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repairs + new toy = $$$

October 13th, 2007 | music

Not more than a week ago I mentioned to PDF my desire to cut down on my amount of music gear. This included selling turntables, maybe an amp or two, maybe even a guitar.

Friday I went to the Twin Cities. Reason for the trip? To pick up the old Kalamazoo Reverb 12 amp I took to Savage Audio for repairs. Yep, that’s right. Somehow I found a way to add to my usable gear collection without buying new stuff…simply repair the old stuff that didn’t work.

I bought the amp along with a guitar from a kid at high school over 10 years ago for the whooping price of $30. Total cost of repairs for the amp at Savage? Over $300 with tax. Being that these amps usually sell on ebay for $200-$250 I think I’ll be keeping it. I’m just happy the amp seems to be quite good now. I did a quick playtest at the aunt’s house before leaving MN and it seemed fine. After the first night playing back home, I’m satisfied with it…lets hope I keep that opinion.

Before leaving the Cities I couldn’t resist driving downtown to Lyndale Ave. to find Twin Town Guitars. It’s a small shop with a fair amount of used Fender and new Vox and Marshall amps. The guitars are mostly the slightly less main-stream brands, like Hagstrom, Burns, and DePinto. The store also has loads of effects pedals, from the mass marketed Boss and E.H. to small private companies. My reason for going? Red Witch effects pedals.

Red Witch is a small company out of New Zealand. They make analog pedals, which like many small private companies, means they cost alot. I couldn’t resist leaving without the Fuzz God pedal. I never paid $215 for a pedal before. So after a night of playing, was it worth it? I’m not sure yet. It is a cool pedal that can make some weird sound effects. The bad thing is I’m not sure how regularly it’s sounds can get worked into songs. But then again, isn’t that the problem with all effects pedals…they all seem like “must have” pieces, only to actually be used not too often.

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1 Comment

  1. PDF
    October 13th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    Funny, I’ve recently been looking into schematics/parts/kits for making two pedals that do pretty much what the Fuzz God does, except the fuzz portion is tuned specific for bass to keep that rumble.

    As far as not using effects too often, that’s what makes them awesome. Stomping them at just the right moments even if that means only ten seconds of oscillating synthy madness in an entire set.

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