Vinny Miller

If I had to pick just one, this would be it. Best £800 ever spent in my life. So easy to play, incredible variety of tones, beautiful sounding from stock workhorse guitar that will stay beside me until I croak. Esp new players: MEXICAN FENDERS - start here and you won’t go wrong.

This is how we lay clean, tight guitar and bass parts - this thing is always on, writing, tracking, performing. Does both: grabs peaks on way in and the second stage sustains, so all those rhythmic nuances and harmonics come out through the amp. Very dynamic piece, once you’ve got your ‘always on’ sound, lots of different ways it responds to playing style and input gainstaging eg. roll off guitar volume knob

When you bowl up to the studio with one of these, expect raised engineer eyebrows - until they hear it in action. I haven’t A/B’d it with anything, i just hit my guitar and it sounds wonderful, that’s all I know - full, dynamic, responsive. It’s big and heavy. It’s on my modified pedal board (yes!) and it comes everywhere with me. I wouldn’t be without it. So glad I didn’t cheap out on this critical part of the signal chain.

There are other options for 1176/LA-2A chain, but this: 1. Sounds great - very difficult to lay master vocals when you’re fighting to get a sound. This takes that fight away, so you can concentrate everything on material and performance. 2. Cost effective against alternatives. 3. Road Tough. 4. Big knobs, switches and VUs - no digital futzing, firmware upgrades, passwords or spinny beach balls. Just electricity and pure SOUND.