I needed the money to fund a 9 stringer and then an 8 stringer...although they were great in themselves I still miss my 2077XL the most.
Holy **** man you have a 9 string guitar? Pics!! I need pics!!
I love those 8-string Ibanez's Meshuggah uses, Ive gotta get my hands on one...
Ok and I gotta clear this up, what I said about modellers cutting it live...
The band I'm is is pretty heavy, like Hatebreed, Lamb Of God style music, so it really demands a tight aggressive sound, especially with the drop tuned guitars. Ive never been satisifed with what Ive heard from Pods, etc and being kind of a 'tube snob' in general I kind of didnt even consider it.
Well, after returning the 5150, I bought a Peavey Classic 50/50 off a friend for $200 (its a 100W, all tube stereo power amp for guitar) - it's got resonance and presence controls for each channel just like the 5150 did. The resonance is awesome it lets you tune the amp the the cabinet to get maximum chunk and definition in the lower registers.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the lead singer had a brand new BOSS GT-8 that he wasnt using at all, so I figured id at least try it out before I brought my Mesa/Boogie Quad out of hibernation.
I ran the GT-8 into an ElectroHarmonix LPB 2ube preamp, and from there into the Peavey 50/50, then stereo out into a 4x12. After about 10 minutes of tweaking I got a SICK rhythm sound. The whole band stopped and looked when I played my first chord with it
I was amazed. If I kicked off the LPB it lost a lot of life, but going through the all tube power section those models came alive!!!
It was *almost* as good, feel wise, as a real tube amp. It didnt clean up the same when I rolled back the volume, and it didnt have as much of a 'liquid' feel like tube amps give. But man it was damn close - and the flexibility of all those amps and effects at a button is going to be sweet on stage. I offerd to buy it from him for $300, which is a decent deal.
Sorry to ramble - but I was totally wrong about modern modelling amps being weak live. This thing RIPS. Of course, the high end tube pre and 100W tube power amp made all the difference...its seriously worth looking into.
Compared to my friend's PodXTL, the GT-8 definitely had a more 'raw' sound, but that's what I was after. I cant wait to dig into it and see what it really can do...
BV