New gear day this weekend!

[rayden44]

Read a very wise saying the other day when going through some forums. "The gear you don't have, is always better than the gear you have". A mantra for any GAS sufferer.

Without that in mind at all, on my purchasing list for Saturday is:

A Vox Ice 9 Pedal
- I don't want to sound like Satriani, if I did I'd buy a Satchurator This is an overdrive pedal to replace my stuffed Boss ME board + add some handy features. It's not a bad price either considering in addition to your standard OD pedal features you get a Bass level, Vintage and Modern OD settings, plus an additional boost button.

Parker P-38
- Yes it's a Strat format guitar but it's looking like a very cool prospect. With a bit of negotiation it's looking to be the right price and I reckon with the piezo pup I can blend in a bit of twang! BTW if you see a P-44 out there, it's a 2 humbucker with coil tap version. These coil taps actually sound very single coil like and not just like a lowered volume humbucker. If you find it with the piezo option also, you'd have a very interesting tone machine right there. There is also a P-36 Tele layout.

Asat Special Legacy
- If the Parker idea goes south this is my backup plan - again with a bit of negotiation A new guitar is not 100% on my books, but if I can snatch a bargain it will be.

Portable Amplifier
- I'm probably looking at a Vox DA series / Mini3 here. The Mustang I is nice also, but I'm going to try for a battery option 1st. I've heard good things on all these fronts.

Travel Guitar
- If I have anything left over, I've got a trip to the South Island of New Zealand coming up for almost 3 weeks. Will I be able to handle not having a guitar? No. Do I want to carry around 5 tons of anything? No. But I don't really want to buy a small version of something I already have. If it wasn't for the shipping costing almost double the guitar price, this might have been on the books: www.theguitarfiles.com/product_info-2101.html
So I might look at a Mandolin / Uke or something similar if I can't find a cheap travel guitar

[gasman]

Jan 26, 2011 21:39:10 GMT -5 rayden44 said:

...Portable Amplifier
- I'm probably looking at a Vox DA series / Mini3 here. The Mustang I is nice also, but I'm going to try for a battery option 1st. I've heard good things on all these fronts...

I have a Vox DA5 and it's a great little amp. I use it with batteries and with electricity. It is so handy and sounds so good that I haven't used my Fender Champ 600 very much since I bought the DA5!

Man, I wish my 'new gear day' would come soon! I have some money coming in soon from a house sale, but it seems the prices on the gear I want (actually just one guitar), keep going up day by day!

[gasman]

Rayden, here is the thread I made when I got my DA5 (sort of a mini review):
mojocaster.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=guitdiscussions&action=display&thread=476

[rayden44]

Thanks gasman, nicely reinforces all the youtube / review shopping I've done on this amp, and I'm pretty confident it's the one I'll go for after a little tutu of course.

I did play a fender mustang II (the 40 watt) a couple of weeks ago. They do have a nice sound, and have a wide range of FX (octave, fuzz, trem, vibe) too. It can be a little noisy on some amp settings tho. I don't know if this is an attempt at staying true to the emulated tube amp or if I just happened across some weird user settings. From what I understand these amps modelling can be modified fairly heavily using Fender Fuse s/w.

We have a holiday on Monday so after my Saturday shop I should be able to do a nice gear review. I suspect if I end up with a Mandolin, my first attempt will be at Andy Fairweather Low's part in this www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCFYq3qJ1zE. One of my favourites from Unplugged along with Running on Faith.

[Mojo]

Very cool list! Can't wait to hear what you got

[gasman]

Jan 26, 2011 23:20:44 GMT -5 rayden44 said:

Thanks gasman, nicely reinforces all the youtube / review shopping I've done on this amp, and I'm pretty confident it's the one I'll go for after a little tutu of course.

I did play a fender mustang II (the 40 watt) a couple of weeks ago. They do have a nice sound, and have a wide range of FX (octave, fuzz, trem, vibe) too. It can be a little noisy on some amp settings tho. I don't know if this is an attempt at staying true to the emulated tube amp or if I just happened across some weird user settings. From what I understand these amps modelling can be modified fairly heavily using Fender Fuse s/w.

We have a holiday on Monday so after my Saturday shop I should be able to do a nice gear review. I suspect if I end up with a Mandolin, my first attempt will be at Andy Fairweather Low's part in this www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCFYq3qJ1zE. One of my favourites from Unplugged along with Running on Faith.

You're welcome. I have an older Tube Driver overdrive pedal and it sounds better through the DA5 than through my Champ 600. As I said before, it's a great little amp!

Like Mojo says, I'm also looking forward to seeing what you get and hearing your music through your new gear. BTW, that song you posted the link to is awesome! I guess I had never heard it before.

[469roadking]

Sound like my kinda Saturday. ;D

[Mojo]

Yeah, no kiddin'

[rayden44]

Ok wasn't quite so big a gear day I did pickup a Vox DA5 - seriously I struggled to turn off this little amp. While I was playing I had several guys think I was playing the big amp underneath that it was sitting on. Totally blown away by the sound out of this tiny box.

I also picked up my Ice 9 OD pedal. Nice fat tone, drives the amp well. Haven't quite dialled it in yet, but it definitely has what I'm looking for.

The Parker is nice electrically, but I just can't get the piezo close to the acoustic sounds I've heard out of it on youtube etc - I even tried an acoustic amp. I guess taking another guitar and using a mic is the best way at the moment. The ASAT Special isn't in my price range at the moment: they've just got some more in and were more expensive.

Lastly I tried a mandolin - started getting a good sound out of it. Being tuned differently to a guitar, I only picked up like 3 chords before I left for the store (so I could actually try sounding like something!). The one I want is on order

[gasman]

Congrats on your new gear so far! Now that you have the DA5, you might be interested in checking out this site:

www.voxamps.com/toneroom/

[rayden44]

Very handy, although I must say it's not a lot of work to get a usable tone out of it.

I've recorded my vids, just need some time to edit a little

[Mojo]

Nice haul, those DA5s are great little amps for sure. I'd like to add a Vox ToneLab one of these days.

Can't wait for the vids

[rayden44]

Ok Mandolin arrived, nice sound. I must admit my first song ended up being Going to My Hometown - mostly because the chords were what I knew already.... or could figure out.