Mini Review When I first got my Yamaha AES FG I was running it through a Yamaha DG 1000 digital preamp which has various amp simulations and a speaker simulation switch. This went to a mixer and to my powered studio monitors. The results were less than ideal. So, slowly I started looking into alternatives; and by chance I saw a second hand egnater M4. When I tried it I realised what all the fuss about tubes is all about. This thing sounded so damn good even with no effects I could hardly stop playing it, which is pretty amazing since I can hardly play guitar to begin with. Unfortunately, the shop was your typical dirty dusty messy used place, which of course did not inspire confidence. They were asking 300,000 yen too, which seemed rather steep. I looked at prices for a new one and it was astronomical 80,000 for each module and over 100,000 for the empty rack! Just by chance we called a strange shop in a converted house and the guy said to call back in a few days because he was dealing with the distributor to buy up the entire supply. So we called back and he said what price would we like to pay? So we said 300,000, the price of the used one. He said ok, so I went to the shop and in the very quiet basement I spent about two hours playing all the modules, trying to decide which I wanted! So I chose four. In the weeks that followed I considered the situation: 1. He was selling the modules at the regular american price (40,000 yen) and not the crazy Japanese price like every one else. 2. He had 100% of available stock from the distributor and no more would be coming into Japan because of an agreement between Egnater and Randall. 3. I am a nutter. Since that was the state of play, I decided to buy four more before the stock was all gone. And rather than switch and swop all the time I decided to get a second rack. The problem was I had no money! So the shop guy let me choose which I wanted and he put them in a cupboard until I had the money. So that's the story of why I have not one but two Egnater's! Also I am a nutter. The sample sounds of my modules (below) were all recorded direct using a Palmer direct box and my Anderson guitar set to middle pick-up except for the EG3 and SL+ for which I used the bridge pick-up. |