After ticking off a whole heap of bucket-list items in July, August was mostly about something on my bucket list that had nothing to do with guitars and gear. Yes, I do have a life away from browsing eBay listings 😂
I did pick up a couple of items, though …
Bare Knuckle 280K Pots For Stratocasters
For the second time, I put a set of Bare Knuckle 280K pots into my beloved green Fender Player Stratocaster, to improve the sound of the Bare Knuckle 63 Veneers pickups that are already in there.
Honestly, I’d forgotten that I’d previously done this 🤦♂️, partly because the guitar was back to sounding too dark / dull compared to my reference American Performer Stratocaster. I’ve no idea why, especially as I seemed to be very happy with it previously. I honestly can’t explain it.
This time around, this set of 280K pots has made a huge improvement to the tone. But I said that last time, so 🤷♂️
NUX Sixty Five Overdrive Pedal
Although it isn’t marketed as such, the 6ixty 5ive Overdrive is basically NUX’s clone of the Vemuram Jan Ray overdrive. I’ve never played the Jan Ray, but I’ve played some of NUX’s other clones, and they were decent enough. I wanted to give this one a go too.
Strangely, it’s a really difficult pedal to get here in the UK. I ended up having to get it special-ordered from my local NUX dealer. Now that I’ve got it, what do I think of it?
It was a difficult pedal to dial in at first. I had a lot of trouble with the top-end, and that’s partly because the trimmer pot (accessed from the top of the pedal) also has a huge effect on the top-end. Once I adjusted it to suit me, the pedal’s been a blast.
I’ll post a full First Impressions soon.