LucSulla

Mine's korina, so that would be a bear. I'd probably let the Tally go before the Standard. I still play the Standard pretty often. The Tally doesn't see fresh air very much anymore. It's a great guitar, but as I approach 40, I find I really just want to go back to my roots and play hard rock and southern metal. It's not that you couldn't do that with a Tally, but other guitars more naturally do that to me.

I think I may sell my Standard and Tally. I find I'm growing less and less enthused about having so much money sitting in guitars. I think I may be able to live in a world where I have only one truly top shelf guitar and others that I am into for less than $1k.

The breakdown in "Echoes" on Meddle is still one of the funkiest damn things a bunch of white, English dudes have ever played.

"I will not worry about pulling tubes to troubleshoot this amp tonight. I am just going to watch this movie. I will not mess with the amp. Just the movie." Five minutes later and tubes are everywhere.

I was waiting for Lemmy to die to have kids. Now I just need to find a lady who is OK with dark rituals and reincarnation.

They reacted exactly like my parents did to Metallica. So I guess everyone hates my generation's music... which is metal as fuck. \m/, ETA: I'll totally be looking for that one girl in a pit in about eight years. There's always just that one who gets it, and Metallica is a good "gateway drug." I'll be the gray-haired dude near the sound booth thinking, "Yep, knew it!"

I think if I was going to buy a Gibson reissue, I'd go for the '58 or the '59. There is a serious mojo thing with those plain tops to me.

^I won't like that because I know how crappy that feels. I hate it when I discover a new brand of guitars I really like.

Hey, Joe Bonamassa played with one of my favorite bands once, and it is the only performance of his that I thought was truly bad ass. Go figure.

Still cleans up nice.

Hey, it's me demoing an amp with a Hamer Standard. What is better than an iPhone mic for that? https://www.facebook.com/jason.cain3/videos/10103633045135517/?l=5727484543179639505

I've never really liked Dual Recs. That whole late 90s-00s hard rock scene, from metalcore to nü-metal to post grunge, seemed to just wear these things out. I also happen to be a huge COC fan and was listening to some just now. I forgot Woody was probably the first guy I ever heard playing a Dual Rec (which I didn't know for years and years), and I always loved his tone for stoner metal. It's hard to imagine one on a recording that doesn't sound like Creed or Nickelback, but here it is. I wish more people had used them to get other tones.

I gave it another month. Then I traded it with Nathan for a Cali, the most unDGT thing ever. I love that damned Cali. For what it is worth, I played it quite loud quite a bit when I first moved into the house. It has a great sound, but it just isn't my sound if that makes sense. My sound apparently likes zebra-striped spandex still.

As ridiculous as my buying habits can be, the Mark V was the first "nice" amp that I bought, and I bought it new. Prior to that, I had been playing a Marshall TSL 60 Watt combo for 10 years. I was in grad school, used all the money I made from working a summer trip, and I really couldn't afford to get rid of the Mark. I didn't play it much either beyond the occasional studio thing, and none of that was high gain-ish. I have very nearly tried to sell it, but I guess I just am stubborn. I kept thinking, "this amp is built too well and does too much to sound this shitty." The last two month, I've really been considering it again, but I FINALLY made it sound right. The problem really was all operator error, but coming from Marshall land, running a flag ship Mesa might as well be picking up a new language. Channel Masters, Presence, and all kinds of stuff simply work completely differently. Once you crack the code, it all makes sense, and the functionality is quite brilliant. But the fucking learning curve! Even the manual says it could take years to figure it out! Seriously, if I could have gotten close to my $2300 buck or whatever it was back out of it, I would have dumped it two yeas ago. However, I am glad that I didn't. It really is a great amp, but it isn't user friendly at all. Then again, the damned thing really does make a lot of different noises once you do figure it out. Worth it? I can't say because I never had a choice either way. But I have to admit that having an amp that does crystal cleans, tweeds, Marshall-ish grunt, and death metal chunkiness is pretty cool. I played a bunch of Dwight Yoakam today, changed channels, and played a bunch of Opeth stuff without really touch anything. That's pretty nifty.

Mesa Mark Vs are why I will never own a Kemper or an Axe FX unit. Not because all that sweet tube sound but because it has taken me literally five years to figure it out. You almost have to live with the thing a year just to know which part of the manual you need to read to dial in what you don't like. It's very clever - if you hard bypass the FX Loop circuit, the channel masters act as masters, but the master volume and solo don't work. But when you do engage the FX loop, the polarity of the amp flips (which is important to know I'm sure, but I still don't know why), the output and solos work, and the channel masters control the FX return. After discovering this, I finally realized I needed to go back and read that part about flipping the bypass on and off and adjusting the channel master and the FX send until the level was the same when the loop was in or out. Amps sounds really good now... and I have a bunch of pedals I probably never needed in the first place. All this is to say, as complex (perhaps even overly complex) as a Mark V is, it still has nothing on those digital amps. And I am confident I would be 90 before I knew how the hell to do anything with them.

One day I will be grown up enough to put a towel over my guitar while I solder so I avoid that inevitable ding when I drop the pliers.

After owning a couple of Charvels, a Jackson SL1, and a Diablo, I am glad to be in the Cali club finally. Who knows if the awesomeness of this guitar will override the impracticality of of a Floyd Rose leading to this being a longterm love affair, but it is easily the best playing "shredder" I've ever owned. That ebony fret board is beyond perfect.

I feel like me and PRSi are just destined to never get along. I have a house now with a whole spare room for guitars and amps. I spent today futzing around with stuff and falling in love with some of these guitars all over again. My old Les Paul is always great to me, and so is the new one. The Hamer's are all badass, and finally getting to tweak and amp a little to get the best out of the korina standard is awesome. And... well, I guess I don't own anything except Hamers, Gibbys, and one PRS. The PRS is built great, looks great, and does a lot of great things, but I still find myself playing it for a few and reaching for something else. It's me, not the guitar I'm sure. I really, really want to like DGTs, but I don't know. A month isn't long enough to decide, but I am starting to think PRSi just aren't for me.

I am still pissed that Layne Staley is dead. I don't even know at who, but between AIC and the Mad Season album... I really would have liked to have heard more of his art.

Toys in the Attic is about as good as rock 'n' roll gets.

I bought some of these today: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/99aff89488ddd6b1/ I forgot how pleasurable a lot of albums are through good cans. These aren't the best it gets by any means, but they really do deliver a great experience for under $200. Tool's Aenima and Dark Side of the Moon continue to intrigue me sonically after all these years. Being able to hear the room as well as the snare itself on "Eulogy" is so cool. Then there are newer albums... good god, it's a good thing that the album is a dying art form, because most of them sound fucking horrible anyway. I can ALMOST forgive the aggressive use of limiters in mastering, but a lot of stuff you can tell is clipped to "tape" before it ever gets smashed by a mastering engineer.

To that point, Roland Jazz Choruses used to be a go to clean amp. And when I used to do more studio work, it wasn't uncommon at all to tuck a Crate practice amp all fuzzed out in the mix -- one of those can't-hear-it when-it's-in-but-can-tell-when-it's-out type things -- just for some bite. I wouldn't say it was standard, but it certainly wasn't rare.

I dabbled in the vinyl discussion once here. From hence forth, I am staying out of it.

...here it comes.