I have been playing guitar a lot lately.

From 1995 to 2000 I worked in a music store.  I had been playing guitar for a few years before that, but while working at the music store that was the climax of my playing.  I would work in the store for 8 hours or so, then go home and practice for another 4 to 8 hours.  Toward the end of working at the store, I was pretty burnt out on the whole thing.  In the years since I have played a little off and on.

I spent an enormous amount of money on gear over the years.  I got my first guitar which was an Emerald Green Ibanez RG-570 in 1991 I think, along with a Park amp.  I bought all kinds of different pedals, Ibanez delays, Marshall Govn'r and many more.  My buddy Kieth sold me his Boss SE-50 processor and his wireless, I had some nice stuff and a crap amp. 

Eventually, move from the Park to a 60 watt Tubeworks amp.  It was a good amp, solid state power-amp and one tube in the pre-amp.  Great spring reverb!  Had that for a while.  Bought a 50 watt Marshall SLX head, ran it through the speaker on the Tubeworks for a while.  Then Marshall came out with the powerbreak.  That allowed me to run the SLX cranked and keep the speaker volume low.  Eventually I got a Marshall 4X12 cab that was a factor second.  The screw holes that held the back on were splintered, so some long wood screws fixed that and it sounded great!  That SLX was really nice in that setup.

Then Marshall released the 30th aniversary amps.  I bought one in a combo setup.  That thing was smokin!  100 all tube watts and a speaker.  It weighed a ton, something around 100 lbs.  Crazy heavy, but great amp.  It really had it all.  I regret selling it, one of two items I bought that I regret selling.

Some time around here I bought a Peavy 5150 2X12 combo.  I had that amp for one weekend.  It sounded great, but I bought it from a store that the owner smoked in and it smelled so bad that I couldn't sleep in the room it was in.  I tried everything I could to clean it.  Eventually I put it in the garage till Monday when I took it back.  That amp was so bright it was amazing.

So with all the guys I hung out with and that worked in the store, the Mesa Boogie TriAxis was the holy grail.  My guitar teacher Darren brought his rig in one day and we did lessons on it.  I was in instant love.  It wasn't a rig though that was easily accessible to a person making the money I was at the time.  But through all the amps I bought, I was always searching for that sound.

Durring this time I was buying guitars as well.  I had my RG-570, the neck was so thin that I put my thumb through the back of it, so I got a new neck for the guitar with the Shark Tooth inlays, so now it looks like a RG-770, the orginal neck was so great, the new one doesn't play as well.



Bought an Ibanez PS10 for the KISS convention in 94.  I sanded the clear coat off the back and had Paul, Gene, Bruce and Eric Singer sign it, then had it re-clear coated.  It looks amazing.

 

Bought a Ramondo clasical, but sold that after a while.

I bought an Ibanez 540S7, the first Ibanez S series 7 string, only about 450 of them around.  My guitar teacher Darren has one as well.  He and I had to send the orginal pickups back to Dimarzio to have then re-sealed, they were super harmonic at medium to high volume.



The RG-770 has had tons of pickups over the years, it came with crap Ibanez pickups.  I change the bridge out with a PAF-Pro, which sounded really good, tried a Tone Zone for a bit and a couple of other pickups that escape me right now.  Then Dimarzio came out with the Steve Vai Evolution.  I got one of the very first sets of bridge and neck pickups in purple.  It has a Dimarzio HS-2 in the middle.  I replaced the tone pot with a push-pull pot.  I can split the two humbuckers by pulling up on the pot, depending on which pickup is selected with the 5-way switch, which needs changed out today. :)  I am thinking of throwing a Super Distortion in it.  But need to change the 5-way out first.

I wanted the Evolution for my 7-String but at the time it didn't exist.  I called Dimarzio because they said they did custom pickups.  I argued with Steve Blucher for about an hour.  He said the custom pickup thing was a misprint and that it would be very expensive to make one and it would never work.  2 years later, there was a 7-String Evolution.  I bought one, but it didn't sound as good as I had hoped, so I went back to the Blaze II.  The 540S7 is my main guitar today.  It sounds great.  Thinking of trying a 7-String Tone Zone in it, but we will see.

I found a 540P in a pawn shop.  It was bright yellow.  Went back to the store called Ibanez to see if they had a neck for it as the neck on the guitar was shattered. They did, so I bought it.  The yellow was so bright you could turn the lights off and still see the guitar in a pitch black room.  Sanded that off and had it painted a transparent cherry. It looked great.  Problem is that it sounded terrible.  I tried 4 sets of pickups in it.  The body was so small that it had no low end.  So I sold that guitar shortly there after.  It looked cool though.

So I saved my money for months and finally bought a Mesa Boogie TriAxis.  I was so happy when I unboxed it.  I bought it from Neil at the Guitar Shop.  That was a great store.  It wasn't some music store with trumpets and what ever in it, it was a Guitar Shop!  The amp room in the hay day had 2 refrigerator size racks in it.  They were loaded with all the stuff you wanted!  Neil had Boogie, Soldano, Bogner and everything else you dreamt of.  Not to mention the guitars, Tom Anderson, Gibson, Jackson, ESP, Fender and one I can't rember the name of, but it had a composite neck and sounded great.

So I got my TriAxis and had nothing to run it through.  I bought a SKB rack to mount it in.  Sold the SLX, the PowerBreak and put the 30th aniversary Marshall up on consignment.  Started saving for a Mesa Boogie 2:90. 

All my buddies either had odd power amps with their TriAxis or a Boogie 50-50.  I wanted the switch tracking and to have the power amp that was made for the TriAxis.  Also besting my buddies might have played a little into it. :)

Eventually I sold the 30th Marshall and went down and bought the 2:90.  Went home and slapped it into my rack.  Wired it up and it sounded AMAZING.  I sold my orginal 2:90 to my buddy John and eventually bought a new one.  The new one blew the fuses and 2 tubes when I got it home.  It never sounded as good as the orginal one.  Thinking of buying a new one direct from Boogie and selling the one in my rack.

I bought a Rocktron Intellifex to go with it, a Furman AR-1215 to keep the power clean.  I was running it all through that Marshall cab and that didn't feel right.  About that time Neil decided to close the store, so I went down to Guitar Shop and he sold me a Boogie Rectifier 4X12 cab for $450.  Amazing deal.  I went back a few weeks later to get another one and he said he shouldn't have sold me that cab for that.  Oh well.  That cab is great.  4 Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.  Wish I had the diamond plate sides for it.



I bought a 12 space Boogie Rack for it, wish I had gotten the rear rack rails, that great rack.

Got an Alesis Data Disk to dump the midi to.  Got a Digital Music Corp Ground Control, the orginal version with an Ernie Ball volume pedal as a continous controler so I can move setting in the TriAxis in real time. An Alesis stereo compressor and a Furman PL-Plus for the rack lights.  Have to look like I am ready to tour right? lol



The rack has 4 spaces still open that were supposed to be filled with an Eventide Harmonizer and a TC Electronics 2290.  That never happened.

I had also bought a Boogie V-Twin pedal and a Boogie Bottle Rocket.  I regret selling those as well.

I got a Mesa Boogie Subway Rocket at GC one day, they had them on close out.  Great amp.  Everybody who comes over and hears it offers to buy it.  It is NOT for sale.  Sounds almost better than my rack.



So today the rack from top to bottom looks like this.



Mesa Boogie 12 space rack
Furman AR-1215
Furman PL-Plus
Alesis Data Disk
Mesa Boogie TriAxis
Alesis Stereo Compressor
Rocktron Intellifex
Mesa Boogie 2:90
Furman Plug Lock in the back.

The future of my gear.

I have been checking stuff out online over that past few weeks.  Worked with the amp a bit and got some really great sounds.  Guess my ears have gotten much better over the years.  But the Intellifex just doesn't cut it anymore.  So I am thinking of replacing it with an Eventide Eclipse.  Kind of shoots 3 birds with one stone.  Great processor with the pitchshifter and delays I want.

Would like to get a rack tuner, but not sure that I want to spend the kind of money that Boss wants for their rack tuners.  So I might just stick with my TU-12H on a rollout rack shelf.

I am thinking of picking up a Voodoo Labs Ground Control GC-X.  It would be great to switch things in and out of my signal path with a little more control than I have now and I can lose the power supplie completely for the Ground Control pedal.  Right now I Phantom power it from the TriAxis, but I understand that the GC-X allows you to Phantom power the ground control but don't need the power supply plugged into the back.

Want to get rid of the Data Disk, I never use it and can back everything up to a laptop.

I think that is about it.  Got my Crybaby 535 that sounds great.  Might find a couple of pedals I would like.  Maybe an MXR and what not.

Need to get a hard disk recorder or some recording software for my laptop.  A couple of Mic's.  I have an Alesis SR16 drum machine which sounds great.

I would love to pick up a Boogie MKII C+ one day as well.  Then I will need a high gain amp switcher as well.

Looking back I have had a lot of gear, sorry I sold some of it.  But had a lot of fun with it all.

I think that is it for now.  I will be posting some more music and guitar related posts in the near future, so if you are interested, look for those.

Blog ya later.

CB