Post Your Personal Gear

Sure! Just checked out your page, pretty cool! Love the look of that thinline Telecaster! I've also added most of my gear to my page if you'd like to check it out, got a real mix of stuff here

My basic rig: 62 ac30, echoplex ep3 from I think 67 or 68, various guitars. In my gear photos. Lots of other stuff I never use. Hell, my main amp and Echoplex have been sitting in a bedroom closet lately because I don't play much anymore due to eczema on my hands that flares up when exposed to guitar strings for prolonged periods of time. When I'm persuaded to play guitar I usually just plug my favorite SG into the Echoplex and run that into the vox and turn it most of the way up. Sometimes I engage the echo.

Powered up my ep3 and snapped a photo for my gear porn photos if you want to bask in the warm, red glow of a 60s pilot light.

Wow, after I posted my Echoplex and sre-555 the whole thread died lol

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Ah, not really - but most stuff I've accumulated is just baggage now. I mostly use just a cheap parlour acoustic with a soundhole pickup, a cheap multi-effect pedal and a pignose amp. The pignose is so lofi that I reckon it renders any supposed limitations of digital multi-effect modeling moot. I'll plug my Mustang into a Vox Pathfinder amp for special occasions and maybe connect up some 'proper' pedals if I'm feeling energetic.

I actually have to play guitar on a band's record for a few minutes and got everything wired up to cut a lead this week... the pignose woulda been easier. And I still didnt decide what echo to use... echoplex out front or space echo in post or maybe I could tap the speaker cable signal with a DI, echo that and put an impulse response on it... and there's something up with the vibrato channel on my old ac30 so I'll have to open that and find the cold solder joint... see? Mo gear mo headaches.

I have numerous guitars and basses (9 in total, 11 if you also include my oud and ukelele), I use each of these for different things, different sounds and musical styles, etc, so it would be impossible to choose a favourite. So I will mention the veteran of my collection: the Cort TS-250 Les Paul, which I've had around 11 years. That guitar has seen many upgrades (in fact I recently switched the Bigsby for a Göldo/Duesenberg Les Trem, which is much more comfortable to use), I also upgraded the pickups and gave it a coil split option, so it is definitely the most versatile one I have, completely customised to my needs. Another favourite is the Jolana Kolor bass, a Czechoslovakian bass from the '60s, it's also pretty versatile with an 8 way selector switch, and can nail pretty much any vintage bass tone! And finally another worthy mention, my acoustic Cort SFX-MEM, a mahogany folk guitar that I often use for live acoustic performances as well as recording.

As for pedals, I have many of those, but my favourite is probably the Zoom MS-70CDR, which is pretty much the same as the one @mylittleeye mentioned, just a different model, it has pretty much every reverb, chorus, and delay effect you could possibly need! The pedal I use the most though is the Behringer noise gate, for obvious reasons, I think a noise gate is needed for any pedal chain.

Regarding amps, I use a Marshall MB15 bass amp (for guitars and basses alike), a fairly recent purchase in fact that I got second hand... you can get an interesting tone running a 6 string guitar through a bass amp. I also have a small battery-operated amp for live performances where there is no power supply.

1. You shouldn't need a gate unless you play hyper gained up extreme metal. If you're getting audible noise address your signal chain from the guitar to the amplifier. Something is generating hiss that's being amplified at various stages. If its a hum that's steady you have a ground loop. If you're gating single coil hum that's just silly. It's still there when you play and the gate opens. As fast as some gates are (and I've never encountered a pedal that's as fast as a drawmer or kepex) you're still damaging your attack using a gate.

2. No sitar?

Zoom's ZNR (Zoom Noise Reduction) is one of several built in effects that I consider justify the cost of those little Multistomps on their own. I've read nothing but high praise for it in my researches and even seen it compared favourably with the ISP Decimator and MXR noise gate by folks who've owned both.

So long as one is able face 'crossing the Rubicon' of putting a buffered/digital device on one's board, then other lauded effects include: Spring63, widely praised on the Surf101 forum for being comparable to Boss's brown FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb - we all know how particular surf guitarists can be about their spring reverbs!; SlowAttack is supposedly better than the Boss SG-1 Slow-Gear; Zoom's sequence filter outclasses the Z.Vex Seek-Wah that it's based on; It can also stand in as a less noisy/tone sucky tuner than a Boss TU-2. There are others - this is all anecdotal of course.

🚬 I fancy the idea of making some of the pedals I covet from DIY clone kits and assembling a board of just iconic one knob pedal clones: - Acapulco OD, MXR Micro chorus, Phase 90; that sort of thing 🌬️

I'm definitely getting into a 'less is more' state of mind these days - cognitive decline an' all that.

Well it's a noise reducer as well as a gate, I always have it in the reducer setting, which is pretty effective for any kind of gain (not just extreme high gain). Of course it also fixes the ground loop issues for 2-3 guitars of mine that have those (eventually I plan to shield those properly though, when I have time and learn how to). I think the most useful application I have for the noise reducer is for home recording (if I'm recording a song with many instruments) and for playing live with a band, just to get rid of the hum when I'm not playing

I don't have a sitar, but do have an Arabic oud :D love playing it! Although I'm still sort of a beginner

Oh I haven't tried the Zoom Noise Reduction yet, but have tried the gate, which does pretty much the same as the Behringer in gate mode. I'll probably keep the other noise reducer as well, for the reason that I sometimes have my distortion or fuzz after the Zoom in the chain, and the noise reducer always comes after the distortion/fuzz... really enjoying the Zoom and thanks for the suggestion :D I don't think I'll ever need to buy another reverb or delay pedal in my life, at least not for a long time

That also sounds amazing! I wouldn't know where to start with assembling a pedal... can understand what you mean by "less is more", just bought a bass with one pickup (a Cort Action Junior), and it's amazing even with its limitations! That said, my Les Paul is quite the opposite (I gave it a coil split option and whammy bar to make it extra versatile)

Shielding is for radio interference and while single coils acting as antennas will have a strong 50 or 60 cycle hum component depending on your country's power standards a ground loop has to do with the termination of the shield on your cable and occurs when 2 pieces of wall powered gear gave different chassis ground potentials. These are 2 different noise sources with different solutions.

For RFI shielding only helps so mk ych. The bigger the coil of wire the stronger the antenna.

That also sounds amazing! I wouldn't know where to start with assembling a pedal...

You start with a bill of materials, a schematic and layout. Most of these circuits are really simple to understand. The main obstacle us getting good at soldering PCBs without burning traces. Getting a temp controlled iron with different tips is a help here. Novices to soldering could start with a point to point circuit to gain confidence like a battery only 1 transistor boost of some kind. I like the range master... a brian may silicon transistor version is cheaper to gather parts for.

That's just what I mean to do. Just upgraded my iron from the cheap old junk heirloom that's served the family since the 80's; I'd struggle to solder even 1/4" jacks. The new solder station is night and day better with its magnifying glass and support armatures. Why did I suffer so long! 🤦

The project would be a learning exercise to deepen my very shallow electronics knowledge. I've always been inspired by the words of my former father-in-law "all you need is the right tools and a good book" (Pre Youtube). He was a retired aircraft engineer who wouldn't employ anyone for anything - built half his house, fitted his own kitchen... The LPB-1 (Linear Power Boost) was what I had in mind first but the Range Master sounds perhaps more useful. I'm happy with battery power for ease, and single knob designs for their practical simplicity as much as the minimalist appeal. I also like the punk aesthetic of raw metal casings and Dymo plastic labels!

Oh ok, the issue is most likely grounding, and only happens in 2-3 of my guitars. Another solution I've used when recording is a DI box, which doesn't completely get rid of but significantly reduces the hum (now in fact, I always use a DI box for recording any of my guitars, even the ones without this issue). What other solution(s) would you suggest?

Never tried soldering before (though I have tried welding metal plates together, I'd imagine the basic concept is similar?) I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to guitar electronics, I've only ever replaced pickups and wiring on one guitar (my Les Paul, and even for that I used a pre-soldered wiring harness), but certainly would like to try DIY work on guitars and pedals someday!

A transformer blocks ground loops to a certain extent. If you have a DI it should have a ground lift and typically that will kill a loop. It breaks signal ground.

The ground hum is probably not from your guitars, the culprit is usually a piece of gear that had improperly wired inputs or multiple chassis ground points. If a ground point in your guitar gets lifted it generally won't send signal lol

It's really worth learning this stuff. Get an iron and go for it. If you record then its doubly important... I had to do a revolution type DI sound for a band I'm working for yesterday and I wound up using a boost I made to decimate a couple knockoff neve 73s into fuzz... I went ahead and changed out a resistor when I wasn't happy with the sound it was kicking out to the 73s. Worth knowing how to do. I think I settle on a ranagemaster, DI, 73 and summut tla50 in the end but hey. It's funny though, no one will ever hear this record, why do I bother? Makes the clients happy though.

The lpb1 is a great choice too... I think that's just 2 transistor as well. If you staple 2 together in 1 box the right way you get a Muff Fuzz and can fo Aladdinsane covers... like panic in detroit!

Here. Every Rane manual has a section on interconnection with a huge ground loop diatribe. It's mostly about balanced lines but the basic rules apply to tip/shield instrument connectivity if not the grounding rules for pin1 and pin3 cold/ground stuff.

I think its page 14 in here: SM82S Manual - STEREO LINE MIXER - RANE Commercial https://www.ranecommercial.com/legacy/pdf/old/sm82s_manual.pdf

By the way, don't buy an sm82s... the original 82 and 26 are through hole and easier to maintain and mod than the S versions which use SMDs. That's if for whatever reason you need a super clean and quiet stereo line mixer or line mixer/splitter. If you do I own a mess of 82s I got from a radio station and would sell one.

Thanks :D yeah the DI almost always solves the issue, if I plug it into my Scarlett interface when recording (with the exception of my strat for some reason, but it could just be that the strat has an extremely strong single-coil hum and I'm getting the two confused). It's a simple Millenium DI box, and even has a useful diagram on the box itself explaining the wiring.

My amp doesn't have an input for a DI box though, so I'll need to solve that somehow. I still have no idea where the hum is coming from, my cables are all pretty new, and as for pedals, some of my other guitars are fine even if I have all my pedals lined up. It only ever happens with 3 of my guitars (one is the strat, the other two are a Les Paul and a Höfner style bass, both of which have humbuckers so it can't be single coil hum). That said, the bass will only do so with certain amps, and the Les Paul is very unpredictable (sometimes clean as a whistle but sometimes the hum is very noticeable)

And yeah that sounds great :D I'd definitely like to learn this stuff, I'm one of those who knows how to play, but knows very little about the actual wiring and mechanisms in the instruments and gear

Theres a lit to unpack and explain here my young friend. I'll run it all down for you when I take a lunch break.