Kevin Ray Miller

It was my first guitar and it's still going strong. When I bought it from a local pawn shop I was just a pre-teen, and I must admit I lucked out on this guitar. Of course, it wasn't in a good cosmetic condition. Its finish was scuffed near the arm contour but it's pretty much expected from an old guitar. The most disgusting aspect however was the sheer amount of nicotine stains on it. It was an Olympic white Strat but it was stained almost brown due to the nicotine stains. Its maple fretboard had nicotine stains, there were nicotine stains on the back of the neck, the white pickguard was stained too, and even the control knobs had nicotine stains. Not to forget its middle pickup was missing. Whoever was the previous owner must be a total nutjob (other than being a heavy smoker) because under the pickguard this Strat was wired like the bastard child of a Strat and Tele. The weirdest thing was the bridge pickup, for some unfathomable reason it had a metal plate attached to its back (do comment if you have any idea about this oddball mod). Nevertheless, it played like butter, the fretwork was perfect, and the store owner offered me a darn low price, so I bought it and rewired it myself with new pickups. With the due course of time, I have made multiple modifications to this Strat. As of now, it has the new Kluson Supreme tuners, Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus pickup set, and the Tremmory trem stabilization system. Cosmetically this guitar looks disgusting like a pig, but good Lord it's one hell of a pig and my main guitar for all gigs.

I have this guitar in the see-through blonde finish. This guitar truly is the next stage in the evolution of the Stratocaster design. The trem system feels far better than a normal Strat trem. The fit and finish of G&L guitars do feel better in hand than Fender. However, the most unique thing about this guitar is its G&L MFD Z-Coil Hum-canceling Single-coil pickup set. I mean I use the Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus pickup set, although they sound good their tone is different from true single coils. These Z-Coil pickups on the other hand sound exactly like a true single-coil pickup, I dare to say they sound even clearer than single-coil pickups. The only things I replaced on this guitar are the tuners. The stock tuners were okay but I wasn't a fan of their low 12:1 gear ratio, so I replaced them with G&L locking tuners. The G&L locking tuners are basically G&L branded Schaller M6 locking tuners, they have a gear ratio of 18:1.

This amp is an underrated gem of an amp. I was genuinely surprised by the low prices at which they sell in the used market. Even I bought mine used at a surprisingly low price. It's a versatile amp, from old-school Blues to Hard Rock, this amp pulls off all those genres with aplomb. However, its stock Celestion Tube 10 speakers were utter pieces of junk. At low volumes, they sound lifeless, at high volumes, or when you switch to overdrive channel they not only sound muddy but also fart out. So, I replaced them with a quartet of Weber 10F150-T speakers, at first I thought about getting the 10F150 but then decided to go for the 10F150-T because they were bright like the old Jensen speakers. To say that the difference in the tonal quality was phenomenal will be an understatement. These Weber speakers stay clean and tight even at high volumes, they never fart out. If that ain't enough the amp sounds substantially louder, with the new Weber speakers it's even louder than a Fender Twin Reverb. Do note that despite being a channel switching amp it's by no means a modern high gain fire breathing monster. The tone of its overdrive channel can be best described as an old-school hot-rodded Fender Blackface tone. Think of JCM800 levels of gain with Fender Blackface style tone and you'll get the idea. With the stock speakers, it had a bit of a Marshall like tonality, but with the Weber speakers, it sounds like a hot-rodded Fender Blackface amp. As for its clean channel, all I can say is that it's perfect. It has excellent Fender Blackface style cleans, think of a Super Reverb with the headroom, and quick response of a Twin Reverb and you'll get the idea. With the brightness and expander switch on and the bass and treble dialed back by a hair, and mids dialed back you get the nice scooped John Mayer style guitar tones. This amp truly deserves a lot more recognition among Blues and Blues Rock guitarists than what it has right now. If you swear by Fender Blackface amps then try this amp, you'll be highly impressed. If I need to pick flaws, I would say that a tremolo could have been a nice addition, a Blackface style amp feels a bit incomplete without it. The knobs for adjusting the send and return level of the effects loop could have been bigger, I find it tough to turn the diminutive trim-pots because I have thick fingers. The design of the standby switch is awkward, I wonder who the heck gave them the bright idea to not only use a small push-button switch as the standby switch but also tuck that darn switch in a tough to reach position under the power indicator. The design of the power switch is awkward too, it's located at the rear of the amp and it's a mini-rocker switch, yes you read it right, it's not even a full-size rocker switch or toggle switch. Whenever I have the amp placed near a wall I need to feel around the back for the power switch.

This wah pedal is pricey but unlike some other so-called boutique wah pedals, this pedal is by no means overpriced. Other wah pedals like the ones from Dunlop, VOX, Wilson Effects, etc don't even come close to this pedal in terms of quality. All three wah modes sound great, but the "Jimmy" and "Shaft" modes are my favorite ones. The range of this wah is just perfect and the huge sweep of this wah lends excellent controllability. Another cool feature is the onboard buffer/booster, it's fuzz friendly, it's transparent, and it also ensures that there's absolutely zero volume loss when I step-on the wah. As for reliability, mark my words, this wah pedal is so rugged that it can pretty much take a nuke and still work fine. Buying this wah is like a one-time investment, it's so well built that it will last you for your lifetime (maybe even outlast you).

Not only this Uni-Vibe pedal sounds great but it also has the cleverest design ever used on a Uni-Vibe pedal. The way they have integrated the foot rocker and the Uni-Vibe pedal in one unit is quite a genius idea. It sounds as good as vintage Uni-Vibe units but due to its design, it barely consumes any space on the pedalboard.