1988 Peavey Studio Chorus 210 Combo Amp

Another sweet Peavey amp is added to the collection, vintage Made in the USA

All of the pieces featured here have some sort of history and sometimes you end up with something that once belonged to a classic artist. This one seems to be an early model and was owned by guitarist Lanny Cordola, who Peavey once sponsored while he was in House of Lords and signed to RCA records in the late-80s.

This is now the 2nd Peavey amp in the vault and this one is their answer to the Roland Jazz Chorus. When I posted the photos on Facebook, someone chimed in and questioned the ability of this amp to create heavy metal sounds. As recently stated when discussing the Squier 15 Practice Amp, my main guitar is a 1977 Gibson Les Paul Custom and it's loaded with a vintage Seymour Duncan Invader and a vintage DiMarzio Super Distortion. This is probably why I'm able to get such heavy sounds out of these amps and last night, the Super D (bridge) was churning out Paranoid-era Black Sabbath and the Invader was replicating GNR and AC/DC sounds.

I bought this amp for the stereo chorus, as I prefer the sound of the effects on these old amps to what I'm getting out of vintage pedals and some rack units that I've accumulated. Another thing about this amp is that its loud. It goes from barely audible to stadium rock and there is seemingly no in between. I love it... Back to Lanny Cordola, he has a charity project where he teaches music to children in poverty-stricken countries. Lanny & The MLKs is the name of his band and the bassist/previous owner, Billy the Fist is a local player who also works as the touring bassist for legendary Hollywood glam band, London.

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1980s-90s Arion SAD-3, SFL-1 & SOD-1 Effects Pedals

Vintage stomp boxes, one classic Japanese make and two reissues made in Sri Lanka 

These pedals are widely available and they don't really get much respect, but they definitely get the job done, especially for the price. The delay is the most expensive, as is normally the case, but the reissue OD pedal can be found for as little as $25 in some cases.

The positives of these cheap little guys by far outweigh the negatives, mainly the plastic casings and battery covers that can easily pop off and go missing. But on the positive side, these are all stereo pedals. I've found that the delay works better for vocals, but can also produce some freak out noise for guitars. The four-knob flanger (the vintage Japanese pedal) has a little more flexibility than many of it's competitors and while the Overdrive pedal isn't anything special, one thing it has going for it is that the noise level is very low.

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1980s Yamaha CH-10MII & FL-10MII Effects Pedals

Vintage Japanese stompboxes, lesser-known, but very high-quality units

This could be the last pedal post or any post, for a little while, SCGM goes on vacation starting this morning. With that disclaimer, let's get to the gear... These pedals are both real nice and the price tag is about half that of their Boss counterparts and slightly lower than the vintage DOD pedals.

The only catch is that the Yamaha MII line doesn't come along nearly as often as those or even some of the boutique pedals from the 70s and 80s. The delays still run for around $100, but these two were scored for a much lower price than that. The chorus pedal is real clean and the fact that it's stereo is also a bonus. When paired with a DOD DFX94 digital delay pedal, it replicated that Andy Summers "Walking on the Moon" sound to a tee.

The flanger is also very nice, I chose this over another good vintage, 4-button flanger made by Arion. This one was a little more quiet and didn't seem to change the volume or tone very much. When looking for vintage pedals, keep these in mind. You can save a ton of cash and still get killer vintage tone.

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1990s Boss SE-50 Stereo Effects & SE-70 Super Effects Processors

The first rack mount multi-effects units from the top name in pedals are still favorites of gigging and recording musicians 20 years later

Released in 1990, the SE-50 Stereo Effects Processor immediately became a fixture on the rigs of the top players in the music world. James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett of Metallica reportedly used the box to produce some of the sounds from their legendary Black Album in 1990-91 and Hammett had it atop his rack on the following tour.

When the SE-70 was released 3 years later, it improved on initial model and has since been used by acts as diverse as Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to The Prodigy. The 70 is still the superior unit, it's not nearly as noisy as the 50 and the reverbs are definitely cleaner. One of the cooler effects on here is a Vocoder, which when used on vocals, creates that scattered, echoey sound that Tommy James got on Crimson and Clover. Kind of worth it for that alone.

These are still great to use on vocals and some interesting effects for guitars. Not really what you're looking for if you just want pure tone though. The distortions aren't nearly as good as the old pedals and you can get better delays and reverbs on newer, cheaper rack units. Still a great piece of gear for the gigging musician, I was able to pick up the Midi foot controller, so these units have the ability to store effects in presets and use the controller like a modern multi-effect stomp box.

Thanks for looking, more high-resolution photos here.