New Amp: ADA MP-1

I’ve heard great things about these and spotted one at the same Musicgoround I purchased the TSL head from. While staying over at a friend’s place in Atlanta one weekend, I went and picked this up. It has some really killer tones, and I’ve been playing it run into the FX return of my TSL head. Dialing in tones is a little tedious but they can be saved to any of 128 user presets, and can be recalled with a few taps of the front panel arrows or with a MIDI footswitch.

This is definitely more classic sounding than my TSL, and a lot darker. My only complaint is it is also noisier, especially at high gain settings.

(This is the earliest picture I can find of it)

More Details Here

New Guitar: ESP Maverick Deluxe

Spotted this one on eBay and won it - my first auction win. Over time, I uncovered more information about it - it’s a “production custom.” At the time, licensed ESP dealers could request a shipment of guitars from ESP with some custom options that differed from the catalog models. It’s not exactly custom shop, since several guitars would have to be ordered - which probably means there are a couple of similar ones to this out there.

Still, a Maverick Deluxe, with no pickguard, and a figured maple top is a heck of a guitar and in hindsight, I got an incredible deal on this beast. I replaced the factory humbucker with a Dimarzio D-Sonic which sounds great in that position, though I still have the original humbucker as well.

New Amp: Marshall JCM2000 Triple Super Lead

I have been searching for a real tube amp to replace my VOX AD30VT practice amp for a long time now. I’m loving the sounds I get testing out a Mesa Dual Rectifier in a local shop, but after playing a Marshall JCM800 2205 in a Guitar Center I’m thinking that a Marshall amp of some kind might be closer to the classic metal tones I’m after than the rectifier. I also really liked the Blackstar HT-100 head, as well as the HT-60 combo, but missed the “crunch” channel on the HT-20 and HT-40 models. Either way, all of these seem to be a little less clear sounding than the Marshalls.

Enter the TSL - Marshall’s previous flagship amp (prior to the JVM) and featuring three channels, covering ground all the way from clean up to high gain. I never played one before, but watched plenty of youtube videos and listened to clips so it was on my want list.

I found a used one at a Musicgoround in Lilburn, GA, not the easiest drive but I could justify stopping there on my drive home from Atlanta. I stopped by with my Vox AD30VT, as well as a high quality crash to trade on it. After playing it for some time, I was really loving the sounds, but the footswitch was not fully working. The shop manager was great and helped work out a deal with me, so I could either try to repair the footswitch or buy a new one if needed.

Once I bought it, I had to sit with it in my girlfriend’s apartment and no guitar or speaker for a whole weekend - it was torture!