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Old Friend Number 15 - Marshall MGP9004 Guitar Preamp has left home.
This device is simplicity itself. A very compact 1U rack-mounting device intended for use in recording studios in lieu of an actual Marshall guitar amplifier.
This example is in good cosmetic condition, although all its front panel pots are very rustly, and need to be cleaned or replaced. In fact, rustling can also be due to leaky electrolytic signal-coupling capacitors, meaning that they may also need replacement. Life is much too short for me to fix that sort of problem!
The Lead channel very quickly gets to heavy distortion as the Gain pot is turned up.
Of course, it's nice to think that this allows a genuine Marshall sound to be put down on a recording without upsetting the neighbours. However, the aim for current guitar processors (20 years on from when this was produced) is to simulate the whole guitar amplifier and its speaker cabinet, while throwing in a range of digital effects for good measure - and all for very little money.
And in practice, the magical effect of real, loud sound waves causing a guitar's body and strings to resonate can't be readily simulated: even if a reasonable facsimile can be produced, there still isn't the visceral sensation of a guitar 'coming alive' in the player's hands when played loud.
This unit made sense to me when I bought it second-hand in 1993 (even though I have seldom used it), but nowadays, players would buy a comprehensive guitar FX unit, and studios would either bite the bullet and record a real guitar cabinet, or use one of the many guitar FX plugins available for their digital audio workstation of choice.
To me, 20 years doesn't seem vary long, but for music technology, it's several lifetimes!