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Archive for May 27th, 2008

GuitarGear.org GeoCache

Posted in gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars on May 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This past weekend, I discovered a new hobby: GeoCaching. From geocaching.com:

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What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

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I had a total blast searching for caches over the weekend with my son, and considering my recent health problems, it’s a great way for me get outdoors and get some exercise to boot. I’m so inspired by this that I’m going to create a GuitarGear.org GeoCache, and fill it with custom printed GuitarGear.org picks. It’ll be a great way to share the love!

Stay tuned for GuitarGear.org’s GPS coordinates!!!

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Vintage Gear Find: ’64 Epiphone Futura

Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear on May 27, 2008| 4 Comments »

The big drawback of being a gear freak is that it can be an expensive hobby. But at the same time, it’s a hell of a lot of fun discovering new gear, or discovering little-known vintage gear. I was in a local use gear store the other day, and happened upon this amp. What a classic! It’s all-tube, with 4 – 8″ speakers. As far as tone goes, think Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and perhaps a little quieter Dick Dale. In other words, this produces pure, clean surf guitar tone.

I tried it out with a number of guitars, and could never get it to break up. Talk about headroom! I do have to say that with a drive pedal, it didn’t sound too good. Actually, it sounded awful with a drive pedal.

Here’s the cool thing about this amp: If you run across one, and you like its sound, you can get it for around $500. For a clean tone vintage amp, that’s a pretty awesome price!

As far as features are concerned, it has two completely independent channels. The first channel only has EQ, while the second channel adds Presence, Reverb and Vibrato. Unfortunately, the vibrato on the amp I tried didn’t work, but the reverb was nice and thick, and reminiscent of old surf music. It sounded best with a semi- or hollow-body axe with the reverb kicked in about halfway.

There aren’t too many of these floating around, but you can find ’em.

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