A fun exercise in nostalgia

My history in pictures, Boss was around late 80's with the zoom 9030 somewhere '92/'93 and the whole rack completed early 2000. Didn't bother posting pics of an Axe XL and mfc 101 as I reckoned most people here know what that looks like:)

All this is now in my loft gathering dust. I try not to think about the money I've got sitting up there. Mini disc player anyone??IMG_0085.JPG IMG_0117.PNG
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POB said:
In 1980 I sold a 1966 Vox AC30 for £300 and I bought a Carlsboro Rebel because I was sick of lugging the bloody Vox around! Also a Benson tape echo and brand new Arbiter Fuzz Face (found at the back of an old TV shop) which I originally bought for £20 went as well. The Rebel was pretty crap, but I don’t remember missing any of the vintage stuff either. You were never quite sure what it was going to do when you switched it on!
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In the late 90's (or was it early 90's?) I worked at the local music store (US). One day I came in after a day off and there sat a Carlsbro 4x12 cab in mint condition. Someone had brought it in on consignment. It was a bottom cab but shallower than a Marshall bottom. From the looks of the Tolex, piping and grill cloth it was late 60's or early 70's. Mint condition and not a scratch on it but it wasn't a Marshall and was obviously a copy so I never even plugged it up.

I don't remember exactly how it happened but months later I think I used it to demo a head and was surprised at it's sound. Later that evening, after hours, I took the back off and I swear there was a bright light and a choir of angels singing. There were 4 MINT 30 watt Pre-Rola G12H Greenbacks. My jaw hit the floor. Long story short, I ended up buying it from the shop owner for $200. Took those babies out and put them in a early 70's Marshall bottom cab.
 
It was the 70's. I was in 7th grade and a friend asked if I wanted to put together a band for the talent show. Why not I replied. I had been playing guitar about a year. He had been playing drums a bit longer. He had a gung-ho friend who didn't play anything but wanted in on it. His parents bought him a beginner bass, amp, microphone and stand. We decided on CCR's Proud Mary. I don't recall how many weeks we had to practice but we did it.

I had a Hohner Les Paul Custom copy. Really nice guitar for a bolt on copy and a Peavy Backstage 30. But wait! There's more! For the talent show I borrowed my cousin's Backstage 30. I now had a stack! I dimmed the controls and let'r rip. The height of the stage floor was perfect for full sonic facial melt down. In the end we didn't place but the entire auditorium was stomping and clapping to the beat while we were playing. Talk about hooked, I was. Hook, line and sinker.

\m/

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Whistler said:
My history in pictures, Boss was around late 80's with the zoom 9030 somewhere '92/'93 and the whole rack completed early 2000. Didn't bother posting pics of an Axe XL and mfc 101 as I reckoned most people here know what that looks like:)

All this is now in my loft gathering dust. I try not to think about the money I've got sitting up there. Mini disc player anyone??View attachment 43766 View attachment 43767
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Oh yeah I totally jumped on the mini disc bandwagon. My whole recording setup was based around the format. Was very disappointed when it was discontinued, but I come from a long line of early adapters of failed technology. My parents, for example, decided that Betamax was the future of home video entertainment.

Oh, and let’s not forget the mighty Zip disk.
 
daschwarjazz said:
Oh yeah I totally jumped on the mini disc bandwagon. My whole recording setup was based around the format. Was very disappointed when it was discontinued, but I come from a long line of early adapters of failed technology. My parents, for example, decided that Betamax was the future of home video entertainment.

Oh, and let’s not forget the mighty Zip disk.
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Yep, been all over that lot at some point plus the mighty Digital Compact Cassette fail! I still have mine in the loft.
 
Rex said:
Agreed. I have a Rockmaster in my FX8 rig. It pairs nicely with my Classic 50/50 power amp.
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I could never find a 50/50 at a reasonable price when I was looking for one.

I wonder how unique the Rockmaster is in design, and if it would be worth modelling in the AxeFx? It would be cool to see it paired with a 50/50 in a model, call it the "50 Rock".
 
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StickMan said:
I could never find a 50/50 at a reasonable price when I was looking for one.

I wonder how unique the Rockmaster is in design, and if it would be worth modelling in the AxeFx? It would be cool to see it paired with a 50/50 in a model, call it the "50 Rock".
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Interesting question. I never tried to reproduce the Rockmaster in the Axe.

As for the Classic 50/50, they can be had for a relatively low price, but you have to be patient.
 
grandinq said:
Any love for the Rocktron Pro GAP? I used that for a number of years. Looking back I’m not sure why I didn’t get the ADA MP1 instead
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Loved my pro gap at the time. Had a quadraverb for effects and used an old mono yamaha power amp into two 4 x 12 until I got hold of a Kitty Hawk stereo valve power amp. That thing was a beast.
The pro gap had presets created by lukather and holdsworth if I recall.
 
@Whistler - I had that Zoom 9030 too, it was my first "real" guitar processor. I'd first gotten a Quadraverb which I loved but quickly realized it wasn't actually a guitar sim (the sales guy who sold it to me basically lied to get the sale).

After the Zoom I was a long time Boss user - GT3 and then GT8. The 8 was a lot better sounding, but the one thing I missed from the 3 was the old style feedback simulator - the one in the GT8 was nowhere near as usable. I used to love kicking that thing on to feedback notes mid-solo.

And for recording, after starting w/ a Tascam 4-track, and then the 8 tracks on cassette (remember those? jeez they sounded bad even then)... I was all in on a Roland VS-1680. I can't believe how much I paid for it back then, compared to what you can do for free today (well, I guess you'd have to pay for a computer if you didn't have one). I still have it... I should export all the tunes I have on it and get $100 from GC for it.
 
Boss ME-30 in 1997 when i was a teenager, awful sound but taught me a lot about effects, I used to go direct into a Hi-Fi! LOL. FRFR in 1997 baby! How I didn't blow the speakers I don't know.

 
strat714 said:
ART SGX-2000 with the X-15 midi controller! I thought it was the best! I still have it. I should fire it up and reminisce.
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You haven’t lived until you’ve wrestled with an X-15. “Did I stomp the switch? Did I stomp it hard enough? Let’s play a note and find out.” :)
 
Oh, you youngsters are so entertaining. One word: ”Wollensak”.

I hear that some enterprising lads (not me) would “borrow” several from the AV Room and then screw/solder multiple playback heads to a single chassis plate and VOILA! - Poor Man’s EchoPlex.

I can’t remember if a 1K or 2K resistor equaled approx. -6dB loss between adjacent heads...
 
Rex said:
You haven’t lived until you’ve wrestled with an X-15. “Did I stomp the switch? Did I stomp it hard enough? Let’s play a note and find out.” :)
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It was the purple and black that drew me in. And the squeaky pedal. Just the name...X-15... sounded like a space ship from a 50's sci fi movie. Loved my X-15. Ran a Peavey Profex with it. Ran the Profex into a pair of Peavey Bravos. I thought it was da bomb.
 
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kipstryker said:
Loved my pro gap at the time. Had a quadraverb for effects and used an old mono yamaha power amp into two 4 x 12 until I got hold of a Kitty Hawk stereo valve power amp. That thing was a beast.
The pro gap had presets created by lukather and holdsworth if I recall.
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Back in the day I dreamed about adding a QuadraVerb!

The presets were pretty cool. I remember, though, that whenever you turned it on it would start at preset 20, called Burn, and it was a noisy, squealing sound.
 
strat714 said:
ART SGX-2000 with the X-15 midi controller! I thought it was the best! I still have it. I should fire it up and reminisce.
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I had both of those as well, and still have the X-15 controller. I used it a bit with the Ultra before I got an MFC-101.

Rex said:
You haven’t lived until you’ve wrestled with an X-15. “Did I stomp the switch? Did I stomp it hard enough? Let’s play a note and find out.” :)
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Correct!!! You really had to stomp pretty hard on the X-15's buttons to engage them...I frequently had to 're-stomp' :confused:

One thing I liked about the X15 was that you could use it in FX mode as bypass toggles. I was able to program the Rocktron Replifex to send MIDI to the X15 to reflect the bypass status (on/off) of it's FX in the switch LED's. Was the first rack/pedal controller I was able to do that with. The expression controls worked well enough too.

I traded the SGX-2000 for a Carvin power amp years ago; wasn't until I got an Ultra that the dream of an all-in-one-unit started to become reality. I think Cliff mentioned on here before that he also had an SGX-2000. All I remember is the buyers remorse not long after I got it, especially that I sold a Digitech "Twin Tube" MIDI tube preamp that sounded decent (but was soooo hard to tweak) to get it.

This is some of the rack stuff I've used over the years for my guitar rigs:

Rocktron Intellifex
Rocktron Replifex
Rocktron Piranha (I loved the parametric MID control on this)
Digitech Twin Tube (had a programmable graphic EQ which was cool)
ART SGX-2000
Sansamp PSA-1 (still have this)
Marshall JMP-1
 
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skydog said:
Sansamp PSA-1 (pretty darn good at the time)
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For sure; it was amazing how you could pile on the gain on that unit and it wouldn't fall apart. It stayed tight, rich, and focused. You really could fine tune the distortion bands in ways most other units couldn't at that time. I was able to get a lot of great tones from it....

Sounds awesome as a bass preamp too; when we jam at my house that's what the bassist uses, and all who've tried it over these many years loves it.
 
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