What we have here are high-end reissues of two classic Maxon pedals – the VOP9 Vintage Overdrive Pro and CP101 Optical Compressor. The VOP-9 is basically an OD-820 in a nine-series chassis with the same JEC NJM4558D op-amp and negative feedback loop clipping diode.  I am not a fan of tubescreamer pedals (stock, modded or [...]

Pics from previous owner: Pics after restoration & setup: Specs: 1-piece original Wizard neck (quartersawn maple), square heel joint 17mm 1st fret – 19mm 12th fret 430mm radius rosewood fretboard 43mm nut width Jumbo frets Light-weight basswood body Edge tremolo with die-cast saddles It’s unbelievable how well this 22+ year old guitar was maintained before [...]

After owning a bunch of delay pedals – Boss DD-5, DD-20 Giga Delay, DigiDelay, MXR Carbon Copy and Vox Time Machine – and trying many others, I may have found the perfect delay solution for my needs.  From the list above my favorite was the Time Machine because it was so easy to use and [...]

I’ve been a good boy this year so Santa got me this rare Ibanez J Custom, a couple weeks early too ;) RG8470F pics: RG8470F specs: Mahogany body with AAA flamed maple top and natural binding 5 piece maple/walnut neck with matching headstock and flamed maple binding 430mm radius rosewood fretboard with abalone and mirror [...]

I spent the last few weeks reassessing what’s on my pedal board and made some decisions that led me to replace stompboxes I’ve had for the most part of this year. The first was my tuner – I was quite alright using a Planet Waves CT-04 for over a year but it’s tuning accuracy isn’t [...]

Last weekend all major changes to the RG2550 were complete but it took some tweaking during the week to perfect the setup for my style of playing. Overall, I’d say it’s as good, if not better than many £1500 guitars out there – glad I didn’t spend that kind of money on a JP6/JS1000 ;) [...]

Both pickups arrived yesterday so I took them for a spin and the Tone Zone sounded so much better than all the demos I’ve heard of it. While it doesn’t look as cool as the other DiMarzios I own it certainly lives up to it’s name. The Tone Zone nails everything from classic rock to [...]

Ibanez RG2550E Galaxy Black: Since I have already talked a bit about the RG2550E-GK here, I’m going to make this a quick subjective review about why this guitar was worth every £ I spent on it. What I liked (besides the great build quality): – Perfect fretwork: Supposedly same frets as the RG1570 but for [...]

Ibanez RG1570 Mirage Blue: Mirage Blue is truly an eye-catching finish and just like other Prestige guitars it is well built but slightly over-priced in the UK :) The Prestige 5-piece Wizard maple/walnut neck was a welcome change from Jackson and Fender necks. The RG1570 is clearly built for shredding but too bad the biggest [...]

Among all the guitars I received in the last two months, these were my top three. The one thing they had in common was the exceptional build quality and a very good finish. It was tough choosing one but I eventually had to so I could get on with my recording projects. At first I [...]