Ketzer
Good news, everyone!
So, sealed a deal over the phone with user iliketoshred09, and it turned out it was gonna be cheaper to make the pickup in person, several hundred miles away. I've heard worse excuses for a road trip! (Most of them mine.)
got the goods, and...
..My, my, look at the time. We must leave with haste if we are to reach Toledo by nightfall!
What a wonderful Thursday morning to be hauling ass across central PA.
A Strange duality is present here, but I don't have a joke for it yet.
Make a stop in Historic (cough) Johnstown, PA, to snag my partner in crime, Forum user Willingwell.
I'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy.
Summer nights driving in Ohio. They're terrible. It was worse last year, when I lived there full-time. Those are all dead bugs splattered on my window.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Finally home!
Here's what happened.
Some teaser pics of my soon-to-be-complete 7-string Ibanez Explorer (Alder body, Gibson Explorer shape, RG2027 B-stock neck). Waiting on a BKP Warpig from Zimbloth and then domination can ensue.
Not pictured: Stopping in monroeville to go to Guitarcenter, where we messed around with a MK V 112 combo, and were suitably unimpressed.
Stopping in a hole in the wall inside a forest to mess with some ENGLs, and were blown away.
The deal itself, as my camera was dead. for all 3 occasions Traded my 5150II for his Divinity II.
Initial impressions, I'm really happy with the deal. The Madison's 2 gain voicings, as well as a decently usable clean channel with a boost all sound fucking killer, precise as all hell. It's like what would happen if you tightened up the 5150 threefold, and lowered the aggression a bit. There's room in the headroom for a tubescreamer (JOY!), which I'm excited to try out. All the channels respond very well to attack, but the boost switch on the clean channel is a bit icepicky with even a soft attack, so I don't plan on using it too much. This particular amp is modded with a mid cut switch, to scoop out some of that typical el34 midrange. I don't think I'll be using it much, but it's still another thing I can mess with for tone.
Being completely honest, I'd never heard a Divinity in person, unless the Absence were using them last year, (and I wasn't paying attention to their gear when I saw them), and had wrongly attributed some guitarists to be using them (James Malone and Shaun Knight from Arsis) but It's still the EXACT tone i was looking for. A more precise 5150, with more low-end response, especially through Super Lead 85s
It's certainly not as cut-and-dry as the 5150II, the EQ knobs actually do stuff, and most of the gain is usable.
I don't need to run my MXR 10-band in the loop anymore, just my Decimator, because something in this amp is noisy as hell, probably the tubes, which are going to get swapped out and rebiased cooler, cause this mother COOKS. Hotter than my co-guitarist's Stiletto, which is already pretty hot. I'd even heard stories of the first version bursting into flame, but I THINK that was attributed to crappy Chinese Parts and construction. I hear the IIs rectified that problem, but still run quite hot.
got the goods, and...
..My, my, look at the time. We must leave with haste if we are to reach Toledo by nightfall!
What a wonderful Thursday morning to be hauling ass across central PA.
A Strange duality is present here, but I don't have a joke for it yet.
Make a stop in Historic (cough) Johnstown, PA, to snag my partner in crime, Forum user Willingwell.
I'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy.
Summer nights driving in Ohio. They're terrible. It was worse last year, when I lived there full-time. Those are all dead bugs splattered on my window.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Finally home!
Here's what happened.
Some teaser pics of my soon-to-be-complete 7-string Ibanez Explorer (Alder body, Gibson Explorer shape, RG2027 B-stock neck). Waiting on a BKP Warpig from Zimbloth and then domination can ensue.
Not pictured: Stopping in monroeville to go to Guitarcenter, where we messed around with a MK V 112 combo, and were suitably unimpressed.
Stopping in a hole in the wall inside a forest to mess with some ENGLs, and were blown away.
The deal itself, as my camera was dead. for all 3 occasions Traded my 5150II for his Divinity II.
Initial impressions, I'm really happy with the deal. The Madison's 2 gain voicings, as well as a decently usable clean channel with a boost all sound fucking killer, precise as all hell. It's like what would happen if you tightened up the 5150 threefold, and lowered the aggression a bit. There's room in the headroom for a tubescreamer (JOY!), which I'm excited to try out. All the channels respond very well to attack, but the boost switch on the clean channel is a bit icepicky with even a soft attack, so I don't plan on using it too much. This particular amp is modded with a mid cut switch, to scoop out some of that typical el34 midrange. I don't think I'll be using it much, but it's still another thing I can mess with for tone.
Being completely honest, I'd never heard a Divinity in person, unless the Absence were using them last year, (and I wasn't paying attention to their gear when I saw them), and had wrongly attributed some guitarists to be using them (James Malone and Shaun Knight from Arsis) but It's still the EXACT tone i was looking for. A more precise 5150, with more low-end response, especially through Super Lead 85s
It's certainly not as cut-and-dry as the 5150II, the EQ knobs actually do stuff, and most of the gain is usable.
I don't need to run my MXR 10-band in the loop anymore, just my Decimator, because something in this amp is noisy as hell, probably the tubes, which are going to get swapped out and rebiased cooler, cause this mother COOKS. Hotter than my co-guitarist's Stiletto, which is already pretty hot. I'd even heard stories of the first version bursting into flame, but I THINK that was attributed to crappy Chinese Parts and construction. I hear the IIs rectified that problem, but still run quite hot.
