New Amp: ADA MP-1

I’ve heard great things about these and spotted one at the same Musicgoround I purchased the TSL head from. While staying over at a friend’s place in Atlanta one weekend, I went and picked this up. It has some really killer tones, and I’ve been playing it run into the FX return of my TSL head. Dialing in tones is a little tedious but they can be saved to any of 128 user presets, and can be recalled with a few taps of the front panel arrows or with a MIDI footswitch.

This is definitely more classic sounding than my TSL, and a lot darker. My only complaint is it is also noisier, especially at high gain settings.

(This is the earliest picture I can find of it)

More Details Here

New Guitar: ESP Maverick Deluxe

Spotted this one on eBay and won it - my first auction win. Over time, I uncovered more information about it - it’s a “production custom.” At the time, licensed ESP dealers could request a shipment of guitars from ESP with some custom options that differed from the catalog models. It’s not exactly custom shop, since several guitars would have to be ordered - which probably means there are a couple of similar ones to this out there.

Still, a Maverick Deluxe, with no pickguard, and a figured maple top is a heck of a guitar and in hindsight, I got an incredible deal on this beast. I replaced the factory humbucker with a Dimarzio D-Sonic which sounds great in that position, though I still have the original humbucker as well.

New Amp: Marshall JCM2000 Triple Super Lead

I have been searching for a real tube amp to replace my VOX AD30VT practice amp for a long time now. I’m loving the sounds I get testing out a Mesa Dual Rectifier in a local shop, but after playing a Marshall JCM800 2205 in a Guitar Center I’m thinking that a Marshall amp of some kind might be closer to the classic metal tones I’m after than the rectifier. I also really liked the Blackstar HT-100 head, as well as the HT-60 combo, but missed the “crunch” channel on the HT-20 and HT-40 models. Either way, all of these seem to be a little less clear sounding than the Marshalls.

Enter the TSL - Marshall’s previous flagship amp (prior to the JVM) and featuring three channels, covering ground all the way from clean up to high gain. I never played one before, but watched plenty of youtube videos and listened to clips so it was on my want list.

I found a used one at a Musicgoround in Lilburn, GA, not the easiest drive but I could justify stopping there on my drive home from Atlanta. I stopped by with my Vox AD30VT, as well as a high quality crash to trade on it. After playing it for some time, I was really loving the sounds, but the footswitch was not fully working. The shop manager was great and helped work out a deal with me, so I could either try to repair the footswitch or buy a new one if needed.

Once I bought it, I had to sit with it in my girlfriend’s apartment and no guitar or speaker for a whole weekend - it was torture!

New Guitar: Kramer XL1

A friend of mine who knew I liked Kramers spotted this one in a local pawnshop in my college town, Statesboro GA. I went to check it out, and was able to get a nice SKB hardshell case thrown in - the grand total around $100.

This one had a very unique gloss lacquered neck with a beak headstock, H/S pickup config, and a 6-screw traditional trem. Since my other guitars all had floating Floyd bridges at the time, I put 5 strings in this one and used it to experiment with different pickups, string gauges, and tunings. It was a great “fun” guitar to learn on without messing up my much nicer Kramer Pacer or later my ESP Maverick.

I eventually traded this one in on a Charvel, which was a great guitar on its own, but I wish I had kept this one. For a “cheap” guitar it was very nice and a bit on the unique side as far as budget Kramers go with that fantastic neck.

New Guitar: 1986 Kramer Pacer Custom II Red

Purchased this guitar on eBay, my first ever internet guitar purchase. I remember being nervous about buying a guitar based on pictures alone (hilarious now that I purchase almost all of my guitars this way now), and the seller never provided a tracking number and I was really thinking I got scammed. Anyway, guitar arrived in great shape in the original case. I’d been wanting a Kramer since I started playing and was thrilled to finally have one.

New Guitar: Rickenbacker 360/6 Jetglo

This was my first guitar - an incredible gift from my parents after graduating high school. I had been looking for a Rickenbacker 350 Liverpool because Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles played on, but that guitar proved very difficult to find. Eventually we found this one in a local shop - at the time Ric’s were very scarce - so we jumped on it.

While not exactly what I had in mind for my musical style, as I was getting more into 80s hair metal and rock, this is an incredibly high end instrument with a very unique tone. I’m glad to say I haven’t sold it all these years despite thinking about it very seriously a few times.