kevin_harrison

After falling in love with my dad's 345 reissue, but not really needing the varitone switch or fancy double trapezoid inlays, I set my sights on an ES 335. After months of saving and shopping around every vintage shop in NYC, the one that felt that best was a 2012 ES-335 Dot. To this day, it's my favorite guitar. Capable of every genre you can throw at it, the 335 is a work of art.

Priced out of the vintage market and high-end reissue market, the 2016 Les Paul Traditional is the perfect answer for those seeking a classic Les Paul at a more affordable price. Everything you want from an LP, none of the extra bells and whistles touted in the Standard lineup. Impressive guitar.

Needing a reliable solidbody guitar for sketchy gigs or practices that didn't call for the 335 to leave the house, I snagged a 2017 American Special Tele in Lake Placid Blue. No frills, just awesome single coil sound. Neck pickup sounds sweet and smooth, but doesn't get much use because the Texas Special bridge pickup is an absolute beast.

After years of pushing a clean Fender with various pedals, I realized I didn't have much need for a great sounding clean amp with tons of headroom. Finding a killer deal on Reverb, I swapped my HRDIII for this little monster. Don't be fooled by the 18W description - this amp gets plenty loud for clubs (and too loud for playing at home). The 1974X + a Gibson is a match made in heaven. Allowed me to significantly trim down my pedal board.

I hesitate to call an $800 entry level, but as the least expensive of Martin's "real wood" guitars at the time of purchase, the D16 allowed me to get genuine Martin boom and clarity without stepping up into a price bracket that I could not have been trusted with as a teenager. The D16 might lack a bit of nuance in tone and fancy appointments of those higher up the Martin line, but it's survived hundreds of gigs, made appearances on every recording I've made, and been my primary songwriting tool for more than 13 years.

Seeking to sell a few pedals to go toward purchasing a new amp, and not often using the second channel on my King of Tone, I opted to let the KoT and purchase a PoT. My King of Tone had some voodoo magic in it that this Prince seems to be missing in just the slightest way, but it still does a perfect job of pushing my Marshall across the threshold at gigs when I can't get amp volume up to the right level of dirt. Awesome pedal by an awesome builder.

Through years of tinkering, I've never found another pedal that more perfectly hit the mark of the lead tone I was searching for. Natural, just the right amount of compression, seems to play nice with different guitars and amps.

I first fell in love with delay using a TC Nova that a friend gave me. The flashback gets me 99% of the way toward the epic tape delay sound I got out of the Nova in a much smaller footprint and without any 18v power consideration. Tons of other features that I'm not sure I'll ever touch, but the Flashback offers a ton of bang for the buck.

Pretty simple - it tells me whether my guitars are in tune. Built like a tank, lasts forever, easy to forget it's there. What more could you ask for?

As mentioned in my review of my current amp - Marshall 1974X - I parted with the HRD after years of pushing it with pedals but never taking advantage of its great clean tone. Club staple, lasts forever, takes pedals well.