Old School Digital

[maguchi]

Hey Gang,

Any of you fine fellows swim in these waters in the old days? Amazing how far things have come…

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Yeah I had one a those FX500s must a been about 35 years ago now. It was top notch effects in them days.

 

[TVvoodoo]

 

[KingsXJJ]

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Ah yes!

 

[FuzzyAce]

I still have one of these my band got in '95. It's actually pretty damn good. It has some kind of issue the past 5 yrs though that I should probably try to fix.

not my pic but same unit.

 

[2112]

I put together a playlist of the vintage digital gear I've demo'd over the years for anyone curious

 

[jaxadam]

Still have it. It’s not the bow, it’s the Indian.

 

[ragingplatypi]

This was the first one marketed for no menu-diving and modeled effects. I got a few good tones out of it.

 

[Achilles]

Busted my cherry with drums.

 

[fuyume]

I had the Yamaha FX770, the FX500's big sister. I also had the Sony HR-GP5 and HR-MP5. While they were good at what they were good at, for the standards of the day, what they weren't good at, they were terrible at.

The only reasons anyone cares about the FX500, at all, is because of the "Soft Focus" reverb program, which was famously used by Slowdive, and frankly wasn't anything special. If you look at the Soft Focus algorithm, it's simple to recreate something similar or better with modern hardware and software.

Younger players who weren't part of the scene back then tend to glamourize the equipment we used, but the truth is, we just used what was available, because that's all there was, not because it was somehow special. Those of us who are still playing 30 years later are very happy to have moved on to modern gear.

 

[JCW308]

Busted my cherry with drums.

First drum machine here, too. What an awesome little design.

 

[SymphonicDischord]

Instead of paying for my second year of college, I bought this. Did not impress my parents with that decisions. It was ridiculously heavy and when I started playing in a band I decided to add a 412 stereo cabinet to one up the other guitarist.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Did not impress my parents with that decisions.

How so? Shouldn't parents be amazed that their kids are interested in both modern technology and arts?

 

[gearJunkie]

I made the mistake of "uograding" my analog Roland GP-8 for this turd (GP-16).

 

[SymphonicDischord]

How so? Shouldn't parents be amazed that their kids are interested in both modern technology and arts?

My dad was hellbent at the time on me getting a post secondary education and honestly I wasn’t ready or mature enough to go straight from high school to living on my own in a city and being motivated for school still. After the first year I pulled the pin and the money I saved went to the Peavey, which funny enough cost more than my tuition at the time.

Eventually my parents calmed down and realized my headspace and when my brother graduated, they encouraged him to take the year off; it greatly benefited him. Years later my dad did admit that he shouldn’t have pushed me so hard towards it though.

 

[Achilles]

First digital guitar amp.

 

[Lysander]

Digital has been around long enough that "old school" might not mean what people expect anymore...

The venerable DL-4 is 25 years old now and still in very active use.

 

[gearJunkie]

The Roland GP-16 was released 35 years ago. It's definitely old school and was my first exposure to digital amp sims.