Kiwi

He wasn't my cup of tea and what the heck was going on with their frontmen? But there's no denying the man's impact. He paved the way...

I stuck the DS1 in and it added a nice amount of top end back into the mix but also more of a Marshall flavour. I took delivery of a Mosky Silver Horse today too, and threw it in place of the California Sound. It kicks righteous arse in that location, loads of raw midrange snarl. Standalone it's like a tube screamer, so lots of mids. It actually reminds me of NZ music in the 80's, especially with chorus. I guess a tube screamer must have been a staple on many guitar parts. Even the theme from Magnum PI...anyway, so it seems to work better as a boost pedal or medium low gain pedal for adding grit.

Update time, the Effectrode PC2A valve comp has been replaced by a twenty quid Joyo!! The Joyo was just cleaner sounding and it sits in the clean side chain along with the para eq and a trichorus pedal for a spot of eighties sparkle. The Joyo American Sound now acts like a tone filter and sits in front of the Tight Rock, pushing it, and the TR ggoesstraint to the Ocean Machine delay/reverb. The effects loop on the Tight Rock adds extra gain silliness with the Joyo JF15 and the Digitech Freq Out. The pedals have been shifted about to make room for the second Joyo and the wah is now on the left, which is nice for a left footer like me. Half tempted to open it up and see if I can swap the in and out jacks over. That position occupied by the California Sound is going to be pretty handy too. I can potentially stick any gain pedal in there for experimentation without screwing up my main sound or having to rewire the board. I'll probably try my unloved DS1 with keeley mod in there later today and see what happens.

Just get the Joyo JF14 American Sound, it's fantastic. I have the JF15 California Sound too and into a desk it's really thick sounding, very nice. But into a signal chain stacked with other gain pedals it can tend to be a bit dark. I couldn't rely on it for my main sound. I also have a Line 6 M5 modelling pedal and Joyo Fender vs Line 6 Fender setting, the Joyo is way richer and more credible. Fwiw I actually replaced my Effectrode PC2A valve comp with the Joyo Dyna comp last week, too. The PC2A is better suited to bright guitars like my hitmaker strat or a tele than my two main axes.

The jazz guitar arrived and despite there being minor issues the wood work is fundamentally sound. Have to say I prefer the sound of mahogany though. My Yammie sounds jazzier, the arch top is more Django. A different company made a pair of guitar necks for me though, one of which is laminated mahogany so may make something on my own in the future. Also took possession of a Joyo JF15 pedal, the Mesa Boogie Mk2 simulation. Into a DAW it sounds really nice, very thick mids. It made me GAS for a Studio pre or combo. But stacked with the Joyo JF14, there's just too much gain for decent note articulation without screwing up levels across the rest of the pedalboard. If I use a DS1 or the Tight Rock to push it there's more djent but the pedal still sounds quite dark for some reason. It's not going to replace the JF14 any time soon.

Any pics of your planks?

Welcome! Watchya playin' on and through?

I bought a cheap, Chinese made archtop jazzer, but it's in dire need of fret crowning, the pickup isn't close enough to the strings and the finish has a number of hardened drips that need flatting out. Typical really, and I told them so. I have a 5 string bass on order from them too. It has a maple/mahogany through body neck and alder wings, with supposedly stacked humbucker pickups and a 3 band eq. It was ordered in April and was due in June...it keeps being delayed and delayed and delayed. I suspect it's because the fabricators keep screwing things up. They don't even measure string spacing from the bridge, they do it from the end of the fingerboard...where's the facepalm emoji?

Just watched a vid with Paul Reed Smith and Tim Pierce where Tim reveals his master built PRS. During the conversation, Paul mentions that the semi hollow guitars have become quite popular with female guitarists. I know Paul gets a bit of a bashing sometimes for being brash and untactful but in terms of recognising the needs of both genders, he's did a pretty good job of hinting but not patronising...too much. lol Skip to 6:04.

https://www.juliensauctions.com/auctions/2020/Prince_Blue_Angel_Guitar/Prince_Blue_Angel_Flipping_Book/ A fascinating background story to all of Prince's cloud guitars is recorded above. Most interesting points are that his guitar techs never lasted long and while his guitars got a beating on the road, his luthiers had 48-72 hours to fix whatever needed fixing and get them back. Sometimes entire necks needed replacing, as the CT scans reveal. C2 eventually sold for just over half a million dollars and it's completely unplayable due to a snapped neck (again) and missing hardware.

I have completely different approach as I''m going for different things. The bass signal chain is set up around dry, effects/bass synth and arpeggiated bass synth. The guitar signal chain is set up around sparkling cleans, crunchy overdrive and midrange meltdown, with or without chorus, delay, reverb and wah.

This is America, I don't know what to believe any more. But Gibson haven't been known for a lot of things they've done, robot tuners for example.

it's a fiddly system to set up but reliable once done properly. I have an Steinberger R trem with the lever too, it's far less convenient than the VS100C

Wilkinson were THE OEM hardware company for a while in the US, it's not like they lacked profile. But there was a patent clash with Gibson in the US. Gotoh became the US distributor in a deal but I don't recall seeing the bridges being promoted much. Gibson didn't have their own alternative to offer. But the bridges were only restricted in the US, nowhere else and supposedly the restrictions were due to end sometime after 2007...