Rack Gear?

[jerryjg]

Looked like the wave of the future.. till people identified with the regular head/stack combo to the point, I guess ,where rackmount died, at least for anything outside  of studio applications,
Some foretold of great deals on rackmount gear, but i havent seen it. Many Mesa, for instance,  rackmount systems coming up to be dumped, but none of them at what I would call bargain prices..then again, I'd wager they aren't selling.

 

[OzziePete]

I have a Mesa Studio Pre amp that is my main man for guitar recording. Has been for years. Would love to have a small power amp to work with it and a smallish speaker box combo too. But money's tight and these sort of things are always last on the list to buy.

Also have some effects rack stuff, lo end budget stuff really, but hey it works and I can tweak some reasonable sounds out of it.

But yeah, I was wondering what happened to the rack rig craze?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It's still alive and well on the bass end.  Most bass heads are rackmountable these days, not to mention SWR, BBE, and several others make rackmountable preamps for use with rackmountable poweramps.  I'm not a big fan of extra "stuff."  Usually the simplest rig sounds the best.  However I do have some rack gear.  A tuner and a plug strip.

 

[jerryjg]

  However I do have some rack gear.  A tuner and a plug strip.

  :dontknow:  LA TI DA!!

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

   :dontknow:  LA TI DA!!

Sorry it's not up to your standards, but your initial post indirectly pertained to guitar rigs and rack gear, and I thought my reply about rack gear being alive and well with bass rigs was relavent regardless of my admitted lack of rack gear.

 

[simple]

The good rack gear still goes for good money. My gig rig is this:

X2 Wireless
Digitech GSP1101 for effects
Marshall JMP-1 preamp  (Usually around $450 ebay)
Marshall 20/20 EL84 amp (Usually around $500 ebay on the rare occasion it shows up)

This four space rack through my Genz-Benz 2x12 G-Flex cab can do almost anything and sounds huge.

All the Mesa and Marshall rack stuff isn't coming down in price much at all. Some things are even going through the roof price-wise; try to find a good one space spring reverb.

 

[Wyliee]

I've merged my bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and keyboard rigs in to one rack.  There are still plenty of rack systems out there.

Power distribution
Line6 POD X3 Pro
X2 Wireless (soon)
Stewart World 1.2 power amp

I have settings in the X3 pro for all of my instruments.  Depending on the gig, I'll grab the rig and either a bass cabinet or guitar cabinet.  Very simple, very easy.

 

[Superlizard]

Rack gear... buahahahahahaha.  The 80's and 90's really screwed things up tone-wise... peeps were
selling their schweet Marshall plexi heads, old Fenders, etc... for the newfangled (back then) rack technology
which involved PCB construction, MIDI control and @$$tone.  And don't forget, eventually, if it had a t00b in it,
it was "golden" toned.   :tard:

I had my rack phase - the full-on ADA MP1 preamp, ADA B200S poweramp, Alesis Quadraverb and ADA MIDI controller (still have 'em all).

I only use my 4u rack for *wet* FX when playing live (or at home if I want to mess around) - otherwise
(cue John Houseman voice) I play the old-fashioned way... through an old-fashioned t0000000000b amp.

(actually, the t00b tone is so thick, lush and 3-dimensional that it really doesn't need any FX.)

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

There's plenty of rack gear with tOObs.

 

[Superlizard]

There's plenty of rack gear with tOObs.

Yep, and to be more detailed in what I was saying - back in the day, rack gear manufacturers pushed the incorrect notion that
since their equipment had a t00b, it was just as good as your typical "holy grail" non-rackmount t00b amp (marshall plexi, etc).

They fooled a lot of geetar players... even the pros.

 

[Crappy]

Marshall 20/20 EL84 amp (Usually around $500 ebay on the rare occasion it shows up)

There is one on ebay right now

 

[Vol. Knob]

Interesting.

Actually, I've been thinking of going with a rack setup for effects.  Things like reverb, delay, chorus, etc.  Run with a footswitch, of course.  I've been thinking that perhaps I should get some of the electronics up off the floor. 

 

[Mor Paul]

Hey, Vol. Knob, was it you that had the flooding?

 

[Death by Uberschall]

It's all about matching the right components. And you get what you pay for. My rack set-up uses only tube pre and power amps. And yes there is a difference. I've settled on my Mesa Tri-Axis/2:90 combo and love it. Have many other pieces on the side I'll never sell.

 

[Tonar8352]

If amp’s were supposed to be in racks Leo would have created them that way! :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :evil4:

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

If amp’s were supposed to be in racks Leo would have created them that way! :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :laughing11: :evil4:

If we wait long enough, we'll probably find out he did.

 

[Vol. Knob]

Hey, Vol. Knob, was it you that had the flooding?

Yes it was.  I now keep stuff elevated a wee bit.

 

[stubhead]

I like rack stuff. Historically (sez the Prof) I think the biggest mistake was designers sticking a 12AX7 here or there, and successfully conning people into thinking that the power tube sound was therefore obsolete - a heap of bad tones came out of that (rack + Steve Lukather + EMG's = :tard If you choose your parts right, a rack sound fine - Chris Poland of OHM is one of my new tone faves this century, and he's got a killer rig - the MosValve power amp and the OOP $4,000 Bogner Fish preamp help.... every piece has to feed the right signal level to every other. I'd love to trip over a Mesa Boogie Studio Pre, they were dipping under $350 for a while but they're back up again. I have a 500 watt head and two 350 watt-rated hifi speakers, and none of it weighs over 30 lbs - hey, you'll get old too Godzilla. Unless you drop your amp on yourself and die. :toothy12:

 

[Superlizard]

(rack + Steve Lukather + EMG's = :tard

LOL!

Perfect example of rack technology gone... @$$.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Do you guys like Metallica's tone, especially live??? How about John Petrucci??? Neal Schon???

These guys always use rack gear, even if it's not out front and on stage for you to see.