Tone. At Home.
We live in a golden age for guitars and gear, and I’m on a mission to explore as much as it as possible.
My home studio revamp is in full swing. I’m hoping to complete it this month, so that I can spend the winter months getting to grips with it all and starting to record music for myself once again.
The second hand market on eBay has picked up a little since the horror show that was October. It feels like the number of items is up a little, but I haven’t really felt tempted by any of the items put up for sale.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For November”Here in the UK, the online second hand gear market is in the worst shape I’ve seen for decades. Even frequent ‘sell for £1’ events by eBay haven’t helped.
So instead, I’ve decided to sit down, and sort out my home studio setup.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For October”August was another really slow month on the second hand market, and things didn’t pick up for September. Instead, I’ve ended up concentrating on the first guitar of my #PlayAlternative series.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For September 2019”David @SigilPickups made the pickups that are in Ghost, my Les Paul Custom. I said at the time that I’d buy again from him, and I finally have 🙂 Really looking forward to hearing how these sound in my 59 RI.
The plan this month was to finally buy a nice rack for my home studio, so that I can get the Synergy amp wired up once again. That didn’t go so well. Silver linings and all that though …
I found a rack that I liked on DV247’s website, paid for it … and later that day received an email from them asking for almost 30% extra money before they’d ship it. Now, the regulations on selling online are clear: you’re not supposed to do that. So yeah, that purchase fell through.
Before I could find and order an alternative from somewhere else, some of the remaining pedals from my bucket list turned up for sale. Interesting (to me) pedals have been hard to find at prices I’m willing to pay all summer long. Having three come along at once was an opportunity I’m glad I didn’t have to pass up.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For August 2019”This month has been a month of two very different stories: guitars and pedals.
On the guitar front, I’ve been very fortunate to find a couple of guitars that blew my socks right off. Proper love-at-the-first-note through an amp fairytale stuff. Fairytales don’t always have a happy ending, mind, so do check back in the months ahead to learn whether these do (or don’t)!
Pedals have been much more of a mixed bag. Good deals have been hard to come by this month, with a lot of people chasing a smaller pool of 2nd hand gear. Maybe it’s the summer months, or maybe it’s the renewed uncertainty here in Britain atm? Either way, I hope things pick up.
I’m doing something a bit different this month. Rather than try and squeeze my first impressions into 3 or 4 paragraphs (to keep these ‘New Arrivals’ posts short), I’ve started breaking them out into separate posts that I’m linking to from here. It gives me a bit more space to talk about each piece of gear. Do you like it? Or do you prefer the ‘all-in-one’ format I’ve been using up to now? Let me know in the comments below.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For July 2019”A new arrival this morning. I think this is the last pedal I need to cover all the different Marshall tones using Wampler pedals. #homeToneBlog
Look what’s sheltering from the #heatwaveuk with me today: the Lovepedal JTM drive pedal.
I’ve plugged it in to check it works. It’s 26C in here, which is too hot for me. Don’t want a valve amp making the room even warmer today.
It’ll have to wait for cooler weather before I spend quality time with it.
I’ve spent nearly all of June away in Scotland, enjoying a much-needed break from work out on Orkney. Just before I left, I picked up a few items to enjoy when I got back.
These are my initial impressions of the gear I’ve bought this month. I’ll delve into them in a lot more detail when I’ve had more time with them.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For June 2019”At a recent post-gig band rehearsal, we decided that I needed to start adding effects to my acoustic rig. The plan this month was to build out a full acoustic board – one that’ll run into the amp for shows, and also directly into a PA for open-mic spots.
Sadly, my timing’s off, and the pedals I’m targeting for the acoustic board have been out-of-stock every time I’ve gone shopping for them. In the meantime, there’s been a few unexpectedly good bargains crop up on eBay, so I grabbed those instead.
Here’s a list of all the new gear that arrived in May, along with my first impressions of each item. I’ll do a detailed writeup about each piece of gear when I’ve had a bit of time with it.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For May 2019”