Realistic Home Page

Adam's Gear

Click any of the members to find out what we use:

Adam Theis

Joe Cohen

Eric Garland

Michael Emenau

DJ Aspect

What Adam Uses:
Conklin 7 string custom bass with Bartolini jazz pickups and piezzo pickup
Fender Jazz Bass (80s Japanese manufactured)
Eden Highway Man 400W head
Eden 15" speaker cabinet
Eden 2X10" transport series speaker cabinet
Boomerang phrase sampler for bass loops
Zoom 507 multi-effects processor for bass
Boss Bass-Synth pedal
King 3B Silversonic Trombone (from the 50s)
Bach 16H Stradivarius Trombone
Line 6 Echo Pro rack mount looping/delay unit (for trombone loops)
Roland 100 channel midi foot controller (for echo pro)
Digitech Vocal 300 multi-effects processor for trombone
Korg KP-2 Kaoss Pad for multi-effects and sampling of entire band
Sure SM57 mic for trombone
6' Digereedo (key of C) manufactured in Petaluma and given to me by Jules (thanx man!)
5' Digereedo from Australia (key of C)
Octava MC 12-01 Condenser mic for Digereedo
Behringer Eurorack 2642A 16 channel mixing console with 6 aux sends (Big Boy)
Behringer Compressor/Limiter
Furman Power Supply
3 Mackie SRM 450 Powered Peakers (for monitors of mains)
various microphones, stands, cables etc...
4 150W light cans for backlighting (when I feel extra inspired)

What he does with it:

In Realistic I play many different roles; live bass, looped bass, live horn, looped horn and dubbing out the band while I run my loops. In order to do this I've acquired a lot of gear. Someday computers will be able to do all this but until then I'll have to keep my truck and camper shell!

In a typical Realistic song I'll start out by playing a live bass line with the drums and just groove for a while. At a certain point we "tighten up" the groove and make it simpler and I'll make a bass loop at that point on the Boomerang. Usually I overdub a chordal/guitar-style pad over the loop and will pick up my trombone as soon as the loop is made and play a horn line with sax or whatever. The boomerang is great cause I can adjust the volume and most of it's functions with my feet while playing the trombone. As I play the bone I usually dial in an effect on the Vocal 300 footpedal like a Wah, Ocatave,Ring Mod, Harmony, Echo...Once I get a good sound I might loop that on the Echo Pro, or Joe might sample us both playing a horn line together with his line 6 (which runs through one of the aux sends of our board.) So, let's say I now have a multi-layer bass loop and an effected trombone loop; I have many choices still. I can add more sounds on the trombone loop with the multi efx pedal, I can manipulate the loop (backwards, double time, half time, etc..) or I can sample the loop into my Kaos Pad (which is connected through one of the aux sends of the main board (Big Boy). With the Kaos I can apply various filters, BPM Mods, sample, do whatever I want with a bone loop. I can also sample anyone else in the band on the Kaos or apply real time efx by adjusting the individual aux sends of the Big Boy. At some points I sample the ENTIRE band on the Kaos!

The Boomerang stores two bass loops so quite often when I'm soloing or playing a lot of horn it allows the song to not get too stagnant because I we can move from one section to the next and the bass will follow. I will also frequently turn the bass loops on and off, flip them backwards or whatever while playing the horn to keep things interesting or to interact with where my solo is going.