Future Vintage: What instruments will be hot in the next decade?

We all love guitars and gear, right? That is why you are reading Gear-Vault and that is why I am writing this article. Those of us who have been doing this for more years than we might care to admit have seen the guitar market rise and fall and many different pieces of gear fall in and out of favor with the musos, collectors, and fetishists out there. Of course, the real vintage stuff, like 50’s and 60’s Strats, Teles, and Les Pauls, have risen to obscene levels of value that have put them into the realm of fantasy for most of us. Read more

Paul Reed Smith Sweet 16 Amplifier

Paul Reed Smith is well known in the guitar community for his ultra-plush, high-end guitar designs and has recently made the move into making a line of tube amps, as well. His latest offering is the Sweet 16 head, which gives players a mighty 16 watts of cathode-biased 6v6 tube power, a full TMB tone stack, reverb, and PRS’ completely transparent master volume circuit. Read more

Brownsville Choirboy and Hiwatt Bulldog 10

This mongrel duo is a mixture of sweetness and range. The Brownsville Choirboy is a well-behaved instrument that puts hollowbody jangle within most musicians’ budgets. Its bound body is charitably outfitted with three “toaster-top” pickups and a five-way selector, from which you can order up oodles of focused jangle, ranging from tight bit to silky jazz. The bolt-on maple neck has a pleasing profile and a plateless heel for upper-fret comfort, all of which is graciously aided by an adjustable bridge and truss rod. Read more

Kramer Baretta FR-404S and Marshall G30R-CD

Rookie Metalheads never had it so good. This Kramer-Marshall combo packs plenty of bite and bottom at a bargain-basement price. The Kramer Baretta sports a maple neck and alder body with neck-thru construction, quad-rail humbuckers (tappable to dual-rails, for leaner thumpitude), Floyd Rose trem, a killer neck profile, superb fretting, a flawless finish and skull and crossbones tuners. Tricked-out with top notch hardware, these Korean-built Kramers sport ridiculously good tone and playability. They’ll be an instant lure for anyone who’s ever even thought of a pinched harmonic. Read more

Ampeg B3-28 Bass Guitar Amplifier

1990s era Ampeg bass amp–Featuring a tilt-back design, the B3-28 delivers big sound (150-watts) in a small package. A two-input plate on the back lets you choose between employing the amp’s two eight-inch speakers alone or in conjunction with the piezo tweeter. Other features include inout gain with peak LED, -15 dB input pad, bass, treble and ultra-mid control, nine-band graphic EQ, XLR line-out, a pre/post EQ line-out switch and an effects loop.–Discontinued product. Read more

Mesa Boogie Mark V – Five – Video Demo

Mesa Boogie Mark V–the Mark V is a timeless journey through Mesa/Boogie’s illustrious history. The Mark V houses multiple circuits and sounds spanning the lifespan of the Mark series — from the high-gain cascading pre amp of the Mark I all the way to the amazing power and control of the Mark IV. The preamp offers numerous sounds, ranging from tweed-like tones to British crunch to blistering trademark Boogie overdrive.

Channel One:
o Clean
o Fat
o Tweed
Channel Two:
o Edge
o Crunch
o Mark I
Channel Three:
o Mark IIC+
o Mark IV
o Extreme

Mesa Boogie Mark V Guitar Amp Video Demo

Video by kevincvia1

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Mesa Boogie Rectifier Series

Mesa/Boogie Engineering–a company that specializes in making amplifiers for guitars, bass, and rock in roll fanatics… Yes, for you!

One of the most legendary amplifiers from Mesa/Boogie is the Rectifier series, which we more commonly use the term ”Recto”. The Recto was responsible for the detuned 7-string nu- and heavy-metal to fame in the nineties. It was an instrumental success to this new genre of music. Three variations of the Rectifier series which include: Single Rectifier, Dual Rectifier and (the big dogs) the Triple Rectifier. All the Rectifier series are manufactured by Mesa Engineering here in the United States.

Mesa/Boogie Single Rectifier

The Single Rectifier produces 50-watts of power and uses a silicon diode rectifier, not the actual glass valve like it’s big brother. Single Rectifier (50-watt) family include the Single Rectifier Solo Head 50, Rect-o-Verb 50 head followed by the Rect-o-Verb 50 combo; which is all fitted neatly with a single 12″ Celestion Black Shadow speaker.

Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier

The most popular model (and my personal favorite) of the Recto series is the Dual Rectifier Solo Head. Loaded with a Mesa Boogie Dual Recto-quartet set of Mesa 6L6 power tubes (switchable to EL34s –same as single and triple Rectifiers), the Dual Recto produces 100-watts of pure-tube-power. If you prefer a looser tube-sag tone, then all you have to do is simply flip the switch on the back panel to select the Vacuum Tube rectification mode from the Silicon Diode (see photo), this will engage the two 5U4-G Rectifier Tubes.

The Dual Rectifier originally designed as a 2 channels unit, however, in 2001 the model was redesigned to have a third channel included. Though the redesigned product had an additional channel, many people still prefer the original 2 channel as they claim that it produces a more superior sound over the redesigned version. With that said, some state that the cleans from the 3-channel are far more supior over the original 2-channel version.

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Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier

And now for the BEAST, the Triple Rectifier has three 5U4G Rectifier tubes and six 6L6 power tubes, which produces a massive 150-watts output of power. The Triple rectifier was also originally designed as a 2-channel unit like it’s counterpart, but was redesigned to hold the third channel. And like the Dual Rectifier Solo Head, many still consider the original designed had a meaner sounding growl. When the Triple Rectifier was designed, it held a catchy tag line From Mesa Boogie — “When excess is barely enough”. It’s safe to say this Monster’s sheer power has more than “excess”, it will simply blow you away!

Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Video Demo

Traynor YCS100h Guitar Amplifier

Traynor has always been one of those amp companies that were a bit under the radar of many guitarists. Although they do not have the mass-market presence of Fender, Marshall, or some others, Traynor does have a solid reputation for building good products and they certainly do have their fans in the guitar community. Read more

Fender Frontman 212R Combo Amp

When you think of guitar amplifiers, there are a few names that jump out automatically. For decades, Fender has been one of those names. When a player wants to get a stellar clean tone, there are a few amps that will deliver without question. Today, we will be looking at the Fender Frontman 212R solid state guitar amplifier, one of Fender’s best selling amplifiers to date. Read more

Laney VH100R Guitar Amp Head

Laney Amplifiers, like Marshall and Orange, is one of the old school British amp companies that helped define what many of us consider the proper sound of a rock and roll guitar through a tube (or valve, to be more UK-oriented) amplifier from the 1960’s to today. Laney has made many fine products over the years, but one of the company’s newest and most modern offerings is the VH100R head. More than a simple one-channel plug and play rock and roll machine, the VH100R is an extremely versatile and up-to-date two channel affair whose mission in life is providing guitar players with as much tonal variation and flexibility as they could possibly need. Read more

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