Your very 1st rack unit?

[FracKing]

Zoom 9030
Miss the 12-step phaser on it. Should never have sold it.

You're saying it wasn't just a phase...?

 

[2112]

Digitech DSP128



Followed very shortly by an ADA MP-1 and Rocktron Intellifex.

 

[scole]

I lusted after the single rack ART SGE or SGX but could only afford the Multiverb LT

 

[santiall]

Alesis Midiverb 4, back in 1996 or 97 I still have it:

 

[Nathan Explosion]

Buddy had the one of the T series. I think the 3 but can't remember? It didn't have a mids knob

Yeah that's the T3. Odd call for sure. The bass knob is push/pull for a mid boost. I run an EQ in the loop and it solves that problem, I can get decent high gain tones out of it.

 

[mbenigni]

 

[Sleezy E]

Yay Hafler!

That was my 2nd rack purchase... a Hafler 1600 power amp that I paired with my boss gt3 and a homemade 4x12

Still got it!

 

[gonzoknife]

I never really knew how to use it well and I probably sounded worse for it. I bought it because I thought I needed it and it was all I could afford.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

View attachment 21377

I never really knew how to use it well and I probably sounded worse for it. I bought it because I thought I needed it and it was all I could afford.

That was the Musicians Friend catalog fever dream right there!

 

[Baba]

The Roland GP-8 was my first rack unit. Received it as a high school graduation gift ftom my mom in 1988.

View attachment 21308
Regretfully I sold it and "traded up" to the GP-16 when it was released.

This was my EXACT first unit/setup, maybe even the same year too

 

[mbenigni]

Yay Hafler!

That was my 2nd rack purchase... a Hafler 1600 power amp that I paired with my boss gt3 and a homemade 4x12

Still got it!
View attachment 21375

Between the headstock and the trapezoidal rack case, this could totally pass for AI-generated art.

 

[stonge]

I was gigging a Korg A3 into a QSC 1400 into 2 1-12 wedges with a 'party rock' band back in 1992ish iirc. Also playing a Steinberger GM4T with a tobacco sunburst birdseye top, EMGs, and a Transtrem so I was clicking all of the "WTF is that?" boxes. Luckily the biker bars we always played weren't "tone police" so nobody cared what I was using for gear as long as we played 'born to be wild' for each of the chapters in the house that night.

Only critique I ever got was when a hammered stumpy biker staggered up to me at the end of the set and said "you play the guitar real good, but you wear it too high like one of those jazz f**s. You gotta wear the guitar low, and PLAY BLOOZE!" Duly noted my good man, duly noted...

 

[GuitarAddicted]

Rocktron Intellifex followed by a Korg Racktuner and later a Dunlop Rack Wah.
At that time I had a stereo setup with two JCM800.

 

[Sleezy E]

Roland GS-6. I thought I was King BigDick Swinger with this one in high school. Ran it into the front of a Fender M-80 Carpet Combo

View attachment 21588

You'll always be King BigDick Swinger™ in my book.

 

[gearJunkie]

Rocktron Intellifex

such a great unit. I still use mine in my Triaxis/2:90 rig.

 

[GuitarAddicted]

such a great unit. I still use mine in my Triaxis/2:90 rig.

Yeah definitely, later I upgraded to the Intellifex XL and I kept both for a long time. The reverb, chorus and delays were stunning.

 

[gumtown]

My first was in 1989 and I brought the ART SGE mkii
and ART X11 midi foot controller.

and today I still have two of them.

 

[dronerstone]

Fortunately, I've managed to avoid the rack rabbit hole so far. Seems cool, but definitely a trip/trap!

 

[Sascha Franck]

Roland GS-6. I thought I was King BigDick Swinger with this one in high school. Ran it into the front of a Fender M-80 Carpet Combo

View attachment 21588

Had one of these, too, running it into a Peavey Classic Series 60 stereo power amp. Wasn't all that bad, especially once I had a local tech building me a kind of tube pre-booster/trimmer, grabbing it's power straight from the Peavey (guy said that'd be the best solution because he wanted the high voltage or something...). Essentially, I think what that thing did was doing a slight low cut (and maybe some overtone mojo, but I rather not believe in that), resulting in quite a bit tighter sound.
All of it was running into a stereo splitted Orange 4x12 cab (which I still own).
Has been one of the first rigs that got me explicitely positive comments on my sound.
Sold the entire rack to a mate because I needed to go back to a more transportable combo solution, and from all I know he still used it for some gigs until around 2015 - go figure!

 

[Riffraff]

My first was a Digitech GSP Legend 21 I bought used in the mid '90s but it had a lot of problems so I brought it back and got a Valve FX instead. Since the Legend was basically unusable I consider the VFX to be my first.

I still have it in a closet in my gear room. I broke it out early last year and put it up for sale when I ordered my FM3T. Then I committed THE big mistake and tried it out with a couple of amp in a box type pedals in front of it. Naturally it sounded better than I remember it ever sounding and I promptly deleted my listing.

Where is it today? You probably guessed, back in that closet and hasn't been used since this experiment.

When you decide to let something go NEVER try it again, just sell it and don't look back. My closet is stuffed with unused crap due to not following that rule.