I had a great time, I haven't played a guitar at gig volume for many years now - it was a serious blast being able to do so :D
HTH - that amp of yours is fabulous. You might not have been able to make it down, but you were very much there "in spirit" for me certainly :lol:
After reading about the amp a while back, I was expecting it to be good, and to be versatile. However, I wasn't expecting it to be quite my cup-of-tea... Boy was I wrong... it was a match made in heaven for the strat I brought along and the playing mood I was in. It took very little effort to dial in an "oh yeah, I'm playing now" tone. I used it mainly on Gain 1 alone, with the Slope between midway and leaning towards "Fender", and the mid-shift over to the higher end (seemed to suit my ITd strat better). I then controlled it with the strat's volume and tone - it is so well suited to that way of doing things. I played my Yardbird tele through it as well, treating it the same - absolutely heavenly :D. I also heard it doing other tones that, on a different day, I'd want as well (Afghan Dave's "Nigel Tuffnell" moment of infinite sustain using the black Feline Lion :lol: - that was a seriously good "LP tone" :D)
The only thing that stopped me wrestling this amp from Jonathan's grasp (or messaging you with a "make me one") is that, like my AC4TV, most of the time I'd have to run it at a volume that just wouldn't let all this beautifulness come out... :(
What it has done though (I've got a day off today) is given me some very useful experience for tweaking of models in my Tonelab - I'm never gonna get the vibe I experienced yesterday, but I'm fairly certain I can get it a lot closer than the patches I've been happy with for months.
I also really enjoyed playing the AC15 that Clyde brought - another amp I'd happily take on stage - thanks for bringing that, Clyde, and that Gold Top looked lovely. I really meant to "have a go" on the Gold Top, like several other guitars I watched or had a look at, but when it came to it, I just didn't seem to be able to put my own strat down (we've been kinda "joined-at-the-hip" for some months now).
Johnny's Koch, though, I did manage to "experience", finally - and very glad I did. That one does fall into the "lovely but not actually my cup-of-tea" category. However, that might be because I've never managed to get on with playing through a 4x12, and there are a bunch of options on the Koch that I didn't really have time to investigate. It does chuck out some lovely tones though, and, er, volume (!).
There were some seriously pretty guitars there. I'd never seen a Blackmachine close up before, and while I probably wouldn't ever feel the desire to use one, they looked mighty beautiful. Oli's Les Paul - I got distracted just before I was about to touch it, didn't I? - that looked extremely righteous. Oh, I know, it was (HairyChris's?) PRS with a rosewood neck - had to fondle that neck to see what the fuss is about... yep, I can definitely see the point of rosewood neck :D.
Philly's Roadworn - nearly forgot this - I was half expecting it to appear (is there a NGD thread up yet?), but I wasn't expecting to like it so much... Woo! very nice. Elliot's Les Paul Special - that looked SO tasty, it's another that I fancied having a go on but never got round to it.
Fantastic array of guitars from Jonathan. I snuck a preview of the chambered lion cub - very nice - and then kinda gravitated naturally to the one next to it... which turns out to be Jonathan's "I don't want to sell this one" :lol:. Afghan Dave seemed very taken with the black one next to it. A couple of times I wondered whether I was brave enough to strap on the Korina V - I did hold it for a moment, it's amazingly light. Glad to see it got a run in Clyde's hands - I must have been otherwise engaged when that happened (beer and fags outside).
I've just realised that I didn't try any Felines through an amp... :roll:. Oh well, what I did discover though was that all the Felines that I tinkled felt fabulous and had that "my guitar" vibe. Personally, that was one of the things that had been worrying me about the idea of getting a guitar custom-made - what if it didn't feel like "my guitar" when it was finished? I'm fairly certain that this is a needless fear now (I guess that others can testify to this as well :D).
Finally, it was great to be able to jam with some folks. I hit it off most with Clyde and Johnny yesterday - my current "comfort zone" seemed to fit perfectly with how they were playing. I'd like to have had time/opportunity to stretch out a bit further though, and follow other people's direction a bit more. For example, it was a bit of a shame that when he first plugged in Antag was stuck in Eb in the middle of a boogie-war-zone :lol:. I was just getting interested in exploring "how do I fit my clean/crunch strat in standard tuning to your wall-of-sound in Eb" (that was a monster tone by the way :D) when another boogie-in-A kicked off, and the next time I looked up you'd gone again! :lol:
Fantastic afternoon. Many many thanks to Jonathan for organising it :D
