What Rig are you enjoying lately?

[tonepoet]

This could go under a few different categories, so I'll place it here in Miscellaneous.

What combination of guitar and amp have you been enjoying lately?

For me, it has been an early 1990s tube amp called a Peavey Bravo 112 and a Guild Detonator.

Peavey made the Bravo from 1991 to 1993 and replaced it then with the Classic 30 combo that they still make today. The Bravo 112 has two EL84 tubes and three 12AX7 tubes producing 25 watts. Unusual, in that the tubes are inside the chassis and fan cooled. I like both the "Clean" and "Crunch" channels. The stock Eminence made speaker is OK but I've found an Eminence Texas Heat speaker to make a marked difference. Spring reverb tank. No tremolo/vibrato.



Here's a photo of the innards after doing a re-cap on the electrolytic capacitors. The fan does keep things adequately cool. The fan is on the far left side in the photo. The warm air vents out below the two EL84 tubes.

 

[chazmo]

Awesome, tonepoet. Let me know if you want me to move this to archtop/solid-body. Unless you want this to stay here for those silly bass players.

joke! joke! don't hate me!

 

[tonepoet]

Awesome, tonepoet. Let me know if you want me to move this to archtop/solid-body.

That would be fine, chazmo. I wasn't sure which forum it would be appropriate for. Thanks.

 

[JohnW63]

80% of my playing for the last month is just an old Mark IV and my fingers. I need to rig up a way to record something.

 

[Rocky]

I'm using mostly a 80's Super Champ with either a Nightbird, ES-345 or currently a modified Peavey Predator AX, which is a strat-alike with a fourth pickup that I put a single-coil sized humbucker in

not mine:

 

[tonepoet]

or currently a modified Peavey Predator AX

I like some of the Peavey guitars from the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. I especially like the Patriot strat style with two single coils the size of humbuckers called Peavey Super Ferrites. It makes it easy to modify them with humbuckers of your choice. This one pictured here I later dropped a pair of Seymour Duncan P-Rail humbuckers into. I especially like where the volume knob is on the Patriot. It gives room to palm-mute without your hand hitting the knob.



I also like the Firenza AX model they made between 1999-2002.

 

[Rocky]

Is that 3-point bridge hard to dial in? It reminds me of a fancy Danelectro.

I picked up the Predator AX, because I could have all the regular strat sounds, and a humbucker as well. I'm not sure I like the stock wiring through. You can't get the humbucker by itself - only in series or parallel with the regular bridge pickup.

 

[jp]

I've been playing a stereo rig with a Rivera Super Champ and a blackfaced SF Deluxe Reverb. I've mostly been switching off between my NS M-75 Aristocrat and my '76 Bluesbird. Although I said I'd never do it, I sold my AC-15TBX last year, and I miss a Voxy/British element to my sound. I've been considering a small EL34 tubed amp that gets a Marshally tone.

 

[twocorgis]

Lately I've been loving my 7.2 pound G&L JB through either the modded (neo speaker) Harke Kickback 12 for smaller gigs, or the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500/Schroeder 212PL (38 pounds) combination for larger ones. Very geezer friendly, and the bass plays and sounds superb!

 

[fronobulax]

Lately I've been loving my 7.2 pound G&L JB through either the modded (neo speaker) Harke Kickback 12 for smaller gigs, or the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500/Schroeder 212PL (38 pounds) combination for larger ones. Very geezer friendly, and the bass plays and sounds superb!

A Barbie Bass! ;-)

 

[Rocky]

Lately I've been loving my 7.2 pound G&L JB through either the modded (neo speaker) Harke Kickback 12 for smaller gigs, or the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500/Schroeder 212PL (38 pounds) combination for larger ones. Very geezer friendly, and the bass plays and sounds superb!

What size room can you fill with the Hartke? I'm thinking of picking up something for small pickup gigs.

 

[tonepoet]

Is that 3-point bridge hard to dial in?

Rocky, On the Patriot 3-point bridges, I end up modifying them so that Graph-Tech Tele saddles will fit in the bridge. I did that to be able to have string height adjustment on individual strings and also those metal saddles you see in the photo on the stock Peavey bridge are string breakers. Almost all my string breaks on Patriot models happened at the point where the string bends over those stock saddles.

I'll try to get over to my rehearsal space tomorrow to get some photos of the modified bridge so you can see what I did. With the modification, I like the bridge a lot, as I'm a fan of hardtail guitars and this is a heavy, solid made bridge. They were Peavey branded on the underside, so they may have been a Peavey design.

 

[tonepoet]

Lately I've been loving my 7.2 pound G&L JB through either the modded (neo speaker) Harke Kickback 12 for smaller gigs, or the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500/Schroeder 212PL (38 pounds) combination for larger ones. Very geezer friendly, and the bass plays and sounds superb!

Pink and black like a 1956 DeSoto

 

[twocorgis]

A Barbie Bass! ;-)

It's shell pink (a classic guitar and car color), not hot pink! There is a difference, and I nearly overdosed on pink just looking at the ads for the movie.

 

[tonepoet]

Is that 3-point bridge hard to dial in?

Rocky, Here's a photo of how I modified the 3-point Peavey Patriot bridge. This is on the Patriot that I dropped a pair of Seymour Duncan P-Rail humbuckers into.



You can get short Tele-style saddles into the cavity of the bridge. Longer saddles won't fit. They also cannot be a saddle that has the intonation adjustment screw in the center. They have to have 3 with screws on right side of the saddle and 3 on the left hand side. So, in this mod you see the lower E,A,D saddles with screws on the right and G,B,E saddles with screws on the left side of the saddle. I found the saddles from Graph-Tech.

After removing the screws for the Peavey saddles, I had to drill out the holes a bit larger so that the Tele saddle would be allowed to incline while adjusting string height with the set screws on the new Tele saddles. I also added small stainless steel washers as spring retainers.

BTW, the strings do not touch the bridge after leaving the saddles. There is adequate clearance, although it looks like the strings are touching the bridge in the photo.

The bridge is designed so that the ball-end of the string would sit in the notch where you see red tubing on mine. I made mine a string-through body design and I add the red heat-shrink tubing to cushion the strings at that point. Making it a string-through design is not necessary, I just wanted to try it.

 

[tonepoet]

I like some of the Peavey guitars from the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. I especially like the Patriot strat style with two single coils the size of humbuckers called Peavey Super Ferrites. It makes it easy to modify them with humbuckers of your choice.

Here is a mid-1980s Peavey Patriot that I dropped a pair of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbuckers into and modified the bridge to have individual string height adjustment. A fairly easy model to modify to have humbuckers of your choice.



What the routing looks like under the pickguard of a Peavey Patriot:

 

[tonepoet]

What combination of guitar and amp have you been enjoying lately?

For me, it has been an early 1990s tube amp called a Peavey Bravo 112 and a Guild Detonator.

For "Show and Tell" here's a photo of an amp head and stack I assembled using the chassis, reverb tank and hardware from a Peavey Bravo 112 combo amp.



Here's what the amp looks like as a combo amp:

 

[GAD]

Someone likes Peavey!

I was sad when Peavey moved most manufacturing to China. I used to have some terrific sounding Peavey tube (and SS) amps.

 

[johnreardon]

I’ve been using a 36w head amp from Boost Amplification for quite a while. It’s a Custom built amp from a local builder friend. I do the testing for any amps he builds. The 22w combo on the right is also from the same builder.

I usually use 2 1x12 cabs with it as shown on the left in this pic. For smaller places, I’ll use 1 cab.



Guitars wise, I’ll take a Les Paul, 335 & a Trussart Steelcaster.

Les Paul is often my R9 as shown below

 

[tonepoet]

Someone likes Peavey!

I was sad when Peavey moved most manufacturing to China. I used to have some terrific sounding Peavey tube (and SS) amps.

Gary, Yeah, I do like some of the old Peavey USA stuff. I was first drawn to it in budget minded "tone quests", since you could pick up the used stuff so cheap on eBay.

My first was an all black Classic 30. 4xEL84, 3x12AX7, 30 watts. It was the first amp I had with a Pre and Post gain control on a crunch channel. What a revelation !!! Distortion without blowing out your ear drums!!!



It unfortunately ended up looking like this... ouch (the Classic 30 and extension cab)



However, it did start a "tone quest" that went on to explore the Peavey Bravo 112 tube amp combo and some tube amp rack equipment and then a few SS combo amps like the Envoy 110 and Bandit 112. The Bandit 112 is a monster, power-wise, (65 watts) and is part of the Peavey engineering quest to emulate tube distortion with SS circuitry without being a modeling amp. Their "Trans-Tube" technology. I think they did pretty well in achieving their goal.

Then I started exploring some of the USA made electric solid body guitars: T-60, T-27, Horizon, Patriot, Reactor, Vortex, Firenza models. I ended up liking the Patriot and Firenza AX models the best. My T-60 is a solid 10 pounder. The Patriots are in the 6 to 7 pound range and easier on the shoulder.

I think Peavey was one of the last to go overseas for manufacturing in like 1999 or 2000. Even when they did, some of the stuff was still high quality like the first Korean Predator Plus guitars. My USA Bandit 112 SS amp was also lost in the fire and I found a used Chinese made one cheap and honestly I didn't hear or see a difference between it and the USA made one, except that it said "Designed in USA" instead of "Designed and Made in USA".