Bought some new gear

[surfnorthwest]

Past couple of weeks I bought a few things and thought I would give a quick review of some of it.

Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup

Love my Strat but never got along much with that Texas Special pickup in the bridge. Went with a SD SSL-5 and needless to say it kicked the guitar in the balls. Much better. Now running a SSL-5/Custom 69/Custom Fat 50.

Tone Pros System II AVR-II ABR-1 Replacement

Always heard people bragging on these so I bought some to put on my Les Paul's. Bottom line is a noticeable stability in the intonation, and yes you can detect a small increase in overall sustain. Worth the upgrade.

ENGL 530e Preamp

Well wanted to set up another rack system, the only reason is because when I sit on my fat ass it is nice to tweak at my studio desk and not have to keep jumping up to tweak the amp. Also wanted to get a nice direct stereo setup going to my DAW.

The preamp is easy to dial in great tones, fantastic cleans and brutal gain. Not very Marshall like which for me is good, I wanted something different. Awesome stereo sound right into my DAW.

ENGL ENGL E/50 Tube 2x50W Stereo Poweramp

Was looking to buy another Marshall EL34 50 rack poweramp but heck if I couldn't find a single retailer over here in the US selling them. Found some used ones but wanted a new one. Decided to go with this ENGL and connect two of my 4x12s to it....NICE. This one has 6L6GC in it and with the ENGL preamp I have something pretty heavy in a rack system. Using my effect from Guitar Rig 4 inside the DAW.

Here is a little DEMO I found, these are very dark tones, gives me something to go along with the Marshall stuff.
[youtube][/youtube]

Hammond XM-2

Been wanting to get that real Hammond B-3 sound and now I can with this rack unit. I play it via midi using my Roland Keyboard. Sounds amazing, trying to set it up to play it with my Strat.

[youtube] [/youtube]

[Jag]

Damn Surf must be nice! I've been looking at Engl for awhile now, seems to be pretty good stuff. The sound is alittle heavy for my taste but heard its made well and can get some great tones. Might look at the Engl Screamer combo down the road for practice and small gigs. Also like the Hammond, always loved the sound Jon Lord got in Purple. I read that he got his sound from running the Hammond into a Marshall cab, it gave it that big dark haunting sound.

[surfnorthwest]

The ENGL rack combination has some great cleans, very warm. The crunch is also very tasty. The high gain stuff is very dark and really geared towards metal and probably something I won't use much as I prefer the Marshall sound for that. Always nice to have options. I do really like the stereo sound.

I figured out last night how to slave the Hammond with my Roland GR55 to use the GK3 pickup on my Strat, awesome tracking. You can easily get some nice chords and even lead work sounds very real. Love to mix in the B3 on blues tracks as back ground rythem and throw in some lead work.

[kissfanps]

Ahhh fun stuff.

So, whats up with the B3? Is it decent?

[surfnorthwest]

Ahhh fun stuff.

So, whats up with the B3? Is it decent?

Yea its pretty sweet.

[TheLesPaul101]

Pretty nice stuff. I'm still working on my final pedalboard purchases. I'm never content with what i got on that Pt-2