Post Musical Equipment Here....

[Punk_FAS]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Focalor. I'm basically in my first week or two in kindergarten when it comes to guitar stuff at this point I think. I hadn't even heard of having a guitar "set up" until a week or two ago - I didn't know that was a thing. I bought some new strings for it (9 gauge(?), which are supposed to be better, or more forgiving for newbs like myself), and I did buy a tuner for it as well. I'm still forming my callouses... chords are painful to do at this point (have only learned a D chord, and an A minor chord), and I haven't used them in a song or anything.

Here's my tuner:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H74YV56

And here's my amp that I already bought (maybe a little premature - not sure if I need one yet):

https://www.samash.com/Product2_10001_10051_3524505_-1____ProductDisplayErrorView

Instrument cable I bought (bought this because the thin one I had was giving a slight hiss from the amp with guitar plugged in. After new cable, hiss is still there...):


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XQD34PQ

Strings I bought:


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CAUYNCO

[quadz]

And here's my amp that I already bought (maybe a little premature - not sure if I need one yet):

https://www.samash.com/Product2_10001_10051_3524505_-1____ProductDisplayErrorView

Nice; that appears to be a capable practice amp.

(Review here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MUAeCKGHEg )

[quadz]

P.S. my parents were not thrilled with the notion of my playing electric guitar; and my first practice amp (circa 1982) was presumably the cheapest available in the local music store:



To my present-day annoyance, I think that lackluster amp may have survived all the moves since then and still reside in a closet somewhere; whereas I sold gear along the way (e.g. rackmount Yamaha SPX-90 effects processor that I'd bought new in the mid/late 80's) that I wish I still owned today.

Oh well.



Most of all - have fun!

[|iR|Focalor]

With cables, it almost doesn't matter which brand you buy anymore, MOST of them aren't terrific. They'll perform fine when they're new and if you baby them all the time. D'addario under the company name Planet Waves used to make some really really good cables back in the early 2000s. The connectors were sealed and molded with hard plastic to make it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to break the solder points inside. The ends were gold plated and had these cool spliced sides that would make the plug always stay firmly connected and noise-free even if the plug rotated in the jack a little.



I dunno what specific model of cable that is pictured. Mine were all black plastic ends, not brushed metal like that. But that's the same basic sure-connect thing. I absolutely CANNOT find these anymore. And no one else makes anything similar. If you ever find any, get some. I swear to god, you can't break those things even INTENTIONALLY. I bought a 25 footer back in 2005ish for about 70 bucks I think. I slammed my guitar on the ground with the plug still in it and it bent the metal end of the plug to a 45 degree sticking out (did WAY worse to my Ibanez, some DEEP gashes in the tail of the guitar from that temper tantrum). IT STILL WORKS PERFECTLY FINE! I've tried locking it down in a bench vise and bending it back straight, but it won't budge even if I whack the fuck out of it with a 2 pound mallet. So I just use it as is. Still works just fine, lol.

Anyway, my advice on cables is to get something decent, but don't spend ridiculous rich-boy prices on shit like those fucking Mogami Gold cables that they ask about 80 bucks for. That's a stupid investment. Fender makes some decent ones with braided tweed shielding, I use one myself a lot. Had it for about 15 years with no problems. The thing to remember is to not let the straight cable end get bent in a 90 degree angle from the plug, like if you sit with the plug pressing against a sofa cushion or the floor or something. It'll stress that solder joint and break it.

I've used those Ernie Ball 9's myself for decades on my Ibanez. I tried using them on my Gibson Les Paul with a tune-o-matic bridge like yours. I've encountered problems with them though. The high 9 string always comes unwrapped from the ball end after the strings get settled in and I start trying to do bends on it. Had it happen to me about 5 times now, every set I've tried to put on there. I always end up having to put another 11 or 12 on there in its place to take the tension without unwrapping from the ball end, so then my strings go 11, 11, 16, 24, 32, 42. It sounds okay I guess, but personally I like a thinner springier sound from my lead playing and the ability to bend notes more than 1 step up. With an 11 on the top, it's really difficult to muscle the string and bend it past 2 full notes.

So if you're ever playing and notice that 6th string keeps tuning down and you have to keep twisting the peg to tune it back up correctly, the string is probably coming unwound from the ball end. If it'll work with those Ernie Ball 9's though, yeah, use those. They're dirt cheap and decent quality.

[|iR|Focalor]

Got a chance to try out one of the Marshall JCM800 reissues today.

Mmmm... S'okay. If you're not familiar with the reputation of the JCM800's, they aren't massively hi-gain distortion machines. They get somewhere close to early Guns N Roses kinda overdrive and go no further. Has a "high" and "low" input. Through the high, you can dime the pre-amp knob and get heavy overdrive. Through the low, it stays clean even with the preamp maxed out. So even though it is a very simple one channel amp, you could probably run a A/B switch box as a splitter to the high and low inputs and use those as basically a switch for a clean and dirty channel select.

But... with a price tag of $2300??? Eh. I don't think so. It's really cool, but it ain't THAT cool. From what I've been reading from other people online, they say the reissues don't sound as good as the originals. And you can buy an original early 80s JCM800 in terrific shape for around 1500.

[Punk_FAS]

Bought a couple new things lately. Bought the acoustic/electric because it was apparently a good deal and I'd like to have one of those eventually. Also bought the amp because I wanted something so I splurged and went overkill for something that's supposedly really good. Way more than I need now, and possibly more than I'll ever need, but I got it anyway because getting good deals on things I don't need or might not use much is fun apparently:

Guitar (paid $152 total including shipping):

https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11501&cs_id=1150107&p_id=610820&seq=1&format=2

Amp (paid $280 total shipped):

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Boss/Katana-KTN-100-100W-1x12-Guitar-Combo-Amplifier.gc

[|iR|Focalor]

Dunno what to think of this amp.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Marshall/Studio-Classic-20W-Tube-Guitar-Amp-Head.gc



Marshall has a very interesting new little 20 watt JCM800 ($1,299.99) which costs more than any of the DSL's or any of the JCM800's, JCM900's, or JCM2000's did when they were current from what I remember. Fuckin' inflation and greed for ya.

JCM 800's sound great if you want a no bullshit 1 channel Marshall amp for playing hard rock and classic rock. But I dunno how confident I am in this thing to sound right. Or to last. It's the size of their little 15 watt DSL portable heads, but it's actually made in England rather than in Vietnam like all the DSL series.

My head scratching starts here: It's got 2 EL34's in the power section. Not EL84's like I expected, and that's good because EL84's tend to overdrive sooner and sound a little mushier with less clarity in the midrange than EL34's. But usually you see 1 EL34 for every 20 to 25 watts of power, and all the old 50 watt JCM800's have 2 EL34's. So... how does a "20 watt" amp possess 2 EL34's in it's power section and run them hot enough to achieve the right sound? If tubes run too cold, they probably don't compress the signal like they're supposed to, and they certainly don't overdrive.

If they'd just price their fucking JCM800 reissues at something god damned REASONABLE, they wouldn't HAVE to make these cheaper lunchbox heads to rake in business, they'd just sell more of the fucking full sized JCM800's. $2,599.99 they have JCM800 100w reissues priced at right now. Fucking INSANE.

[|iR|Focalor]

My "old" amp system...


All of it now belongs to someone else, with the exception of the DigiTech GSP2101, the shitty plywood roadcase, and the pedals.

I kept the Digitech unit. I figured selling it would probably get me $100 or likely even less, and since it does work and it does have a whole host of effects, I can still get occasional use out of it.

The grey Aphex compressor unit (3rd unit) I sold probably 2 years ago. I didn't have a power cord for it, didn't even know if it worked, and a used music shop gave me $5 for it towards a used Ibanez Turbo Tubescreamer pedal.

The Marshall Jmp-1 preamp I sold at Guitar Center for $250, and they sold it 2 days later for $399.

I was going to sell them the Peavey Classic Series 120/120 poweramp as well but... apparently all these stores are using fucking ebay as their working barometer for the current market values of things. The most they would offer me was $120, and he said they'd resell it at $199... a 240 watt ALL TUBE POWERAMP that WORKS. Meanwhile, they had a fucking late 90's Peavey Bandit 112 Transtube combo sitting over amongst the amps that they were asking $225 for! Assholes. Pisses me off. Ebay is NOT always current market value. People put shit on ebay ALL THE TIME asking far too little for it simply because they want to move it as quickly as possible. It's "garage sale" prices, not "market" prices.

So instead, I hauled it over to Atlanta Discount Music in Chamblee and consigned it over to them. I put $399 to $350 on it, worried that it might sit there a while. Nope. One week later, they had a buyer. So minus their 17% consignment fee, I got $290 out of it. Pretty sure I could've gotten the $399 out of it had I remained firm on that price.

Anyways, I finally have myself a new amp. A brand new Orange Rockerverb 100 mkIII in black. Don't have any pics yet. I'll post one from the web instead. Kinda having problems with it though. I can't turn the gain up past about 55% on the dirty channel without an annoying electrical buzz in the background. It ain't the power in my house. I actually bought 2 different Rockerverb 100's thinking it was just a fucked up amp. It did the same thing in the store. So maybe it's the tubes, maybe it's something else, I dunno. According to the owners manual... Orange uses top quality tubes in their products. But according to guitar forums I've seen all over the web, some people claim their stock tubes are crap and should be replaced immediately. Might try swapping out the 2 dirty channel tubes with the tubes in the Digitech unit and see what happens. I dunno, gonna ask around a bit more before doing anything. Hopefully I can fix it by just swapping preamp tubes and leave the power tubes alone. Power tubes COST MORE... and this amp isn't self-biasing, so I'd have to have someone bias the new tubes as well, probably another $100 just for the labor.



It's only "somewhat" easier to tote due to the single handle in the middle. But I'm pretty sure it's actually HEAVIER than my old rack with that huge two-sided 3-space Peavey poweramp, by at least 10 pounds. Jesus Christ, this damn thing is heavy. I'll bet you it weighs more than the 4x12 speaker cabinet. Still using the Carvin Steve Vai Legacy 412 cab with Vintage 30's.

Also got myself a new wah pedal.



I tried to no avail to find a replacement long-shaft 100k pot to refurbish my old mid-90's US-made Vox V847 wah. Apparently no one else EXCEPT Vox ever used such a thing. Instead, I just went and bought something new. I wanted something very old school 1960's sounding like my old Vox was. I had heard good things about the Fulltone Clyde wahs, but I didn't like them. And the Dunlop Clyde McCoy's were pretty good, I was more than likely gonna buy one. But then on a whim I tried this Real McCoy wah. This thing is GREAT! Fairly silent sweep, it's pretty much a part-for-part reproduction of the old Italian made wahs like Hendrix and Clapton used. It's also got this filter toggle under the treadle that shifts the sweep range a bit to accomodate single coils vs humbuckers better. It is Wah PERFECTION! Has the perfect sweep, the perfect harmonics to the upper range. Think I paid $235 for it at Atlanta Discount Music, so it might be a little cheaper at Guitar Center, I dunno. Still worth the price though.

[quadz]

But then on a whim I tried this Real McCoy wah. This thing is GREAT! Fairly silent sweep, it's pretty much a part-for-part reproduction of the old Italian made wahs like Hendrix and Clapton used. It's also got this filter toggle under the treadle that shifts the sweep range a bit to accomodate single coils vs humbuckers better.

Nice 

Was unfamiliar with the RMC brand.


"Recently" (as in late December 2018) I came to be in possession^{(thanks, Santa)} of this parametric EQ, which is so much higher quality than the Boss PQ-3B pedal I still had from the 80's.



It sounds great, doesn't color the sound with noise or distortion that I can hear (whereas the Boss pedal would scoop or boost frequencies but kind of degrade the overall sound.)

The "Bypass" button is configurable, so I have it set instead to toggle the EQ on/off (rather than full bypass) so the Boost and EQ can be separately controlled by each footswitch.


Around the same time, I also swapped out the Vintage 30's in my 2x12 guitar cab with Celestion G12H-75 Creambacks instead. They sound tasty, but they're a bit weak on bass response. Considering swapping one V30 back in, and hearing how it sounds blended.

[|iR|Focalor]

They are SO GOOD sounding. This RMC4 Picture Wah has a pretty similar sweep to my old Vox wah, only the treble at the peak of the sweep isn't so brash and annoying, and it's a little less microphonic overall, but still microphonic juuuust enough to achieve those cool harmonic overtones when running into a dirty amp.

And of course they have others with knobs that tweak several unique aspects of the sound, things that Dunlop and Fulltone wahs don't even do, they've got another one with a multi-band EQ on it, several others. I only tried the RMC4 Picture Wah though, so I can't speak to what the others sound like. I just wanted a plain old one-size-fits-all kinda wah.

I've gotten over the tweaking thing. I got tired of that rack rig because there were just too many options and variables to deal with. I ended up removing the Digitech unit from the chain because it was too difficult to quickly adjust things. The manual for it is this big 200 page thing that I printed out and stuck in a 3-ring binder. And without the manual, there's NO WAY you'd be able to figure out how to work the damn thing on your own. And even with just the Marshall preamp and the Peavey poweramp, it was still annoying to deal with the button pushing bullshit on that Marshall JMP1.

While amp shopping the other week before I bought my Orange, I ran across this little guitar shop not too far from my house, that's apparently been there the whole time I've been living here, and I never knew it. But they had a used 90-watt Mesa Boogie Mark5 head that they were asking only $900 for. I think they typically go for about $1700 used. I don't think these people knew they were asking too little for it. It worked perfectly, sounded pretty good. But like you'd expect with the latest and greatest top-of-the-line Mesa Boogie head, it's got options and functions out the mother funkin' wahzoo. I hadn't even considered a Mesa Mark5 when looking for an amp because I thought it would be too expensive. But 900 for the greatest Mesa head ever made? It was VERY tempting. But I had to pass. Too many knobs... plus it was used. I don't trust my luck enough. Sure enough I'd buy it and get 2 days past the return cutoff date and it would've stopped working.

And the latest top-of-the-line Marshall's are even WORSE.  There's like 30 knobs on it. 3 channels... with 3 distinct "modes" per channel. It's just too much to deal with. They want about $2,500 for them... and the reverb isn't even spring, it's digital. They do sound pretty good, but the reverb is just... sad, lol. I dunno, I guess some people PREFER that digital crap to the old fashioned organic sounding spring stuff. Weirdos.

But I'm liking the Orange amps these days. They're simple to operate with fewer knobs than anyone else, they sound good, they're damn near idiot proof. Less time screwing around finding "the right sound", more time getting on with it and just playing.

Hauled my Rockerverb up to the Atlanta Guitar Center today and got someone else to take a look at it and give me a 2nd opinion about the noise happening in the dirty channel with the gain knob. He said it was normal just like the people at the other Guitar Center where I bought it. I dunno though. I'd still like to attempt to figure out how to at least somewhat diminish the noise. I first have to find out if swapping preamp tubes will void the warranty.

There's 6 preamp tubes:
12AX7 - clean channel gain stage 1&2
12AX7 - dirty channel gain stage 1&2
12AX7 - dirty channel gain stage 3&4
12AX7 - phase inverter
12AT7 - reverb
12AT7 - effects loop

It's just the four 12AX7's I wanna do anything with. Not gonna touch the EL34's in the poweramp at all.

These tubes are a brand I've never fuckin' heard of before. PM?
http://www.pmguitartubes.com/

From what little I've seen online, they're apparently re-branded cheap Chinese made tubes. "Here at Orange, we only use TOP QUALITY tubes in our amps..." Yeah, right.

Anybody else tinkered with tubes and tube rolling, 12AX7's specifically? Recommendations? Tips? Advice? Tales of tone miracles from the baby jesus? Horror stories from Clive Barkers butthole?

[|iR|Focalor]

Still haven't touched the tubes in my Rockerverb head. Took the amp to a different Guitar Center a few weeks ago (the main one in Atlanta), and they assured me it was working properly. *shrugs*

The more I've played it, the quieter it's become. Perhaps these shitty chinese tubes require a break-in period. It still produces a little bit of microphonic hum past the 1:30 to 3oclock mark on the gain dial, but it's nothing I can't deal with.

But the main reason for this post... Do old strings sound better than new ones? Indeed they do. See for yourself.

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uJYiRai3vRg/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uJYiRai3vRg"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/uJYiRai3vRg" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/uJYiRai3vRg</a>

[|iR|Focalor]

I'm still kinda wanting an original mid-90's green Russian bubble font Sovtek Big Muff fuzz. And Guitar Center finally has one in their inventory they're asking 250 for, but it's pretty rough looking so I'm gonna pass.

And the Russian years for Sovtek/Electro-Harmonix was a pretty odd period. They had problems with all sorts of things. During the short "tall font" period of the Big Muff pedal, they had issues with shitty paint, which is why most of the tall font Big Muffs you see now have bubbles under the paint and big spots where the paint has chipped off. They had troubles attaining parts with the same values, so some potentiometers had different values than others, certain batches had different values to apparently identical resistors and such, etc.

But this is the first one I've seen with a mid-word fuck up on the output jack.

[|iR|Focalor]

Bought one of these overpriced little whores today. Cost me about $185. EHX makes another octave above and below pedal called the MicroPOG, but it only does 1 octave above and one octave below your dry signal note. And the MicroPOG costs $205, which is really weird to me, because it seems like the Pitch Fork does more but somehow costs less.

This one, you can select the interval of the pitch from 4th's to perfect 5ths to 1 octave up and down, 2 full octaves up and down, or 3 full octaves up and down. And as you see from the toggle switch you can select only the up or down pitch or BOTH, and with the LATCH button, it turns the switch into a momentary switch which makes the pedal swiftly bend the note up or down for whammy-like effects. One really cool thing about it is if you turn the octave selector all the way down to 0, it gives a detune effect. I dunno if you've ever heard one before, but it's kinda like a chorus effect... but different. I had a detune effect module on my Digitech rack processor that I used quite a bit to get a wide spacious kinda Zakk Wylde chorus sound.

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s2O2xaRfje0/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s2O2xaRfje0"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/s2O2xaRfje0" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/s2O2xaRfje0</a>

[quadz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWRfLuJ_NKw

(surprise Alex Lifeson appearance at 21:15)

[quadz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ROaoSIYSUg

His channel's primarily metal focused, but this guy is legit talented at researching and recreating classic rock/metal guitar tones (amps, speakers, mics, pedals, f/x chain, etc.)