In trying to ready some of my gear for sale, I’ve been taking it out of storage, or, in the case of the Squier Strat I’m starting with here, off the wall, to check stuff, prior to selling.
In this instance I’m checking that the Roland Cube 15W guitar amp works. And boy, it does. It’s way too loud for me, at this juncture of my life. I needed plenty of volume, back when I took amps out for drum lessons. To play backing tracks through, and get over the volume of kids thrashing knackered old drum sets.
But I think now, I’m more inclined towards 5W!
Anyway, the amp certainly works. Nor is it too noisy in terms of unwanted crackling and background hum. I’d prob’ only ever use the clean channel, were I using this as intended, as a guitar amp.
But now I’m no longer teaching, nor doing any music whatsoever – and given I have several similar amps, all not being used – and I’m in desperate straits financially, it’s time to move this on.
I dursn’t crank it up, to try the various distorted tones it gives. There’s a switch to switch between a ‘clean’ channel, and one with four positions: overdrive, distortion, metal, metal stack!
There are also three tone controls, an aux-in, and ‘recording out’. So far a small amp it’s got a lot of features, and a wide variety of possible sounds and applications.
But back to the Squier Strat for a mo’: in order to test the amp I had to put a guitar through it. I got down the Strat, which I don’t think I’ve touched in about 3-5 years! And it was still almost perfectly in tune.
Compare that with the Mahalo soprano ukulele I’ve been trying to sell… that tunes up ok. But it won’t hold its tuning anything like so long. Indeed, it requires near constant adjustment to keep it in tune.
Chalk n’ cheese, eh?
Whilst I’m prepping stuff for sale, I like to clean it, test it (if need be), and carry out any minor repairs that might be needed.
With the Roland Cube amp, it only needed cleaning and testing. All is hunky-dory. She’s ready for sale.
My little Fender Frontman 15G, by contrast, whilst looking fine, and sounding ok, has one issue I need to sort; a phono input that partly broken. So… that needs fixing.
I also have this battery powered Hiwatt busking amp. Pretty much never used. I had this fantasy that I might busk funky loops, on guitar and bass, and then play drums. Here I am taking off the knackered badge, with a view to ‘refreshing’ it.