I'm surprised to see this thread hasn't been resurrected yet.

I've got a lot of stuff to review over the past year or so but I'll start with just a few;

Fender 2020 CuNiFe Wide Range Humbucker (bridge position)
I waited months for this to arrive after I ordered it. I built a double cut tele with this pickup in mind and put this in the bridge. The plan was to just do the WRHB, but the body I got already had a neck route, so I put a pickup in that I had laying around. I think it was from a MIM tele. The WRHB is the real deal. High output, total clarity. Really beautiful. I was glad I added the neck pickup, as it does add some body that makes the clarity of the WRHB even more enjoyable. I'm not a super articulate player, but I had a friend over the other night who is also the best guitar player I know and I asked him to take it for a spin. It sounded incredible. He was pumped.

Mastery Jazzmaster Bridge and Tremolo
No surprise here, but I believe the hype. I got a Squier Jazzmaster, the maple neck one with the hardtail bridge, for super cheap because someone had put a trem on it and painted it badly and generally messed with it. It had 14k pickups and 250k pots, it had been made very un-jazzmasterish. I also couldn't get it to stay in tune after using the trem. So I removed the current setup, filled the holes, and started from scratch with the Mastery. I balked at the price initially but holy shit I understand why people love it. Just extremely well made parts. I finished it up with some Duncan Antiquity II pickups and 1M pots. It doesn't have any of the fancy switching, just a 3 way toggle, a volume and a tone. Now it feels like I have a 2 grand JM that I spent less than 5 hundo on. The maple Squier neck is beefy and it's a real pleasure. The friend I mentioned above played this one as well. He's been playing for like 45 years and never really messed with a JM. After spending 10 minutes with it he was like "Wow. I get it now. Also, this trem rules".

Electro Harmonix Bass Synthesizer (90s version)
Bought this from a guy on CL sort of on a whim. My first foray into synthesizers and it's so much fun. It took me quite a while to get the hang of the controls and visualize how the source is routed through the pedal, but the more I got it the more ideas it gave me. I also realized pretty quick that I needed to take pictures of the settings if I heard something I liked, as you can lose it pretty quickly with the amount of parameters. The square wave fuzz is killer. Playing is different in that you realize you're playing to trigger the effect, which feels weird if you're used to playing with more nuance or subtlety. That took some getting used to. It also sounds really great on drum machines. Completely warps a beat into something else entirely.

that reminds me, last October I bought:

Boss SY-1 Synthesiser: (not a Sonic Youth side project album..)

I was searching if there was a guitar pedal that could approximate the sound of a Wasp synthesizer and it led me to this thing. It kind of changed my life, as someone who loves synth sounds but doesn't want to start from scratch with a new instrument. The built in sequenced sounds and drum machine (!) are so much fun, if I ever get more serious about this approach Boss makes expanded versions in the $600 & $1,000 ranges. But for now I'm happy to have this in a standard Boss casing. And yes there are a few settings that get pretty Wasp-y.

p.s. it's really fun to sing through too. It's used heavily in this track.

penningtron wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:08 am that reminds me, last October I bought:

Boss SY-1 Synthesiser: (not a Sonic Youth side project album..)

I was searching if there was a guitar pedal that could approximate the sound of a Wasp synthesizer and it led me to this thing. It kind of changed my life, as someone who loves synth sounds but doesn't want to start from scratch with a new instrument. The built in sequenced sounds and drum machine (!) are so much fun, if I ever get more serious about this approach Boss makes expanded versions in the $600 & $1,000 ranges. But for now I'm happy to have this in a standard Boss casing. And yes there are a few settings that get pretty Wasp-y.

p.s. it's really fun to sing through too. It's used heavily in this track.

I bought an SY-1 last year to use w/ bass and immediately knew I wanted the next size up and got an SY-300 for the additional features almost immediately. Although it was $$$ for what is basically just a toy for screwing around, it's amazing. It tracks so well I can hardly believe it - Sam from Bon Air made me a believer when I saw them at Thundersnow a few years ago. It's kind of a waste in my hands and extremely under-utilized because most of the time I'm just using it to create a fake guitar bar chord - but still a lot of fun. The laptop GUI is where it's at for me, although the panel interface is really not bad either if you don't mind the menu-diving.

Brian, that track rips.

Garth wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:21 am I bought an SY-1 last year to use w/ bass and immediately knew I wanted the next size up and got an SY-300 for the additional features almost immediately. Although it was $$$ for what is basically just a toy for screwing around, it's amazing.

well shit.. once it's not summer and I'm more motivated to get back into recording I may just have to do it as well. Being able to write/edit custom sequences thru a laptop UI would be great.

Source Audio C4 Synth Pedal

The youtube demos of this sounded great, but it's way too overwhelming for me and I'm not into the PC/app interface thing. If I had time to sit there and get tweaky, like I did before I had kids, then I probably would have held onto it, but I only kept it for two weeks before flipping it.

Yamaha Reface CP

I was looking for a way to get Wurlitzer 200 sounds at band practice without hauling my real 200 around or buying a Nord or something. The sounds and built-in effects on this thing sound great. Super portable, does exactly what I need it to do. My only gripe is the mini keys vs. my giant hands, but I could get a cheap semi-weighted midi master keyboard and use the CP as a sound module.

Nate Dort wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:53 am I was looking for a way to get Wurlitzer 200 sounds at band practice without hauling my real 200 around or buying a Nord or something. The sounds and built-in effects on this thing sound great. Super portable, does exactly what I need it to do. My only gripe is the mini keys vs. my giant hands, but I could get a cheap semi-weighted midi master keyboard and use the CP as a sound module.

The keyboard player in my band got the Yamaha Reface YC (combo organ) so we wouldn't have to lug the old Cordovox CDX around. I can't believe how good it sounds and how portable it is. Makes a huge difference when it comes to playing shows. I don't think we'll ever haul the CDX again.

penningtron wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:08 am p.s. it's really fun to sing through too. It's used heavily in this track.

Sounds great!