Metal Guitarist Forums banner

NGD/NAD/NS(tuff)D all rolled into one.

1K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  Mike 
#1 ·
So I've got some stuff. Here it is.

CHARVEL

Firstly this guitar, which I spec'd up and bought from ******* in like... March? The end of March. But due to the apocalypse it took 36 days to arrive :lol: There were times when I just forgot it was even coming for a few days, then I'd remember and excitedly check the USPS tracking only to see that it hasn't moved. At one point it stayed in the same place for 22 days :nuts: Probably being used to prop open a hangar door...

Anyway, enough of the back-story, here's a couple of quick piccies:



Here it is with Greenie



It's a bit of a mutt, but one made from the best of all components where the contemporary Charvels are concerned IMO

  • Alder body from an MIJ San Dimas - So, direct-mounted pickups and a top-mount Floyd with a slight neck pocket angle.
  • Post-2016 MIM neck - These are flat-sawn with a separate fretboard, and in my experience have better fretwork, and are more stable, despite maaaaybe not quite having as nice a finish to them. I went with an ebony board because I thought it would look unique compared to the sea of maple that Charvel usually gets associated with
  • ******* routed the body to accomodate the truss rod adjustment wheel on the MIM neck. This is by far my favourite thing about the post-2016 necks. Who the fuck wants to take their neck on and off to get the neck relief sorted? It's not the 50's any more...
  • Pickups - Kept the Ducan 59 in the neck, but swapped the JB out for a Suhr Aldrich. As is the law now.

I added a few extras like some Schaller S-locks (their newer model, fantastic stuff). Strung with 9-46 in drop C# :lol: I'm loving super light strings at the moment, such a heavier sag and attack for my brand of slow plodding groove metal.

I thought it might be the honeymoon period talking, but 7DT dropped some stuff off for me to tech the other day and he concurs (without me even provoking the question really) that it sounds much better than the green one. There's just something about those MIJ bodies, or maybe it's the physics of a top-mount Floyd, who knows, but they've got near-identical spec and it just sounds so much more... tone-y. More aggressive, more in-your-face and direct sounding, and bigger.

Anyway, next...

DUAL RECTIFIER

Man I've been around and around and around with amps since we went into lockdown... I started off with a 5150, loved it at first because it was my first valve amp for a while, then I just couldn't get it to work for me in the context of what I'm working on, sounded a bit generic and meh.

So I borrowed my bandmate's JVM410H, which I've borrowed many times, but for some reason it just did something for me this time that the 5150 wasn't doing, was way more versatile, so I ended up grabbing a JVM210H (it's the same, but only five billion options instead of ten billion) and was happy with that for a while, but again, something about it just didn't sit right ultimately, and I feel it can sound a little sterile/like emulation? I used it for about a month, and I really dug some of the features (like the fact that the "preamp out" will work even when the amp is in stand-by, so silent recording if you wanna go into impulses!)...

But in the end, I knew what needed to be done. I've had Mr S's 3Ch Triple Rec here for ages, and it's almost like I didn't want to use it because I didn't want to admit how much it fucking sucked that I had to sell my MultiWatt Dual Rec a couple of years ago :lol:

I bit the bullet, plugged it in, and cried horrible, horrible confused tears of regret and happiness.

Drove down to London a few days later to pick this up...





It had to be another MultiWatt. As much as I love all eras of Rectifier, and in a pinch I will take any over most other amps, there's just something really awesome about these Reborn models. They're smoother, less boomy, brighter, tighter, but still have that undeniably massive tone.

Fun fact about this one - So Reborns came out in 2010, but this one has a manufacture date of 2009. I hit up Mesa and they ran the serial number. It's the 247th MultiWatt ever made, and one of - if not THE - first to come to the UK.

It's in seriously great condition inside and out. The guy had it serviced regularly, he bought it from the stage management company he works for who had it as their backline, and so again very well looked after and regularly serviced.

OTHER BITS

After all was said and done, I still haven't bought myself another cab since I sold all my live gear, but I have two 4x12's here and a 2x12, all loaners from friends/bandmates etc. None of them were really working for me in a mix, so I started just lining out the Slave from the Recto into impulses.

The mix I hit on which was like "yes, this is the one!" was an impulse I made of a Zilla Fatboy I had a few years back.

After a while I was like man, I really don't want to crank this goddam amp if I'm not even miking it up...

So I grabbed a Two Notes Torpedo Captor!



Just landed today. Thing is great. Got the Recto cooking right in the sweet spot now and getting some awesome tones.

This is funny... Over in the corner of my studio/workshop I have what I'm now calling "The Tower of Shame". Stacked up all the gear I've bought/borrowed that hasn't really worked out for me so is either up for sale or returning to its owner...



Notice a pattern here? :rofl:

A SONGY SONG!

Here's what it sounds like all mashed together in a mix...

(here's a direct link in case the embed doesn't work)



Just a cover of a Philip Sayce song I started. But you get the basic idea...
 
See less See more
6
#5 ·
My bandmates JVM410H. The 210H sitting on top is mine, but I'm not keeping it. The JVMs are some of the better valve amps to play at low volumes and has great features (which is why they're so popular amongst bedroom warrior Marshall fanboys who just have a gigantic home rig) but they do lack a little something. They just feel a little artificial as I said before, and upon doing a little research I'm not the only one who has felt that way about them.

But then I find that with all valve amps that sound good at low volumes. They're meant to sound like fizzy shit until cranked otherwise somethings not quite right :lol:

Theres a mod you can do to the negative feedback loop (I.e. reduce it) which can make it feel a little more raw and less digital/processed sounding, but I dont want to fuck with it since I'm not keeping it.
 
#7 ·
Well I actually did that with my very first Charvel. It was a red MIJ San Dimas, which is why I got this one, because that guitar sounded amazing, but because I didnt like the red I sanded the paint off, parted out the neck, put a Jackson Adrian Smith neck on it... still had *that* tone.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top