What’d you get? The 2019 gear junkies thread

  • 1959 Gibson Les Paul 2018 Custom Historic

    this Brand is back to exellent Quality, Neck Shape is

    now really like a 59, and Prices are good for a Guitar

    of this Quality

    Well Done Gibson

  • Thanks Monkey_Man ! I picked it up for a good price, secondhand, and I'm enjoying it. I'm not sure that I wouldn't have preferred a 3-way switch plus push-pull vol and/or tone, to the 5-way, but I guess I could change that.

  • I caved and bought Superior Drummer 3 as a crossgrade from EZ Drummer 2.


    It is actually better than I thought it’d be. I do like to start with presets and everything I’d read about the product seemed to say ‘use EZ Drummer for presets, Superior is for those who want to spend eleventy billion hours tweaking’. Which I absolutely don’t. If someone else can get it 90% there (or better :) ) so my poor brain can concentrate on actually creating the song then I’m good with that. I like doing weird and cool stuff with creative effects which can be inspiring but I personally don’t want to spend ages tweaking a basic drum sound to make it work. For sure, if that’s your thing, this program does it but you really don’t have to IMO.


    If I’d realised that it had loads and loads and loads of decent presets I’d probably have jumped on it sooner. It sounds considerably better than EZ2 and has lots of little things that are really cool such as the midi edit tab (builds etc are dead easy with this) and the multiple song tabs.


    I think they’ve missed a trick by not sticking in tambourines / claps / shakers as these were nice simple additions in a song within EZ Drummer. Other than that I absolutely love it.

  • Superior Drummer 3 is great indeed but you're right, it can take some time to tweak a kit till it sounds the way you want. Making some presets now to use on our new album.

  • I've been wanting a single coil Strat style guitar for some time now. Traded an ESP Horizon FR-27 for this.




    It's a Sugi DH496C made by Nick Sugimoto. This is the guy who worked with Steve Vai on the Jem.


    Usually this model is twin hum bucker, so this one is a bit special.


    According to a certificate I got with it, the wood used for the guitar is 200-500 years old, and was submerged underwater for 75-150 years before it was recovered.

    Having a lot of fun with it!

  • I've seen a couple of my favorite artists live this year and along with a couple of new projects with different requirements I got involved with, it pushed me to go back and invest in an old school rig again. I built a pretty substantial pedalboard to replace my basic one (had forgotten how expensive that can be).


    I got 2 of those Strymon delays (El Capistan and Dig - was unfamiliar with that but they are both pretty awesome), King of Tone, Timmy, TCE tremolo, Ehx Pitchfork, Dunlop volume/exp pedals etc, among many other toys. The hardware, power supply, buffers, jumper boxes and little patch cables alone are almost half the price of it but once I started going down the rabbit hole I had to go all in.

  • I bought my Kemper, 2 Eastman SB59's (Great guitars, sold my R8's) my avatar, a HR FRFR for bedroom rocking at night, some custom wound pickups from Polar, a custom made walnut/flame maple topped Tele body for P-90's to build up.

  • This one will make Nicky smile. Wanted to go back to hardware for my synth setup, so i got this Nord Rack 3. Very interesting, I love the control layout and how easy it is to tweak.




    I have one more synth in my sights: an Access Virus B to replace the TI Snow that I sold. But I also want some kind of mini rompler that's easy to carry around. Has to be multitimbral. Any suggestions, Monkey_Man ?

  • But I also want some kind of mini rompler that's easy to carry around. Has to be multitimbral. Any suggestions, Monkey_Man ?

    Well, you sold the one I suggested, AJ - the XS Rack. :evil::D


    I'm not big on mini ROMplers and haven't kept up with them since way back when Roland and Alesis were doing them.


    I highly recommend the INTEGRA-7 if you want a shedload of Roland-ROMpler sounds at your fingertips, along with some very-tasty Super Natural synth ones. It's not mini, but although it's 2RU it's basically a light, empty chassis that runs cool. The XS Rack runs cool too as you'd remember, which is one reason I recommended it for your live rack in the first place, but IIRC you weren't happy with the depth of editing available sans the control software, and the INTEGRA won't hold you back in this regard.


    Congrats on the Nord, man. 8)


  • Already regretting the sale of the XS Rack, Nicky :(


    It really is great as a 1U rack. But the trade off is that it's a super deep 1U rack, something like 14" or 16". Consequently, I could never seem to find a good lightweight rack to fit it in.

  • Already regretting the sale of the XS Rack, Nicky :(

    When I upgrade to the XS from the ES I missed some of the cool FX they had.

    And while you can find "better" sounds with software these day, there is something about the XS that fits in the mix right away.

    It also holds up in a mix with many of it's instruments. It's a keeper. I wonder if they'll ever create an FS rack?


  • My Play toys...

    If you use FRFR the benefit of a merged profile is that the cabinet is totally separated in the profile.


    For my edification only... ;) Kemper/Axe-FX III/ Quad Cortex user