Ancient Mariner

TBH I would rather buy a bunch of those tiny Mooer pedals for the same money except that this would be useful for recording all sorts of stuff (including guitar).

Agreed - amost on the point of biting!

By all accounts the small Mustangs are very good, though I've never tried one myself. I'd recommend a Vox Pathfinder 15 if you can find one. All analogue, great tone and capable of a reasonable volume for when you move up a little. And they look much better than the majority of small amps. I found a faulty one and gutted it, building a single ended valve amp (6V6 to 6550 for 6W to 22W) and fitting a 10" speaker with a few tweaks to the cab. Voxy Baby was my main amp for several years.

Sounds broken then.

It was OOS yesterday.

Any conclusion yet?

[quote name='mart' timestamp='1355088372' post='1893940'] It'll presumably be these: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_american_truetone.htm"]http://www.thomann.d...an_truetone.htm[/url] [/quote] That is indeed Neo (the one). I half wish I'd bought the ACtone too, and have the set, but I've read very mixed reports of both the Joyo/HB and Tech 21 versions and despite owning a Vox AC30 I'm not a fan of the sound these days (gets used on EVERYTHING now).

I tried the California tonight with guitar. That's probably the most gain I've ever had from a pedal - pretty crazy, though it sounded great with the gain backed off a bit and could work really well for solos.

Now that's interesting. The overdrive seemed a bit buzzy to me, but I've not got my head around overdrive with bass yet - seems fundamentally wrong, like taking a fat old lady and dressing her up in leather and chains.

I thought it was worth separating this from the Mooer pedals thread. I my last order to WTF accessories I ordered 3 of the Tech 21 clones: American sound, British sound & California sound - the counterpaerts (more or less) of the Blonde, British and [s]US metal [/s]California pedals. I want these for recording guitar, and having given them a quick try, I think they'll be good for that, but the American sound pedal also has a sweet fatness that made me wonder if it would work for bass, run in front of the amp. Well, the answer is that - to my ears at least - it works brilliantly. With the voice knob at 9 o'clock, max level and gain adjusted for unity, bass & mids 12 o'clock, treble at 11 it changes my rather thin and clangy Jazz into something huge and fat, with a beautiful smoothness. The tone controls are very powerful, and with small tweaks I could vary the sound a lot. There's also a lot of drive available, although it gets a bit thin and buzzy to my ears, although it does get a little synthy. Thomann have these at about £25 too. Worth a try I reckon.

I'd try it with a battery and just 2 cables first - preferably old tried and trusted cables - direct into the amp. I've had occasions where gear picked up radio interference back in the late 70s (probably down to cheap cables) but not for a very long time.

[quote name='jazzyvee' timestamp='1349376576' post='1825547'] It looks fantastic However I've never got to grips with the sound of it. On paper it should be a fantastic guitar but it has some seymour duncan pickups in it which are too hot for my liking and makes the sound gritty at the volumes I normally play at and I found it difficult to get a warm mellow tone from it. [/quote] That tends to be the Seymour Duncan tone I'm afraid - I've never got on with any Duncan pickups in any guitar, though some love them. If you like the feel of the guitar and the way it sounds unplugged then a pickup change would be worthwhile, otherwise better to move it on.

Slightly OT, but with the last order I also got some of those Joyo Tech21 style pre-amp clones: American, British and California Sound = Fender, Marshall and Boogie. I've not tried them with bass yet, but with guitar through a bass amp (i.e. full range, so like a PA & direct input for recording) they made everything much more guitar-like. I especially like the American Sound - really nice and fat, genuinely Fendery sounding and able to cover a wide range of clean and mildly overdriven tones. The British sounds a bit flat clean and crunches up really well when driven - just like a Marshall! The California was more modern sounding than the American when clean, but I had to stop before cranking it because of 'complaints' about noise indoors. I don't know how good these are compared with the Tech21 pedals, but if they were better I'd actually seriously consider buying one! I'll next try recording through one of these soon and also try it as a preamp instead of the usual preamp in my Tech21 Trademark 60. The only failure so far is the size of the battery compartment - it was really hard to squeeze a battery in there, and I left it sticking out so I'd have something to pull when it came to take it out. These are £24 + P&P from Thomann or the 3 from WTFaccessories for about £60. But the Thomann American sound is bright orange, while mine is a lovely copper colour.

Just received my shipment from WTF, ordered Sunday (9 days ago) including the Elec Lady and 3 of the preamp Tech 21 style pedals. 10 min jam with guitar (not tried bass yet) and the Elec Lady is OK, but needs the settings to be controlled carefully not to create high pitched sybillant sounds. It's pretty good, but not a warm-sounding effect - to put it in context though, no worse than the Boss BF2 I used to have and would probably sound better through a darker amp. With fuzz/drive it does the classic flanger jet tone really well, and could earn it's place just on that alone if I were in a band that used those sounds. It will stay for now. Not sure when I'll get a chance to try it 'in anger' - we'll have to see.

In the same vein as BRX, one of my strats is actually a Squier from the version they made in Mexico that had 'Fender' in solid black lettering and a tiny circular 'Squier' logo. Someone had sanded off the Squier logo and refinished it quite well so that it was very hard to tell, with the only other clues being the solid lettering and the ceramic pickups and mini pots under the guard. It was sold non-working, and the kid flogging it had no idea, having paid £300 the previous year - he wasn't happy being offered £100 and we settled at £135 in the end including gig bag (probably got my moneys worth from the amount of weed smoke that must have absorbed). Needs a refret now, but it's still one of the nicer playing strats I've handled and certainly one of the best MIMs.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1354203019' post='1883544'] The Digitech Bad Monkey is a surprisingly good bass overdrive pedal and dirt cheap, even more so if you can find a used one. Here's one for £25 on eBay, free shipping: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bad-Monkey-by-Digitech-/290823167798?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item43b6695f36"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item43b6695f36[/url] [/quote] Not trying to be cheeky but I'll do my BM for £20 posted. A few minor chips but otherwise good nick - also replaced the rather fragile original battery connector.

You could try a '59 in the neck if you like Duncan PUs, but IMO they are rather thin. If the 103 is fairly hot then maybe a custom custom - they often get paired with a hot bridge PU. Personally if I were going to spend real money on a guitar I loved then I'd get Bryan Gunsher to wind me a set. Bryan is a Harmony Central regular, great guy and makes some of the best PUs around at good prices. I'd email him, tell him what sounds you want and the guitar you've got and replace both pickups - for very little more than the cost of a new Duncan in the UK. [url="http://www.bg-pups.com/"]http://www.bg-pups.com/[/url]

I was thinking Light Ash model, but yes, Koa, hence the Duncan pickups.

Thanks for that. I have some great effects on my board and very little space, but there's always that temptation to try new stuff. So far I've identified 8 of these I would happily use if they were good. And money were no object. Seriously, grateful for what I do have, but as my grandmother used to say, much always wants mooer.

How much are they asking? Is it worth taking a punt, knowing you can part it out and flog the bits without losing if it's an iffy copy with nice parts?

Don't keep us on tenterhooks man - are you happy with them?

My first question was "why would you want it?" but I guess that's been answered with the cross-dressing Korean bass player comment.

Typical - ordered Saturday and the compressor was OOS, but by Monday AM was back in stock again! That is the ONLY pedal that WTF carry which I wanted that Marcmart don't have.

Once it leaves Asia then tracking generally stops working, depending on what you've paid for in shipping.