Latest gear you've acquired.....

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vvv
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by vvv » Sat Sep 11, 2021 3:57 pm

2 mic stands from Stupid Deal o' the Day

didn't need the stands, but I wanted the booms
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A.David.MacKinnon
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:43 am

Here's the 50's Hofner Classical post repairs. It had been strung with steel strings, left for a long, long, long time and developed all the issues you can imagine going along with that. The top an bridge were miraculously ok but the neck joint was loose and the action was super high. It had also had a badly repaired break in the heel that was making the neck tilt forward. On top of that there were two cracks in the top. One had been repaired (sort of) the other hadn't.
I reset the neck, fixed the bad heel repair and glued and cleated the cracks. Now strung up it seems stable and sounds pretty decent and may be good to go for another 70 years. I may or may not keep it. I've been buying up beater acoustics to practice my repair skills but there are so many guitars around here that I've been releasing most of them back into the wild once I'm done.

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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by Magnetic Services » Tue Sep 14, 2021 12:41 pm

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:43 am
Here's the 50's Hofner Classical post repairs. It had been strung with steel strings, left for a long, long, long time and developed all the issues you can imagine going along with that. The top an bridge were miraculously ok but the neck joint was loose and the action was super high. It had also had a badly repaired break in the heel that was making the neck tilt forward. On top of that there were two cracks in the top. One had been repaired (sort of) the other hadn't.
I reset the neck, fixed the bad heel repair and glued and cleated the cracks. Now strung up it seems stable and sounds pretty decent and may be good to go for another 70 years. I may or may not keep it. I've been buying up beater acoustics to practice my repair skills but there are so many guitars around here that I've been releasing most of them back into the wild once I'm done.
I've got a cheap nylon-string in similar condition. Not sure if I'm skilled enough to reseat the neck; do you know of any other ways to fix high action from a bent neck without a truss rod? And what's your process for fixing cracks (top, bottom, and headstock)?

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A.David.MacKinnon
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Tue Sep 14, 2021 2:17 pm

The cracks on this were in the top. The fix was to flex it open a bit and squeeze glue in then clamp it tight. I also glued small, thin squares of cedar across the crack on the inside with the grain of the cedar running at a right angle to the grain of the top. Think of them as stitches on a big cut. They'll keep the crack closed and tight for way longer than just glueing and clamping.

For the neck, this is actually my third reset. It's not as scary as I'd expected but everything I'm working on is pretty cheap. On any guitar that was cheap to start with (Harmony, Kay, some Hofner, etc) the neck joint was likely pretty sketch right out of the factory. Once the glue ages and dries out theres not much holding the neck angle true. If there's a gap at the heel then the high action issue is likely related to the neck joint not a warped neck.
I used an iron on the fret extension over the body to loosen the glue there and used a flat paint scraper to seperate it from the top. One thats done a lot of times the neck will be quite loose and have a fair bit of play side to side and front to back. A few light wacks on the heel with a rubber mallet gets it off.
Then it gets all the old glue cleaned off and gets reglued. Sometimes there's some shinming needed to get the neck angle right. On these cheapies I also use a screw through the neck block into the neck from the inside toward the top of the joint and another screw through the bottom of the heel from the outside. This screw has a strap post added so you kill two birds with one stone and the screws are more or less invisible.

I would never subject a "real" guitar to this kind of reset but for used and abused Harmonys, Kay's, United and other cheap catolog guitars it's a good fix and leaves the neck joint more reliable then it was from the start.

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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by vvv » Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:16 am

A Dr. Green bass reverb pedal 9sounds great but can be a little noisy at high settings) and, my first V'r ...
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by drumsound » Fri Oct 22, 2021 8:30 am

I sold a tape machine and pulled the trigger on a Rupert Neve Designs 5424 Diode Bridge compressor. I only had a little time to play with it yesterday, but it is very creamy, and not subtle unless you attempt to make it that way. I'm planning to do my first mix on it tomorrow. Today I'm doing revisions on mixes done through the Drawmer.

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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by vvv » Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:40 pm

The MXR Timmy and MXR Sugar Drive.

The former is a nice solid boost-2-OD pedal with a little distortion available - awesome nano size.

The latter is also nano, said to be a Klon Klone, it moves nicely between OD and distortion-not-quite-fuzz, with a switchable buffer (that seems to brighten when engaged, no matter what the chain is). They stack well, also.

Then I ran into a really good deal on the Roger Mayer bass drive pedal, really nice and not really like much else, altho' the DOD Bi-Fet is kinda close (but brighter) ...

I feel like I have so many great dirt options!
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digitaldrummer
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:48 pm

ordered a Donner Tutti Love Chorus mini pedal. it was on sale for $22.99 and I found a $5 off coupon on the web... and no tax or shipping. so, no-brainer. not sure how they even do it.
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by markjazzbassist » Mon Oct 25, 2021 5:12 pm

1974 Elka Rhapsody 490 String Machine. Nice old analog synth string machine, aka the poor person's orchestra. i've loved the sounds of these for a long time (any string machine), and got a great deal on this one. it sounds fantastic, very moody. only 2 options, cello/violin or strings. cello/violin is very mellow and dark, strings is very bright and punchy. combined together is another fantastic sound. sustain slider and volume slider, minimal and simple just how i like it. time to create some faux AIR moon safari esque tunes.

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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by vvv » Wed Oct 27, 2021 5:24 pm

The Dry Martini pedal from Tone City (Fuxx Fuzz was mentioned above). <US$50 bucks, it's a decent distortion but a really good OD.

S'posed to be a OCD clone but seems heavier to me, a little less top.
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by digitaldrummer » Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:19 am

I wanted a Les Paul style guitar for the studio and this Bad Cat copy was calling to me (and Amazon gave me a pretty decent coupon offer so I went for it). I think the Firefly FF338 I got might be a bit better quality, but I'm working on this one (which has a lot of sharp fret edges) and I think it will be OK. a couple small finish flaws but nothing major. but it feels (and looks) like a Les Paul otherwise. and the color (faded Pelham blue)... well, once again that got me.
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Last edited by digitaldrummer on Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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winky dinglehoffer
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by winky dinglehoffer » Tue Nov 09, 2021 7:49 am

Audient Nero monitor controller. I needed something like this to accomplish some shifting of gear in my setup. It just came yesterday (I saved about a hundred bucks by buying from Thomann, & shipping from Europe was about 5 days)--it took me a bit to get everything set up as I want it, but it's very nice so far. It seems very transparent, which is exactly what I was looking for. Still have to figure out all my cable management issues, but that can wait.

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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by vvv » Tue Nov 09, 2021 2:21 pm

Some used pedals:

1-Spot Voltage Doubler: because 18v. gives more headroom, which can improve some pedals, is necessary for others.
Fulltone, Fat Drive: pretty cool on bass, 9v. is good, currently on the PF50t where it creates a natural drive sound at low volume.
Fulltone, Fulldrive3: excellent on guitar, especially at 18v. I'm tryna choose between this, the Timmy and the Meat,Jr. for an OD/boost to front my guitar board.
Orange, Fur Coat: I bought it drunk, thought it was a envelope octave. It's an octave fuzz, OK, not great on bass, and kinda big. I really like the 2-Stroke from this line, and am still looking to get the OD cheap.
A curly cord: because curly cord.
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Nick Sevilla
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue Nov 09, 2021 8:29 pm

The IK Multimedia 25th Anniversary group buy.

For their 4 new guitar pedals, in software form, and some of their tape emulators. Always handy, those.

Got an iRig Pro. Gotta see how useful this could be while traveling.
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Re: Latest gear you've acquired.....

Post by shedshrine » Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:33 am

Two pieces to possibly be acquired in the foreseeable future should I decide to actually go through with purchasing these two items that have caught my attention, fancy and apparent gear lust..

LAA CUstom SmartSwitcher system

and a Meris Enzo. Damn those are cool.

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