New Amp Day: I've Got The Blues

I've got the blues, but not in a bad way.  I now own a Fender Blues Jr. 3 combo amp.  I have wanted one for playing out at coffee houses and small venues.  Here's the pictures:

So this leads to the question, "What did you pay for it?"  Well, they had it overpriced at $399 used.  Two amps down they had a new one for $529.  Due to it saying "Fender" on it, they have always been overpriced.  However, I decided to do some wheeling and dealing.
 

The truth is I have too many guitars.  So I am guitar rich, and amp.... well okay, I have a lot of amps too.  But I wanted this particular one for a few reasons.

• It has a three band EQ.  So many small amps don't have a mid setting.
• It has a nice little reverb unit build in.
• It has a nice gain to it.
• It's 15 watts, so it's perfect for small venues. 
• It has a 12 inch speaker.
• I can easily perform modifications on it.

Speaking of mods, there are a few mods I have in mind for this amp.  There's a few kits on the market that I am thinking of installing.  This amp is pretty clean and crisp, so there's one that turns it into a blues monster.  There's also a mod that adjusts the reverb so that it will sound better.  Finally, and most simply, I want to change the speaker out to something more bluesy instead of clean. 

But back to the wheeling and dealing.  Since I have too many guitars I decided to trade one of them.  However I had to trade something that would cover the cost of the amp, and let them make a bit of profit. 

Since I am performing more Americana/ Southern Rock, I didn't really need my Dean Razorback Stealth anymore.  I managed to snag it from a pawn shop on a closeout special for $214.  So I wasn't actually losing money when I traded it for the amp.

So I took it to Sam Ash, and they looked it over.  Since it was in fantastic shape they were okay with doing an even trade on it.  I'm going to miss it, but to be honest I never really played it that much.  And if I need my Dean fix I own two ML's so it's not like I can't rock out like Dimebag Darrell. 

What's funny is that I decided to stop by Sam Ash on a whim.  I had a doctor's appointment that I had to kill time for, and since Sam Ash was on the way, I dropped in.  I actually ran into a salesman that I hadn't met before.  He was really cool, and I appreciated that he was willing to work with me on the deal. 

So, look forward to some updates on this amp.  When I get the scratch I will be upgrading it with some cool mods.  First thing, I am going to change the speaker.  We'll see where I go from there.

Getcha Pull!!!! New Guitar Day: Dean Razorback

I used to work for Dean Guitars.  I really dug Deans due to Dimebag Darrell playing a Dean ML.  That got my love affair started with Deans.  The funny thing was that, when I worked for them, I actually never bought a Dean guitar there despite me being able to get them for cost.  There was one Dean Hardtail in blue that I really liked, and should have bought, but never did.

I always thought about getting one of the Dean Razorbacks.  There's kind of a sad story behind them.  Dimebag Darrell himself cut out a piece of cardboard and drew on paper the next generation design he had for the ML.  That was the Razorback.  However, he was murdered before he could see his design finished. 

The thing about the Razorback is that, you either love them or hate them.  They are really wicked and pointy, so they are pretty much exclusively metal guitars.  They come standard with the Seymour Duncan Dimebucker, and that's a pretty metal pickup.

It just so happened that I was scanning the Craigslist musical instrument section when I noticed an add posting a Razorback Explosion for $200 including case.  Now they do make a bolt on Razorback that's more or less a starter guitar, and that's what I thought they meant.  However, the pictures did not lie.  It was a Razorback Explosion, a $900 guitar new.

So I make my way to Largo to the Pawn shop that was selling it.  And then I was really surprised.  They not only had two Explosions, they also had a Razorback Stealth.  He said he would also do $200 for the Stealth.  Now a few things surprised me.  When I worked at Dean, the Razorbacks were made in China.  Now they are made in Indonesia.  However, this one was one of the first runs, and was made in the UnSung factory in South Korea.  That's probably the best factory they have over there.  It's been open for over thirty years, and a lot of the workers have been building guitars for over 25 years. 

Also, I noticed that this Razorback Stealth still had the plastic on the back cavity covers.  This one was set up nicely and never played.  The pawn shop manager had bought all three of them for $250 a piece, but they had been in the store for over a year.  So he marked them down to $200 a piece just to get them out of there.

And here's the kicker, this one came with a true Dean hard case.  It wasn't the semi-hard case that a lot of them came with when I was with Dean.  This one was a true high end case.  And another strange thing....  Most of the time when I get a new guitar I have to fret dress it.  This ones' frets were in perfect shape, and there wasn't a dead spot on the fretboard.  That's very odd.  I never see that happen even on the best of guitars.  It's also very important for a Floyd Rose equipped guitar to have perfect frets.  So I was really happy that no matter how much I yanked on that Floyd, the guitar stayed in tune and didn't have any dead spots.

Now, my next fun thing may be to put a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the neck.  I have one in the neck position of one of my Dean ML's, and I love it there.  I think it would match up nicely with the Dimebucker in the Stealth. 

And now for the pictures.