Vintage gear thread!

OK, we gotta have a cut-off somewhere, always a little slide-room of course
Pre-90's I'd say...

I'll start with somethings I remember from my earliest rock band days;

1. the "MXR Distortion plus" distortion pedal. a fuzz box really I never quite liked the distortion, but it got me by till I found better ways...
2. the "MXR phase 90" phase shifter...I never really liked the phase 90, but it was decent enough for the spacy bridge...lol

These were the only effects anyone knew about (or could afford)
where I grew up playing.

Until I just happen to be given an "Electroharmonix LPB-1" overdrive unit.
Can't dig up a pic of the original, it was basically just a 9-volt pre-amp in a metal box with a male jack on one and and a female on the other, a pot and a switch on the box ...you plugged it into the face of your amp and your guitar straight in to that (It didn't play well with other effects, lol didn't need 'em either)

This thing introduced me to the wonders of overdriven fender tube amps... damn thing would turn any BF fender amp into a screaming blues-rock monster (I smoked more that one on stage, flames an' all!) and it was all over from there...


Next...

 

At one point it was cheaper to pick these up used then to buy a brand new "Budd Box" to build my own effects in... I could be the reason they are rare today.


Okay, it was mentioned in the Favorite guitar tread, but not quite in detail...


I have owned...

Roland RE-201 Space Echo (Two of these)
Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo
Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo

Not all at the same time.

I did have two original green luggage case Echoplex at the same time.


Far from all, just touching on the tape echos...

 

Another tid-bit...

I'll get some photos up soon, I'm in the process (slow process) of salvaging my 80's KMD GV-60 amp. It was in last years flood but I have verified it still works. I still need to pull all the boards and clean off dried mud and re-assemble. It's a combo amp that I modded into a head long ago... Tube power amp and modified solid state preamp. Damn thing is beyond loud for a "60 watt" rating and breaks up nicely because it's pushing the 6L6 power tubes hard. I run it through a custom built 2X12 with Celestion Vintage 60's.

 

I jones'd to have an echoplex back in the day...a kid in the 'hood had one that needed the tape loop replaced ...he would never give it up for a reasonable offer though, fucker..lol
when I finally got to borrow one I found it too noisy in my set up.

I think the first half decent delay pedal I purchased was when "digital" was the new hot shit... Roland, DOD, digitec, I can't remember...I do remember that it had a whopping 300ms delay and separate taps for the dry/wet sides... sucker cost me 300 (1980) dollars! ouch!

Nice, I definitely dig the overdriven 6L6 sound, with the spkrs right at the edge ...Running into 4 ohms I presume?

Took me a while, but I learned just driving a 12aux7 pre ain't necessarily where its all at...( sorry Mesa buzzzzzy, I mean Boogie)

 

When I was a Junior in high school, 1970, I bought a Vox Super Beatle amp. Loved it. When I decided to start playing bass I traded it for a Fender Twin Reverb with a JBL bottom with 2 15's in it. That was in 72. Still have the Twin and the bottom till this day.

 

So, you play bass through a Twin?

 

So, what... Nobody else has or had any great vintage gear?

 

LAUGHIN, yup Tyrson, been playing bass through that twin forever. Sounds pretty good too. I always get....... You can't play bass through a twin.

 

Apperantly nobody like this old crap. Doesn't anyone have a Marshall stack or a couple Leslies laying around?

 

I wasn't saying "You can't do that"... It's just an unusual choice for a bass amp. I would imagine it would sound great with the 15's and be hella loud. Fender power amp circuits are very similar, amp to amp, so it would be much the same as a Bassman but louder.


I was waiting for the Leslie question... Yes, I had a Leslie 25 until about 5 years ago. Pity I had to eBay it. When I was using it I had a variac speed control on the motor hooked up to a pedal, so I could adjust the tempo of rotation as I played :2thumbsup: Trippy with echo...

 

Speaking of leslies I sure miss my old Hammond M-3...the B3's baby brother.
still had the percussion ( remember 'Green Eyed Lady'? thats hammond percussion!)and that incredible mechanical tone generator that was an amazing clockwork of spinning disks, each with its own pickup magnet
Goddam thing was a monster to move though lol

I eventually cut mine it down, severed the keyboard from the rest with a hand saw, mounted the amp in the top, made a cable for the footpedals...people still groaned when I asked for a hand packing it! lol

Never a real good keyboard player though, I loved to mess around, turn it up all the way and grind out a few bars of Deep purples "Hiway Star" or Styx "Blue collar man" hehe

ZW

 

It was more economics than choice. My buddy and classmate who was also a bass player had a big old Kustom bass amp.



We put ourselves in hock bigtime and bought a Kasino PA system. That was the budget Kustom line. I still have the 2 columns. 6 eight inch speakers in each one. They make really loud stereo speakers.

 

My seventies P-bass got stolen in the nineties. I stopped caring about vintage after that. Too much heartbreak.

I am however exited about my new Pignose Hog-30 bass amp that works for eight hours at a go out in the woods off of one charge.

 

I've played through one of those on several occasions....

 

I had an early band that used that Kasino kustom P.A, with the padded sparkle blue spkr columns...I remember transporting them across Denver once sticking out of the backseat of a friends oldsmobile convertible lol

Man was that a terrible PA

 

They looked cool for the day... but yeah, sounded like crap. Padded vinyl couldn't take the abuse of the road either.

 

I had a gold covered one, guitar amp, it was in the flood of 96, didnt recover very well, but I did strip all the vinyl off it and recovered the speakers.


these speakers, lol I always said they would make great coffins..
I could stand inside the back them crunched down a little.. And god were they heavy. I still have one the cabinets.

 

This is what my Kasino columns look like.

 

I built a pair of these Altec Lansing 'Voice of the Theater' cabinets from blueprints in 1979...classic audiophile gear from well before my time, these things were the shit in theaters the '50's!

 

I knew an old guy who had a set of those for his home stereo. They just kicked ass.