I'm not sure he could even get used for that cheap, unless he got an extremely good deal...
he might find one for 600 or maybe a little more.

First off, your gear does not seem to be fitted to the tone you are going for - Mesa recs are great for high gain playing, but the clean tone is not the highlight of the amp. For the price range of the Dual Rectifier head, you could get an ENGL Powerball, which has an amazing high gain tone, but also one of the best clean tones I have ever heard. I recommend the amp switch because I can honestly say the clean tone out of that ENGL amp is the tone of the gods, check out Scale the Summit's "Carving Desert Canyons" - two guitarists using Powerballs with different cabs, two of the best clean tones I have ever heard, and they have the same amazing tone every night.

For your guitar, the MexiStrat is a solid guitar, but it isn't going to give you amazing tones. Caparison and MusicMan both make amazing production guitars with great clean and distorted tones, and Sherman makes spectacular customs, only customs though. If you are looking at something cheaper, try Parker guitars, they make great guitars in a lower price range.



Active pickups use an electric current (off of a battery) to power a preamp built into the pickup and pick up a wider range of frequencies. There are a lot of explanations all over the web, it's not hard to find them if you are interested.
I personally dislike single coil pickups (and strats in general), so I recommend trying out guitars with humbuckers and active pickups (try some actives other than EMG+EMG clones). I recommend checking out the pickups used by guitarists that you like, specifically virtuosos/gear lovers, and seeing how they sound - signature models are good for that! I don't know a whole lot about pickups with good clean tones, I am quite happy with a DiMarzio X2N/Tone Zone combo for primarily high-gain playing, but the Tone Zone puts out a great clean tone when I need it to.

Finally, the only rack gear you need until you have a great guitar/amp setup is a power conditioner and a noise reducer. Two popular pieces of gear for this are the "Monster Power PRO 2500 Rack PowerCenter" (recommended by Chris Letchford of Scale the Summit), and the "ISP Decimator Pro Rack G" (recommended by Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour). A lot of other guitarists use that gear, but I personally heard it from those two dudes who are nice enough to hang out at shows and talk about gear! The Decimator also comes in a pedal version, but it looks like you are looking at some higher end gear, so the rack version is a very solid piece that you will not need to upgrade.

Bump for input

what gear should I researh?
Rack gear, another guitar, pedals maybe. Where can I learn about wiring and order? Pity I never learned abou this sooner

also, looking for DIY recording gear, most economic for a full band. Have a macbook and shitty mics and are looking o upgrade them. Looking for demo quality to shop around to labels.

thx for all thr input thusfar, good to see a decent mature community on jsp, lol. Especially music

This post was edited by Honestly on Nov 27 2009 04:50pm

dimarzio blues pickups maybe

Also consider the size of the place you're playing. If you're playing a club, you probably only need 15-30 watts of power. Cranking a tube amp is the foundation for a lot of famous guitarists' tone. You won't be able to really crank a big amp. You don't need rack equipment. Hendrix used a fuzz and vibrato pedal most commonly. His distortion was from him turning his marshall stacks way the fuck up. Good luck getting that tone in a small place. Stevie Ray Vaughan's tone really sounds like a cranked fender amp with maybe a wah in between on some songs. It's going to be hard to get a spot on Hendrix AND SRV tone. You're best bet is to get a fender-esque amp, crank that for the foundation of your tone, and use a pedal like an MI Audio Crunch Box to get the crank marshall sound. As for wah pedals, dunlop's crybaby line is always good, but the buffer in them sucks. You can get a Robert Keeley true-bypass crybaby for an extra $100 more than the crybaby itself. I like Lovepedal's pickle vibe, and for fuzz, I'd suggest Plum Crazy Fx's Fuzzy Lady for its versatility. The Deep Trip line is nice too, but they cost more too. I heard a pedal stacking demo that sounded very nice for Eric Johnson's tone. It was a Lovepedal Kanji Eternity stacked into a Lovepedal Kanji Classic. So all in all I'd suggest:

Put a set of DiMarzio pickups into your Mexi strat (anyone who says mexi strats is for beginners is either very wealthy or very uneducated).

Buy a twin reverb if you can. It's a bit loud, however. Stevie Ray Vaughan started out using Twin Reverbs and eventually started playing Vibroverbs (both from fender).

For pedals, I suggest a Kanji Classic and a Kanji Eternity for Eric Johnson tones. Crank the volume on your amp for SRV. Use the Crunch Box or the Fuzzy Lady for Jimi Hendrix (depending on if he used fuzz or distortion in the song). Then for special effects, get a vibrato pedal and a wah pedal to your liking. You'll want a decent quality buffer somewhere if you're running five-six true bypass pedals.

I'd try the pedals and see how they interact with the amps though before buying anything. I can't guarantee these will get the tones you want.

Buying all of that new, it's going to run you about $2200 or so not including cables, a board, and a power supply.