Back before I met my wife, when I had no kids and really didn’t give a rat’s ass about my neighbours, I went through a series of nice valve amps that sounded incredible and made your nipples vibrate. My favourites were the Peavey EVH 5150 and the Mesa Rectoverb. I used to play through those things for hours every day.

Then I moved into a flat, and shortly afterwards my future wife moved in too. That, understandably, resulted in me parting company with my valve amp. The guy who bought that Mesa got a bargain!

This was 2001. Digital amp modelling was taking off in the shape of the Line 6 Pod series. I bought one since they were quite cheap. Compared to the amp modelling that preceded it, the POD was terrific. Compared, to a real amp, the POD was pap. There’s a sterility to these modellers, combined with a slighlty unpleasant fizz, and a stiff feel. This feeling is the hardest thing to quantify, impossible to describe to a non-guitarist, yet the most important thing to a guitarist, even more so than tone. A good guitar amp does more than just amplify your guitar, it’s a instrument in it’s own right, and like all instruments feel is everything. So this failing on the PODs part is significant.

A few years later the POD XT came out promising everything the original failed to deliver. I snapped one up immediately, and was disappointed to find that things hadn’t really progressed much. I’m not entirely convinced the XT improved on the original at all. Mine’s currently gathering dust in a bedroom drawer – it’s a hateful thing.

I’ve tried going down the software only route. This accomplished little other than killing my company laptop. Guitar Rig was just as lifeless and fizzy as the POD, and I spent more time chasing tones with POD Farm than actually enjoying playing. No, software didn’t help either.

It’s got to the point where I don’t plug my guitar in now as it sounds better unplugged than through a modeller. But it’s an electric guitar and I’m a rocker at heart, so “better” is relative. An electric guitar needs to be plugged into an amp, without one the experience is a vastly diminished. I’ve played a Tyler similar to my own through a nice Mesa at GuitarGuitar and the experience was put-a-smile-on-your-face sublime, addictive even. The lack of an amp has led to my guitar being almost permanently hung on the wall, which is sad because I really miss playing it. It’s been my sole passion since I was 16, my wife and kids excepted of course.

I’ve heard really great things about the AxeFX, read some stellar reviews, and listened to some great clips. It’s allegedly a guitar amp and FX processor that not only sounds real, but feels like a real amp too. Of course, it comes with a hefty price tag to match, but so too do the 60 amps it models. This box of tricks is a true instrument with all the sag, feel, and response so sadly missing in every other modeller on the market. It’s only available direct, so cannot be auditioned in person, but Fractal Audio are so confident in their product that you get a 14 day no quibble return period. I’ve been drooling over these for about a year now and really hope to get one sooner rather than later. It looks like a real replacement for the Mesa amp in a quiet, family friendly package. Finally a reason to pull my guitar off the wall – if I ever convince my wife that it’d be money well spent, the last “amp” I’d ever need.

I started off with a Marlin Nasty. And it really was nasty. Poorly built, near unplayable action. I’m amazed it kept playing. I upgraded to an Ibanez Roadstar II a year later and threw in a pair of Dimarzio humbuckers, one pink, one blue. A year on traded that for a nice Kramer Beretta III (for a great price as Kramer had just gone bankrupt). That lasted me through Uni and was a great guitar. It’s one of the few I’d like to have been able to hold on to.

As soon as I graduated Uni, I traded the Kramer for a used Gibson Les Paul Standard. A dream guitar – I’d always wanted a Les Paul, almost as much as I wanted a Musicman EVH. The Les Paul was Wine Red, and it played and sounded great. It was allegedly used by Del Amitri on one of their albums. This is yet another guitar I wish I’d kept a hold of.

As fantastic as the Les Paul was, GAS (Gear Aquisition Syndrome) was always (is always?) burning inside, and I was feeling the need to trade again. It didn’t help that a friend at the time, who was a big advocate of super-strats for improving technique, persuaded me that a shocking pink Ibanez JEM 777SK was the way to go. Of course, it wasn’t long until I missed the Les Paul and hated the pink, heavily gigged, used JEM I’d bought. Can you really see me playing a pink guitar?

And so the downward spiral began. I traded guitars over the course of a year trying to find something that spoke to me like the Les Paul had – money was an issue, so I was trading for used guitars of ever decreasing value. I went through the following in no particular order: Ibanez Sabre, Fender Heavey Metal Telecaster, Hamer Steve Stephens Prototype II, and a Moon Les Paul Special. All in the space of a few months. I finally settled on a new Fender Strat to which I fitted Dimarzio stacked humbuckers.

At the time the strat was too retro for. But looking back, it too was a great guitar. You don’t find many great strats, but this one sounded good, and looked cool in a custard yellow finish with a rosewood fingerboard and white scratch plate. It was classy. I shoulda kept it. 6 months later I’d sold it and bought a Gibson Les Paul Classic. Finally, I was back to the good stuff again.

That shoulda been the end of it right? Well no, because I still hankered after the Musicman Axis (formerly Musicman EVH) – but couldn’t afford it. But Eddie jumped ship to Peavey and brought out the Peavey Wolfgang, almost as good as an Axis. I bought one in black. I even kept the Les Paul – yay… two guitars. I played the Wolfgang all the time, the Gibson barely getting a look in. It turns out that I tend to prefer the longer Fender style scale, rather than the Gibson. So naturally when GAS hit and I found myself trading a guitar to buy an acoustic Taylor 710CE, I traded the Les Paul right? Well no, sold the guitar I liked best, a mistake I’d later repeat. More than once.

So now I have an acoustic and an electric. Every guitarist needs an acoustic right? Wrong! I can count on no hands at all how many acoustic songs I like to play. So that mistake sat gathering dust. Then one day I walked into McCormacks whilst Zee was out shopping. And there, hanging on the wall, was the most perfect Musicman Axis, translucent gold (more like a warm yellow) with a flamed maple top. I traded the Les Paul and the Taylor on the spot (dashing home to collect them and bring them in).

The Musicman was simply amazing. Of course GAS hit again, but I wasn’t going to part with the Musicman. No chance. So I bought myself a PRS McCarty Rosewood as an engagement present to myself. My first really really expensive guitar. I considered a James Tyler Studio Elite at the time, but didn’t know much about them, so plumped for the PRS. This too was a mistake, but I never realised it at the time.

When you buy a new guitar, there’s a honeymoon period. You play it all the time, ignoring other guitars in your collection. It is new after all. This was true of the McCarty. So much so, that I convinced myself that the PRS was it, “The Guitar”. I didn’t need two guitars. I sold the Musicman! It didn’t take long to realise I’d made a mistake – but admit it? No chance. Quick tip: don’t go for a rosewood neck on your McCarty, it sucks a lot of warmth away from the tone. Anyway, I bought and sold another load of guitars trying to replace it: Ibanez JEM 7VWH, Ibanez J-Custom RG8270, Musicman John Petrucci and a Fender Custom Shop 51 Nocaster. The Nocaster had a cool vibe, but the tone wasn’t for me. You gotta play like Bruce Springsteen or Keith Richards if you have a Nocaster. The J_Custom was very nice, but not quite what I wanted. The JEM was amazing – but the look was perhaps a bit too… Elvis. It’d have been nice to hold onto the JEM though.

None really fit like the Musicman. Then I bought a James Tyler Studio Elite HD. Yes, the same model I’d nearly got instead of the PRS. At least now I had both the PRS and a Tyler. For two years, the PRS gathered dust and the Tyler got played all the time. It was hands down, the best guitar I’d ever played. Yet after two years I sold it! I have no clue why. I bought a PRS Navarro (Custom 24) to compliment the McCarty. Looking back on it, for the 4 or 5 years I owned the McCarty, I almost always played whatever other guitar I owned more often than the PRS. So why buy another PRS? I dunno, I guess I kinda felt like I couldn’t sell the McCarty because I’d bought it when I got engaged.

So at the start of this year I had two PRS’s. But I was haunted by two guitars I’d owned in the past, the Musicman and the Tyler, mostly the Tyler. GAS got the better of me and I ebayed both PRS’s and to fund a custom order James Tyler Studio Elite HD (and a bed for my son). I’m glad I did. It’s fantastic, lots of pictures here. Barring a lottery win, it’s probably the last guitar I’ll ever buy. I certainly won’t sell it.

Here’s the full list, some mistakes, some I wish I’d kept(*) and one I still own(**):

Marlin Nasty
Ibanez Roadstar II
Kramer Beretta III*
Gibson Les Paul Standard*
Ibanez JEM 777SK
Ibanez Sabre
Fender Heavy Metal Telecaster
Hamer Steve Stevens Prototype
Moon Les Paul Special
Fender Strat*
Gibson Les Paul Classic
Peavey Wolfgang*
Taylor 710CE
Musicman Axis*
PRS McCarty Rosewood
Ibanez JEM 7VWH*
Ibanez J-Custom RG8270
Musicman John Petrucci
Fender Custom Shop ‘51 Nocaster
James Tyler Studio Elite HD*
PRS Navarro Custom 24
James Tyler Studio Elite HD**

Over the course of a few months I watched the software develop from it’s buggy Mac beta code into a wonderful sequel to the PC original. It remains my favourite guitar recording software. Yesterday I received an email from Randy at Sonoma Wireworks to let me know that, as a thank you for being one of their beta testers, they’d just given me everything in their online store, absolutely free. That’s worth over ?Ǭ