the links in this description are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you make a purchase. Your
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Hey, my name is Nick. I'm in the band Make Them Suffer and we're here on show two of our album
00:18tour in North America. We're in Chicago and this venue's called Bottom Lounge. I'll show you some
00:25of my guitars. So we're traveling really light. We're not ones to carry like four guitars for
00:40one song on any particular tour. So we're only traveling with three today. Well, I'm traveling
00:46with three gyres pairing four. I am playing one Jackson seven string and two six strings.
00:57The two six strings are the Jackson soloists. These are the USA models. So I've got a, I
01:09can't actually remember the model name. I'm not like, I'm not into guitar model names or tech
01:17specs or anything. I know that this is a USA made Jackson soloist, but I have modded some
01:26of the parts. So I've taken out the Floyd bridges that these guitars come with. And this one's
01:36actually fitted with a, I think the brands called a few time got it. So reason I've fitted my Jacksons
01:48with these is because I've actually got really terrible high pH sweat. I go through bridges like
01:57every tour and these are actually the first bridges I'm not having to replace every tour because my
02:05sweat and they tarnish very, very easily despite giving them, giving them a wipe down. I'm not sure. I just
02:16have highly corrosive sweat, I guess, but most of the components built into this bridge, titanium made.
02:24I suspect that's got something to do with, I don't have a degree in physics, but I haven't had to replace
02:33the bridge once and I've toured maybe six or seven tours with this guitar already. So it's holding up very well.
02:41Seymour Duncan JB. I don't use the neck pickups for anything, so I'm not sure what those are.
02:49Dear Dario NYXLs, we tune down to drop A on sixes. Bottom strings are 74, which is not typical for a 25 and a half
03:04inch scale. The reason we're using 74s on the bottom is, I want to say that's the minimum,
03:13minimum string gauge to be able to support the tension of playing that low. And we play really
03:21hard on stage. So unless you're playing an Evertune, I'd say 74, just my opinion, 74 gauges on the bottom
03:31are the way to go if you want to handle tuning stability, especially on like floating bridges.
03:38Um, so I believe that goes from like 74, 64, I don't remember the rest, but I know the top strings are 13.
03:47Um, so yeah, again, just my opinion, but that should be the bare minimum. If you're playing like
03:53drop A on a 25 and a half inch neck, that should be the bare minimum. Yeah. Uh, your standard volume
04:02tone pot. I don't use either of those for anything except maybe the volume pot sometimes just to
04:09mute the guitar in between tracks. Um, I don't do too much like tone wise with my guitar on stage.
04:18It's like one guitar turn across the entire set. And then, you know, you might have like,
04:24uh, like a, uh, a reverb and, uh, echo delay for some of the leads and a high pass filter. That's it.
04:35So, um, the use of like volume knobs, tone knobs, it's very typical. Like I don't touch them at all,
04:43basically. Um, now I've had this one for a while. Um, this is a pro series
04:51SL a two or SL two a model. I believe it's called, I got this in 2017 and it's kind of becoming my,
05:02uh, Frankenstein. Like I've been adding mods to, um, this particular guitar just to experiment with
05:09like different humbuckers, different types of bridges. Um, but I'm pulling this one a lot.
05:16I'm pulling this one out a lot still just because I don't know what it is. Um, it's not the,
05:25you know, it's not the most expensive wood. The hardware was, uh, relatively like budget cheap,
05:32but, um, it just works for me. There's, for some reason I keep going back to pulling this guitar out
05:39on tour. I think part of it's because we move around on stage a lot and
05:43I just cracked the shit out of my instrument. So I don't care if this one gets busted a little bit,
05:51but, um, on this particular guitar, I have refitted the, uh, the humbuckers with
06:01bare knuckle silo, which is, uh, a Rebea's Rebea's model. I'm pretty sure.
06:07Um, those metal core parts in Drop A, very, very, very, very good for them.
06:18The bridge, I've replaced these with, uh, this is Gotoh hardware. Again, um,
06:26Sweat's corrosive and they hold up better than the Floyd's for whatever reason. Probably higher quality,
06:33uh, composition of metal. I'm not sure, but I don't have to replace these as often.
06:40Um, same as the tuning hardware. Let's all go to 25 and a half inch again and same, uh, same gauge
06:51streams, 74s down to 13. Same tuning. Yeah. So Drop A, 74 to 13, 25 inch scale. It's exactly the same.
07:02So I interchange between the two for, uh, different songs. This one, the, uh, the,
07:09the American made soloist has a full rounded tone, uh, great for tracks with like big chords.
07:18Uh, in particular, let's like say, for example, ether are like pulling out the USA made Jacksons
07:23for that full of sound. Uh, this one's got a bite here, um, kind of has that bolt on sound,
07:30like the highs and high mids sort of cut through and, uh, the bare knuckle pickups actually have
07:37a lot to do with that as well. The silos, um, toe knobs, same thing. Don't touch them. Don't need
07:45too. They're just there. Um, you notice we have a whammy, whammy bar fixed on our floating bridges.
07:55I use them a lot. They need to be there. Absolutely necessary. So if it's set up correctly,
08:02like you don't have to worry about it going out of tune. I'm checking my tuning between each song
08:07anyway, but I barely have to adjust the tuning because I know it's set up correctly. So, um,
08:13yeah, that's the sixes. I've taken out, uh, Josh Smith's signature model.
08:23Um, I believe these necks are 27 or 27 and a half inch. So, um,
08:31the top six strings, you can think of them as drop A tuning and then you add the low E for the bottom
08:42string. Uh, I fitted the bottom string with an 84 and from there, again, I'm not really sure. I think
08:48it's like 84, 68 or something, quite a big jump. Um, so if you're playing like drop A power chords
08:56from the 64, um, get much more clarity, I guess, not that we're doing it too much on these guitars,
09:04but you have that there just in case you want to play them. 13 is the lowest. That's right. Um,
09:11now I was saying before that you shouldn't be playing drop A, um, with anything lighter than a 74.
09:17It's different with these because we have an Evertune bridge and, uh, I'm not sure how well versed,
09:26most people are out there with, um, how Evertune works, but basically I have no problems
09:35like tuning guitars in between sets or anything. This is used in the studio. I can use it live.
09:44Um, I set it to a sweet spot so I can still get those bends and everything is in tune. Like,
09:53I don't have to, I don't have to touch it in between sets. The guitar comes with bare knuckle impulses,
10:01which is also Josh's signature, I believe. So the whole thing is Josh's guitar. Um,
10:08uh, the body, body's his signature model. The impulses, uh, his signature models as well. So
10:20impulses, great for lower tunings. You kind of, I feel like we need them on those, uh, like lower drop E
10:28tracks, doom switch, uh, oscillator, anything using the low E. Impulses really bring out the, those like
10:37low bowels, you know, like the black hole sounding like zero notes.
10:42Yeah. So not much going on here. Quad cortex, uh, anyone not familiar with, uh, like analog versus
10:51digital, basically we're not traveling with amps and guitar cabs everywhere. So you kind of need like
10:58a hardware unit to simulate guitar head, guitar cab, guitar cab with mic. And, um, neural DSPs are considered
11:10industry standard by most people's account these days, three different patches for three different
11:16guitars. Uh, that's it. One tone for each guitar running through the entire set. And then, you know,
11:23I have a switch for like low pass or high pass filters and a switch for, uh, like echo delay and
11:33revert the lead channels. Uh, that's it. Um, I believe our models are based off
11:41a blend of EVH and PV or EVH and, uh, Bognor Ubershaw. I could be wrong. I know the first one's EVH.
11:49We've always modeled every, um, every track, everything that's written on guitar off EVH.
11:58Um, and I believe it's a blend with Bognor. I know that's what we did in the studio.
12:02I'm just not 100% sure that's what we're running live. I just know it's a blend between EVH
12:09and something else. Don't quote me on that. Um, this is a Seymour Duncan Power Stage 170.
12:18Very, very useful if you're not touring with, uh, not touring with cabs. Right now we're actually
12:26touring with cabs. We can't fit them on stage, but what we usually might do is, um, say you got
12:33more, you got more space on stage. We might have a cab situated here, just a stage sound. So the
12:39sound's traveling this way, not interrupting the front house operator's mix. And I have a signal that
12:47runs from the quad cortex, oh, sorry, from the power amp into the quad cortex into the guitar cab.
12:56And that just, that just powers the guitar cabinet, basically. And there's a separate signal
13:05for guitar that goes to the front of house and another one that goes to the cab. So the one
13:09that goes to the cab obviously bypasses a, uh, a cab sim. Shure GLX D16, uh, tuner wireless guitar system.
13:21That is a foot switch to double, doubles up as a tuner and, um, and a mute switch, I guess. And it is also
13:34the wireless transmitter for the belt pack that goes on the, uh, guitar strap. Um, so this is our
13:42touring rig. A lot of bands have this entire thing shelled in like a massive,
13:52a massive case where it's all like hard lined in and you can't take them out. Uh, we're traveling
13:57internationally, so we can't afford to take like freight something this big overseas. It's
14:05takes too long and it's too expensive. So everything has to travel in parts. So we have a, uh, playback rack,
14:15an IEM rack, any monitor rack, uh, a mixing rack, and that is our split. So everything that is being played
14:26on stage runs into the split and the split sends those signals to our Behringer X32 mixing rack.
14:38So we've got our own mixes. We don't run with foldbacks. We don't need a monitor engineer to like
14:42control our mix every night. It's the same every night. And the split also sends everything that's
14:52running on stage out to front of house. Um, so that's what we have a split for. The X32 is kind of the
15:01brain for the S32 splitters. So our X32 is telling these two what to do. Um, Senheiser IEMs, again,
15:15considered industry standards, everyone's got their own, uh, stereo mix.
15:26Playback rig. This one's a, I want to call it unorthodox. You see a lot of people like running
15:32Mac systems these days. I'm fully against it. They're really thin. Anything can knock them.
15:37I get a little bit too hot and, uh, playback fails. So reason we use laptops is because we have time
15:45code. Uh, we've got a whole lighting rig up on stage. We've got clicks. We've got cues. Uh, we have
15:54effects channels that we're running to front of house. All of that is dictated by this guy. So
16:01if you've ever played call of duty, if you've ever liked,
16:06you probably recognize it from somewhere within that franchise, right? Just in case you need to call
16:12in an air strike while you're playing. Um, and a play audio interface. So these two talk to each
16:23other, uh, the time code, sample tracks that need to get sent out to front of house. Um, that's going
16:32to do that for you. And I'm not going to show you what's happening behind the rig because it's all
16:37spaghetti, but, uh, that's where all the lines come out for our interface. So we're here in North America
16:45touring our new record. It's self-titled and this is day two. So we're in Chicago, a place called
16:53Bottom Lounge. I've got three weeks of this tour. It's not sold out. The whole first of this tour,
17:00whole first half of this tour is sold out and, uh, it's looking to be pretty good. So you can still
17:06get tickets at make them suffer. I'm sorry, mtsband.com. mtsband.com is where you can buy tickets.
17:13We've got three weeks at home after this and then we're doing the same thing in Europe
17:17and then again in Australia. So yeah, we've got a busy few months ahead.