Gear Purchases

I have bought a fair bit of gear today. I got a Vox 847 wah for £35 off ebay, a Hardwire ps-7 phaser, was gunna get the phase 100 but changed my mind at the last minute. I got the hardwire chorus for £30 off ebay, a blackstar lt boost for £35. The Seymour Duncan distortion mayhem set for £80 two PIO caps, a switchcraft toggle and 4 matched CTS pots plus some cloth wire. Very happy with what I have bought and for how much I paid for everything, now just waiting for it all to get delivered so I can put it all to use. One thing I'm kinda wanting is the Boss DS-1 feel like I have lost a huge part of my sound by selling it, see how I get on with the Rat, i think I like it so far but still want the DS-1 maybe just get one up cheap on ebay and have two dirt boxes.

Anyone else been buying stuff lately? what have you bought?

You really prefer the DS1 to the Rat? wow

I picked up a Traynor amp from the 60s. Its pretty damned similar to Pete Townshend's signature Hiwatt. I really like it, but its also pretty damned loud. I got a Nova System, a Nova drive and a flashback X4 as well. Surprisingly I really don't dig the Nova System. The standalone Nova Drive has more comprehensive controls and just sounds a little better to me and the delays n the X4 are way better than the Nova delays. Go figure. I am already selling the Nova system. Its not bad, just not great.

but anway, I officially have a lot of amps again. I can never stay under 5 for very long.

Don't prefer but both a great for different things for me. just both sound different, I like both. Some things I do are better suited for the DS-1 maybe because some riffs etc I've wrote was done with the DS-1 so I like it for that but either way I love both. I wanna check the X4, I've heard good stuff on here and else where on the web but I'm not a huge delay kinda guy but I'd like to get one anyway for a few things here and there. I used to hate reverb till I gave it a go so maybe the same for delay? The Traynor sounds cool. I'd like to grab a few more amps eventually, maybe a few lower wattage and one the same as the vc30 or maybe a bit higher. I want to get a Marshall one day, with a master volume so I can crank it without the police turning up. I have friend who may be willing to start a band with me and he's been in a few bands so hopefully he knows a decent reliable drummer. Be good if so

I guess the rat is a little smoother than the ds1. Try out the mxr 77 custom badass distortion. Its a hot rodded 70s spec ds1. Ds1 guys prefer it to a stock ds1. I didn't care for it, but i don't like the ds1 much. I much prefer the od250 and rat in hard clip distortions.

A master volume marshall is still loud as balls. The master neuters the amp below 3 or 4. Maybe the new 25 watt jubilee head would suit you though. Its got a great 80s marshall sound at a somewhat lower output level than a typical marshall 40 to 50 watter. I have never enjoyed any marshalls at home. They are stage amps. Even the studio 15 and 20 watt lead and bass were excessively loud for apartment (flat) use. The studio 15 just loved to be turned up. The master and the attenuator really took its balls off.

Thats the only problem with marshalls in my opinion that they have to be extremely loud to get that ballsy marshall sound that I love. its funny I used to hate marshall amps when I was younger and loved stuff like the peavy 6055 or whatever its called and mesa dual recs etc. now I hate that stuff and prefer stuff like vox and marshall amps which seem to like my dynamics too which is good. I think that Laney ironheart amps are cool how they can go from 1 watt to 120w and anywhere inbetween by turning a knob.

I very nearly put a bid on a mxr 77 custom badass. Maybe I should? seems like I may like it. never used one but I like the DS-1. my blackstar ht boost and the hardwire phaser have come today. I look forward to using them when the rest of my pedals get here. I can't be bothered to set up the pedal board just to do it again in a few days when the rest gets here. tomorrow my pick ups and black plastiic parts will be here for the gibson which I'm looking forward to. I was going to get 4 push push pots and do individal coil taps and a phase switch and a kill switch but I decided I won't use it so just got 4 450g series cts pots instead for £35. they have the carbon wiper and 9% tolerance

you can't go wrong with plain old CTS pots and traditional wiring. I am just thinking with how much higher end your rig is now you might prefer a gussied up DS1 over a stock one. We are not talking about a big price jump to get the MXR version. For me the rat is just the crown prince of distortions, though having a version with treble and bass controls is really doing it for me right now. Its really a great ac30 pedal, I guess having toured with Marshalls I got away from it and more into vintage fuzzes, but with a mainly ac30 arsenal (and the voicing on the traynor being on the voxy side) I am back in camp rat for my sludge. The rat (well, TC Nova Drive) seems like my no-brainer source of pedal dirt right now since I probably won't buy any more amps that aren't ac30s or Hiwatts (yes I am tempted to buy an actual vintage hiwatt dr504, I am such a junky because everything is beter in pairs when it comes to amps). I think I justs cored an open-backed peavey classic series 4x10 on the bay for 100 cruddy bucks. Speakers are probably junk, but it'll be good to have around. I have been missing my old marshall 4x10s I used to use, but I really wanted something open backed with a floating baffle like a tweed bassman cab. And here this was. I am starting to think I would enjoy playing 3 amps at once thru different speaker configs. One can always be louder....

I thought I'd give these fancy ones a go to see if they are as good as they claim. only £5 more for 4 than the standard CTS pots. I like the traditional wiring more that coil taps etc, I kinda wish the SH-6 Distortion came with 2 conductor braided wire so it could look all vintagy in there but alwell I could pay someone to do it but theres no point just for a cosmetic thing that no one will see anyway.

The rat is a great pedal and does suit me but somethings I just prefer the harshness and volume of the DS-1 I'll probably end up wit both on my board though. Is there any point buying a buffer for my board when the second pedal in my pedal chain has a buffered bypass?

I'll watch some demos of the 77 custom badass later and probably buy one based off that as I'm too lazy and busy lately to try one. what are 410s like compared to 412s? I've heard 10'' speakers are meant to give better cleans than 12'' speakers amongst other random stuff. dunno if this is try or not?

4x10 vs 4x12? Too broad a generalization. They move 4 inches less air, are a few inches smaller every direction than a 4x12 and generally most 10" speakers are less efficient than a comparable 12" model (when there is a corollary at all). None of this is a rule though. I lost the auction today at the last minute. I wasn't willing to pay jack shit for that cab so i let the guy who was willing to bid have it without a fight.

I am hovering over some pressed frame 70s fane speakers right now. They have unusually large dustcaps and i amnot sure if i should drop 200 bucks on them...

I see. I've seen people playing through 4x8 cabs before. never 410 cabs though.

those fane speakers sound pretty cool. I tried the blackstar boost yesterday and its pretty awesome for the price and does just what I wanted. I'll probably mount it today if my wah gets here today, if not then whenever the wah gets here. How are you getting on with the midi setup?

Fane was the OEM Sound City and Hiwatt speaker as well as being OEM for Arbiter Vox (same parent company as Sound City ;-)... they are british and aggressive but different than celestions. There are a illion varieties of Fane and Hiwatt changed up frequently so its hard to pick a Fane just by magnet weight and wattage. 50s and 75s seem t be the Hiwatt speaker of choice, but a lot of sound city cabs and some early hiwatt cabs came with 25 and 30 watt fanes and they have a sound too. Then there's the cone and dust cap style as well as the basket (cast aluminum versus pressed steel). The ones I am looking at look like older 25 to 30 watters, but they have large H dust caps and what may be a cloth surround 'bass' cone in stamped steel baskets... they are unusual for havng come from a hiwatt cab. Low wattage, smallish magnet, weird cone. I might pass. Old Fanes are a crapshoot. But Fane discontinued all the 70s models and then their factory burned down (I thnk in the 80s) and they lost the secret formula for most of the discontinued Hiwatt speakers. They make a series called the Medusa series, but they are more like early 80s fane speakers that went in some Biacrown Hiwatt cabs and the Audiobrothers Hiwatts.... people are down on the 75 watt weber Thames and Reeves Purple back clones. Hi-Tone offers a pretty well regarded copy, but only in their cabs (which are pricey, though I would love to get a Hi-Tone 30 watt Jimmy Page model and matching 2x12 someday soon).

The MIDI setup is a work in progress. I am ditching the Nova System in favor of a top of the line Yamaha foot controller, the Nova Drive and the X4... I may get my modulation on via the X4 since it has some secret chorus settigns that sound awesome. I just can't get on with Nova System. Its just okay. I basically had it relegated to chorus, detune and 1 subtle reverb. Waste of $250 as well as pedalboard realeastate. I am considering a vintage Korg or Roland digital delay for "U2" echo so I can just rack that, shove the nova and X4 in a drawer and run mytuner and Yamaha controller on the floor.

the standalone X4 and Nova Drive are the real mind blowers in my rig right now. Just damn good. The Nova drive is SOOOO powerful. You can even run the TS9 and Rat in parallel. I am getting a hard-on just thinking about all the magic drivey-ness it can accomplish. Also, it really loves the Traynor. The rat side has this "extension of the amp" quality.

Overall I am glad I took a chance on this Traynor based on the schematic. Its redefined my expectations of big, fixed bias, A/B circuits. Even a vintage fender pales in comparison to its snappy response, deep bass, sparkly top and fantastic saturation. I don't know why hiwatty circuits are a backwater of modern amp building...

As of now I have never heard of fane speakers. Sound pretty cool! I would go for a midi setup with all my pedals if I could be bothered but I'd rather just get something like the joyo pxl-8 pro which is a 8 pedal looper with 4 banks or something like that. I think you can save upto 32 presets, not sure but its nearly the length of my pedal board. I may get one oneday though as it would make sense and the pedals I do t use much I'd just have standing alone and not linked to a pedal switcher so on the odd time I use it its not taking up any space for effects I actually use.

I want to get a good octave pedal/drop tuning pedal like the DigiTech the drop eventually, there's so much I'd use it for.

My caps came to do, I got a 0.033uf K42Y-2 and a 0.015uf K40Y-9 both from around 1978ish from Russia and in very good condition, look like they was made yesterday. Cost about £5 for the pair. My black Gibson plastic parts are here too which all cost around £2 as add on items to amazon prime and my Seymour Duncan Distortion Mayhem set if here just waiting on the DiMarzio branded Switchcraft toggle, Switchcraft jack, cloth wire and the pots. Found a ton of 20/18awg buss wire in my tool box so will use that to ground the pots

for MIDI controlled dirt you are basically looking at modelling or the Nova Drive, so its pretty limiting if you are really into dirt pedals. I'm not. When I use effects I mostly like a subtle echo or some modulation to widen my 2 amp setup. I can do more stuff with my rig, but I primarily use it very subtley.

I like dirt pedals a hell of a lot. I've started building my pedalboard more. I need to get the digitech The Drop and a Ds-1 to finish my bottom rail. The dyna comp when I get one will be use after the tuner before the wah. I know most people put it after their distortion but I like that volume jump but I want my clean tone to be even so all the strings are the same volume unless I'm doing certain things that I do when I pick power chords weirdly, well not weirdly just different to alot of people I guess. No one I know does it haha. The digitech hardwire phaser is very cool! I'll go into detail when I review it tomorrow after having more time with it

nah, I like comp before distortion too, its one of my gripes with Nova System.

I just like that volume spike. I've had a proper play with my pedal board today and don't think I'll bother with the DS-1. I've got my sound that I had in my head with it. Really like it. the hardwire phaser is amazing and well worth the money. on the 4 stage setting it sound almost identical to the phase 90 which I like. I mainly use it on the 10 stage setting though. I use it alot more than I ever thought I would. so many opions with it and the knobs are very effective and change the sound all through their range

you have a lot of stuff on your board... another distortion is probably overkill, expecially when you have an amp with a gain channel (vintage voiced though it may be, ahem, as if that's a bad thing.... one day you will see that nothing good has happened to guitar tone since the introduction of the matchless DC30)

Yea, I think a boost, od and a distortion is all I need. I don't think I'd use both much if I had a ds-1 and a rat on there just one or the other. all the stuff I want I have got genuine uses for though, some more than others. One of my 6'' patch cables has died so I have to use a molded one in its place. I dunno what happened to it, the solder joints are perfect but it doesn't work, cable must be snapped inside? :S alwell I just get some high end cables in its place

I always keep a sack of straight and L end switchcrafts around as well as a mile of low capacitance coax and make cables as needed. Though i still use the same spectraflex outta my guitar that I got for christmas in 1994. Its ugly and green... and never tangles or knots up. Allows me to dance and jump, hop, shimee and jig. In my old band everyone said i was boring to look at at our first few gigs so i went to ballroom and swing classes with a lady friend (and had some fun back at her place too) and all that groove made it into my pkaying and now i can't hd stil when i amfeelin' it. I tried wireless and i hate it (even the line6 cable simulated one), so i have to use 6 feet of 90s spectraflex.

Narcist had asked me awhile ago if i could do some youtube hand technique videos. Would you be interested too? He was specifically interested in a vibrato tutorial and some demonstrations if ways to combine pentatonics with modes for more interesting solos, both subjects i am really qualified to teach. I can replicate anyone's vibrato and my youthfulbig band experience made me a singularly modal rock soloist.

I should really start buying parts like pots and switches etc ready for when I may need them, save me waiting for a few days for them to get delivered. My fender customshop tweed cable or whatever it is. its black and has a fabric sheath and don't tangle anyway. I bought it because I have a tendancy to dance/jump when playing and hate my cable getting tangled. I may have to get another longer one soon. I use Sommer patch cables which are double shielded and are just really well made and pretty thick wires on them. I also use fender custom shop cables too but want to replace everything with sommer cables and have the fender ones as back ups. I know a fair few people who don't give a fuck about patch cables and just go for cheap molded ones but I prefer to get the best I can afford to keep my signal as unaltered as possible

every cable changes your sound