It’s April 2020 and much of the world was recently put in lockdown. Attempting to swerve a cripling and unforgiving pandemic that would ultimately go on to cost so many lives and caused tremendous sadness and grief. It still is, to this day. Many made lifestyle changes, many started hobbies, but for us guitarists, being stuck at home was a good thing in some ways, because it meant we had more time to play and to check out new gear....
Two years of using digital amps lead me back to the real thing. The last year (2019) has been a massive overhaul for me, in terms of gear. I started the year with a Kemper Profiler and many of you will know that I have raved about that piece of kit for the best part of 18 months now. It’s a game changer. However, I missed the flexibility of real amps and pedals at my fingertips....
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo from Pexels. Expensive amplifier, cheap guitar. Everyone knows that’s the rule, right? I grew up swearing by this ethos. If I had a good amp, it would pretty much mask anything, old strings, a rubbish guitar made of driftwood, bad technique…okay, not so much, but I’ll stand by the guitar part. Fact is, a cheap guitar will sound fairly decent on a good amp. A good guitar will sound absolutely awful on a cheap amp....
Back in January 2019 NAMM I’d heard about the brand new Marshall JCM800 SC20H Studio head, but thought nothing of it as I was still in full flow, Kemper-loving heaven. The Kemper had killed my “GAS” for amplifiers successfully for the last 12 months or so, but recently, my passion for amps has bitten me, with a vengeance. I had a brief flirt with amps back in January 2019, but it didn’t amount to much as ultimately, the amp in question didn’t quite live up to my expectations and the Kemper trumped it in terms of versatility....
The paralysing limitations of having access to every guitar amplifier in the world. I admit, the last few months have been a bit of a struggle with the Kemper. Not because it sounds anything less than superb, but simply because the profiles aren’t versatile enough once I’ve found ‘the one’. Once I’ve settled on a profile, I’m stuck with it because no other profile comes close. That makes me feel a little uneasy as I’d like to feel a bit more freedom than that....
The culmination of 5+ years of building my dream rig and the absolute pinnacle of what I think are my favourite sounds from these little stop boxes - this is my homage. The gear So, after years of searching for the ultimate stomp box — here’s my list… The amplifier I’ve had many amplifiers over the years. It’s perhaps a little ironic and always makes me laugh that I started with a Laney, a ‘Linebacker’ 30w solid state that was given to me by a friend who also gave me my first electric guitar, and now I have the immense 20w tube driven Laney Lionheart — my favourite amp of all time....
Remember the days when it was all about the chase? You’d invest so much time into a relationship with the aim of finally being with the person of your dreams. Then one day, you realise you enjoyed the chase a little more than the relationship. I’ve spent the last five years amassing the most incredible lineup of pedals, the tools that help define and sculpt my tone…my sound. I’ve got a beautiful amplifier, and four guitars that some could only dream of....
I had a lot of questions after my first blog post — “How to get a great guitar tone at any volume”. Here’s a few and I’ll add more over time. Feel free to ask more questions in the comments. What if I have an amp/speaker combo, not just an amplifier head? You can still use a reactive load box with it. Unplug the internal speaker and go straight into the load box....
Stereo with one amp, wet/dry, no microphones, any speaker you can think of, consistent beautiful tone, low volume…a guitarists dream! It’s always been a passion of mine to be able to hear what my guitar sounds like in stereo. I bought my first stereo effects pedal, a DOD FX747 Supersonic Flanger way back in 2000. Since then, I’ve been on a mission to find a good stereo solution that wouldn’t involve two separate amps....