All Things Guitar

[BengalsRocker]

(10-13-2016, 03:09 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: You know what's great if you're getting a lot of noise out of your Tele or Strat?  A Les Paul.  

Yeah, I'm using a Mustang III right now.  It's great for what I do with it (Just jamming out the house).  I've played around a lot over the last year with just a bedroom setup and it's been my favorite.  I used a Blues Jr for a little while, and just ran an overdrive, delay, wah in front it.  (Sounded great but I missed having a lot of different options). I tried a POD HD5000 floor unit. (Did not care for it) I still have an Eleven Rack, with is really cool, but I still use the Mustang the most.

Sansamp makes some really cool Pre-Amps that are great to run with a tube amp, if you want some more versatility.  I think they do a Californian (Fender), a British (Vox) and a High Gain (Marshall) or something.  They're around 200 bucks each.  And there is a Chinese company that makes clones of them for next to nothing.  Great price but I'm not sure I can recommend them stealing Tech 21's work.

Fwiw, the next thing I have my eye guitar wise is that J Mascis Squier Jazzmaster.  They're supposed to be great for the money ($499).  I'm just gonna drop about $100 in upgrades and it should be pretty sweet.  Perfect for someone who doesn't want to spend a ton on an offset.

I also have a Line 6 Vetta II 2x12 combo, which is old technology but I get some nice tones out of it.

I can run the XLRs or even SPDIF right out of the back of it when I'm jamming and it sounds almost identical to what is coming out of the speakers.

It's also a dual amp. 

You can run two different sounds through each speaker, or hook up an external cabinet and get a completely separate sound through that cab.

You can run a Marshall/High Gain sound in one side and a Twin, Vox, or whatever in the other.

So you can get both clean and distorted sounds simultaneously or just two clean style amps if you wish.

It does a great job of mimicking a Roland JC 120 for a nice airy clean chorus sound.

Both that and the Mustang amp I own have built in noise gates.  Which is great if you use high gain at times.

On my Mustang I have the 4 button and the 2 button footswitches running at the same time.

This is a real nice feature because I can boost and add extra effects to presets while in the same bank.

So if I'm playing a clean rhythm and want to boost into a slightly louder lead with a tad extra gain... I can do so without having to switch banks.

I have recorded with two different Line 6 pods.  One of the old ones and the Pro model.

I don't have much knowledge of the 500 or the new ones.

The X3 Pod floor pedal was terrible IMO.  I have an older XT Live floor pedal and it's pretty decent.

I think the only reason I'd use a 500 is if I purchased a DT25 or DT50.  That's the tube Line 6 amp and you need it to access all of the features.