I'll preface this by letting you know where I'm coming from and how I got to where I'm at. This thread will be filled with useless information but I'm bored and some of you might find the set up interesting, or at least get a laugh out of it. I grew up mostly playing guitar but always had a bass laying around, just because.
So, a few years ago I had roughly $10k in gear stolen and have since been more focused on engineering than my playing (gotta make a living). For a year or two after the robbery I didn't feel like I wanted to pick up a guitar. Until about the past 6 months or so I have been borrowing a friends (heavily used) LTD B50 to just play around on and try to keep some of my sanity.
It was fun playing a bit and I started jamming up some old songs I used to play back in high school. Yay, this was fun again. However, the more I played the more I wanted to dial in my tone and have a more comfortable, playable guitar.
This is where the fun starts. I can pay my bills but as far as extra spending money goes, it's somewhat limited. Thanks to the universe we have things like Craigslist and garage sales. I spent some time browsing used gear online and waiting for a decent deal to pop up. This is where I spent $100 on a used SUB 4 Stingray.
It has some slight surface rust on some of the hardware but overall a good player once I set it up. The pots are a little dirty but I'm in the process of changing the preamp and electronics as well.
So, later that day when I get home with my new hundred dollar toy, my phone rings. The fiancé calls me from a garage sale she said she heard about on Facebook. Long story short, she scored quite a deal. Let's start with the original item she called about, a 1980s Electra x630n. It was all beat up and had some paint spilt across part of the neck and body, but it was only $20.
This thing weights about a half million pounds but it has amazing sustain. After I cleaned up the body, set it up and put some new strings on we ended up with something like this:
Ok, enough of the cheap guitars. Onto other cheap things. The same garage sale the Electra came from, my fiancé saw a table full of other, more colorful, toys, at $10 a piece.
The tuner, od, octave, chorus and delay all came at $10 each and they threw in the pedal board with power supply for free. The lid pops off and turns into a fold out guitar stand.
At this point you're probably wondering where the dumb rig is. Well, it starts in the rack half full of left over, unstolen, studio gear.
I was researching about separate preamp and power amp set ups so got the idea to try out this ART MPA preamp I had laying around not getting any use. It sounds pretty damn good. I can keep it clean or overdrive the front end for some dirt. After the preamp I have a DBX 266 compressor. I sometimes bypass it but like to pretend it helps smooth out my playing and protects the amp from any harsh transients. Then finally, out of that into the Lexicon MX200. This is also usually bypassed but I sometimes use it for reverb or to pitch shift a half step to avoid retuning. I should find a pedal to control it with at some point.
Now onto the real dumb part. I sent the output of the Lexicon to the power amp input if this old gem, that also, for some reason, didn't get stolen.
The Behringer BX600 bass amp. It's basically a 60 watt turd I've had from probably 15 years ago. However, once I bypassed the front end and eq section of it, it sounds fairly decent for what it is. Then I had to wrap it in blue string lights, because it looks sweet in the dark. The foam on the side is there because I told my fiancé it keeps the reflections down.
And there you have it. My big, dumb, apartment friendly rig.
So, a few years ago I had roughly $10k in gear stolen and have since been more focused on engineering than my playing (gotta make a living). For a year or two after the robbery I didn't feel like I wanted to pick up a guitar. Until about the past 6 months or so I have been borrowing a friends (heavily used) LTD B50 to just play around on and try to keep some of my sanity.
It was fun playing a bit and I started jamming up some old songs I used to play back in high school. Yay, this was fun again. However, the more I played the more I wanted to dial in my tone and have a more comfortable, playable guitar.
This is where the fun starts. I can pay my bills but as far as extra spending money goes, it's somewhat limited. Thanks to the universe we have things like Craigslist and garage sales. I spent some time browsing used gear online and waiting for a decent deal to pop up. This is where I spent $100 on a used SUB 4 Stingray.
It has some slight surface rust on some of the hardware but overall a good player once I set it up. The pots are a little dirty but I'm in the process of changing the preamp and electronics as well.
So, later that day when I get home with my new hundred dollar toy, my phone rings. The fiancé calls me from a garage sale she said she heard about on Facebook. Long story short, she scored quite a deal. Let's start with the original item she called about, a 1980s Electra x630n. It was all beat up and had some paint spilt across part of the neck and body, but it was only $20.
This thing weights about a half million pounds but it has amazing sustain. After I cleaned up the body, set it up and put some new strings on we ended up with something like this:
Ok, enough of the cheap guitars. Onto other cheap things. The same garage sale the Electra came from, my fiancé saw a table full of other, more colorful, toys, at $10 a piece.
The tuner, od, octave, chorus and delay all came at $10 each and they threw in the pedal board with power supply for free. The lid pops off and turns into a fold out guitar stand.
At this point you're probably wondering where the dumb rig is. Well, it starts in the rack half full of left over, unstolen, studio gear.
I was researching about separate preamp and power amp set ups so got the idea to try out this ART MPA preamp I had laying around not getting any use. It sounds pretty damn good. I can keep it clean or overdrive the front end for some dirt. After the preamp I have a DBX 266 compressor. I sometimes bypass it but like to pretend it helps smooth out my playing and protects the amp from any harsh transients. Then finally, out of that into the Lexicon MX200. This is also usually bypassed but I sometimes use it for reverb or to pitch shift a half step to avoid retuning. I should find a pedal to control it with at some point.
Now onto the real dumb part. I sent the output of the Lexicon to the power amp input if this old gem, that also, for some reason, didn't get stolen.
The Behringer BX600 bass amp. It's basically a 60 watt turd I've had from probably 15 years ago. However, once I bypassed the front end and eq section of it, it sounds fairly decent for what it is. Then I had to wrap it in blue string lights, because it looks sweet in the dark. The foam on the side is there because I told my fiancé it keeps the reflections down.
And there you have it. My big, dumb, apartment friendly rig.
