Guitar players only

Nice!

 

Newest addition
2022 fender USA professional 2

 

it's nice seeing a Strat (or tele) not all relic'ed to hell every once in a while. Congrats.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, this is where my “long travel suspension” money has gone. The latest is getting back my Fender Hot Rod deluxe chassis that a guy completely re-did for me. He handwired a '59 Bassman circuit for input 1, and then modified a separate gain stage to mirror a Marshall Plexi. As you may or may not know, Jim Marshall modified '59 bassman circuits to create the Plexi circuits. Anyway. The tiny little amp that is a backline staple for lots of gigs and had its problems handling drives and volume issues is now an absolute monster of an amp.

I spoke with the guy about upgrading the speaker (this is one of the main "solutions" to fixing these hot rod deluxes as they have a "woofy" bottom end) and he basically told me it wasn't necessary. Quality components going into the amp are all you need. And boy he was right.

 

completely agreed.
Albeit impressive how authentic they can make a relic look these days I always felt the prestige of having it worn looking would be missing if it wasn't earned through play. No judgement to the fellas that buy them just not my thing either.

 

If it’s not natural wear then forget about it. People who sand on their guitars to make them look worn and played in is retarded. I have one strat thats seen a lot of play been refretted three times has the broke in feel but still looks awesome it has turned yellow over the years tho. My les Paul has a lot of dings and scratches from playing live so much but still looks great as well.

 

I’ve got a first year hot rod deluxe I love it. I had to fix the filter caps when I got it they got so hot they unsoldered them selves. A little trick to getting some better tone is changing out the first pre amp tube and I forget which one you put in it’s place I’d have to look but gives you better volume control doesnt go from 2-10 now has more range. I’m also using an extension cabinet I highly recommend it tightens the bass up 100% leave the stock speaker and just add that extension and you won’t believe the animal it turns into.

 

Yeah I did those mods to it as well before this. 1st preamp tube change to a 12at7 or 12ay7 from the hotter 12ax7. That improved the volume issue, but it still sounded like a HRDlx. This is a whole different ball game (and I'm the last person to be a tube amp snob). I have an entirely different setup that I play on Sundays for church that is all amp-sim direct into FOH. Pedals in front of a Strymon iridium. I haven't made the leap to a Kemper, because I just dont need it for what I do. Maybe if I was a touring musician. I've played through one and they're like 95% "there" for tube amp feel, where the Strymon pedal is like 85-90% "there" which again it's good enough. I asked the guy that built out the new Bassman for me if he was interested in referrals (he doesn't have a website or anything so I wasn't sure if he was even still doing it) but he said he'd take referrals. PM me if you want his info.

Here’s the direct rig:

 

what did it run you for this guy to overhaul it? Nice pedal set up to Ive got a closet full of pedals probably my worst habit lol. I’ve been tone chasing SRV and Philip sayce for a long time without dropping the cash on a super reverb I went to pedals and finally found the one that gave me everything I was lacking. Pedal pawn Texan ranger. It gave me the glassiest tone to date and hit all the little spots in my eq I was always missing. So now I’m down to a 6 pedal board minus the tuner. Wah,pedal pawn fuzz, Texan ranger, super six OD, gypsy vibe, and octone fuzz. Every once in awhile I’ll through my delay and reverb pedals in the effects loop and play around. I don’t play live anymore or in a band since I just don’t have the time to contribute to it. I will feature in some tracks for friends when they need some lead help on their recording and I do a little open mic acoustic sessions at times when I’ve have plenty of booze in the system.

 

Awesome. I’ve heard good things about the PP Texan ranger. I’ve searched so long for great overdrive tone and once I found Browne amplification in KC,MO I stopped. They make absolutely insane stuff. Overdrive pedals where any spot that you dial in sounds good and is usable. They’ve got some great versions of blues breakers, an ODR-1 and a big muff that all sound incredible.

for the amp upgrade I think it was around $600 plus another 150-200 for shipping. (I’m in NY he’s in CA). I couldn’t be a halfway decent amp or even speaker cab for that much less the monster that i got back when he was finished.

 

Channeling my inner Beatle...

 

Guitar nut here! As I'm sure anyone in this thread can say, my stable seems to change pretty often. I'm constantly trying to economize and find a setup that will let me do the most without having to carry it all around with me. I tend to play/accompany a lot of shows for the local theatre, so it can be a pain when you need specific instruments or a 5 different tunings with no time to retune.

As such, my current players are:

- Martin HD-35 --> The workhorse. I will never get rid of this guitar. Flat-picking, finger-picking, loud strumming? You got it. Outfitted with the LR-Baggs Hi-Fi pickup system (the most transparent acoustic pickup I've ever used)
- Seagull Cedar 12 --> The 12string doesn't get a lot of play time unless there's a specific use case, but it sounds great.
- PRS Custom 24-08 --> I love the tonal options on this guitar. For those who may not know, the 08 model is dual humbuckers with selectable coil-splitting so I can get single-coil spank when I needed or great humbucker tone if desired.
- Variax JTV-59 --> The do-it-all. When paired with my helix, this is my solution for setlists that require tuning/guitar changes, without having to actually retune or swap guitars. People have a love/hate relationship with this guitar, but I've found the entire system to be exactly what I need.

As far as amps/pedals, I've transitioned completely to digital. Having the ability to plug directly in to FOH at gigs through the helix is both a time and a back saver. I can (and do) still plug in to an FRFR for rehearsals and if I want an 'amp-on-stage' feeling.

Currently procrastinating on building my own Tele-style guitar. Need to get some other projects across the finish line first.

 

this is my new (updated) direct/FOH rig.

1975 Greco gold top from Japan (considered a “lawsuit era guitar” because these factories in Japan were ripping off Gibson so well that they were producing better guitars than Gibson). This thing is an absolute dream to play. Broken in perfectly, and despite sounding perfect with the electronics still 100%, I upgraded pickups to a P90 style in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge. Easily the best guitar I’ve ever played. (I’ve never played a true blue ‘59, but have played some vintage Gibson’s that I don’t have any business playing and this thing knocks them out of the water)

The Neural Quad Cortex re-creates some some incredible amps. You can download "captures" of some of these classic unobtainium amps that are 10's of thousands of dollars and through the FOH, it sound like you're playing the real thing. Technology is pretty remarkable. I've also "captured" my favorite over drive pedals (Browne Protein, Benson Germanium Preamp, Browne Gritador, and Summer School Electronics Science Fair) to handle all of the different "flavors" of overdrive I want. The other GFI systems pedals handle all of the wet effects (modulation, delay, reverb) and are controlled with the Morningstar Engineering MC6 midi controller.