Guitars and Things with Strings

#1

So I guess we gotta reboot all the good long running threads from the old board and this was certainly one of them.

This thread is worthless without pictures of axes and toobs and shit. Get on that, boys.

#2

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Here’s me kicking it off.
Also have an Ibanez , might add some pics of it too.

Edit: just noticed, the pedal board has been slightly rearranged since this!

#3

Also, since it’s here, any one have any experience with Hughes and Kettner amps? How’s the TubeMeister for grunge/ stoner sounds?
Think badmoterfinger era Soundgarden, or Dirt from AIC, or some old Tool, or Kyuss type tones.
Thx.

#4

So even though I’ve been spending a lot of time experimenting with tones with Amplitube + real pedals + IRs and getting better results, I still decided to fuck around with amps and mics and do some shootouts to settle this shit for myself. Egnater Tweaker 15 head is something I’m interested in and I’m bidding on one right now. How do you like your combo? You probably already talked about it in the old thread, but I must’ve missed it somehow.

#5

Hmmm.
Kinda mixed about it, I got it second hand and went through a few tube changes since. I am pretty happy with the ones I have now tho.
The issue with the combo, and I think it’s common with combos, is that the speaker rattles the innards and in mine that’s causing tube noise.
There’s ways to deal with that. But tbh, playing the combo is so fucking loud, I only ever play it connected to my two notes and into my monitors.
Otherwise I’d probably collapse the house!

Sounds are good, I barely ever use the clean channel tbh, the driven channel cleans up plenty and has more eq options.
The drive is real thick and sounds good, very grunge sounding, as opposed to more modern metal I guess. Maybe that’s just me tho.

I do layer it a lot with amp sims too. I’d like something with a bit brighter sound tho. Not sure tho.

#6

Oh, and if you do get the amp, I def recommend a reactive load or something to still track it into IRs.
The cab sound is soooooo important from what I’ve noticed, just switching the IR can make tons of difference.
The two notes reload is a di box, reamp box, reactive load and attenuator in one. I’d recommend looking into it. You could get 3 tracks in one pass with it, di guitar, loaded amp into IRs and an attenuated cab sound mic’d up.

So you could compare to your hearts content.
The attenuator alone is worth it, cuz even 15 wats can be insanely loud!

#7

Yep. Bought a Captor a few days ago when Ebay was running 10% off sale. Found some store where it was already on sale, so bought a new one for $180. Picked up a BlackHeart BH112 75 watt 1x12 during that sale too. And now got my offer for the Tweaker 15 head accepted, so that’s on the way. Oh, and I got a Vox AC10 too. Went a little crazy there, I know, but fuck it. I’m tracking guitars for my EP, so going to experiment with all this shit and see how it works for me. If it’s not significantly better than what I’m doing now, I should be able to get most of my money back. But I’m also ok with keeping it all, if it gives me different flavors and I find it fun.

While I’m at it, thinking of picking up a Micro Dark too, since I’ll have a cab now. Looks like you can snag a used one for about $120, why the hell not?

#8

You know what, you can very likely get super close sounds, and it’s probably easier with sims. But I don’t check out videos and info online about sims!
I do get excited about amps tho!
Kinda jelly, I’d order a couple amps in a heart beat too, but then I’d probably be single shortly after lol!
Keep us posted!

#9

[Album] Amps
#10

So the Vox showed up this morning and I’m… kind of blown away by it. The cleans just sound pretty amazing to me in the room. So clean, yet there’s weight and fatness behind them. It’s got the chimes. It’s got the spank. I’m pretty surprised by how much low end it has. It’s only a 10" speaker, but wow. And the thing is fucking loud as hell. I mean, I was expecting it to be pretty loud. Yet standing in front of it and feeling all that air being pushed with Gain and Volume being on like…2. Holy shit!

Sounds so alive compared to Amplitube, though that’s not really a fair comparison, since when I’m hearing the sound coming out of my monitors, I’m really hearing the equivalent of the mic’d signal. So now I have to actually mic the Vox and do some shoot outs and also see how I can get it to sound in the mix. But regardless of all that, I’'ll most likely keep it just for playing, even if I decide it’s not worth the hassle of micing this shit. It’s just such a different experience playing it. How it responds to dynamics. Though that benefit is pretty much lost on me at this point, since I suck and really don’t have a whole lot of control over that aspect of my playing. It’s just something I never really practiced or paid much attention to before, playing all the cave man bullshit that I tend to play. But now maybe I’ll get some culture in me and actually learn a bit of blues and jazz. Because this thing is just begging to play some of that.

Love it.

#11
#12

Request to pin granted <3

#13

So BlackHeart cab showed up today and the Vox sounds even better through that. Just fuller and more clear sound with the bigger enclosure and 12" speaker.

Here’s the Vox with my latest addition to the family - Squire J Mascis Jazzmaster. It’s the best sounding guitar for cleans I’ve ever played.

vox%20jazz
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#14

Three friends of mine have Jazzmasters… swanky US-made ones. And every time I play one, I want one. Same with good telecasters.

In fact, I should own a telecaster or a decent knockoff. I want one with the leopard pickguard like prince.

Edit: I really want one.

#15

So while I am super interested in @aSSerbik story, I kinda am going in a different direction , and should be getting a helix rack tomorrow. I just tore my pedal board to 3 pedals, and really look forward to hearing the friedman and rectifier tones.

Also quite keen on jazzmasters, but I can’t do any more guitars!

#16

I finally got my 72 Custom tele reissue back together. The new neck is a bit of a baseball bat, like I like it so I had to compensate in the bridge a bit to get not to buzz around the 7th fret.

Love this thing, next thing will be a thin line humbucker for the bridge position, either a lil59 or a JBjr. I have a Jr in my strat so I’m leaning towards the lil59 to diversify. That said the neck pickup is SO NICE.

Eventually I’d like to go helix/kemper/axeFX but for now my guitar rig setup is more than fine.

#17

Oh, man. Speaking of helix, mine came in today.
Probably saved 400 bucks on it, second hand.
But I’ve been trying it out with 3 or 4 pedals in the front, and I just could not get it to sound good. Just harsh, and always too much agressive noisy highs. It was like the pod HD 500. But almost worst.
I was getting annoyed but still persevering when I clicked my wah on for some lead. And everything sounded great!
So the wah was on the whole time, and I am dumb!

#18

Ha, funny how these things go. What exactly made you do the switch?

My Egnater head came in today and I spent about an hour playing it so far. So the first 30 minutes, I was pretty impressed by the variety of tones I could get out of it, but nothing was particularly great. Just very decent usable cleans and dirts, and almost acceptable high gain territory. I mean, I was expecting that, judging by online demos and feedback. It’s a jack of all trades, master of none kind of amp. But then I really started to warm up to it (and maybe the tubes did too) because I started getting pretty sweet tones out of it. I like that the clean channel can get pretty dirty and the dirty channel cleans up nicely. Pretty happy with it so far and digging the whole “real amp in my face” thing.

tweaker
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#19

Well, I think I still like the egnater but I’ve had issues with it, so me not having to mess about with an amp is a draw.
Plus ma favourite ever amp I’ve ever tried is something like 3 grand sooo… I got a modeller.
Not ditching the real amp, although I’m not sure I will keep the egnater either.
Just got to play around some more to get the feel for everything.

Love the look of that setup. I really wish I had gotten a head and cab instead of a combo, seems much more practical in hindsight.

Is that a rebel 20? Or a tweaker? I also really like the dirt channel of the egnater, basically almost only ever use that one, cuz it cleans up so well, and I find my clean channel too boomy and drives too easily, cuz I got fairly hot humbuckers.

#20

Tweaker 15. That’s the same one you have (only in combo form), right?

Also, surprised you mentioned the volume of the combo. Because the 10w Vox feels A LOT louder to me. It just seems to go from a whisper to peeling paint, without a whole lot in between. Whereas the Tweaker seems to have a lot more usable bedroom volume range.