Steve Vai’s guitar tech has spoken about how he saved a Beat show from impending disaster by sourcing a full suite of gear in just four hours. It gives a rare insight into the kind of seat-of-your-pants work that many guitar techs have to pull off day in, and day out. Truly, they are unsung heroes.
Doug MacArthur has been Steve Vai's tech of choice for many years, and it's his ability to find solutions in the heat of the moment that has earned him such a trusted reputation.
The Beat tour was a huge highlight of 2024 in the guitar world, with Steve Vai breaking his anti-supergroup stance to join the King Crimson love-in. It was a lengthy run that threw up many challenges for the guitarist, including tackling Robert Fripp’s “relentless” parts, ultimately receiving advice from the man himself two shows into the tour. But the challenges were also numerous backstage.
“I’ve had some really bizarre gear [and] rig moments,” MacArthur tells Boss. “Those moments can be terrifying at the time, but 20 minutes later, it can be hilarious. It becomes a good story and a great opportunity to learn.”
A one-off show in Dubai saw the tech prove his worth in last-gasp circumstances.
“We traveled to Dubai to play a show. We flew from Los Angeles via London, but none of the gear made it with us,” he recalls.
“So, we landed in the Middle East at about one o’clock in the morning. The gig is the next day, and we have no gear! There was no way we would cancel the gig, but there were no guitars, amps, pedals, or anything. The question is: How am I going to make the show work for Steve Vai?”
As the old adage goes, the show must go on, and MacArthur isn’t one to bow out without a fight.
“Thankfully, with some pieces of gear I had as carry-on luggage and going to every music store there, plus my guy at Ibanez, I could scrounge together enough gear in about four hours for us to do a sound check and the show,” he says, rather breathlessly.
“And it was a great show! But that was the most trial-by-fire moment that I could think of: going to a faraway part of the world and having to pull everything together on such short notice to make a show that has to happen.
“That was an intense one, but it was great afterward. I remember Steve and I sitting on the couch after the gig, just looking at each other like, “Did that happen?”
Boss pedals proved a key part of the makeshift pedalboard he constructed for Vai, saying: “I think we used the CH-1 Super Chorus into two DD-7 Digital Delays. It worked great. And they’re always consistent. You can find them anywhere.”
It differed greatly from the 'board they'd carefully put together for the shows, which saw a Fractal amp modeler at its core.
“The Beat rig is different from the normal Vai rig,” he explains. “It’s basically a wah, overdrive, MXR Phase 90, and a DigiTech Whammy DT. There’s also an Xotic EP Booster which Steve’s really liking lately.
“It’s a little grittier than his normal kind of compressed hi-fi overdrive sound. He used that a lot on this tour, a lot of the time just to give the guitar a kind of ugly boost for certain synth sounds. Things pushed a little too far – that kind of sound. We also used a UA Max compressor. That was just for the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amplifier.”
Beyond that, Vai gets “a host of expression pedals” to play with, as well as Boss’ latest GM-800 and SY-1000 guitar synthesizers.
MacArthur will join Vai on the road once more later this year as part of the SatchVai band. That will see Pete Thorn trade licks with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani across a three-pronged electric guitar attack that celebrates the virtuosos’ historic relationship in a brand-new way.
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