I spent more money on guitar related gear last year than I ever have in the past (and more than I'm likely to ever again!).
It all started calmly enough, as I was just considering coming back to playing, inspired to pick it up again, after seeing one of my best mates playing live in a pub/bar in Camden around the turn of 2011. I was browsing the web for a new guitar to instill a bit of drive and desire to play more. I was thinking along the lines of a twin humbucker Les Paul style axe as a starting point... I happened across a couple of guys presenting a video about a Les Paul shaped guitar on the the Andertons website. It happened to be a prototype of the Chapman Guitars ML-2, presented by the owners of Chapman and their sole distributor, Andertons; Rob Chapman and Lee Anderton. I pre ordered one within 2 days of seeing that demo. That was the first £50 down...
In the meantime, I thought, why not make my current amp and pedal rig worthy of such a nice guitar. At the time I was playing through either an, old 80's solid state, Gallein Kruger 250ML combo into a converted 2x12, which used to be a Line6 Spider II, or direct into POD Farm on my PC. Both have their positives but neither of them had got me exactly the amp sound I wanted.
So first step, something valvey to help get those low gain, just about to break up, jangly semi-cleans that I've never been able to get through the digital path. I ended up on ebay, buying a Blackstar HT-Dual distortion pedal, which did those just breaking up, cleans that I wanted as well as high gain valve based pre-amp distortion. So that was me hooked on the valve sound...
I thought I'd try out some nice overdrive pedals out too, next time I went to Andertons, to see how they stacked up against the Blackstars valve sound... I left there with a Lovepedal Redhead, which I'd seen demoed by Chappers a few days prior to me going down there. Just sounded too good to let go of, especially as a limited run pedal.
That was it for a while, but the GAS runs deep with me. I'd seen people raving about Blackstar gear for a while, and I thought it was about time I sorted myself out with a small valve based amp to practice and potentially jam with other people on. I entered a room full of Blackstar and tried a few to get a feeling of what I needed. I loved a few of them, but ended up sinking my wallet into an HT-5 combo. The one with no reverb as it was on deal. This meant I needed a reverb too, so I returned within a couple of weeks...
... Paycheck in hand to get a nice reverb to sit in the fx loop of the HT-5. Tried few, from boss, digitech, EHX and TC, and eventually stuck with the versatility of the TC Electronics Hall of Fame. Sounds great, has stereo i/o, switchable buffer/true bypass, and capable of line level and guitar level use. Sweet... that should be it until the ML-2 arrives...
On my way out of Andertons I took a look around at some of the guitars floating about on show and noticed a lovely, blue, flamed maple Ibanez S series with a sriking and unusual trem system... it was a SV5470F, and it was massively reduced. I ignored it for a month or so, until I'd been paid two months wages... I went and played it in the store and couldn't resist the temptation... It filled so many of the criteria for my perfect guitar... skinny fast neck with a non stick satin finish, awesome trem system without the minor complications of a full locking Floyd, locking self string cutting machine heads, a graphite nut, it was an Ibanez S series, which as a design goes, doesn't get much prettier in my opinion... It was mine now, and for only 2/3 the RRP thanks to it being ex display.
Time passed, my playing improved to something like it was before I stopped caring about music. Then, a call, from a young guy called Tom, I think, who told me that my Chapman Guitars ML-2 had arrived from China, and it would be ready to ship as soon as I paid up the rest of the money for my "custom" order... So I paid up, after a couple lf weeks and another paycheck had come in. Another guitar... (it brings my total to five, out of my close friends I am winning; they are jealous!) and what a guitar it is. For the money it is frankly miles better than anything else I could have bought, possibly an ESP LTD Eclipse type might have done it, but I still rate this higher. I did a review of it, I was so excited. It plays like another dream, has a glorious waxed wood finish, and just wow, whenever I play it. Still thinking about swapping out the pickups to something else and toying with the idea of an EMG HetSet... who knows... maybe later in 2012.
Just before Christmas I got an email from Boss offering me a money off voucher for any pedal over £60 RRP, so I decided to get one of those pedals that everyone seems to have. The Boss CS-3 compressor sustainer. It's pretty cool. I still need to play with it and see how it's gonna fit into my style, but I currently have it out of the fx chain as I've run out of 9V batteries and don't have any spare power supplies. Much the same reason my MXR noisegate is currently gathering dust...
I also got the urge for a delay pedal around the holiday period. This desire for repetition was fuelled by seeing a demo of the Strymon Timeline in Guitarist magazine. I almost immediately wanted one, but the price was a limiting factor... retailers were/are asking for £450 for the delay pedal. I started looking at other options with similar features, starting with TC tone print pedals like my Hall of Fame; they do the Flashback delay, which has a similar feature set and design layout to the Hall of Fame, but without the programability of the Timeline. I also found the TC Nova Delay, with the iB modification to the buffer stage for cleaner and more noise free operation... That was the one; and it's great. It doesn't have some of the awe inspiring tonal nuances of the Strymon Timeline, but it's less than half the price and is all the delay I need!
2011 was a busy and expensive year. Outside of the gear quest, I had a lot of fun, working with exciting new people and making new freinds. It turned out pretty well all in all. Lets hope 2012 holds similar joys.
It all started calmly enough, as I was just considering coming back to playing, inspired to pick it up again, after seeing one of my best mates playing live in a pub/bar in Camden around the turn of 2011. I was browsing the web for a new guitar to instill a bit of drive and desire to play more. I was thinking along the lines of a twin humbucker Les Paul style axe as a starting point... I happened across a couple of guys presenting a video about a Les Paul shaped guitar on the the Andertons website. It happened to be a prototype of the Chapman Guitars ML-2, presented by the owners of Chapman and their sole distributor, Andertons; Rob Chapman and Lee Anderton. I pre ordered one within 2 days of seeing that demo. That was the first £50 down...
So first step, something valvey to help get those low gain, just about to break up, jangly semi-cleans that I've never been able to get through the digital path. I ended up on ebay, buying a Blackstar HT-Dual distortion pedal, which did those just breaking up, cleans that I wanted as well as high gain valve based pre-amp distortion. So that was me hooked on the valve sound...
I thought I'd try out some nice overdrive pedals out too, next time I went to Andertons, to see how they stacked up against the Blackstars valve sound... I left there with a Lovepedal Redhead, which I'd seen demoed by Chappers a few days prior to me going down there. Just sounded too good to let go of, especially as a limited run pedal.
That was it for a while, but the GAS runs deep with me. I'd seen people raving about Blackstar gear for a while, and I thought it was about time I sorted myself out with a small valve based amp to practice and potentially jam with other people on. I entered a room full of Blackstar and tried a few to get a feeling of what I needed. I loved a few of them, but ended up sinking my wallet into an HT-5 combo. The one with no reverb as it was on deal. This meant I needed a reverb too, so I returned within a couple of weeks...
... Paycheck in hand to get a nice reverb to sit in the fx loop of the HT-5. Tried few, from boss, digitech, EHX and TC, and eventually stuck with the versatility of the TC Electronics Hall of Fame. Sounds great, has stereo i/o, switchable buffer/true bypass, and capable of line level and guitar level use. Sweet... that should be it until the ML-2 arrives...
Time passed, my playing improved to something like it was before I stopped caring about music. Then, a call, from a young guy called Tom, I think, who told me that my Chapman Guitars ML-2 had arrived from China, and it would be ready to ship as soon as I paid up the rest of the money for my "custom" order... So I paid up, after a couple lf weeks and another paycheck had come in. Another guitar... (it brings my total to five, out of my close friends I am winning; they are jealous!) and what a guitar it is. For the money it is frankly miles better than anything else I could have bought, possibly an ESP LTD Eclipse type might have done it, but I still rate this higher. I did a review of it, I was so excited. It plays like another dream, has a glorious waxed wood finish, and just wow, whenever I play it. Still thinking about swapping out the pickups to something else and toying with the idea of an EMG HetSet... who knows... maybe later in 2012.
Just before Christmas I got an email from Boss offering me a money off voucher for any pedal over £60 RRP, so I decided to get one of those pedals that everyone seems to have. The Boss CS-3 compressor sustainer. It's pretty cool. I still need to play with it and see how it's gonna fit into my style, but I currently have it out of the fx chain as I've run out of 9V batteries and don't have any spare power supplies. Much the same reason my MXR noisegate is currently gathering dust...
I also got the urge for a delay pedal around the holiday period. This desire for repetition was fuelled by seeing a demo of the Strymon Timeline in Guitarist magazine. I almost immediately wanted one, but the price was a limiting factor... retailers were/are asking for £450 for the delay pedal. I started looking at other options with similar features, starting with TC tone print pedals like my Hall of Fame; they do the Flashback delay, which has a similar feature set and design layout to the Hall of Fame, but without the programability of the Timeline. I also found the TC Nova Delay, with the iB modification to the buffer stage for cleaner and more noise free operation... That was the one; and it's great. It doesn't have some of the awe inspiring tonal nuances of the Strymon Timeline, but it's less than half the price and is all the delay I need!
2011 was a busy and expensive year. Outside of the gear quest, I had a lot of fun, working with exciting new people and making new freinds. It turned out pretty well all in all. Lets hope 2012 holds similar joys.
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