Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear on May 27, 2008 | 3 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 [...]
Posted in Guitars, Music, amps, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists on May 22, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I’ve tweaked about everything I want to on my guitars and amp, but haven’t gotten around to trying out a new speaker. I have a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe that I love, and while the sound is awesome, I was wondering what kind of speaker would work well with it, since I haven’t tweaked that [...]
Posted in Guitars, Music, amps, guitar, guitarists, musicians, recording on April 28, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Getting a good guitar sound on a recording can be a real challenge when recording at home. It’s not that it’s difficult mechanically, it’s difficult because of the environment. Working around the limitations of the environment is really the challenge. For instance:
Most of us don’t have a dedicated sound-proof room; thus, we get a lot [...]
Posted in Tone, amps, gear, gear reviews on March 10, 2008 | 5 Comments »
My Hot Rod started making a bit of a humming sound a couple of weeks ago, and I figured out that it was one of the preamp tubes. So instead of replacing the bad one, I decided to replace all of ‘em. Not knowing what was best, I called up The Tube Store because I [...]
Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, performing, recording on March 3, 2008 | 4 Comments »
You really don’t get a taste for how well gear actually performs until you use it in a performance or recording situation. After all, doing tests is one thing; mixing it up in a band or recording a track with it are entirely different animals. This past weekend, I had the chance to put my [...]
Posted in amps, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, tubes on February 29, 2008 | No Comments »
Want to replace tubes in your amp? Look no further. The Tube Store is THE place to go for tubes. They have great prices, and more importantly, have tons and tons of knowledge about tubes. What’s even more amazing is they also know how a particular tube will sound in a lot of different amps. [...]
Posted in amps, buying gear, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, recording on February 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Fender® Champion 600
Price: $199 (street)
Summary: Great tone can come in small packages, and the Fender Champ is a great example of this. Simple and straight-forward, it’s easy to use, and even easier on the pocketbook. Not really meant to be used as something you’d gig with (though you could easily add an extension cabinet), it’s [...]
Posted in Guitars, amps, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists on February 12, 2008 | No Comments »
The THD web site says of the Yellow Jackets, “It’s like having a new amp…” and that’s an understatement! Pull your old tubes, pop in the converters, then plug in the EL-84’s and listen to your amp sing! Sometimes great things just come real easy! Read on….
If you follow this blog, you know that I [...]
Posted in Guitars, amps, gear reviews on February 4, 2008 | No Comments »
One of my first posts on GuitarGear.org was entitled, “Turn that F&%kin’ Thing Down!!!.” In that post, I introduced the Dr Z. Air Brake attenuator. Yes, I’m still using it, but I continued to search for that volume sweet spot. Even with an attenuator, my volume’s still pretty loud, but it’s much more controllable now [...]
Posted in Amps/Amplification, Guitars, amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear on October 5, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Talk about getting a “clean” tone, and invariably, some Fender amp will be mentioned, especially the models from the 50’s like the Twin. By far, “Fender clean” is the clean tone that has been emulated for decades by amp manufacturers the world over. Unfortunately, if you want that clean tone from the 50’s, you’ll have [...]
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