Guide
How to Organize a Touring Rig
A touring rig has to survive being explained to someone else: a tech, a crew member, a fill-in player. Here's how to document one so it does.
Why "I know how it's wired" isn't enough
A rig that only lives in your head works fine until you're not there to explain it: a tech fills in, a piece breaks and needs replacing under time pressure, or you're advancing a show over email and need to describe your setup precisely. Documentation is what makes a rig portable, not just functional.
What to document
The signal chain, in order
List every piece of gear the signal passes through, in order, from instrument to output. Note what feeds what, not just what's on the board.
Settings that matter
Amp settings, pedal orders and settings that took time to dial in, routing choices: anything that would take real trial and error to reconstruct from scratch.
Cases and what's in them
Which case, rack, or pedalboard each piece travels in. This is what makes a packing list checkable rather than a guess.
Power and cable requirements
What needs power, how much, and any specific cable lengths or types that matter for the setup to work correctly.
Known quirks
The workaround for the finicky pedal, the amp that needs ten minutes to warm up: the details that live in your head and nobody else's until you write them down.
Doing this in RigVault
A RigVault Rig documents the equipment and relationships that make up a working configuration, and the Cases it travels in hold the actual packing detail. Together, they're the reference you'd hand to a tech, not a description you'd have to give in person.
FAQ
Common questions.
How was this pedalboard or studio rig connected?
RigVault's Rigs document how your gear is configured and connected, so you can recreate a signal chain or studio setup exactly as it was.
What is the difference between a Rig and a Loadout?
A Rig describes how equipment works together as a configuration. A Loadout describes what equipment needs to go to a particular job. A Loadout may include one or more pieces of a Rig along with cases, stands, cables, and accessories.