The Gear Thread

[OmarBradley]

I got bored of the EVH when I had it. No idea why, it's fairly versatile - decent clean and blues tone. And crushing rock/metal tone of course. It's harsh though, sharp, and not all that warm. Just wasn't the right tone for me. I am interested in the EL34 EVH that they're working on.

I would like an ENGL though. The Fireball 100, Savage 120, and Artist Edition sound great from the clips I've heard. Tried a Powerball II at GC once, thought it was "meh," but to be fair I only played at bedroom volumes.

Edited August 3, 2015 by OmarBradley

[Klay]

I'm sad to announce the electric guitar is over.

[OmarBradley]

Eh the guitar actual guitar sounded better. The piano player is a great musician though, getting all of those licks correct by ear.... unless it was planned out.

[OmarBradley]

So…. I did something…..

I gotta stop looking at Craigslist .

Lets do the cab first. It was actually a straight trade for my Marshall 1961B 2x12 (4x12 size). My cab had a V30 and CL80 that I put in it after trading the original 75's. This is a JCM800 1960A cab with all 4 original 75's! Sounded pretty good with the Cameron.

The head, is a '74 1959. Found it for dirt cheap due to it's aesthetic condition. Planning on getting it modded by either Dan Gower or Martin Golub. The head is essentially stock except for a PPIMV that I'm going to have removed. 2 of the preamp tubes are the original Mullards, but I'm pretty sure at least one of them is dying. The power tubes are a quad of Tesla E34L's, I think they're still good. Either way, the thing needs a servicing before real tone testing, it hasn't been serviced in 20 years.

[Klay]

Great score, I'm jealous!

I keep dreaming about a 1959 and a 2203 to finish my already great amp collection; actually it's nonsense as we both already have great amps, but like everyone else we always want more.

I wouldn't mod it, it's perfect the way it is - if you need more gain just boost it with a tube screamer, it's classic Marshall tone as heard in hundreds of great records. The only mod I would ever think about would be adding an extra gain stage because I don't like pedals, I prefer to control it by the volume pot on the guitar and the Plexi doesn't delivers a lot of gain, even when cranked you could use a little more.; but the tone is the best thing ever!

You really need to do a recording demo of this one! Or maybe not, so that I don't get tempted to find one for me. They're really expensive here in Europe nowadays, with the GBP raising and raising against the Euro; also you don't find many great deals on Ebay (from European sellers) and there's no such thing as craiglist here.

Bring on that demo!

Edited August 14, 2015 by Klay

[OmarBradley]

Great score, I'm jealous!

I keep dreaming about a 1959 and a 2203 to finish my already great amp collection; actually it's nonsense as we both already have great amps, but like everyone else we always want more.

I wouldn't mod it, it's perfect the way it is - if you need more gain just boost it with a tube screamer, it's classic Marshall tone as heard in hundreds of great records. The only mod I would ever think about would be adding an extra gain stage because I don't like pedals, I prefer to control it by the volume pot on the guitar and the Plexi doesn't delivers a lot of gain, even when cranked you could use a little more.; but the tone is the best thing ever!

You really need to do a recording demo of this one! Or maybe not, so that I don't get tempted to find one for me. They're really expensive here in Europe nowadays, with the GBP raising and raising against the Euro; also you don't find many great deals on Ebay (from European sellers) and there's no such thing as craiglist here.

Bring on that demo!

Honestly, I did not really like the 2204 I had. Maybe it was just one that didn't have the "mojo," but no matter what I did (OD, parametric EQ, Sonic Stomp, modded DS1), I could not get the sound I wanted or expected out of it. I remember thinking, "These (early 800 series) are the amps everyone puts on a pedestal?!?! My old 1959 sounded way better." So I always wanted to get another 1959 when the time was right. Well the time wasn't really right now, but the price sure was . And I've been curious about mods for a while. Almost modded my old 1959, but it was in pretty good condition and I didn't want to "ruin" it. This thing I have now though.... is quite "ruined" already with its PPIMV and run-down aesthetic condition. I'm bringing it into the tech on Saturday - I knew it would at least need a general servicing, but it's not sounding quite right. I'm pretty sure one of, or some of the pre/power tubes are dying/dead, since the pre's are 40 years old and the power's are 20 years old.

Once it's back in tip top shape, I will run a TS9 through it just to see, but I'm pretty set on getting it modded in a few months. An extra gain stage will be added, along with a clean channel, and a few other goodies. I think I'm going to go with Dan Gower's KK++ mod. Once I get this back from the tech though I'll finally take some time to get good recordings of it and the Cameron.

[OmarBradley]

Rig pic:

I don't own anything in this picture anymore.

Okay, well technically I still have the Crybaby, and the GE7, but I broke (maybe fixable) the GE7 in an attempt to mod it!

[Klay]

You've had so much gear already!

You just like to keep trying to new stuff or you don't feel you've found your tone yet?

As for modding the Plexi, I wouldn't do it but if you really want to try it why don't you try a switchable AFD #36 mod one it which includes a aditional gain stage?

[OmarBradley]

You've had so much gear already!

You just like to keep trying to new stuff or you don't feel you've found your tone yet?

As for modding the Plexi, I wouldn't do it but if you really want to try it why don't you try a switchable AFD #36 mod one it which includes a aditional gain stage?

I think it's a mix of wanting to try lots of different things, and searching for the tone I want. The Cameron is definitely the closest amp I've owned to what I want my tone to be (terrible sentence structure, but you get the point ). But there's a lot of stuff out there that I'm pretty sure I'd like just as much.... maybe more. And I'm sure I'll find out I don't like some stuff as much as I'd thought. I did not like the Friedman BE100 or Smallbox heads that much when I played them a few months ago at GC, and there was the 2204 I had too. So yeah, it's a tone/gear journey.

To be honest, I'm not really interested in Slash's tone, for myself at least. It's great in Guns, but I just don't think it would fit with what I'm doing (classic metal/"neo"-NWOBHM with hints of thrash, and classic rock). The mod I'm probably going to get does indeed change up quite a bit of the amp's innate characteristics/tone/feel, but the Marshall baseline is still there; just with a solid amount of more gain + a lot of cool tone shaping options. I used to be 100% anti-mod, but the more I've gotten into gear culture over the last 3-4 years, I've given more thought to modding.

EDIT: It actually feels weird right now. This is the first time in 8-9 months that I've had nothing for sale on CL/Reverb/Rig Talk, and I have no immediate purchases in mind. We'll see how long that lasts....

Edited August 19, 2015 by OmarBradley

[OmarBradley]

Went to a small amp show on Sunday, played some cool amps.

There were a few Peters Amps, he's a builder out of Canada, mostly hi gain stuff, was pretty cool.

There was a 180 watt Boogie IIC+ that had ben modded by Mesa for more gain. Good sounding amp, but for the first time ever I thought to myself, "I really don't need this much gain." I definitely liked the IIC+ better than any other Mesa I've ever played, but it still had the Mesa flavor to it, which I've never really been a big fan of.

There was an ENGL Artist Edition, I really expected to love it, but I did not bond with it at all.

But by far the best thing I played there was a Cameron CCV built by Mark himself...... I have to get one. May put my Marshall modding project on hold if Mark would build me a CCV. I should have taken some video, completely forgot. But within 30 seconds of me playing the thing, the guy next to me looks at me and says, "Dude...... you need that amp. That is literally the amp for you."

EDIT: It actually feels weird right now. This is the first time in 8-9 months that I've had nothing for sale on CL/Reverb/Rig Talk, and I have no immediate purchases in mind. We'll see how long that lasts....

Whoops......

[RussTCB]

Figured I'd post a family portait and one of each individually:

[Klay]

Looks great, Russ. Does the EVH holds tunning well when using the FR heavely? And when using the D-Tuna? I think the FR is dive only, right?

Omar, the search goes on; I tought you were finally happy with your tone!

One think that can't be overlooked is that the real test of an amp is on a band / mix context; I've heard some amps that have a great tone on their own but on a band they get buried / don't cut; in your case is particularly important as you play in a 2 guitar players band. I prefer trebly amps with good pick attack because of that, they sit well on the mix and cut as the bass frequencies are usually muffled by the bass and kick drum.

I'm still pretty happy with the Vintage Modern; have you tested on yet?

[OmarBradley]

Looks great, Russ. Does the EVH holds tunning well when using the FR heavely? And when using the D-Tuna? I think the FR is dive only, right?

Omar, the search goes on; I tought you were finally happy with your tone!

One think that can't be overlooked is that the real test of an amp is on a band / mix context; I've heard some amps that have a great tone on their own but on a band they get buried / don't cut; in your case is particularly important as you play in a 2 guitar players band. I prefer trebly amps with good pick attack because of that, they sit well on the mix and cut as the bass frequencies are usually muffled by the bass and kick drum.

I'm still pretty happy with the Vintage Modern; have you tested on yet?

Yeah the OB is bright, so it works well in my band, and I throw the mids up to 2 o' clock or so, and the other guitar player has a 6505+ and he scoops the mids, so the tonality is good now and I don't foresee it changing if I had a CCV.

And yeah amps definitely sound different by themselves vs. in the mix, or even in a different room. All I know is that the CCV sounded freaking sweet through my Cameron cab. Haven't heard back from Mark yet, looks like he hasn't logged on in a few days. I always liked this clip of CCV in the mix:

I did play a VM a few months ago, but it was at a music shop and the worker there wouldn't let me turn it up past 1.5/2 on the master so I didn't really get to experience it.

[Klay]

The CCV sounds great on that recording, very plexish / EVH I tones.

Here's mine Vintage Modern on a Cinderella jam I've recorded last week:

[RussTCB]

Looks great, Russ. Does the EVH holds tunning well when using the FR heavely? And when using the D-Tuna? I think the FR is dive only, right?

It holds a tune VERY well overall, but I'm not entirely sold on the D-Tuna. You're right in that it's dive only but that doesn't bother me all the much, what bothers me is the accuracy. It's like it's "almost drop-d" when I use it lol. I still have to use the fine tuners to actually hit drop-d. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I thought the idea behind it was that you'd just pull or push and go right to or from drop-d.

I've done some research and been told that something must be wrong. I ordered it online and have never had a proper set up done even after changing string gauges, so it could very well be my fault. I'm gonna get a set up done on both guitars very soon, so hopefully that fixes the issue.

[OmarBradley]

Looks great, Russ. Does the EVH holds tunning well when using the FR heavely? And when using the D-Tuna? I think the FR is dive only, right?

Omar, the search goes on; I tought you were finally happy with your tone!

One think that can't be overlooked is that the real test of an amp is on a band / mix context; I've heard some amps that have a great tone on their own but on a band they get buried / don't cut; in your case is particularly important as you play in a 2 guitar players band. I prefer trebly amps with good pick attack because of that, they sit well on the mix and cut as the bass frequencies are usually muffled by the bass and kick drum.

I'm still pretty happy with the Vintage Modern; have you tested on yet?

Haven't heard back from Mark yet, looks like he hasn't logged on in a few days.

He's not doing any builds right now.

[Klay]

That sucks. But you have great amps already, give that plexi a try.

Maybe you should invest in a home studio equipement to record yourself? You've got great chops and would be great for you to record your stuff with nice quality.

Russ, to properly set up the D-Tuna you need to set it up with the low E string tuned to perfect D; than you put it straight back to E using the D-Tuna and adjust the intonation via the micro-tiny allen wrench.

Mny people set it up wrongly (in E) and then have the same complaint as you're having (when setting it to D it isn't perfectly in tune), here's a video that shows how to do it:

[OmarBradley]

That sucks. But you have great amps already, give that plexi a try.

Maybe you should invest in a home studio equipement to record yourself? You've got great chops and would be great for you to record your stuff with nice quality.

Picking it up from the tech Friday, probably won't get to the space until next week to crank it though. And thanks, but to properly record at home I'd need to get the Two Notes Torpedo Live, since I can't use a 4x12 in my apartment. And that's ~$800-$1000 without an interface. For now my recording method will have to do: SM57 into Tascam DR05.

[ZoSoRose]

Damn, my Les Paul seems to have the dreaded "G String" virus. Fucker keeps going out of tune like mad

[AxlisOld]

Damn, my Les Paul seems to have the dreaded "G String" virus. Fucker keeps going out of tune like mad

Have you changed the guage of strings from 9's? That's what they set up from the factory and the "bone-like" material is filed for that on the nut. Just file it your self if you need.

[ZoSoRose]

Damn, my Les Paul seems to have the dreaded "G String" virus. Fucker keeps going out of tune like mad

Have you changed the guage of strings from 9's? That's what they set up from the factory and the "bone-like" material is filed for that on the nut. Just file it your self if you need.

Yeah, I've been playing on 9s since I got it. Might switch to 10. Is it hard filing the nut?

[AxlisOld]

It isn't hard to do, it but it requires knowing when to stop. If you're doing a lot of bending, a bone nut is gonna be kind of grabby anyway. Worst case scenario, you replace the nut if you fuck it up, and get a real bone but anyway.

[RussTCB]

I've had a very hectic couple of work days and I'm literally angry that I haven't been able to play my new LP that much. I got a set up done earlier this week and had 10s thrown on. Gonna take it for a couple hour spin here in a few minutes.

[OmarBradley]

I've had a very hectic couple of work days and I'm literally angry that I haven't been able to play my new LP that much. I got a set up done earlier this week and had 10s thrown on. Gonna take it for a couple hour spin here in a few minutes.

Clips or it didn't happen.

[OmarBradley]

I.... have a problem. My name is Omar Bradley, and I have a problem.

Decided to clean house and go for a CCV. Selling the Old Bitch, and the Super Lead, and maybe the 800 cab I picked up.

It's so unfair that drug addicts/alcoholics have huge institutionalized support systems to deal with their addictions.