Brendan Ihmig

Most (if not all) combo amp/speaker units are a compromise in one way or another. Either the unit is too small to deliver enough punch or is too big to be easily carried around. This is where the Marshall VS65R hits the sweet spot. The 2 channel (clean and drive), 65 Watt Valvestate and 1x12" speaker combo along with built in spring reverb delivers enough to be a great practice and home studio amp all while being compact and light enough to take on stage for small to medium gigs. Treble, Middle and Bass controls and a Tone Shift switch for tonal options on the Clean channel are enough to tweak up a decent crisp sound. Gain, Volume, Treble, Bass and dramatic Contour control on the Overdrive channel are dynamic enough to cover most playing styles needing overdrive. The Headphone jack which mutes the internal speaker is perfect for practice sessions at home (when you don't want to wake the neighbors) and the Line Out jack is well suited for connection to external equipment such as effect units or recording setups. Foot switchable channels is a great feature. All things considered, the Marshall VS65R combo amp really hits the sweet spot by delivering a great sound in a very portable unit... and at it's price, is really is a great buy.

The Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus Top is my 'bread 'n butter' guitar! From the stage to the studio and from jazz to rock this guitar has solid tone with a enough character to fill many styles. With great hardware, amazing finishing, ease of play and fret reach as well as a reasonable price, this particular Les Paul is a great all-round electric guitar.

One of the best acoustic guitars I have played on ,regardless of price. Superb tone and sustain with such playability and range. With it's all-solid wood construction based on a vintage build and an aged-wood sound it is and amazing instrument. Then you add the neck and bride pickups, eSonic2™ preamp system, NanoFlex™ Tone, NanoMag™ Tone, stereo blend, built in tuner and auto-mute sockets and what you end up with is a near perfect guitar!

With lifetime updates for this DAW along with a rather brilliant product, I am still very happy with FL Studio as I was back in the day with Fruity Loops 3 or was it 2.5.7?! By far the simplest set of tools I have used to create electronic based music and preform well even when mixing in live elements into the production.

This is a superb unit for studio use and if you are hitting the stage with a midi controller keyboard. Very rich sounding natural instrument selections and sharp synthesizers and virtual instruments allow for a broad scope of sounds. Great build quality and a host of patching options.

I have used many preamps for mic'ing acoustic guitars but none have delivered with such clarity and character as the Focusrite.

These Alesis are great monitors for a first time studio setup or home/bedroom studios. Fairly well balanced and flat monitors but worth profiling in order to compensate in the mix (if need be). Sturdy, well constructed with two connection options and individual volume control. 10+ years and still going strong

Simple, no-frills audio recording and monitoring interface. Perfect for a laptop setup or a small home studio. Surprisingly enough, firmware and software updates are still put out by TC Electronic even though it has been discontinued. Firewire only is the only real draw back on this unit.

The Evolution MK-461C is a simple yet well featured MIDI keyboard and controller. With keys, wheels, knobs and sliders it easy can be a only controller you need for a small home studio, laptop setup or if budget is an issue. I have been using it for 10+ years and still does the job as well as on day one.

The Nocturn is basically the Might Mouse version of your standard 'click 'n scroll' mouse. A fantastic add-on to any home studio or laptop setup which puts a knob or slider at the point of your mouse. The Nocturn can also be a great addition to laptop/software focused DJ.

Not the best build quality, but for the price it lets you use (love) automated sliders and knows to your hearts content even if you are on a tight budget. Perfect for multiband EQ adjusting, multitrack mixing and tweaking virtual instruments.

Really only used this deck to transfer a vinyl collection to digital, did so without a glitch.

The Gemini DJ CDX 602 has served me like very few other units have. I honestly have no idea how many hours I managed to squeeze out of this unit before it needed a service and then kept on going. Once my DJing moved predominantly to MP3 and laptop I used it less and less, but always had it setup with an emergency CD in each tray. Now it is sadly just a rack-filler, but one that brings back many good memories.

Always have this unit placed at the center of my studio setup, below my screens for three reasons: 1) Its a tuner and everyone needs to be in tune, 2.) It is a metronome and everyone must be on beat, 3.) it has a light which is awesome! Large display for tuning and metronome are great for on stage and with multiple preset tuning modes it is perfect for a range of styles. Various connection options and routing make it ideal for studio use.

A little excessive for a home studio but a great rack mounted headphone preamp unit.

Basically use this preamp to 'warm up' virtual instrument tracks like basses and drums. It does add some noise but buy so doing it adds character so sometimes very cold digital sources. It also looks great in a rack!

The Behringer B-1 single large-diaphragm condenser microphone is a great buy for a home studio setup or if you are looking for a good quality microphone but have a tight budget. The B-1 has a switchable low-frequency roll-off and -10 dB input attenuation, comes with a heavy-duty suspension mount, windscreen and a foam-padded aluminum carrying case.

As basic a mic as you can get with the sound of a budget mic. Has an on/off switch which is perfect for a coms mic. Bought a three pack to test out multiple position recording of a guitar amp and have not used them for much else other than testing.

I started using Reason after FL Studio and never really got to use it as much as I probably should have. It is however a great tool for experimenting or when you are in creative mode, but other than that, I have not used it enough to give a solid review.

Simple way to split a single sound source to 4 headphones.