ralphkj

I picked up a 2007 reissue for under £2000. Records nicely and well built. The p90 sounds cool, great if you’re looking for a weird electric guitar sound on your record(Beatles used it for the main riff on “I Feel Fine”). I had mine fitted mine with fisherman rare earth blend pickup, then made the output of that pickup the new strap button so it is discreet. I now have an acoustic plays well, records well, has a very realistic sounding DI, and has a weird archtop sound with the p90. It’s a desert island acoustic.

If you can pick one of these up for a good price they are a bargain. Sounds fantastic stock(I did lower the pole pieces on mine to take the edge off) most forgiving tremolo system ever to exist in my opinion! It’s been my workhorse guitar since 2019. Just make sure you ditch the stock bridge and get a mustang, staytrem or mastery birdge. They all work and are reversible, just depends on your budget. I believe the AVRI series of fender are the best you can buy that isn’t vintage or custom shop.

Picked up a 1978 musicmaster for under £900. Very nicely worn and weathered instrument, with really old round wounds. Will probably put flats on it somewhen. You can still pick these up as a used bargain. One of the last vintage fenders you can acquire for under £1000!

Its my desert island amp, loud enough to fill rooms and outdoor spaces, small enough to be transported without too much hastle. Can take guitars, basses and keyboards really well. Very nice drippy spring reverb. Takes pedals well.

The rev-4 has modern touches tastefully applied where necessary, which brings it forward to the 21st century. Once the firmware has been installed it is a reliable and can be easily taken out for gigs. It responds well to effects too. If you can pick these up second hand then this can be one of the greatest bargains you can get these days. I had a Juno-106 for a while but craved deeper modulation capabilities, and the Prophet-5 rev 4 delivered. So much so I have made it my only poly synth, and will probably remain that way.

A more affordable alternative to the RE-201, just looks a little different and doesn’t have the spring reverb, which I was never a huge fan of anyways.

Perfect for the home studio with a handful of nice synths, keyboards and outboard gear. The channel strip compressors are a waste of time though, could have had something more useful in its place such as a HPF.

Fantastic digital reverbs and modulation. Have used this on a number of records now.

I have never heard a plugin emulation of a spring reverb that had me convinced. I think it is therefore vital that you own and use the real thing. Most spring reverbs I have tried for under £400 have been pretty muddy and had bad headroom. They needed lots of extreme EQ curves. Apart from this one. Sounds nice and clean, is less muddy and more brighter than other ones. Sounds like a reverb worth well over twice as much as this one is!

Ive owned three bluesbreakers now. They almost never sound bad. If you’re looking for a tasteful amount of overdrive then look no further

This is not even close to the best sounding delay pedal, however, it may have the most user friendly and convenient interface of any delay pedal, which is why I have held onto mine for years. The ability to allocate different presets to each footswitch makes it versatile in long gigs, and across different projects. The looper is decent too. It has a nice recording length and has other features, such as the single loop mode where it plays the loop you recorded back once, which has also come in handy a couple of times recently. You can now pick one of these up for less than £100

Great for using as a clean boost. I used mine to have achieve a more balanced signal between two guitars. Also helps shape the sound in ways an amps EQ section cannot. Very flexible, especially for live music scenarios. Its a keeper!

Having a smaller tuner allows you to make room for pedals you also need. Streamlining your board means you can have a smaller and more lightweight rig, which your back will thank you for later. Also can be buffer or true bypass which is nice also.

They don’t call these “burst killers” for nothing. I was a les paul player for years. I warmed to the 335 because it was much more comfortable and sounded a little bit nicer somehow. I really warmed to the lower amount of sustain too. Its just more versatile somehow.

This was my standalone guitar for a few years, rarely had to use anything else. 2006 was the year Gibson started chambering their guitars which made them noticeably lighter but I would argue it doesn’t make a difference in sound, if it does then it’s so little that you wouldn’t notice it in a mix. Can’t say enough nice things about it really. I sold mine for an ES-335 because I think the 335 sounds a little bit better for the types of music I make, and it’s larger body makes it more comfortable to play.

Really cool guitar that turned heads, not the best player or most useful, but that is missing the point. Would have kept mine if they weren’t worth so much.

Very versatile poly synth. Is easily fixable too, I used to gig with mine and had no issues (I was nervous about it going wrong the whole time though). The addition of MIDI adds extra flexibility over the other Junos. This means it can be sequenced, controlled, or control other hardware. It also has more patch memory than you will realistically need, if not you can memory dump onto your computer. It does great basses, pads, leads and if you get adventurous with it, it can be great for sound design. It responds well to effects too! I do think it lacks a couple modulation capabilities though. Extra shapes aside from triangle would make it that little bit more versatile, and would compete alot closer to the Prophet 5. Which is what I replaced my Juno with in the end. I would (for the right price) buy another 106 back tomorrow:)

Juno-6 gets overlooked because it lacks patch memory. I’d argue that patch memory isn’t the most useful feature a synth can have, if you know how to use them. The juno isn’t difficult to program after all so you can easily go from patch to patch in s matter of seconds. The arpeggiator is lots of fun too. It has cv in and out so you can sync to other hardware easily. Has a vcf input too so you can modulate the filter in alternative ways to the triangle lfo that the juno has built in.

Wanted to buy a juno but couldn’t afford it, so found one of these for less than 1/4 of the price. It sounds just as good, even has a couple features the juno doesn’t! Such as 2 oscillators per note, a great sequencer and cross mod. The only issue with the JX-3P is that you can only control one parameter at a time. The interface is not tactile and means you have to rely on a limited amounts of facory and custom presets. Sure you can buy programmers such as the PG-200 but they have to be plugged into the midi, which means that it now can’t talk to other instruments. Back when I owned mine the programmer costed nearly as much as the synth itself. Despite this, you can get used to these things, especially when you consider the price difference between this and a juno in the same condition!

This was my first ever synthesiser, starting with a good mono synth taught me alot. It sounds fantastic too, has a few modular capabilities too, so it can work with other synths too. I got mine for a great deal second hand, these are around £100 these days, which is almost too good to be true! Behringer has done there usual deal with these clones and tastefully added modern touches where necessary, bringing the classic Mini Moog into the 21st century:) However it lacks a couple features that Behringer could implemented. PWM would have sounded amazing for an example. I can probably live without though for £100. The only problem I really have with this synth that is stopping me from buying one, is the build quality. After a couple years of light use, only been giged a couple times a year and studio usage. It developed noise issues, and the main output broke. The sad reality of these clones is that too many corners were cut in order to make them affordable. This means a 70s Mini Moog will probably last longer! I would have happily paid over twice as much for one that was more future proof.

This is the best sounding divide down oscillator synth I have ever heard, loved my one. Unfortunately mine was on its way out, and soviet made synths are hard to service and source parts for in the west. So unless you know a tech who is fluent Russian and has all the parts you need, it’s a big risk!

Is a compact size for touring and a robust build. Sounds as you would expect. Done a couple records with the micro and mini. However, the micro does have software limitations compared to the mini, and doesn’t have the half speed switch(you have to menu dive for that) which could have been easily done. Is also a bit more than what I wanted to spend, even on the second hand market. Really I should have worked harder at school then I could have the mini…

99% of the time FM synths are used in distasteful ways, which either date the music to a bygone age or cliche riddled indie pop… however, when used nicely there are some otherworldly sounds to be had, if you know how to program it(I gave up in the end). It is one of the rare occasions where I’d recommend you buy the plugin version and save the money and space. It also ruined everything that was likeable about synthesis in the early 80s, it killed off lots of great companies and single handedly reshaped the way synths would be designed. It was all firmly down hill from here. Did I mention it weighs a tonne?

Sounds and looks the part, very loud though. This is why they are so cheap.

Was pretty excited when I got one of these in a part exchange. Chorus and vibrato circuits sound fantastic, and looks the part too. You can pick these up for decent prices if you’re patient. The sound, most of the time is way too harsh and shrill. Could never really shape the sound the way that I wanted to. Mine had a gated spring on there, which was cool at first, but drove me nuts after a while. It’s also really heavy and loud. Lets not talk about the distortion circuit.