The Collings Forum

I figured I would give some electric guitar love to the site.

Collings IC-35 deluxe with a wireless XVIVE blue tooth connection to the Orange Micro Dark amp. Got to love those Oranges names (Dark Terror!).

The Orange amp feeds the Universal Audio OX which feeds the Fender HotRod Deluxe amp. The OX needs an amplified input IF you want to listen to live amplified sound hence the Micro Dark amp first.

It actually works out well because the Orange amp is set up so that at low to mid volume levels on the guitar controls gives a clean sound into the OX. Turning the guitar volume controls up gives the distortion when needed. All the while there is no change in output volume of the Fender room amp.

This setup lets you sit across the room with your guitar and iPad and listen to just about any sound imaginable. It is all configurable on the iPad (including the room volume) and with the guitar volume controls so there is not reason to get up to control it. The dolly is home made so it is totally mobile with only a single power strip cord to worry about.

The IC-35 Deluxe is a dream to play amplified or not. It is very responsive and full sounding. Fretting is very easy with this guitar and it is a good weight. I am an acoustic player but this is a very nice transition guitar as my first electric. I have had it for a couple of years but I figured it was a good time to put up a show and tell photo.

That is a dream guitar! Nice.

Thanks Paul.

Amazing first electric! Great choice Frank~

Thanks Mark, I spent some time with it today. Trying to develop my electric skills during shelter in place orders in PA. Hope everybody else is doing well.

I also have a small guitar workstation set up on a plastic garage storage shelf.

Clockwise, from bottom-right:

Solid State Logic Six Mixer

API TranZformerGT Guitar Pedal

Apogee Element 24 Interface

Radial ProRMP

Ethos Clean II PreAmp

I've got a MIDI keyboard controller and a bunch of other stuff that I might pull out later. I've got lots of of guitars and amps but I don't want to use them in this apartment. I'm going 'silent stage' for awhile - headphones only. The Ethos II can sound darn pretty close to a Fender amp, so I'm going to play though that.

I also have my 1960 National 'Studio 10' amp - a 'Supro' type amp made by Valco. In spite of the name it's about 3-5 watts with an 8" Jensen speaker.

Along side is my 1961 Epiphone 'Les Paul Junior' - made by Gibson in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Nice! You certainly have the right equipment to enjoy and lay down som tracks. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for the kind reply.

I looked long and hard for the right pedal to use as an amp substitute. The Ethos Clean II is amazing but complex and takes a lot of tweaking. My wife (she's also from Pittsburgh;) has taken over 'engineering', since my ears are now shot. The Ethos can sound just like my Fender Blackface '75' amp or at least pretty close. I don't think that they're still available.

The '75' amp is the last of the classic American Fender 6L6 designs. They have a weird/bad reputation because not very many people know what's going on & don't set them up correctly. I had this one for several months before I found out about it:

THIS AMP IS DESIGNED TO RUN WITH THE FOOT-SWITCH ALWAYS PLUGGED IN. Even if you're not using the switch.

It was designed to have a line-level voltage run through the foot-switch and back into the amp. Weird, eh? You must keep it plugged-in. Just stash the foot-switch in the back of the amp.

This amp is extremely loud but sounds wonderful. It has a 'line out' jack but don't use it - it's quite primitive. Just stick a good mic in front of it for recording.

https://www.fane-acoustics.com/history

Read '1967' and '2008'.

The 15" speaker in the amp is a 2008 hand-made reproduction of the original 1967 speaker.

in 2011 they went 'offshore' (china) and went downhill. This one is one of the few 2008 hand-made-in-England repos that made it over here.

I also have an original 1965 Park Sound 3-knob tone bender pedal. Think of The Doors 'Five to One' guitar solo for the tone is makes.

"The Park Amplification company, originally started by Jim Marshall himself, has almost as much history as the actual Marshall name. As the story goes, Jim Marshall entered a distribution deal for his amp line in 1965, but the terms of the deal were vague enough such that Marshall could build amps on the side, just not under his own name. Thus, Park was born, and the amps produced under that name were slight variations on Marshall circuits until the company dissolved in 1982. Among the line of amps, a few pedals were also produced..."

I'm also using an EarthQuaker 'Speaker Cranker' pedal that sounds somewhat like the National 10 amp (kinda) and a Friedman 'Sir Compre' fuzz/compressor. My 1967 Italian-made Vox wah-wah rounds out the list. It's so old that I actually couldn't find a picture of it on the Internet...

Since it is past 3AM & I'm still awake, I could just add the the SSL '6' mixer is quite cool. It adds it's own very subtle distortion to everything - or so my wife tells me, since I can't actually hear it...