I have a lot of cameras ranging from subcompact point-and-shoot cameras to my main camera: a huge Canon 1Ds Mark II. This full-frame professional monster is a fabulous camera that has served me well for over 100,000 images since 2005. Coupled with Canon’s L-series lenses, it has all but ruined me when trying any other camera. I have many smaller cameras, most of which I’ve purchased in an attempt to come close to the quality of my big rig in a smaller package. My current travel camera of choice is the Panasonic Lumix LX1, but since it’s showing its age, I decided to hunt for a new one and settled on the Panasonic Lumix GF1. I took the GF1 with me on vacation as my only camera for a week in order to put it through its paces. read more »

I am a tube amp snob, or at least I used to be. The warm glow of tubes as they crunch my guitar’s signal into auditory bliss is just something that feels right. I also disliked most modelers until recently. Every time I tried some modeling gizmo I hated it. That is, until about a year ago when I bought a little Roland Micro Cube. The little cube sounded pretty good, but I didn’t really care so much about sound quality because I used that amp to amuse myself in the park or the back yard. read more »

The Roland Micro cube is a tiny little amp that can run on either AC power or six AA batteries. I was never a fan of modeling amps, but this tiny two-watt solid state modeling amp really surprised me.

The amp is built like a tank. I’ve not tried this, but I would be willing to be that I could toss it down a flight of stairs and it would still work. Considering that this is the type of amp that you might literally throw into the back seat of a car, being able to withstand some abuse is a pretty good feature. Since it’s less than 10 inches on it’s longest side, and weighs just over seven pounds, there’s a good chance it could be taken along on many trips.

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As a general rule, I review things that grab me in one of two ways. Either the product is so good that I need to tell the world, or the product or service is so bad that I need to tell the world. I also sometimes do reviews by request, but so far that’s been a rarity. To cut to the chase, WCR pickups are so good, I felt the need to tell the world. read more »

If you’ve read my article entitled A Tale of Two Jacksons, you’ll see that I own both a Japanese SL2H in transparent blue, and a USA Jackson SL2H in transparent blue. While the USA Jackson SL2H is the superior guitar, I really disliked the chrome hardware and set out to replace every bit of chrome with black. For the uninitiated, this was not a small task. read more »