Dr. Gonzo

I think it says something about either Solksjaer or the squad that they really only turn up for the big games and look pretty shite against clubs you'd expect them to look good against.

@RandoEFC - this might not be the best time to ask this, shortly after a derby match that went just about as poorly as it could have for you.. but the derby got me thinking this while we were 4-1 up: Is Marcel Brands part of the problem at Everton right now? Because yeah, sure, a big part of the issues with Everton right now fall squarely on the manager's shoulders. The tactics being questionable and shite like that. But the issues with recruitment and the overall effort we're seeing from the players are partially on Silva (well, I imagine he has at least a say on who Everton bring in)… but recruitment is primarily Brands' domain. And the players not putting in the required effort to be at a top flight club, let alone a club like Everton... that's on the fucking players IMO. My thoughts are... Brands is probably to blame at least a bit... but how much is his fault, it's really hard to say. It's got to be hard trying to come into a club that's been lacking in stability and try to give it some stability... but right now I don't think anyone can say that's what's happening at Everton. Personally, I actually feel for Silva - although I think he's lost the players and his tactics today were laughable and he probably deserves the sack based on this season's showing. I think if I were an Evertonian most of my anger at the situation of the club would be directed at the players, many of whom aren't fit to wear the shirt. And on another note, here's why I hope Everton don't ever go down - despite being our local rivals: A reminder that while people up and down the country fucking hate us as a club irrationally because we're Scouse, Everton are the ones who hate us for actual football reasons and have stood with us while the rest of the nation wants to shit on Scousers. Brought a smile to my face seeing this banner, especially after Twitter just fucking banned me because I told Trevor Sinclair to go fist himself and called him a Manc cunt after he called us bin dippers.

He's not a fan of crosses

@Mel81x the TCE Sentry came in a day ahead of schedule (which is weird because USPS is usually spot on with their delivery estimations). So I'll mess around with it a bit tonight - I'll let you know how it is tonight or (more likely) at some point tomorrow.

Bad news mate. But if you could beat Citeh that would be cool

Germany's kicked out some Russian diplomats after a Skipral style murder. Wish the UK would demonstrate the same kind of testicular fortitude tbh.

That’s a bit shit mate

I really want to try a Strymon pedal sometime soon - especially the one you've got, it looks like the holy grail of delay pedals. The reputation they have is just outstanding - the only companies I can think of that have similar reputations where it just seems like nobody can say anything bad about them are Darkglass Electronics for bass & Revv Amps for guitar (I'm sure there's probably other companies out there I've left off). It's all well and good though not being able to try out those extra premium brands - but for the stuff where it's cheaper and you've got a lot more options at the price point, but they're not always going to be the best options for certain applications... that's definitely where being able to try things out is the best situation. But even then, it can be very hard to try things out - like for instance, the pedal I just ordered off Reverb yesterday - I think my favourite shop here has one or two of them in stock currently. But it's a noise gate and part of the reason I want the noise gate isn't just "I need a working noise gate" (which I do), but also because when I'm playing upstairs in my little music loft and I've got my computer on there's about a 65% chance I'll get a shitload of interference noise. Whereas if I'm playing downstairs, basically anywhere else in my house there might be some pre-amp hiss that needs taming... but it's not that same awful interference feedback noise - so I can drop the threshold down a lot if I'm downstairs. I can't really test how well any noise gate compares to my now dead (RIP) NS-2 for the exact situation I'd actually need it for. I will say that I'm pretty lucky in that the group of people I jam with have pretty nice gear and always let me try stuff out and... you may have noticed from some of my posts on here... we let each other borrow gear we aren't using pretty regularly. Too bad they all have the most ridiculously priced gate pedal... so when I tried that (it works really really well, btw - but you can get fucked trying to sell me a gate pedal for that much ) I knew I wasn't going to be buying it. So if your pedal selection's fairly limited there... how's the instrument selection? I know a few brands I like have factories in India... but how available do those brands make those made in India guitars there?

It's very hard to not want to try out pedals before you actually buy them. It's one thing to see a demo video online, it's another thing to see how it'll sound with your hands, playing your instrument, through your amp.

I played a bit more last night, just got to the wild area. I really haven't played a whole lot... but I will say, this does seem a hell of a lot more complicated than I remember pokemon being

If VAR is here to stay, I think something like this is a necessity tbh.

I'll keep you posted, it gets in on Thursday. So I'll probably let you know my first impressions on Friday. I just downloaded the TonePrint app on my phone - but it looks like I'll need to download the separate software for my laptop for the really fine tuning. Looks pretty cool though. Last night I got something I ordered while drunk as fuck on black Friday and totally forgot about - I got myself another hybrid mini amp head (I may have a problem lol, both with drinking and buying guitar gear), I'm actually pretty pleased with Drunk Dr. Gonzo because it's more "my" type of sound than the orange where I found myself constantly making really extreme EQ tweaks with my 10 band - I've also found I like the Orange more for semi-clean stuff on single coils rather than for metal. But the Joyo Bantamp VIVO is a 5150/6505 sort of clone, pretty much in the exact same style amp as the Orange Micro Dark/Terror - a 20w hybrid amp with a valve preamp section. I was seriously impressed with the Orange - and I still am (the nice thing about having mini amps and a speaker cabinet is I don't feel compelled to get rid of one now that I have another, now I've just got 2 nice cheapo little amps ), but these little Joyo amps that I'd heard good things about are even more impressive. First off, it's cheaper. Secondly, it's got a second channel... and I thought "well it's a 5150 style amp, the cleans might be shite" - nah turns out the cleans actually sound really good. Secondly, and this surprised me... it's got a fucking Bluetooth connection. Which tbh I love for a little practice amp - playing a song, a backing track, or just a metronome through the amp without any fucking extra wires because now that I'm using pedals again... fuck me there's wires and cables everywhere. Pretty nice. And just like the Orange... you turn the volume up and plug it into a bigger cab and holy shit it's fucking loud. And for me personally, not having to make extreme EQ settings with my 10 band in the fx loop of an amp just sounds a lot better - I prefer more subtle EQ adjustments if I've got that pedal in the loop & tbh I quite like using it in front of the amp rather than use an OD/boost pedal for some reason. For about 90% of what I play on guitar... the 5150 sound sort of just fits me better and I was having to get pretty creative with the Orange to make it work (and I did and it sounded very nice). But I've also come to learn the Orange has it's own pretty unique and distinctive character... and it really really reacts differently with different guitars - I was absolutely blown the fuck away by how it sounds with single-coils. On the one hand I feel like an idiot for spending so much on gear lately. On the other hand... I really like the shite I've picked up lately (and I'm looking forward to a working noise gate coming in soon) and tbh I've done a good job covering the cost in selling shite I'm not using. Plus I've got the money anyways, so fuck it But sometimes I feel like this thread should be "Gonzo wastes money on guitar gear and then tells his football friends about it."

Holy shit, you wanna see something delusional? Look at Tom Hicks’ latest interview. So glad that absolute waste of human flesh isn’t associated with us anymore.

Think they're keeping Silva around just so the new manager's first match doesn't have to be at Anfield? Seems a bit fucked for Silva tbh, if even a good result against a side at the top of the league with a pretty decent gap between them and the next contenders won't even save his job. The bleak despair around Everton/Evertonians right now is totally fucked tbh. Their subreddit is arguably the most depressing place on the internet right now.

One of the biggest reasons for being in favour of deleting twitter from the internet is that nobody in the universe needs to see whatever the fuck is going through Piers Morgan's fucking head.

@RandoEFC loads of my blueshite mates are saying a new manager has been lined up (none of them are saying anything consistent regarding who that manager is, though) and that Silva's last match for Everton, win or lose, will be against us on Wednesday. No idea if it's true or if it's just a rumour that's taken legs here. I guess we'll find out on Thursday, because apparently "win or lose" means even if you win 5-0 against us at Anfield, he's still a dead man walking. The worst thing I've heard about this is... Rafa is one of the names I've heard bandied about as Silva's replacement. And I would absolutely hate that. Tbh though, I'm not sure I believe any of it. But I figure when I'm hearing this from loads of people, there's either something in it. Or it just shows how quickly rumours spread. You heard anything similar, or nah?

I'd not heard any criticism of the game tbh. Granted, I saw just a couple of good review scores and thought "fuck it, I've got a Switch - my wife's got a Switch. Let's play some fucking Pokémon." So far it seems pretty cool, but I haven't really done anything past getting to where we're allowed to trade

Looks like I'm getting a Sentry at a cut price let's hope the fucker wasn't lying about how he used it though.

Stealing this strategy - cheers! Noise Gate sellers of Reverb.com - prepare to be messaged by me asking what the pedals were used for.

Do you feel the same about overdrive pedals? I actually feel like overdrive and distortion pedals are pretty safe to buy second hand because they've usually got the simplest circuitry. But I also have no idea if that simpler circuitry means that they'll hold up over time. I'd probably never bat an eyelid about buying a Boss SD-1 second hand, they're so fucking cheap second hand that if the pedal ever did fail you could just buy another one. I imagine with some distortion pedals, like the ProCo Rat, that's really simple circuitry that's been around forever and I'd trust that to hold up over time. But again... I have no real idea. For me it's actually the more expensive and complicated pedals that I'd be nervous about buying second hand. When you've got a lot more digital shite on the pedal compared to old school analog circuitry, I think that's where I'd be more worried about buying something second hand. But with me and the noise gate, because it'd be a pedal I primarily always have on... I think it's more of a "constant use" thing with pedals. Which actually, with overdrives/distortions... a lot of people use them as pedals that are always on as well. Having said all that, I've just had a look on reverb at second hand noise gates and it's hard to argue against those prices.

A reporter from The Athletic reported it - and considering the reputation those journalists have, everyone else is running with it as it's likely true. A bit sad for him, tbh, to spend 10 years at a club and have a few winners medals, but mostly being known as a lad who didn't really deliver on the potential he had as a young player (which is actually pretty mental considering how great he was when he came through at Blackburn) and instead being known for making some pretty dire errors and having a funny face while you play. But also definitely a bit funny.

I can get an NS-2 second hand pretty easily & at a decent price... and I probably shouldn’t be afraid too because it’s a Boss pedal and I had mine for so long. But because it’s probably the pedal I will use the most in virtually any setup I ever use, I’m willing to spring a bit more to be the first owner of the pedal and have the warranty protection. Also that’s mental about the ISPs being double their normal price over there! That’s a genuinely shocking price.

All of my guitar playing pals I jam with have the ISP Decimater II G-String. It's fucking absurd how expensive that is for a noise-gate. But if you want another ISP noise gate... then you won't get the ability to do a 4 way connection. Quite frankly, I'm not going to pay upwards of $200 on a noise gate, regardless of quality, for it to do something I'd expect it to do at half the price. TCE is one of those companies though that's got a really good reputation. And I've used 2 of their pedals before (the Spark boost and... some delay that I forge the name of) - they were both really good.

Oh shit - there's 2 types of the Sentry? They don't say that on the TC Electronics website - it's got really good reviews. What puts me off it though is I've used the NS-2 forever so... familiarity seems compelling as fuck to me. It looks like the Sentry can do that 4 way connection the NS-2 does though and it's supposed to be great. But is it great enough to pay more than I would for a Boss? No clue and tbh that you ended up getting another NS-2 makes me think "probably not"

@Mel81x - what was the other Noise Gate you asked me about once on here and I said "idk I've only ever used a Boss NS-2?" I have bad news. My NS-2 stopped working again, I cracked it open once again and was like "I'll just fucking solder it again" but... everything looked fine internally. I changed the power supply a few times and that didn't do anything, I tried it with a battery and it didn't do anything. RIP to that pedal. Was the other noise gate you asked me about the TC Electronic Sentry? Because that isn't much more than a NS-2 and it's looking pretty compelling to me. And it's a lot cheaper than the ISP noise gate my friends have