,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-[RONA GEAR RANKED]-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸

[coldbrightsunlight]

Finding stability and “home” with instrument and amp is kind of weird. But here we are.

This rules. Maybe it feels weird because we're sorta conditioned (by SOCIETY and CAPITALISM ) to always be looking for the next, new-and-improved thing. But getting off that treadmill and finding "home" is awesome.

I'm finding my mindset changing from "I want every option possible so that I am completely unlimited" to "wait I don't even use most of these options, maybe I just want the few specific tools that work for me." For example when I was shopping for an amp modeler to record with, I focused on its limitations and wondered if it would be "enough." But in practice, I keep it on a Twin Reverb setting 95% of the time and sometimes swap the mic and/or speaker IR for different colors. Sometimes certain shit just works.

Yeah I know that I do this, get bitten by the bug of being able to do an extra thing, having an extra flavour, but realistically I could be creatively fulfilled with a lot less stuff. And yet, even knowing that it's hard to take the plunge. Big congrats to everyone who manages to be satisfied and get off the CONSUME carousel.

[friendship]

Yeah I know that I do this, get bitten by the bug of being able to do an extra thing, having an extra flavour, but realistically I could be creatively fulfilled with a lot less stuff. And yet, even knowing that it's hard to take the plunge. Big congrats to everyone who manages to be satisfied and get off the CONSUME carousel.

haha well, I wouldn't say I'm totally off that carousel (after all, I did just list a bunch of toys I bought, most of which I didn't need). But I think I'm hopping on it less often. Maybe this means I'm getting old and boring though.

[Adoom]

A Fender Telecaster (10/10).

[Jero]

I typed up my modest list with extra info and the tab got closed. So there. I got nothing.

[qersty]

Trying to remember at all what I got. c19 meant i worked a lot so i got quite some stuff. I think I got 2 fuzz factories during this period, both are awesome and different. As with everyone else I love the raster. Crazy pedal, just keep making more and more awful comb filter/matrix sounds. Also great for general delay and modulation duties but does any one give a shit about that? probably.

The Pest Tattern that Dowi got me is insane! Totally unique oscillating thing, big fan of the sub frequency pulses it does. gotta come up with some cool power electronics tunes to use it for. Don't have that much t say about the sub 'n up but I have probably used it more than the PT albeit more of a background thing.

RSH pedal was another sick ass purchase. love the distortion+ sound on it and the blue box half is wild. I step on it a lot! Stoked about the other Reuss I pre-ordered that seems to be done in august! Speaking of: the jag I got was mind blowing. Knew I liked SS fenders from the Duo-Sonic but this is even better. Awesom tone and super fun to play. The Really Expensive™ tort guard was a worthy upgrade too. I actually got a 2nd one recently and I have gotten it to play almost as nice. (btw does anyone have an arm that fits the mexican thread? they are impossible to find for some reason. M5 i think)

I got a cab with some nice beyma speakers and that honestly I felt really wasn't worth it. I probably would have been just as happy with a junker in hindsight, if not happier. Maybe I did something wrong? At least I dont care as much about speakers now.

I also finally found a fender volume/tone pedal for a decent price. Probably to boring to talk about but it still rocks!

But yeah idk what else to round up. There is a lot more but I have been wageing too much to spend quality time with it all

btw vidret i saw this last night and it may be one solution to the channel thing. 'spensive tho kinda but may be worth it still as i have understood it to be one half of the gl-100

[friendship]

A Fender Telecaster (10/10).

[MechaGodzilla]

a fair few pedals came and went since 2020 but the biggest gets were my first bass purchase (80s tokai precision) and my... 3rd? sg (greco, late 80s-early 90s, probably korean).

both of these are remarkable because of how good value they were - iirc neither were over £400 - but also just how damned good they are for the money.

[manymanyhaha]

tc clip tuner: 8/10 - allowed me to take my tuna off the board, I can tune my guitar unplugged, simple, effective easy. Good.

Yep, these clip tuners are kick-ass space savers

Red Panda Raster 2: 8.5/10 - I wrote a whole page essay on this somewhere here, check it out. Shortcoming are that it does so much you need to wrap your brain around it and there's no reset control. It's probably a 9/10, I just don't need that much!

I bought one partially on your whole page essay (and youtube etc) and it is indeed a brain hurt time sink. So many unique sounds, reminds me of the Polymoon in that respect

*Strandberg Salen Classic: 10/10 - single-handedly stopped all wrist and shoulder pain when playing geetar, so basically the best purchase I've ever made.

Pain relief perks my curiosity, because one of my pandemic acquisitions:

EGC Chessie, 3-single coil pickups with jazzy tremolo- 9/10. Love it, plays beautiful, sounds beautiful but starts to become an endurance test after about an hour. Definitely long before I'm ready to stop.

So this concept of a light/pain-free guitar is appealing. They seem to make them for folks doing a different thing than what I do except for possibly the Salen Classic with its single coils. Trying to see if there is one local I can try out, not cheap!

**Red Panda Context 2: 9/10 - fav pedal reverb now. seamless trails when using momentarily or switching presets makes it really expressive. would be perfect if the spring algo wasn't awful.

On the second go around with it and is it just me or does it blend so well with its source that it gets lost easily in a dense mix? Not a bad thing at all.....

*Red Panda Tensor: 9/10 - near perfect piece of gear, just not that suited to quick glitches since you have to use 2 footswitches to capture/stop

On the second go around with this one too and another Red Panda pedal that is deep AF

**Fishman TriplePlay: 9/10 - hands down best guitar-to-MIDI solution.

Bought one back in February on your recommendation and it has been loads of options paralysis. Some fun too.
Actually lots and lots and lots and lots of fun, though I need to send mine back because the A-string has crapped out. But the VSTi's that have acquired since then that I have come to love:

Applied Acoustics Chromaphone - 8/10. Brand new purchase that I'm getting acquainted with but am getting some unique sounds out of it.
Arturia Pigments-8/10. Love this, would be a 10/10 but it craps out my host (Gig Performer) and can't use it unfortunately
Dawesome Abyss-9/10. An ambient power machine so lovely
Dawesome Novum-9/10. The granular sampler of my dreams. Brand new, haven't figured if it does mapping of samples. If it if it does, will take over from Tal Sampler
Tal Sampler-8/10. Fantastic basic sampler for layering samples like I used to with two Peavey SPs.
Newfangled Generate-9/10. Has a unique sound.
Unfiltered Audio Lion-9.10. Another with a unique sound and a ton of flexibility. Basically the VSTi version of Byome.
Sugar Bytes Factory-8/10. Still learning it but have gotten some cool sounds out of it.
Sugar Bytes Aparillo-8/10- same as Factory
Sugar Bytes Obscurium-9/10 - Oh my, this thing is DEEP and huge time sync but totally unique.
Softube Parallels-8/10- Actually quite simple once you learn it and if its been manipulated enough, can really get some wonderful unique sounds out of it but can also sound really generic
Softube Model 82- Roland SH-101 clone. Still messing with it but have found a couple indispensable sounds out of it
Softube Model 72 - Minimoog clone. Same as Model 82.
Psychic Modulation Phonec 2 - 9/10. Has a unique sound and quite a bit more flexibility than it first appears to have
Madrona Aalto -8/10. This has a workflow that I've yet to master but have stumbled upon some interesting sounds.
Madrona Kaivo-8/10. Same as Aalto.
Madrona Virta-7/10. Was trying to use this as vocoder but need to spend more time with it.
Rhizomatic Plasmonic - 8/10. Might be too clean for my tastes, need to dive-in more
Arturia V Collection 8 -Have to admit, have not gotten on with this collection. Everything sounds too familiar except for:
Arturia Vocoder - 8/10. Am having more fun with it than Virta.

Pladask Baklengs/ Draume - 10/10 because I can't really remember if these pedals were cool or not but I still have them so they probably are (yeah I know, great way to participate in the discussion).

Baklengs and Draume were awesome, wish they were stereo.

-Vongon Ultrasheer - 10/10 Beautiful sounding and looking pedal. Vongon offers great customer service as I fried mine by plugging in the wrong power supply (high) and he fixed it up for free. .

Been wanting to try one of these since they came out

--Dr. Scientist Dusk - 7/10 I like anything Ryan puts out but I don't really have a great use for this and basically bought because it was a new Dr. Sci pedal. Still have though (its for sale in BTS).

Have one that have to try, want to see if I can replace Acidbox III which I love/hate

Roland JV-880 - TBD/10 -- I bid on this when I was stoned 2 da bone, imagine my surprise when I won. I haven't had the time or wherewithal to dive into it

I was worried that I was the only one who did this

Strymon Iridium - 7/10 until I recently bought some IRs I enjoy and used those with the model feT as the preamp. Now it's 9/10.

I'm using Amplitube now for this purpose to save space etc but the Iridium, I thought, is really quite good. A nice pedal platform.

Digitech Digiverb - 9/10. Gated and Reverse. Front of signal chain. .

For years and years, this was one of my favorite pedals.

Alexander Superball
Meris Polymoon
Meris Ottobit Jr. (2)*
Meris Hedra (2)*
Meris Enzo
DOD Rubberneck
Pladask Elektrisk Fabrikat
Pladask Elektrisk Bakvendt
CB Mood (2)*
CB Blooper (2)*
CB Habit
Poly Beebo (3)
Empress Zoia (2)
EHX Mod Rex
Boss Slicer
Boss MD500
Paradox Architect
Hexe Revolver II
Catalinbread Antichthon
Malekko Downer
Malekko Polyamorator
Dr Scientist Dusk
Dr Scientist BitQuest
MA 856 For Zellersasn
MA Count To 5
MASF Possessed
MWFX Judder
KMA Wurhm
EQD Rainbow Machine
Intensive Care Fideleater
WMD Geiger Counter
Cooper FX Moment Machine
Boss Tera Echo

What an amazing list! Some old favorites and many that I've had or would love to try

Best fuzz: Basic Audio, fill in your pedal of choice. Currently using a Ge Fuzz Right. Also Stomping Stones Virus.
Worst fuzz: there is no worst fuzz.

Huge fan of the Mutant Fuzz, want to try some more

Finding stability and “home” with instrument and amp is kind of weird. But here we are.

First time I played my first Frenzel amp, that's what happened to me. I realized that what I was desiring out of an amp was a nice clean sound that was a good pedal platform.

- Boss BF-2. Is flanger. Flangers. Pretty fun.

Found the joy of the BF-2 through a friend I used to play with and had 2 or 3 of them at one point. They can sound almost synth-like......

think I got 2 fuzz factories during this period

For the first time in a couple decades, I have no version of a Fuzz Factory. That it took a couple decades for me tire of that one-trick pony says how much I enjoyed that one-trick.

Other Rona gear:

Red Panda Bitmap 8/10- Lots going on here, like all Red Panda stuff. Lots to explore and easy interface to do it with.
Ped Panda Particle 2 - 8/10. Same as bitmap
Walrus Audio Mako M1, D1 and R1- 8/10. Lots too explore but I wouldn't say there are lots of unique sounds to be had. Sound great though.
Shift Line Prism II - 7/10 - Relatively new, some cool stuff onboard, some slightly cheesy stuff too. Still exploring.
Dirty Sock Effects Intersound IVP clones (2) - 10/10. This is the AionFx board and I think is better than any of the five Intersound IVP units I've had over the years. So glad I picked these up.
3degreesaudio Bygones - 8/10. Stereo, small enclosure, lots of interesting effects. I think the CBA Gen Loss sounded better for a basic Wow and Flutter sound but the size savings, variability and flexibility of this makes up for it.
Yaeltex Midi Controllers - 9.5/10 - One of the best purchases, have four now. Am controlling lots of stuff with them: Effects, instruments, volumes, mutes etc.
Gig Perfromer 4 - 9/10 - Have a love/hate relationship with this host.
Love: -Because of the way it embraces multiple instances, I can realize the drum/bass/guitar/sample layout I've been thinking about for awhile, the only host that I've found that will do this. Ableton, Reaper, Bitwig couldn't.
-Can easily midi sync with Circular Labs Mobius so can start a loop and everything else, including delays and all other time-based stuff, will sync
-Modular layout so can build the routing system how I want
Hate: Extremely labor intensive. Can take forever to do the simplest things. Have cursed under breath many times.

Computer - AMD 5950x with 64 gigs of RAM - 9/10. Always need more power it seems but this machine is pretty damn close
17" 4k Touchscreen portable monitor 9/10 - New pickup but so far, pretty much the touchscreen I had been daydreaming about

just starting another long term gear fast so a pandemic retrospective seems appropriate. didn't realise I'd bought so much shit

Yep, been on one too. Believe it or not

TLDR - Egg Salad is a lip challenged way of saying Excellent . Lots and lots of egg salad

[Dowi]

Like for many others, much stuff came, much stuff went, so i'm just sticking to the highlights and list them all together

Pedaltrain Nano+ plus Truetone 1spot CS6 --> ∞/10
i honestly don't know how i could live without this before. Fastest setup ever. Perfect for jamz, perfect for practicing, perfect for bringing stuff around. Always forces me to limit the possibilities and it' A REAL GOOD THING. Everytime i put together any kind of board on this one i am always like "ahh if only there was space for one more.." but the answer comes 0.5milliseconds after the thought pops up and it's always NO. FUCKING. WAY. LIVE WITH THESE 5 PEDALS AND STOP FUCKING AROUND. That's the best of the best of the best, especially for focusing on writing and general riffage.
I do still have a bigger board (not huge) and use it regularly, but a lot less than before, so everything about the PT+ still stands.


Pladask Elektrisk Feber --> 10/10
Does a ton and does it good. Ringmod, Freq Shifting, Phaser, Tremolo, Harmonic tremolo, Filter too.. Perfect set of controls to setup on the fly and know where you're at in any moment. S&h modulation is perfect to spice things up a bit or even go full-robotic-madness mode.

Dr.Scientist The Elements --> 10/10
Late on the train but glad I jumped on. Definitive swiss army knife. Used it as boost, as eq, as od, dirrty dirt, as chug machine..basically used it for everything. I won't digress, the dedicated thread here on ILF is extremely precious and contains tons of useful tips.

Epiphone Flying V Brent Hinds --> 9/10
First V for me, took a while to find the right position to play it without getting a backache and the jack cable connector sucked so I replaced it, but other than that, i love it. Stays in tune. Lace pickups slay. The neck is fat as it's supposed to be. Riffs flow.

DeadEndFX Clang (Driving Notion clone+more) --> 9/10
It does what it says perfectly. He's the (first in line) mainstay on the bigger board, deadly combo paired with single coils and any dirt pedal: slices ears like pieces of cake. Denison tunes all around. Always on, i repeat, ALWAYS ON. Why not 10? because some sliiiiiiight hum is always there, but with great power comes great responsibility.

Electronic Audio Experiments Longsword --> 9/10
reviewed this one in a dedicated thread somewhere. All around great dirt machine, the integrated boost makes it perfect to be used as the only dirt pedal on a small board (see PTnano+). It does drive sounds, gets into fuzzish territory, and brings the heavyness when needed. Can be kind of tight but not super tight for thrashy riffs, hence the 9 out of 10.

Boss Katana MKII 50w --> 8/10
Got it at the end of 2019 but relevant to 'rona gear because it has been the amp i played the most during the past two years due to lockdowns etc.
Agree to what most people said here: it's very good. The different amp emulations are well done, and those alone are enough for jamming without any board, not to mention the integrated effects which are super customizable if you have the willingness of connecting it to a pc and diving into the editor. Personally i did it just in the first months, saved some personal favorites on the amp itself and never edited them again. It can chug, it can do the lightly pushed thing, and the clean channel is veeeery clean.
It does take pedals well, although I had a hard time finding how to set it up with fuzzes & muffs in particular, which gets me to the following point: i am not very satisfied of its low end. At low volumes it is enough, but i got to crank it a couple of times and (quite obviously) it doesn't push even half of the low frequencies of my other valve amps at similar volumes.
Still, 100% best amp for everyday "at home" use, even if used with the headphones line out. Great for recording using the REC line out straight into an audio interface. I have tried recording with audio over USB too but had several problems with quality, and the latency was unbearable, but maybe that's just a problem of my - now quite old - PC.

Stomping Stones Virus --> 8/10
What's not to love about a 2 knobber from Jero? nothing. Makes my raw grunge heart beat. 8/10 because sometimes I wish the differences in tone when hitting the bias switch were more drastic.

DOD Rubberneck--> 8/10
Rebought because in its simplicity and functionality it's always useful to have it around. Also, it is/was cheap. Perfect integration of primary and secondary functions on the footswitches and sounds great. I wish it was a hint smaller so that I could momentarily oscillate and timewarp with just one feet instead of two.

Red Panda Raster 2--> 8/10
basically what vidret said. But hey, it does sound GREAT. Either used for the wildest frequency modulation things, or as chorus, or flanger, or as simple delay. It's. just. great.

Red Panda Tensor --> 08/10
I missed it soo much and bought it for the..3rd time i think? it's a sort of toxic relationship. I love it, but i fight with it, but then i love it again and so on. Besides all the looping and glitchy stuff, with the latest update they improved the pitch tracking and now it's great even used as octave pedal, so i love it even more.
I wish it had a volume knob so badly.

Elektron Digitakt --> 8/10
After a few years wanting it i finally got it and it's awesome as i hoped it to be. For now the only downside I found is the lack of a battery. Also, this year i've been all about riffs so i haven't used it as much as i should, but it's here, and everytime i feel the itch of sampling something or sequencing stuff i just turn it on and have fun. Gotta thank fcknoise for the Arturia Drumbrute i got from ILFSS because that's the spark that ignited the whole process that finally took me to grab the DT. The MAE Part Garden is the perfect pairing with it (i actually like it more on drum machines than on guitar, in fact it is staying on the table next to them).

Empress Zoia--> 7/10
Basically suppressed my gas for most not dirt-related things. At the same time it's a lot simpler than one could think, and a lot deeper than one could think. Can even work as a standalone board, in fact i made at least 5 or 6 of patches for that use. I have 2 complaints about it:
#1 - the single knob makes it a PITA to tweak something on the fly. I totally get that the pedal has been built from a "programming" pov, but nevertheless, having 3 or 4 knobs and being able to assign them to main parameters would make it a lot more performance-friendly.
#2 - the tracking is not that great. The are some ways to improve it with filtering etc, and they're constantly working on updates etc, so there's room for improvement.

Alexander f.13 Neo Flanger --> 6/10
In summary: cool and tons of features but weird control scheme and some quirks in the handling of presets and alternate controls made it not so easy to deal with on the fly. I put this in the highlights because it made it made me realize that i love my flangers simple: rate/depth/manual/feedback and possibly volume. End.

[manymanyhaha]

Pedaltrain Nano+ plus Truetone 1spot CS6 --> ∞/10
i honestly don't know how i could live without this before. Fastest setup ever. Perfect for jamz, perfect for practicing, perfect for bringing stuff around. Always forces me to limit the possibilities and it' A REAL GOOD THING. Everytime i put together any kind of board on this one i am always like "ahh if only there was space for one more.." but the answer comes 0.5milliseconds after the thought pops up and it's always NO. FUCKING. WAY. LIVE WITH THESE 5 PEDALS AND STOP FUCKING AROUND. That's the best of the best of the best, especially for focusing on writing and general riffage.
I do still have a bigger board (not huge) and use it regularly, but a lot less than before, so everything about the PT+ still stands.

Been thinking about doing this lately. Can see the possible benefit of having a dedicated small board, just to play.

Or another way to put it: Picked up a Loupe, need to do something with it

[Blackened Soul]

I guess I can make up a list of pedals and cabs.. all the other stuff is guitar/bass building stuff.. even the instrument buys I did were for parts…

[Blackened Soul]

Hmm.. ok that's finish enough..

MG Chemicals Conformal Coating Stripper-Pen, 10 mL Felt Tip Pen, Clear (8309-P) - Do you need to remove painted logos on headstocks? This works greatly

3M Scotch-Brite Abrasive Pads, Set of 3 Different Grades, for Cleaning, Polishing, and Refinishing - So much less mess than steel wool!

Black & Decker BDCRO20C 20V MAX Random Orbit Sander - CORD-LESS!

Weller MT1 Nickel Plated Straight Tip for SP25 WELMT1 - a new tip ALWAYS makes things better!

WEN 6524 Oscillating Belt and Spindle Sander - Haven't used yet.. but I have 3 bodies waiting for final edge shaping and if all goes well this will save me tons of time with the belt attachment

CRAFTSMAN Belt Sander, 3-Inch x 21-Inch - about average belt sander, the thin nose for tight spaces is nice though

Freud Router bits - Best bits you can find easily, I don't remember what ones I've bought in the last 2 years... at least 4...

Greenwood Propane Torch - great for when you need that charred look on your guitar

Screen Shot 2022-07-02 at 10.48.46 AM.png (67.26 KiB) Viewed 1173 times

[Chankgeez]

Freud Router bits -

Good name for a psychoanalytic power tool band.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Interested in this "less mess than steel wool" scotch brite, steel wool is so annoying

[Blackened Soul]

They come in different grits...