It alwys pays to look

[Banned041618]

EDIT BY BILLY:
This is a post copied verbatim and passed off as new by a now-banned spammer.


The closest local guitar shop with gear selection is Guitar Center and every time I'm in the store I look over their used stuff meticulously. Well back in May I would say I got pretty lucky. In their used case was a set of humbuckers labeled "Billy Gibbons Seymour Duncan" for $175. I had been casually scouting for a set of Pearly Gates as they are my favorite sounding humbuckers and thought they might sound pretty good in my ES335.

Since the pickups were pretty vaguely labeled I didn't bother anyone to pull them out of the case while I was there but the more I thought about it I thought what the hell I'll have someone give me some info. A few days later I call them up and asked one of the guys to flip them over and read if anything was on the back. Sure enough we found the Pearly Gates code for the neck and bridge but it also had a "custom shop" sticker. I didn't know what that meant at the time but for $175 I thought it was a decent price for a set of Pearly Gates, which can get a little pricy new. Then I started to do a little research and crazy enough Seymour Duncan does do a Custom Shop version of the PGs that retail for about $340!

I think I got a pretty good deal even if they were straight production pickups. Wiring them up in the 335 was a huge pain but man they sound great! I'm looking forward to the next gig so I can hear them in the band setting!

[bclaire]

That's very cool. I love when a music store doesn't really know what they have. I got an "80's" listed 1968 Marshall 50 watt Trem for $499 once when a music store didn't know what they had. Traded it even later on for a new Orange AD30TC combo when they first came out.

[Les Paul Lover]

Or guitars form obscure brands that stay on the shelf for years.....

That's how i got my vigier expert for around 1/2 price. Year of make 2006, I bought it in 2010, and I'm pretty sure it had been in that shop for these 4 years.

They probably sold a lot of fender strats in that time, some for a lot more than my Vigier..... yet that Vigier is (in my opinion) such an upgrade on Fender's custom shop offering!!!!!

There are deals everywhere if you are at the right place at the right time.

[mici88]

I get what you say.

I bought a sh*t-ton of vintage Boss/Ibanez pedals in local pawn shops and buy/trade/sell boards. Some remarkable shots:

1984 CE-3 for 9$
1981 OD-1 for 25$
1984 DD-2 for 30$
1982 BF-2 for 15$
1983 TS-9 for 19$
list goes on and on.

Of course, it all comes down to how much time you spend scrolling down the sites, but hey, I have a third monitor at my job

[Thinline_slim]

Hey, wait a dang minute!!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54070&hilit=Pearly

[Jondog]

Hey, wait a dang minute!!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54070&hilit=Pearly

Ok, so it’s happened. The bomb did go off. Dimensions have crossed. I thought things have gotten other worldly the past few years.

[Les Paul Lover]

Hey, wait a dang minute!!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54070&hilit=Pearly

You were so happy to chose to retell the story with a new avatar?

[bclaire]

Just banned him. I don't know what purpose spammers have in doing this but he's not getting the chance to find out.

[Les Paul Lover]

Hey, wait a dang minute!!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54070&hilit=Pearly

By the way do you still have your black Pearl?

[Thinline_slim]

Very strange that I just happen to pop on here to find that quote. Still have those pickups in the same ES-335 that I absolutely love. It’s become my #2!

As a matter of fact I do still have the BP30. I’ve played with a bunch of anos preamp tubes but the biggest helper for me was replacing the Red Fang (and that killed me) with an Eminence Reign Maker. Really helped dial the volume back just enough without getting compressed, like it did with about every attenuator I tried.

Other than that I’m still rocking the OR50 and TTs. I did get my hands on a Suhr Hedgehog at a really good price about a year ago. VERY sweet amp!!

[Les Paul Lover]

Very strange that I just happen to pop on here to find that quote. Still have those pickups in the same ES-335 that I absolutely love. It’s become my #2!

As a matter of fact I do still have the BP30. I’ve played with a bunch of anos preamp tubes but the biggest helper for me was replacing the Red Fang (and that killed me) with an Eminence Reign Maker. Really helped dial the volume back just enough without getting compressed, like it did with about every attenuator I tried.

Other than that I’m still rocking the OR50 and TTs. I did get my hands on a Suhr Hedgehog at a really good price about a year ago. VERY sweet amp!!

I finally managed to score a black pearl myself and love it.
As for the volume...... I made a fortunate discovery....!!!!
I needed to make the fx loop work with my stomp boxes, and convert it's line level output to instrument level, and back to line level again after going through my stomp boxes.

For that I bought an ebtech line level shifter lls2. Since it's passive, I does lose quite a bit of volume, probably around 10db. I was pretty shocked to start with..... until I realised that it enabled me to open up the master volume quite a bit more!!!! That and my reverbs, delay, tremolo and ditto can all be used in the loop now.

Also, I removed the well worn EL84 and replaced them with NOS 6P14P EV Russian valves. They are GREAT!!!
I compared with newish JJ, the difference was pretty big.

I'm waiting on a pretty cheap RTF 12AX7 to arrive at the moment, if it works well in the amp, I'll try and get some more as I can get them at reasonable prices at the moment.

[Thinline_slim]

Very strange that I just happen to pop on here to find that quote. Still have those pickups in the same ES-335 that I absolutely love. It’s become my #2!

As a matter of fact I do still have the BP30. I’ve played with a bunch of anos preamp tubes but the biggest helper for me was replacing the Red Fang (and that killed me) with an Eminence Reign Maker. Really helped dial the volume back just enough without getting compressed, like it did with about every attenuator I tried.

Other than that I’m still rocking the OR50 and TTs. I did get my hands on a Suhr Hedgehog at a really good price about a year ago. VERY sweet amp!!

I finally managed to score a black pearl myself and love it.
As for the volume...... I made a fortunate discovery....!!!!
I needed to make the fx loop work with my stomp boxes, and convert it's line level output to instrument level, and back to line level again after going through my stomp boxes.

For that I bought an ebtech line level shifter lls2. Since it's passive, I does lose quite a bit of volume, probably around 10db. I was pretty shocked to start with..... until I realised that it enabled me to open up the master volume quite a bit more!!!! That and my reverbs, delay, tremolo and ditto can all be used in the loop now.

Also, I removed the well worn EL84 and replaced them with NOS 6P14P EV Russian valves. They are GREAT!!!
I compared with newish JJ, the difference was pretty big.

I'm waiting on a pretty cheap RTF 12AX7 to arrive at the moment, if it works well in the amp, I'll try and get some more as I can get them at reasonable prices at the moment.

Does the lowered fx loop level affect how much you can drive the power section? I always loved the Matchless kind of drive but to get that out of the amp naturally is quite loud, hence the attenuator or Eminence. I guess what I’m asking is does the ebtech change the tone?

[Les Paul Lover]

Very strange that I just happen to pop on here to find that quote. Still have those pickups in the same ES-335 that I absolutely love. It’s become my #2!

As a matter of fact I do still have the BP30. I’ve played with a bunch of anos preamp tubes but the biggest helper for me was replacing the Red Fang (and that killed me) with an Eminence Reign Maker. Really helped dial the volume back just enough without getting compressed, like it did with about every attenuator I tried.

Other than that I’m still rocking the OR50 and TTs. I did get my hands on a Suhr Hedgehog at a really good price about a year ago. VERY sweet amp!!

I finally managed to score a black pearl myself and love it.
As for the volume...... I made a fortunate discovery....!!!!
I needed to make the fx loop work with my stomp boxes, and convert it's line level output to instrument level, and back to line level again after going through my stomp boxes.

For that I bought an ebtech line level shifter lls2. Since it's passive, I does lose quite a bit of volume, probably around 10db. I was pretty shocked to start with..... until I realised that it enabled me to open up the master volume quite a bit more!!!! That and my reverbs, delay, tremolo and ditto can all be used in the loop now.

Also, I removed the well worn EL84 and replaced them with NOS 6P14P EV Russian valves. They are GREAT!!!
I compared with newish JJ, the difference was pretty big.

I'm waiting on a pretty cheap RTF 12AX7 to arrive at the moment, if it works well in the amp, I'll try and get some more as I can get them at reasonable prices at the moment.

Does the lowered fx loop level affect how much you can drive the power section? I always loved the Matchless kind of drive but to get that out of the amp naturally is quite loud, hence the attenuator or Eminence. I guess what I’m asking is does the ebtech change the tone?

It does in a sense - I can open u0 the master volume quite a bit more. The signal strengths hitting the power section is lower, and I haven't turned the master past the 1/2 way mark yet in any wattage settings.

Where the power section benefits from it is that I can open it up a little bit without getting silly volumes. Still loud, but not silly. I find that with the master volume below 10 o'clock, the amp sounds congested, and really opens up and breathe beyond that.

I'm quite happy with the preamp section dirt though. With gain between 12 and 2 o'clock and boost a bit higher, I get good edge of break up and heavy crunch / lead tone. Love it!!!!