Little Giant(s)

[GoDrex]

Just pickup one of these off of eBay. It's got JJ and EH tubes in it and some unspecified SOZO capacitors. $190 shipping included. I figured what the hell.

Also picked up the OCD, which sounds great even with my Fender Cyber Deluxe. OCD is also the boy's initials so I had to try it because of that hehehe.  Can't try out the amp yet because I'm waiting on a cab from Avatar - a 1x12 partial open back with a Hellatone 30 in it. Should be coming soon I hope. A little b'day present to myself.

I'll report back once I'm able to play with it.

 

[Shmoopie]

I'm envious!

 

[blue313]

Looks nice, and Happy Birthday GD!  :rock-on:

 

[Nando Vallart]

What a cute little dangerous  :laughing7:

Happy birthday, Gary! :hello2:

 

[guitlouie]

Fulltone makes some of my favorite pedals.  The OCD is fantastic.  Enjoy! and happy birthday.  Here's hoping  neither one of these new items gives you anymore guitar-trauma!

 

[GoDrex]

Yeah this has made my guitar troubles kind of fade out today. Got my Avatar open back cab today and man this thing sounds great. And loud as hell - wow people aren't kidding when they say these 5 watts are loud. The 3 watt setting is loud. I'm still messing around with it and I haven't really done the expander/stereo thing a lot yet (using the BH as the right channel for the Fender) - but with the Lehle a/b combining the two amps, it's like this massive awesome tone that really is the best sound I've ever had. The Fender CD is kind of mid range-y and the BH is like bass and treble heaven - so combined it's sound so full. I think I could definitely be happy in a jamming situation with this setup. The OCD with the BH is just a perfect combo in my opinion, especially if you don't want to blow the door off your room. But damn if you use it for a clean boost it's just huge sounding and loud as hell. The overdrive sounds beautiful. I haven't even heard the BH's distortion yet. Haven't been able to crank it yet. But with my strat the cleans are nice and I can just kick on the OCD for any kind of gain sound I want. Makes even my strat's bridge pickup sound huge. Now I would say to everyone to run out and get one of these Blackheart amps, but remember that mine has different tubes and has other changes. Still I think for the price you can't go wrong with one of these.  My amp GAS is cured now for a long time.

 

[jackthehack]

The 15w Handsome Devil heads should finally be in stock shortly; my backorder should arrive the end of the month. Price at musiciansfriend.com went up $50 since I pre-ordered mine a long time ago; as there' s only $100-150 bucks difference it'll will probably turn out the better deal, as through the Blackheart 1x12 cab(s) or other high efficiency speaker setup it should be plenty loud for clubs, but switches to 7w triode mode for practice/around the house.

 

[GoDrex]

Jack, I posted this in the other thread - - you can pickup a new BH-15 right now on eBay.  One day I'll probably get one of those, though my setup now should keep me happy for a long time. I was going to wait for the BH-15 but I couldn't hold out any longer. Been jonsing for these for a while. I think you once said you can't afford to not pick one up. They're good little amps.

 

[tfarny]

Okay, so I was about to go out and buy an Epi Valve Jr. and start modding, until I went and re-read all these threads. Isn't the bh little giant just a valve jr. with tone controls? I thought I read that somewhere. I've played the VJ with a Les Paul special (P90) and thought it had an amazing blues tone for the price.
Guess I need to find one of these things and demo it - i've never seen one at a store.
if anyone has tried both of these, a comparo would be great. I know there's a ton of stuff out there already, but it's basically just people I don't know or trust, raving about their own setup.
Plan is to buy one and mod it up to the best of my abilities.

 

[GoDrex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjpnNoLRl2s

can't really tell much from that other than they sound different

 

[nathan a]

I've got me an OCD coming too!

Does the boy play?

 

[GoDrex]

I've got me an OCD coming too!

Does the boy play?

he's 2 and a half

 

[Shmoopie]

I've got me an OCD coming too!

Does the boy play?

he's 2 and a half

so yes I'm guessing.

 

[GoDrex]

Yeah he plays a lot. That's pretty much all he does. Did you mean guitar? I like to think of him as being gifted, of course, but he's not THAT gifted. He's very interested in guitars as objects and things that have lot of things on them to mess with, but playing them isn't something he can attempt yet, realistically.

it's bigger than he is :laughing7:

 

[nathan a]

Okay, fair enough. I did mean the guitar. He is cute though.

 

[Mor Paul]

I never even really touched an electric guitar until last year

 

[GoDrex]

my fantasy is for him to learn guitar (and his younger brother will play drums) - and then I'll play bass... but probably what will happen is that I'll make playing guitar look really lame to them hahaha. My Dad played golf - you won't catch me doing that ever. :icon_tongue:

 

[tfarny]

GD, I went down to 42nd street on my lunch hour and found a blackheart 5w combo amp, and played it through a Fender USA SSH strat. It sounded great, really touch-responsive and alive, even stock. I was surprised there was all that clean headroom for 5w, I couldn't even crank it in the store (I'm not fifteen and am a bit shy). I was under the impression these were good for their overdrive, not that they had nice cleans too. With a bit of tremolo and reverb it would even sound great for country-ish stuff.
The Fender felt like a toy after playing my goldie W strat.

I may be copying your rig pretty closely, Avatar has 1x12 cabs in stock and that's all I have room for anyhow. As far as a speaker and tubes, anyone have suggestions that will point this thing generally more in the Fender princeton / champ direction? Celestion G12H? Vintage 30? Tube recommendations along those lines?

 

[tfarny]

Oh, and your kid is probably destined to become a DJ who thinks 'instruments' are passe. like you said. That's always the way!

 

[GoDrex]

Mine does have a lot of clean headroom. There's no way I can crank mine in the house on 5 watts, and with fall/winter coming soon I won't be out on the deck much for a while. It does sound really sweet with my strat. I don't care for the 3 watt setting as much though, it loses that crisp edge.  I'm glad I picked up the OCD for it,  - which definitely needs and 18v adapter to sound it's best, IMO.  With my LP or Parker and the OCD I can get a pretty heavy and deep tone out of it. I could play old school metal rhythms with it no problem. Oh and I like the Hellatone 30 a lot. I'd definitely go for them again if and when I need another cab.