Tag Archives: gadgets
ProCo RAT 2, rebuilt
As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my favourite bits of guitar gear is my trusty RAT 2 distortion, which I’ve had for a number of years and was even used as my main dirt box when playing live. It was one of the reissues that had a different IC chip from the originals of the 80s and 90s though, and the control pots had bothered me right from the day I bought it so I eventually decided to have it modded to the ‘original’ spec.
the poor light at this time of day messes with the colour balance. My carpet’s green and the LED’s blue, honest
The gain, filter and volume were really sensitive at the lower end of the range but if I tweaked the knobs above around a third of the way I couldn’t get any changes at all. It didn’t alter the sound of the pedal, but it made finding the right settings tricky. Fortunately I tracked down a knowledgable UK-based pedal tech who mods and builds FX boxes in his spare time and after some helpful e-mail exchanges he agreed to work on it.
New amp day
My live playing is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment (all members of our semi-serious band are still preoccupied with Real Life things) so I’m concentrating on solo stuff for now. I’ll be ordering a copy of Cubase Essential at the end of the month assuming nothing expensive hits me in the meantime (I MOT’d the car last month…what more can go wrong?!) but I was in need of a new amp that’s built for home recording/practice rather than a higher wattage performance amp.
My Marshall DSL 401 does have a line out socket but that sounds a bit sterile and thin; the general sound of the amp isn’t really suited to the style of music I play anyway. A bit of shopping around helped me decide on a piece of kit that’s right for the job (see above).
My pedalboard is (almost) complete
Lately I’ve had a bit of spare time (and, thanks to some overtime at work, a bit of spare cash for a change) which gave a good opportunity to get my guitar rig updated. I haven’t given up on the guitar restoration project and I’m still looking around for a new amp but if nothing else I don’t think my effects pedal collection is going to grow much more than this. At least, I hope not.
Click on pic for larger version
I’ve covered the distortion pedals already and I’m pretty happy with what I have at the moment. I’m either going to change the switch on the Big Muff to a true bypass (it sucks out some of the treble out of my sound, which is annoying) or swap it for a Fender Blender reissue or a Danelectro Fabtone for the more chaotic fuzz moments. As for the rest…it’s about right for me now.
Hardware upgrade: completed!
It took me long enough but I finally bit the bullet and invested in a new desktop PC rig. My old laptop is on its last legs anyway, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the little things it couldn’t do. It’s been keeping me connected to the outside world Internet for the best part of three years now and even accompanied me on holiday so it’s high time the poor old thing was given its well-earned retirement.
I’m not a gamer though, which meant my budget didn’t need to be too high. On the other hand I’m still a cheapskate who refuses to use a TV set so I wanted something that can play DVDs and, early on next year, Blu-Ray discs too so I settled on the best performance for around £500. I already splashed out on a 22″ LG monitor that can cope with full 1080p video so this figure only included the tower itself and the components inside. I almost kept to budget too…
Confessions of an FX pedal addict: gimme some distortion!
I must confess that I’m a guitar gear junkie. I’m a victim of that continual search for ‘your sound’ which drives so many musicians to distraction; even when I think I’ve found the setup I’m looking for my personal tastes have changed and another trawl through numerous music stores follows. At the end of 2009 the array of boxes sitting in front of my amp looks something like this:
This doesn’t include my Boss flanger and Electro-Harmonix Small Stone phase shifter, because I rarely use them. The pedals above (yes, all seven of them) get pretty regular use. I believe there’s also a condition known as Pedalboard Envy, which is brought on by the epic rigs from the likes of Mono’s ‘Taka’ Goto; seriously, what the hell?! Anyway, I have settled on a setup of distortion boxes in the mix which do the trick for me…for the time being at least.
