New Arrivals: April 2023

This month, I was able to tick off three items from my gear bucket list.

One of the things I’ve been (re)learning this year is this: the kind of gear I’m interested in trying is only getting rarer and rarer. If I see something, and don’t get it, there’s a very good chance that I’ll be waiting a very long time before I see another example.

And it’s always hard to tell whether or not an item was worth getting until you have it in your hands …

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New Arrivals: November 2022

The end of the month saw a huge change in the second-hand market here. For the first time in … I don’t know, it feels like 18+ months … there’s a lot of very interesting (to me) amps and pedals available. And I swear there were more Les Pauls listed during a 5-day period than overdrive pedals. It sure seemed that way, anyway.

Sadly, I think most of these pieces are being listed because people need the money. The mood of the country is pretty grim right now. We’ve had 12 years of single-party government, and they’ve led us into the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. The worst of it is still come too, too.

I was working abroad for part of the month (it was educational taking my new company to Web Summit for the very first time), and had no time to do very much at all with a guitar.

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New Arrivals: July 2022

I didn’t pick up any new (to me) gear last month, and just the one item this month.

The Axe FX 3 has definitely been a big factor in this. I’ve promised on Twitter that I’ll do a separate blog about this soon. The short version is that it’s been much better than I hoped for, and I’ve been putting so much time into exploring what it can do that I haven’t really had time to be curious about other gear.

So what did I find, and how was it interesting enough to wrench me away from the Axe FX 3 for a little bit?

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New Arrivals: May 2022

After a couple of months with no new (to me) gear, May has been a very busy month.

There’s a few items I’ve been after, both professionally and for home use. All of these things needed to be imported: some because they’re not sold in the UK, and some because they are sold here but are constantly out of stock.

With the UK government threatening to illegally break its own treaty and start a (doomed) trade war with Europe, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get them if I didn’t act now. On top of that, rampant inflation means that buying later means paying a lot more.

Now that they’re here, what do I think of them? And how was the import process? Read on for my First Impressions.

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New Arrivals: February 2022

This month is a tale of two eras: before land war in Europe, and after the war started.

My plan was to get Hedgehog back in action, and (if they came into stock) pick up a couple of things I felt I needed for some planned recording. And that’s how the month started.

Then Putin launched his invasion of a democratic European nation, while willy-waving his nuclear arsenal at the rest of the world. While we’re almost certainly safe from major consequences ourselves, I decided to bring forward my major planned purchase of the year anyway.

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