Starting in June I'm hosting an electric open mic at a local club. I've formed a 3 piece band to serve as a host/house band and we play in Eb. I use my 2 Carvins and my Laney VC30-210 for that band/lineup.
There will be times when I'll be sitting in with open mic players and some are going to tune to E. So I've set up my beater to be my 'IncrediCaster'.
It began life as a lowly Washburn Lyon series Fat Strat copy. It has a solid body, no plywood here. I took out the original pickups which redefined what 'thin and ear piercing' tone is all about, and replaced them w/some Carvin pickups I scored on ebay. $50 for the guitar, $83 for the pickups, sold the original pickups on ebay for $20 so I'm under $120 for the guitar. I put an M22SD in the bridge and 2 TwinBlade humbuckers in the middle and neck. I added an 'always on' switch so that when flipped to the 'Incredilbe' setting
it adds the bridge pickup to positions 4 and 5 on the fiveway switch. She's got good action, sounds great, and is a solid player.
Now, on to the other amp. As host I have to supply an extra amp for people to jam on too so I cobbled together this 'Frankenrig' which sports an all tube Marshall 9001 preamp mounted in a 20+ year old Fender Eighty-Five 112 combo cabinet and powered by the raging Epiphone Valve Jr. 5-7 watt all tube head. This combo puts FOUR tubes in the preamp chain and one power tube. Lest anyone should think this rig isn't loud rest assured I'll be playing though it in a club w/a drummer. IT'S LOUD and it's only 5-7 watts!!!! I can get pristine cleans through it, albeit not very loud, but I can go into death metal crunch at ear splitting levels!! I had to cut a channel on either side of the cabinet on the inside to get the preamp to fit. It hangs out the back a bit and the rack ears stick out beyond the cabinet ready to slice up shins and calves. So, if I keep this rig, I'll have to go ahead and build a custom cabinet for it. I'm in the process of upgrading the speaker from the stock, elcheapo Fender speaker that's in it. So far I've got $130 into this rig; the Marshall preamp was given to me. I'd like to add the footswitch for the preamp for some channel control. Got to find one first though; I don't even know what model number footswitch it is.
