My First Ever Flip: Danelectro Back Talk Reverse Delay

So, back in the day when my only electric guitar looked like this:

And my amp looked like this:

And my pedalboard literally did not exist, I went to Leonard's Pawn Shop in search of inexpensive pedals, knowing absolutely nothing about what I should get. One pedal in particular looked sort of interesting, and its shape, heft, and everything else screamed "YOU SHOULD BUY ME." It was a Danelectro pedal of all things. Now, before you laugh, let me mention here that it is a discontinued and increasingly collectible pedal, the Back Talk Reverse Delay pedal.

I knew nothing about reverse delay, or even forward delay, or anything else, but it was on the shelf for $50, I made an offer for $40, and away I went. Note that this was before smartphones became hugely popular. I had no way to do research beforehand. This was a knee-jerk purchase.

I jumped on ebay and -- surprise! -- found out that the pedal was a big collector's item. One on there had recently sold for $150. Whoa!

Being the kind of person I am (which is the kind of person that would sell my favorite pedal if the price was right), I immediately put it up on ebay. "Who cares," I said to myself, "it's not like I really needed that pedal." Lo and behold, mine sold for $130 within 2 days. Just like that.

And I became a flipper for life. I think having such a favorable first flip is what really set it off for me. It's amazing what you can get at a good price and sell for an even better one with just a little bit of information. I also like the fact that this type of business dealing is a win-win-win -- the pawn shop sells their item, presumably for a profit of some sort (some pawn owners have told me that they will never sell an item for less than they paid, so I'm always buying things for some profit, to keep them open and doing their thing), I make some money with not too much effort, and the eventual buyer owns the pedal they want at a price they were willing to pay. See? Win-win-win. I like winning.

~C

Gear Review: Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster

Speaking highly of a Behringer product is often a source of discredit among musicians. After all, their gear is not that terribly expensive, so how could it actually be good? Seeing as I'm in a different camp, where I see products as a jumble of metal and electronics components, I realize that any company or manufacturer is capable of making quality equipment. It's typically quality control that makes for differences in cost, which means you should be wary of inexpensive products, but don't dismiss any gear simply because of its cost.

I've owned a few Behringer pedals and they have all been decent, but nothing compares to my experience with their VT999 Vintage Tube Monster. This pedal completely blew me away as an overdrive pedal, and it took a lot to take it off my board.

This pedal has 5 controls -- Master Volume, Gain, and a 3-band EQ. You can really dial in a lot of tones, from mid-humped rhythm, to treble-enhanced lead, and anything else. There's a lot of tone afforded by running signal through a 12ax7 tube, though I would recommend testing out the stock Chinese tube you get to see if it's workable, and putting in something more recognizable and pre-tested if it doesn't work as well. I put a JJ 12ax7 in with amazing results. Monster of tone. It even has a built-in noise gate which works incredibly well. I had a telecaster with some noise issues in my church (sconce lighting that really was noisy in the grounding) that this fixed in a jiffy.

The pedal is large. It takes up a lot of real estate, and to me, it's fairly unnecessary. Look at this gut shot:

There's a LOT of unused space in there, and while I know tubes tend to warm up and need some space, this seems a bit excessive. This also means it's a great modding platform, and there's a few mod kits out there that help. I've never tried them but I hear they add some additional tonal variety. My biggest suggestion would be to install a second circuit in all that space by re-housing a pedal in there. Something like a boost or compressor would really improve the efficiency of the real estate.

In short, it was the size of the enclosure that eventually convinced me to move on. I had some great tone out of this and would not hesitate to buy it again, if I had the space. It's, quite frankly, the best OD pedal in the sub-$100 area. I had to get 2 boutique pedals to finally take this off the board, and even then, it took the right kind of boutique pedals to make it happen.

If you're on the lookout for a pedal, regardless of your budget, I suggest you check this one out. It's a worthwhile investment. I used mine for over 4 years and it never failed on me.

Other Features Coming Soon

All,

I wanted to share some additional thoughts regarding how this blog will eventually end up. Obviously, if I only focused on flips, I probably would have some dry spells...and with my family about to grow, it's likely that would really happen! So, to augment that content with other valuable information, I'll also be making some posts regarding pedals I used to own, my current loadout, and other gear-related posts. So, for example, I'll talk about what my current pedals are, what I've done to them, and what I think about how they work. I might include some video reviews, but I don't consider myself the greatest electric guitar player, so the jury is still out on that one.

I can also talk about the tech work I do on guitars and pedals on occasion. Sometimes a flip involves buying a pedal that isn't up to par, for a good price, and fixing it back up and selling it. Sometimes I'll buy a guitar that needs solder work, or new hardware. I'll post more about what I'm actually doing to the gear, to help those of you who are interested in learning more about the tech side of gear ownership. Finally, I do build pedals and guitars from time-to-time, so expect some build threads and commentary as I go through with that. I'm making new categories now to reflect all of that, so stay tuned for new content. I plan to post at least 1-2 posts per week. Keep me to that!

~C