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And I just saw it was in Arlington Heights. That’s less than an hour from me…

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LOVE me some Mirages. I have been saying I need another Mirage I to mod. I think the world needs another 3 p90 Mirage…

I remember the early eBay days when everyone had separate accounts or "friends" to bid up their shit. These people just put items in their cart? Why? If they made an offer and it's accepted, the item's sold. If they made an offer and it's declined, it adds to offers but does it still reside in the cart? I don't know. Seems tedious and useless to a possible buyer. I just make offers or pay the price. Putting an item in my cart doesn't stiffen me in any way.

Thanks!

I have a Mirage 1. Just want to share the joy.

Damn enabler. I didn't know shipping was included. Doh!

Great guitar. And shipping included. Go for it, @Saul Goodman.

I’ve had luck ordering from their used site. With the return policy it’s a decent option.

I own its ‘93 twin. Your’s has a beautiful dark fretboard like mine. There were 2 neck carves that year one called Vintage with a fatter carve. Good luck

I've got a beautiful Diablo that I would sell, it is identical in look and condition to this one, but it does not have the OHSC. Very nice condition, pretty much mint, glows under any sort of light, sounds amazing.. and mine has both pickups the original DiMarzio slammers! They are not Duncan humbuckers https://reverb.com/item/95474380-hamer-usa-diablo-gdbs-b-n-gsb019 hfc price $1600 shipped to conus; it will be packed very well If anyone is interested PM me and I will send pictures of the exact guitar

So, I wanted to trade the Rainsong to Dave's in Sun Prairie for a used McPherson Sable they had, but snoozed and losed. It worked out OK because one popped up on Reverb for less money so I snagged it. The downside(?) is now I have both the Rainsong AND the McPherson (along with my old Taylor 414CE). I barely use ONE acoustic, let alone 3. The upside is the direct comparison that's taken place over the past month or so: The Rainsong's neck is still less than ideal, but probably not as bad as my initial reaction. The sound, however, is pretty spectacular. Deep lows and shimmering highs unlike any acoustic I've played, with great projection. There's a real sweetness to it. It plays easy and is always in tune. Very well done. The McPherson is....different. Special. The neck isn't perfect but fits me better than the Rainsong. The sound is more even as well, without the dramatic lows and highs, but glorious nonetheless. It has a more cohesive, all-of-a-piece sound/feel/vibe to it that is hard to describe. As a pair, I think they'd record really well together panned hard left and right, and I may have to try that before one of them goes. Yeah, I'm only keeping one. Which one? Well, as sweet as the Rainsong sounds, the McPherson is getting all the playing time. There's just something about it that works better for me. It plays great, sounds great and the slightly smaller body feels great, so it wins. The Taylor stays...just because. ETA: a picture!

^^That's all kinds of spectacular!^^ Subscribed! Thanks for posting.

I seem to be getting that message now as well

Thanks to all, the admin over there has been contacted by a fellow HFC member - i will keep you updated.....

As far as what they are doing that you haven't learned to do, it's not something one would learn. It's more a question of if you want/need what they do. They objectively are capable of increasing the voltage of the guitar's output before hitting the preamp section, and often they include the ability to add additional clipping to that signal and tone shaping. Eventually, you've turned up the guitar and amp as much as you can, and if you need more for some things, you can't learn to add more signal or shape it any further. Let's assume that you're willing to do everything via the volume in the guitar or by walking over to the amp and adjusting the control everytime you want to either get louder or get more saturation when using the guitar volume isn't sufficient. There is still a limit. You can't get the sound of something like James Hetfield's rhythm sound on Ride the Lightning on a stock JCM 800. Likewise, you don't get the brute force of the riff on "No More Tears" out of a JCM 800 either. There are lots of ways to get more out of a JCM 800, but you have to add something. The weapons of choice for those two examples were a Tube Screamer and an SD-1 respectively. (For an alternative approach, Kerry King used an EQ pedal into a JCM 800 with the mids boosted for Reign in Blood. ) Now, if those sounds are unappealing or, at the very least, not sounds you are interested in reproducing yourself, then you may not need on OD at all. Likewise, amps have come a long way since the 1980s, and many can replicate those tones and beyond with nothing out front. Still, a great many people in the metal world still love to use a Tube Screamer or SD-1 (or their many descendants) because they really do tighten the lows on an amp and make it more punchy. In the case of other genres, they can add sustain and compression to even a clean signal. I find they make country-style solos much easier to pull off, even when I'm running a compression pedal as well. They help hang the notes out there a little longer for me. I also find that when I am living in the clean and edge of breakup world, having the ability to boost volume/saturation and alter EQ with the click of a foot far more convenient than trying to reset the clean channel for each song and/or trying to find a balance between what I need for lead and what i need for rhythm with only the guitar volume. In fact, I probably find them more useful in the world of clean to slightly dirty than I do the high gain world when I think about it more. So returning to your two questions - it's not about "learning." That's a bit of false premise, I think. It's possible that, for other players, an overdrive solves a lot of problems that you don't have. You seem to be able to get all the tonal variation that you need out of your volume knob, but that doesn't mean that everyone could too if they tried. Nor does it mean that an OD pedal would be simpler that your solution for your use case. If a volume knob did it all for me, then I likely wouldn't use ODs either. In fact, ironically, since moving to ODs, I find I do control my saturation far more with the guitar volume than I ever used to because I don't have to drive my lead channel as hard. I can top it out as the most aggressive rhythm tone I want, use the boost for leads, but still be able to get the amp to clean up nicely with the volume because it is no longer set to kill on its own. Which is ultimately why people use them - they don't get (or can't get) what they need out of using just the volume knob and/or they like the convenience of not having to worry about purposely finding the sweet spot on over and over again on potentiometer during a live performance. For me, when my main band plays, we are doing everything from Creed and Alice in Chains to Waylon Jennings to 70s Soul, depending on our mood and how much we are whoring for that $$$. The easiest way for me to get all the different sounds I need ranging 00s-era nu metal to pop rock to Santo & Johnny is having some overdrive options in the mix. If you have a trick to make a bassman sound in the ballpark of a dual rectifier that doesn't involve 120 dB and is less invasive and cheaper than a pedal in front of some type, I'd love to hear it.

BUMP

Here's Ultimate 0063 in action on our version of "St. James Infirmary" from last Saturday night. A little self-indulgent? Maybe. 😆 But when you have a guitar that plays as good as this one you just kinda wanna keep going, you know? 🙂 Signal chain: 2017 Shishkov Ultimate 0063 (Gravelin Schlabotnik pickups) Line 6 G90 Wireless System 1999 Fulltone Full-Drive 2 (for solos) 2015 Mesa Mark V (Orange Channel) Line out from the Mesa goes through a 2008 Behringer VD400 Analog Delay (short delay, single repeat, wet-only output) to a 1953 Magnatone Melodier 110 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xmUreA-GvI "St. James Infirmary" – which has origins in a song called "Gambler's Blues" from the late 1800s – first gained prominence with Louis Armstrong's 1928 recorded version, and has been covered countless times since then, including versions by Cab Calloway, Bobby “Blue” Bland (my personal favorite) and even the White Stripes.

Thanks for responding - at least now I know it's not just me.

Guitarists primarily use overdrive pedals in two ways: As a Standalone Tone: Placed in front of a clean amplifier to give it a bluesy "edge-of-breakup" character. As a Booster: Used in front of an already-distorted tube amp to tighten the low-end, add sustain, and boost the volume for a guitar solo. https://youtu.be/LNTY8a-TjGM?is=tzy7A6F5_FEoYePk I personally like to stack a BBE Green Screamer over a KHDK Ghoul Screamer 😃👌

There was a show, possibly a movie, back in the early '90s, possibly before that, probably a VHS we rented from Pharmore, where blue men, before the Blue Man Group, would get the set ready for the subjects of the story would go. Like living in a simulation. But, say someone forgot their keys and couldn't find them and they knew they laid them on the coffee table. Well, the blue man, or men, would have to sneak back to the last set and place the keys somewhere for the subject to find them and then sneak back out undetected. It was pretty funny. I still blame the blue men whenever I lay something down and an instant later I can't find it. I'll look on YouTube and see if the video is out there. ETA: Found it. Twilight Zone 1986 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9XFRfeGBVI

I have an amp that does quite well without a pedal. Overdrives have done nothing for me except take out some high frequencies. The Robin Trower overdrive did nothing for me when it was used with an unmodified Fender Bassman head. Volume knobs work better for me. So why do people use overdrives? What are they doing that I have not learned to do?

it came to my attention while watching some hi fi youtuber repair guy, it appears that it would make it possible for me to do a lot of my own tech

My favorite Mirage was @veatch's Mirage 1.5