Second Bite: Fender MTG:LA Overdrive Pedal, Through The Marshall DSL20HR

The photo shows Fender's MTG:LA pedal sat on my pedal board, next to an MXR Sugar Drive pedal.

This photo really brings out the brushed copper look of the MTG:LA, as well as the LED pipes that light up each of the adjustable control knobs.

The settings shown in the photo are the ones that I ended up settling on by the end of this blog post.

Top row: Tone at max, Treble at max, Bass at 12 o'clock, Tight at just after 3 o'clock.
Bottom row: Level just under 9 o'clock, Boost Level 12 o'clock, Boost Boost 12 o'clock, and Gain at 9 o'clock.
Fender’s MTG:LA pedal, sat on my board at home

I’ve had Fender’s MTG:LA overdrive pedal for coming up on two years now, and it’s fair to say that it’s largely spent most of that time sat in its box on the pedal shelf. It’s a pedal for Strats and Teles, but I play my Les Paul most of the time.

Last July, I had a go at using additional pedals to shape the tone of the MTG:LA, to try and make it work better with my Les Paul. While I liked the results, nothing really stuck, so the pedal went back onto the shelf.

Let’s give the MTG:LA another go, this time by trying my new secret weapon: the Marshall DSL20HR.

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New Arrivals: July 2021

This month has been a very special month. A couple of purchases I’ve been working towards unexpectedly all came together at the same time. And then I learned that you really do need to be careful what you wish for!

The second-hand market remains pretty flat. I did miss out on one of my bucket-list pedals though. It’s going to take me a while before I stop kicking myself over that one. I managed to pickup another great BJFe-designed pedal instead, so it wasn’t all bad 🙂

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First Impressions: Fender 57 Custom Deluxe Amp

I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone and bought an actual 5e3 circuit tweed amp. I wasn’t planning on getting one, but when a different planned purchase didn’t happen, I went for it. And then, by an amazing stroke of luck, the amp arrived months earlier than expected – right when I’ve got a short break from work between jobs.

This is going to be one of the longer First Impression posts. I’ve got a lot of notes to share with you, even though I’ve only had the amp a couple of days.

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New Arrivals: May 2021

Regular readers are probably bored with me talking about the state of the second hand market here, so I’ll keep that brief. Anecdotally, there still isn’t a lot of second hand gear turning up, and (again anecdotally) it’s becoming more and more common for sellers to list second-hand guitars at above-retail prices. eBay has really cut back on its offers this month too, which probably isn’t helping the situation.

This month, though, there has been a number of interesting (to me) items crop up. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to even think about bidding on them because I’ve been into hospital for an operation, and it’ll be July before I’m fully recovered and able to lift amps and guitars again.

I was able to pick up a couple of pedals off my wish list, thankfully. And this month saw the release of a new guitar that’s completely blown me away. Read on to learn more!

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