90s Peavy Predators were absolutely made in the U.S.A. In Meridian, Mississippi. Then in 2004 they started making stuff overseas in Asia (but also the U.K.) In short, your 90s Peavey, in additon to not being allowed within 2 miles of any grade school, (get it? Predator? ha ha) was made in the U.S.A. Even in the 70s Peavey stuff was seen as well made and reliable but lacked the ellite bonafides of Fender amps and guitars. I know guys who still gig with backj breaking 80s Peavey P.A. equipment as it still works. Personally, I though their stuff was just ugly. Not that anyone asked but my first new guitar was a 90s Gibson Epiphone Telecaster. Not joking, my best friend had the Stratocaster version. I would love to have one today.
@@danielktdoranie from what I could gather online, the necks were actually made in the US, whereas the bodies were made in Taiwan. It could be wrong though.
@@SlaughteredDecayI’m pretty sure throughout the 90s the necks still said made in the USA some of the late 80s and early 90s peaveys were incredibly good not just for the money they were legit giant killing working men’s guitars, they weren’t considered cool and I had to have that fender shaped headstock so I bought a Squier and probably could’ve bought a way nicer Peavey for a hundred less
I understand nostalgia. For no other reason, i recently bought a fender squier from a pawnshop. It reminded me of being 14 (in 94) and my cousin and i learning nirvana songs.
my first rig: Nova Stratocaster with 2 pickups, a humbucker bridge and a single coil in the neck which was dead due to a manufacturer defect, into an original mT-2 Distortion pedal, with my dad's 60's fender amp which had a broken tube. I replaced the neck pickup with a hotrail and the bridge with a wilkinson alnico 5 nowadays, and the fender style trem has a roller bridge. I didn't use a noise pedal because back then I didn't need one, the single coil pickup never worked.
@@Funkyguitarcovers Thanks dude, rock on. The mT-2 gets a lot of hate nowadays, I don't have a newer one to try out whether there's a difference in tone, but the originals can get similar to cannibal corpse, obituary, or metallica depending on your settings.
Oh man, this was a blast from the past! My first rig was a ‘92 Peavey Predator and a Peavey Rage amp. I gigged with that guitar for YEARS! I now have 60 guitars and basses, but that first electric is still in the mix. Highly modified, but will always have a special place in my heart. The Grunge pedal holds a little less special place… Thanks so much for this video! I’m going to go pull the Peavey out and show him some love.
I still have my little Crate amp from the late 90's as well as my first guitar (a Samick SG copy). I also borrowed one of these Predators about a decade ago with the humbucker in seafoam green. Tried to buy it buy she wanted it back. Now I play a Silver Sky into a Quad Cortex. Feels like luxury!
same...same... its actually the guitar i just randomly pickup and noodle on... i have put more money in upgrades that it will ever be worth... but totally worth it
WOW that was the sound when I started to learn guitar! That fizzy distortion through a tiny practice amp but it did the job back then. I taught myself how to play through a setup like that. Thank you for making this video Taylor it was a great trip down memory lane. It even sparked some conversation with me and my wife about my first guitar and amp.
I've owned 8 or 9 Peavey predators, they're absolutely brilliant guitars. Made in USA until 1994. Those last few years were USA made necks, Korean made body, electronics and hardware. It was the only way to cut cost and still make an awesome playing guitar. Really all you need to do is swap the tuning machines, saddles, and maybe the nut and it's outstanding. Maybe swap pickups to taste.
My first rig was a Korean made P/J bass, brand name "Kingston electronics". It had a bow in the upper frets so that frets 14, 15, and 16 were all the same note. It had super tiny frets. That went into an SWR workingman 112, a 100w amp with a 12" speaker and a tweeter, which weighed like 120lbs. It was super loud and had a killer preamp section that made the bass sound warm, saturated, slightly compressed, and could even get into growly distortion if you really played hard. I played so much primus...
Dude you're a 90's kid ? You had it so lucky to have such great guitars and amps compared to us 70's 80's kids who could not afford a Marshall amp and cabinet, Fender and Gibson. We had the luxury of Gorilla amps and K Mart crap guitars! That box of cardboard you got there was worth more than my first guitar. I ended up building my second guitar after someone gave me a super distortion humbucker and it actually kicked some ass! I had a Thrasher stick and stuck that bad boy on the headstock and I was off to learning my favorite bands.
I love this. Takes me way back. I had a peavey predator plus from like '99 or 2000. I also had a crate combo amp. I miss those days. So much fun. I have thought about buying an old peavey predator several times. Just never actually pulled the trigger yet.
I feel like Squier redefined themselves in the early 2000's with the classic vibe series... but since then they kinda left the brand on auto-pilot... no signature guitars in that tier anymore, some new paranormal type guitars, but compared to Epiphone as a direct comparison, there's better options nowadays for Fender designs at the budget tier... it's telling too when you have to dig into Fender's site to find a Squier vs Epiphone having its own entire website configured just like the Gibson site. Meanwhile I absolutely did "things" to my first guitar a GiO GRG40... and now I have a non-USA model GRG140 as its spiritful sucessor to become my sustainer machine. XD
My first rig was a black hss squier fat strat with gold hardware , floyd rose and black Pearloid pickguard, and a harmony amplifier. That was my first electric setup my very first guitar however was a 1967 silvertone acoustic that my grandmother bought at a yard sale for 5$
My first guitar was my 6 YO older brothers guitar. It was a crappy 3/4 scale dime store no-name made of plywood. Almost a Ukulele. He never played it so I started when I was five noodling and finding I liked it more than my violin. Played the crap out of that thing for six years when I traded my old bike, a banana skateboard, and a pocket knife for a no-nome Texas strat-a-fake with a fade brown paint job, brown period pick guard, and three “PAF” pickups with individual on/off switches, and a rolling tremolo with a tail mount. I also got a crappy 10watt solid state practice amp with a single tone, volume, and gain knob with a headphone jack along with an old Ibanez “Tube Screamer” Sound Tank pedal and a Ibanez Chorus Sound Tank. How did I ever learn anything?
I have a mid 80s Peavey Patriot with one humbucker and volume nob. Mine has the Kahler. I chose the red finish. It has a 21 fret maple board. It has been through hell and back and still kicking a$$ today. It was my 3rd guitar that year. I spent my birthday money wisely. My first decent rig was a Crate G40C stereo chorus amp. I bought the Grunge pedal and it was magic!
As a metal/punk guy I've found myself appreciating single coils more and more, even for heavy music. I still only stick to the bridge pickup though 😂 but they can be really cool for layering in with humbucker tones or even on their own. For my more old school hardcore punk stuff single coils have taken over my sound just because they have what I can only call a kind of trashy, rough, unrefined sound but in a good way. Some overdrive and spring reverb on a cranked amp it's hardcore surf punk heaven in my book
IYKYK. Telecasters were made to chug. I like removing the neck pickup and wiring it into an Esquire configuration, that fixed tone bass position on the switch accidentally works wondrously with drop tunings and heavy distortion.
@jeffbernard5272 i bet it sounds awesome, I've been wanting to put together an Esquire inspired Jaguar but just haven't been able to. Basically a short scale Jag with only the bridge pickup and nothing else.
Reminds of my first “rig”… Peavey Tracer (single humbucker only, with that same trem from your Predator), Peavey Audition 30 amp, DOD Supra Distortion (FX-55 I think?). The DOD didn’t blow me away for guitar, but it was INCREDIBLE for bass… at least my teenage self thought so
Cool playing mate. I still have a $200 guitar I bought in like '81, a Vantage Avenger with split coils. It could do the single coil strat thing until I got a Strat in '85. Still got it too though I have some noiseless pups in it now. Good video Taylor, Rock On Bro'.
my first guitar was a Korean Ibanez RG350, black with sharktooth inlays and a mirror pickguard. Can't find that exact model anywhere anymore, but it had the best neck of any ibanez I have ever handled except for the JPM
first rig was a ESP LTD F-10 with the 10-watt amp that was bundled with it and a digitech RP55. Still have and use the F-10 (pickups and pots have all been swapped out from what was origionally there), still have the amp (does not really work/need to see if I can fix it); was dumb and traded in my RP55 when purchasing another pedal board that sounded like garbage in comparison, and regret that I no longer have it, but I have moved onto using a Line 6 helix and the tone is just so much better.
My first electric was a red Peavey Predator that had the pointy Peavey logo along with the crafted in the USA printing. It was S-S-S format with a maple fretboard and a generous bit of flame on the back of the maple neck. I'm thinking it was maybe an early version, when they just changed from the H-H fortmat to the S-S-S format. My only real issue with it was that the electronics were a little scratchy with maybe a short in the wiring. I held onto that guitar until my mid 20's as a backup guitar. I also had what I believe was a matching 10 watt Peavey (Rage or Rogue?) practice amp that had, I believe, an 8 inch speaker. Still pretty nostalgic for me as well, even though I have moved on to much better rigs since then.
couple years ago i picked up a squier hm strat from 89 and it was a really good guitar imo. only problems with it were some slightly microphonic pickups and worn down frets
I’m a bass player (primarily) but I was interested in this video in large part because my first bass was a 90s Peavey Milestone II. It’s essentially a P Bass knockoff, but it’s pretty damn good and a LOT less money than its Fender counterpart. I got mine used and I still have it and still play it. (Though I have replaced a few parts in the 20+ years I’ve had it.)
My first "rig"..a Solidstate Traynor2x10, a 83' G&L SC-3. Pedals were a KMD distortion which came from buying like 10 sets of KMD strings, and 🥁 a DoD Vibrothang. All patched together with the shortest Brite Green cables and an ancient coil cable that came with the amp. I was a first time viewer and now all Liked and Subscribed up. ✌️
Thanks for taking us down memory lane. I do agree that there are do many options for beginning guitar players these days! My first real rig was a Series A Jackson clone, gun metal metallic finish with a matching headstock, black hardware. A somewhat Floyd rose-ish trem bridge and a coil split switch. The amp I had was the exact model Crate you had in the demo which, when I saw it I said "Ahh there's my good ol' reliable Crate!" It wasn't too bad for what it was tho. But again, they didn't have too many choices for budget gear in 1988.
I had one of those back then and it was ok for a total beginner but then I got a JB Player for around $300. I have no idea what that brand is but that was one sturdy little sucker that I still have in storage to this day. Never had a warped neck or fret/intonation issues with it. Cheap guitars seemed sturdier back then.
My first rig was absolutely along those lines. Washburn BT3 (strat style guitar) because at the time Dime played Washburns, and I had to at very least have the same brand as my guitar hero. I absolutely busted that bridge and the wood behind it off within a matter of weeks because 13 year old me in 1996 had no idea a strat tremolo wasn't a Floyd Rose. After some rescue from my dad, I learned about blocking the trem early on.. I had that exact same Crate amp and the Boss Metal Zone. I still have the neck from that guitar to this day and have been meaning to put it on some crazy partscaster, probably NOT with those cheezy thin ceramic single coils though.
I got a Predator for Christmas 1995. I still have it but it's in rough shape. It reminded me of Hendrix's white Woodstock Strat so I had to have it. The last time I played it was 2002. Lately I've been thinking of having it cleaned up and restored and putting in some Duncan Red Devils or Hot Rails. That'd cost a fortune, though, I think. The weird thing was, it sounded more like a real Strat than my actual Strat.
great video!! my first rig: Greg Bennett Malibu strat sss, an ibanez 10 watt amp and a digitech RP50, and yes! I still have everything!!! oh that was back in 2005 I was in my late 20s
There's a red super strat HH predator plus with floyd rose in my area for $100usd, I'm tempted. I want a SSS guitar though. Too many humbuckers in my arsenal 😅
I'm aiming for one at $30. There's so much gear available secondhand that people are letting it go for so cheap. Bought a laguna le422 super strat with a coating trem in HSS with a dimebucker and two fender noiseless for $100 and an 80s transistor based Peavey Studio Pro 40 with an eminence designed speaker for $20. It's becoming dangerous for my wallet 😅
I had a later (mid-2000s) Peavey Raptor, and a Peavey Predator (when they changed it to a dual-humbucker Superstrat with a licensed Floyd) and both were made in China, I believe. I still have another Raptor, I bought it for $40 off a guy online, and it's surprisingly good for a guitar that cheap, at least in terms of feel and fret work... the pickups leave much to be desired. Hell, even the whammy bar isn't the worst for slight vibrato, definitely not doing Van Halen dives though.
Love the 90s Peaveys! I have 2 Reactor models (the tele clones), one from '93 and one from '96. At this point they've been modded with everything... locking machine heads, pickups, you name it... But at their core they're still a cheap 90s guitar that play & feel great. Can't go wrong!
This is definetly the most hyped I've seen you in a video yet the excitement is rather obvious. I just got back my original bass I bought back in 93/94 a yamaha bb300. It's kinda rough but neck still looks good have to refinish the back of neck and replace the nut and pickups/ wiring. Plus found the special tool for the lock type feature on the tuners. Can't wait to play it again but so cool I got it back after dude who borrowed it disappeared back in 2001. Oh and to add my first amp was a muscle 10in amp black with pink lol Ah Rippers music lol 😆
The neck is a little beefier than a lot of Squiers. It's great for funk. It also doesn't have a skunk stripe. The neck is two pieces with the grain running opposite ways to prevent twisting. Kind of a nerdy engineering touch thats pretty innovative for a budget guitar.
You should try using the effects out on that little Crate into a bigger amp's power amp section. You'll need a 1/4" inch stereo into two 1/4" mono splitter Y-cable.
I have a squier strat and I love it Have had it for a year and a half with only minor and very very very occasional issues However, the squier *mustang* I got has been having problems since I got it (none that have to do with the guitar electronics but they're still minor annoyances) And due to personal error, it has thicker frets than I would've preferred and it's kind of a bummer cuz I love both guitars
A black Peavey Predator and a Crate GX-15 was the first guitar rig I bought with my own money from a summer job when I was 16. I loaned them to my cousin about thirty years ago and he still hasn't returned them. Really need to give him a call, I miss those...
I bought a Squier in the 90s, a Pro Tone P-Bass 5 and while many of my basses have come and gone that beautiful cherry red Squier is still hanging on the wall next to me. Maybe for a follow up vid you could see what you missed out on and get a Pro Tone Strat from the 90s They sing like birds and even today they only go for between $400-$500 on Reverb.
Peavey & Crate were awesome and how i wish i still had my Grunge pedal from the 90s, but now i want to hear your Crate GX 15 hooked to your Mesa 412 as I still think these tiny Crate practice amps sound great and I bet it sound awesome running thru your 412
I had a strat with no branding that my mom bought me from a pawn shop for $100, a shitty crate combo amp, and the DOD death.etal pedal. I still love that pedal, I have owned 3 since the 90s
Some months ago I got a 90's Peavey Predator Plus... Made in Vietnam I think. But is a version that have a Wolfhang body style and 3+3 headstock, Bronze color. It need midle pickup remplace and a very deep clean. But I notice 2 interesting thing on this guitar. First is the Pickups, it have wide pole pickups, seem a like to Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound and I can't find another similars, and second, This guitar have 500k pots despite is a SSS guitar. I just need find a new pickup and it gonna be ready to back to life.
My first was a white Peavey raptor. It came with a Rage 158 amp. I was so excited. I remember a guy came iver and played it and said it had no tone. I jad no idea what he was talking about 😂😂
Love your channel great topic!!! Been rebuying all of my old guitars as I’ve gotten older and can definitely relate to this !!!!! I had the Memphis series 10 with a fender Champ amp OD1 😂
My first guitar was a cheap strat copy that looked exactly like this. In the 90’s you didn’t really have much of a choice outside of the big brands as the China guitar industry hadn’t taken off yet. The brand name was “Magnum” and it cost me $500 AU with a 10w solid state amp. It was really bad so as soon as I had some money I upgraded to a 60’s Aria Diamond, a really nice ES 330 copy made in Japan in the early 60’s. I traded my Strat in and ended up paying $350 for it. I still have it today. In fact I’m currently restoring it with new parts and I’m upgrading the pickups with some vintage voice Alnico 5 humbuckers. All gold hardware with a floating roller bridge, bigsby and locking tuners. All hardware will be gold. Also need to redo the binding as the nitrocellulose original binding has decayed and is falling apart. Also needs a paint touch up near the neck.
My first rig was a Washburn N2, Fender Princeton Super Chorus amp with a DoD Classic Tube Overdrive. In my senior year of high school (1994), I added a Zoom 2020 effects processor. 😛😛
My first guitar was a strat clone from Traditions that I bought for $250 in...2002, 2003-ish...I think? I don't know, time is weird man. Old man at this little backwoods music shop threw in a Dean Markley combo to get me started. Blew up the amp, but the guitar is still with me, and it's still a really nice instrument. It's a nearly 10 pound boat anchor though, so I dont play it that often Got a Crate Mx-10 combo from a buddy a couple years ago and I pulled the amp and turned it into a stand-alone head...actually freaking rips through my 112 loaded with an Eminence Swamp Thang. Still prefer my Orange Micro Terror, though.
In the late 80's - early 90's C.F. Martin (Martin acoustic guitars) put out Indonesian made Strat copies called the Stinger. They were decent guitars and cheap.
My first guitar I got in 2016 and it's a modded Peavey. It's a strat style but the headstock says Peavey Generation EXP (that's their tele style) I have no idea what was done to it but it looks great and I still love it
I started with the same guitar (also in white like you), a small ARIA amp and some Ibanez pedals (Distortion, Chorus, Delay). Then I switched to an Epiphone Les Paul, a Marshal 50W combo and a Line 6 XT live. Nowadays my rig is far from that (I sold all that stuff above over the time) but I still have good (and bad) memories 😂
Those things came with 500k pots from the factory, you can almost never find the truss rod cover on these, I've had 3 of them and they're all from 93-94. The neck is actually 2 piece maple, they even had an iteration where instead of having a rosewood board, they just painted the whole neck black. I'm actually selling one just like yours in this video because i thought i had a strat killer. I just went back to my fenders.
I had a white/rosewood Peavey Raptor as my first guitar. Part of me wishes I still did. Traded it with someone for a Zoom 505 multi-effects pedal. Totally not worth it.
mid to late 90's Squier Strats are legit. Most were made in China and back then, the body was still made of Alder (At least the Chinese ones) and were the same thickness as the Fender line. AAAAND had some premium hardware. I have 2 40th anniversary models and they are fantastic. One I got back in '97 and recently gave it to one of my sons. I missed it so much, I tracked down another one. They had great hardware and are just so playable.
Never liked the predators much. Didn't feel right to me. The raptors though, fastest guitar in my collection. If I want to go light speed, I grab my raptor. But my hands down favorite guitar is a Peavey EXP limited. Damn thing just feels great.
My first rig: Yamaha Guitar (H-S-H), nothing fancy, DOD Thrashmaster and Stereo Chorus, no amp, plug straight into a Sunn Console (Fender, mexican made) I thought I sounded pretty decent, pretty grunge. Now I just can't find those DOD pedals in the used market! I still have the Yamaha collecting dust, I'll fix it one day... Those were the times! Oh: all this in '96 to 2000
I remember that sound of the 90s i was thinking about my stuoid strange weird jams just b4 now im like no distortion really clean tones for solo's and patient stuff to think in the space instead of doff dof doff in the 90s the Mexico squires were good
Noice! I still have my first gear. A 1983 Fender Super Sounds and Fender Super Champ. I tiny Strat style guitar and a tiny but extremely heavy and LOUD tube amp. My dad bought them for me when I was five. I wanted a drum set so he bought me a guitar. lol After I got older and bigger, my dad gave me his 57 Buddy Holly reissue. I sold it to pay the rent during some tough times. I so regret it.
Peaveys made killer guitars. I used to have a Destiny Custom I had to get rid of, neck through, thick maple top. I had to sell it to eat. My brother (rip) had a Predator though. It was pretty killer for a cheaper guitar
I traded a dude a while back a quarter bag of weed for a 94 white on white Predator and straight up I love this guitar. The neck is so smooth and I think it plays and sounds great!
The reason is budget players can only afford budget amps my guy. Cannot afford a 2k amp if you can’t afford 300 for a guitar that way we get a good representation of what our gear will sound like with the guitar. The katana doesn’t come with the Bluetooth built in due to legal restrictions within countries that boss sell amps. Some countries where Bluetooth is restricted and or out right illegal. That way boss can still sell the amp.
Holy crap dude! I had a red Raptor exp at around 12yrs old and played it throughout my teens and even gigged with it for like 5 years until I got a Jackson Dinky 😂❤
Cane here to say it. They had to change em cuz they were perfectly strat shaped. My first decent guitar was a US made predator. I traded it for a T-30 i think it was. The one woth the humbuckers instead of single coils. Peavey gear was solid workhorse equipment back in the day.
@@TaylorDanley a friend had the DOD FX7 which was shockingly good for the time tbh, it even had a Grunge pedal emulation. Preset 24, or 27, was heavy AF lol
I just bought a Jackson Soloist replica, made in Korea in 1990, for 100$. I wish I could have you review it, it came with real Floyd Rose on it and has good weight to it. I can't find anything on the internet on the brand unfortunately 😣
Also just for a comparison to kind of point out what a golden age we live in for guitarists rn... My local shop sold tf out of peaveys in the late 90s when i was learning to play and brand new a predator was $289 sticker price. This was a small town in south eastern KY. Anything else in terms of a new guitar was like a jb player or something like that. They were truly awful. Squire still sucked by and large and the 'strat packs' werent even a thing just yet. So starting out as a guitarist really was a lot harder in terms of getting a usable instrument for the money a kid could earn or even talk their parents into. Like my Peavey was my second electric guitar. The year before i got a 2 pickup harmony that looked a bit like the theodore that gibson released a while back. The next year since i had stuck with it my parents were willing to spend a bit more on it. They were worried (i was about ten years old) that i would lose interest and then feel like i ripped myself off for christmas lol. They thought for sure id end up wanting a video game instead. I got that peavey the next year and sold my tv to buy an amp. I literally havent owned a tv since.
Thank you Sweetwater and On Stage for Sponsoring this video! sweetwater.sjv.io/19egbR
How can I get Sweetwater to sponsor me becoming 40years old no longer playing in bands but loving getting drunk alone and shredding?
90s Peavy Predators were absolutely made in the U.S.A. In Meridian, Mississippi. Then in 2004 they started making stuff overseas in Asia (but also the U.K.) In short, your 90s Peavey, in additon to not being allowed within 2 miles of any grade school, (get it? Predator? ha ha) was made in the U.S.A.
Even in the 70s Peavey stuff was seen as well made and reliable but lacked the ellite bonafides of Fender amps and guitars. I know guys who still gig with backj breaking 80s Peavey P.A. equipment as it still works.
Personally, I though their stuff was just ugly.
Not that anyone asked but my first new guitar was a 90s Gibson Epiphone Telecaster. Not joking, my best friend had the Stratocaster version.
I would love to have one today.
@@danielktdoranie from what I could gather online, the necks were actually made in the US, whereas the bodies were made in Taiwan. It could be wrong though.
This is interesting to know! I would've thought "crafted" simply meant it was assembled in the US, and imported from Asia.
My 1978 T-40 is the ugliest bass I own, and one of my prized possessions.
@@SlaughteredDecayI’m pretty sure throughout the 90s the necks still said made in the USA some of the late 80s and early 90s peaveys were incredibly good not just for the money they were legit giant killing working men’s guitars, they weren’t considered cool and I had to have that fender shaped headstock so I bought a Squier and probably could’ve bought a way nicer Peavey for a hundred less
@@danielktdoranie that's cool I I've visited meridian a few times
I understand nostalgia. For no other reason, i recently bought a fender squier from a pawnshop. It reminded me of being 14 (in 94) and my cousin and i learning nirvana songs.
my first rig: Nova Stratocaster with 2 pickups, a humbucker bridge and a single coil in the neck which was dead due to a manufacturer defect, into an original mT-2 Distortion pedal, with my dad's 60's fender amp which had a broken tube. I replaced the neck pickup with a hotrail and the bridge with a wilkinson alnico 5 nowadays, and the fender style trem has a roller bridge. I didn't use a noise pedal because back then I didn't need one, the single coil pickup never worked.
That’s a hella of a rig, dude right on 🤘🏻🎸🤟🏿
@@Funkyguitarcovers Thanks dude, rock on. The mT-2 gets a lot of hate nowadays, I don't have a newer one to try out whether there's a difference in tone, but the originals can get similar to cannibal corpse, obituary, or metallica depending on your settings.
Oh man, this was a blast from the past! My first rig was a ‘92 Peavey Predator and a Peavey Rage amp. I gigged with that guitar for YEARS! I now have 60 guitars and basses, but that first electric is still in the mix. Highly modified, but will always have a special place in my heart. The Grunge pedal holds a little less special place… Thanks so much for this video! I’m going to go pull the Peavey out and show him some love.
I still have my little Crate amp from the late 90's as well as my first guitar (a Samick SG copy). I also borrowed one of these Predators about a decade ago with the humbucker in seafoam green. Tried to buy it buy she wanted it back.
Now I play a Silver Sky into a Quad Cortex. Feels like luxury!
Dude, this is the EXACT first guitar I've ever owned and I still have it to this day!
same...same... its actually the guitar i just randomly pickup and noodle on...
i have put more money in upgrades that it will ever be worth... but totally worth it
I still have one of these. It’s been modded a lot but it’s one of the best playing guitars I own!
i think ive about replaced everything on mine except the wood
WOW that was the sound when I started to learn guitar! That fizzy distortion through a tiny practice amp but it did the job back then. I taught myself how to play through a setup like that. Thank you for making this video Taylor it was a great trip down memory lane. It even sparked some conversation with me and my wife about my first guitar and amp.
I've owned 8 or 9 Peavey predators, they're absolutely brilliant guitars. Made in USA until 1994. Those last few years were USA made necks, Korean made body, electronics and hardware. It was the only way to cut cost and still make an awesome playing guitar. Really all you need to do is swap the tuning machines, saddles, and maybe the nut and it's outstanding. Maybe swap pickups to taste.
Pacificas are sick too
My first rig was a Korean made P/J bass, brand name "Kingston electronics". It had a bow in the upper frets so that frets 14, 15, and 16 were all the same note. It had super tiny frets.
That went into an SWR workingman 112, a 100w amp with a 12" speaker and a tweeter, which weighed like 120lbs. It was super loud and had a killer preamp section that made the bass sound warm, saturated, slightly compressed, and could even get into growly distortion if you really played hard. I played so much primus...
Dude you're a 90's kid ? You had it so lucky to have such great guitars and amps compared to us 70's 80's kids who could not afford a Marshall amp and cabinet, Fender and Gibson. We had the luxury of Gorilla amps and K Mart crap guitars! That box of cardboard you got there was worth more than my first guitar. I ended up building my second guitar after someone gave me a super distortion humbucker and it actually kicked some ass! I had a Thrasher stick and stuck that bad boy on the headstock and I was off to learning my favorite bands.
I love this. Takes me way back. I had a peavey predator plus from like '99 or 2000. I also had a crate combo amp. I miss those days. So much fun. I have thought about buying an old peavey predator several times. Just never actually pulled the trigger yet.
I feel like Squier redefined themselves in the early 2000's with the classic vibe series... but since then they kinda left the brand on auto-pilot... no signature guitars in that tier anymore, some new paranormal type guitars, but compared to Epiphone as a direct comparison, there's better options nowadays for Fender designs at the budget tier... it's telling too when you have to dig into Fender's site to find a Squier vs Epiphone having its own entire website configured just like the Gibson site.
Meanwhile I absolutely did "things" to my first guitar a GiO GRG40... and now I have a non-USA model GRG140 as its spiritful sucessor to become my sustainer machine. XD
also gotta say your video editing is flawless and youre a very wellspoken knowledgeable guy man thanks for the amazing content!
My first rig was a black hss squier fat strat with gold hardware , floyd rose and black Pearloid pickguard, and a harmony amplifier. That was my first electric setup my very first guitar however was a 1967 silvertone acoustic that my grandmother bought at a yard sale for 5$
I still have my 1st guitar. It’s in my channel. A Samick/ Strat copy with a humbucker and a sunburst finish. Sounds good with distortion tho
My first guitar was my 6 YO older brothers guitar. It was a crappy 3/4 scale dime store no-name made of plywood. Almost a Ukulele. He never played it so I started when I was five noodling and finding I liked it more than my violin. Played the crap out of that thing for six years when I traded my old bike, a banana skateboard, and a pocket knife for a no-nome Texas strat-a-fake with a fade brown paint job, brown period pick guard, and three “PAF” pickups with individual on/off switches, and a rolling tremolo with a tail mount. I also got a crappy 10watt solid state practice amp with a single tone, volume, and gain knob with a headphone jack along with an old Ibanez “Tube Screamer” Sound Tank pedal and a Ibanez Chorus Sound Tank. How did I ever learn anything?
I started out on the same era Predator as well. I got mine on xmas 94 and still have it today.
My second electric guitar was a Peavey Predator, almost exactly like the one you have except mine had a rosewood fretboard. I loved that thing.
I have a mid 80s Peavey Patriot with one humbucker and volume nob. Mine has the Kahler. I chose the red finish. It has a 21 fret maple board. It has been through hell and back and still kicking a$$ today. It was my 3rd guitar that year. I spent my birthday money wisely. My first decent rig was a Crate G40C stereo chorus amp. I bought the Grunge pedal and it was magic!
As a metal/punk guy I've found myself appreciating single coils more and more, even for heavy music. I still only stick to the bridge pickup though 😂 but they can be really cool for layering in with humbucker tones or even on their own. For my more old school hardcore punk stuff single coils have taken over my sound just because they have what I can only call a kind of trashy, rough, unrefined sound but in a good way. Some overdrive and spring reverb on a cranked amp it's hardcore surf punk heaven in my book
Bill Steer has recorded with P-90's for decades.
@vorpalblades i never knew that! Can you tell me any particular recordings he used them on?
IYKYK. Telecasters were made to chug. I like removing the neck pickup and wiring it into an Esquire configuration, that fixed tone bass position on the switch accidentally works wondrously with drop tunings and heavy distortion.
@jeffbernard5272 i bet it sounds awesome, I've been wanting to put together an Esquire inspired Jaguar but just haven't been able to. Basically a short scale Jag with only the bridge pickup and nothing else.
@CryptToneMusic That sounds bad ass.
Reminds of my first “rig”… Peavey Tracer (single humbucker only, with that same trem from your Predator), Peavey Audition 30 amp, DOD Supra Distortion (FX-55 I think?). The DOD didn’t blow me away for guitar, but it was INCREDIBLE for bass… at least my teenage self thought so
I had Washburn G4, Peavey Bandit 65, Boss distortion and a chorus flanger in the 80's-90's it was a great setup
Cool playing mate. I still have a $200 guitar I bought in like '81, a Vantage Avenger with split coils. It could do the single coil strat thing until I got a Strat in '85. Still got it too though I have some noiseless pups in it now. Good video Taylor, Rock On Bro'.
my first guitar was a Korean Ibanez RG350, black with sharktooth inlays and a mirror pickguard. Can't find that exact model anywhere anymore, but it had the best neck of any ibanez I have ever handled except for the JPM
first rig was a ESP LTD F-10 with the 10-watt amp that was bundled with it and a digitech RP55. Still have and use the F-10 (pickups and pots have all been swapped out from what was origionally there), still have the amp (does not really work/need to see if I can fix it); was dumb and traded in my RP55 when purchasing another pedal board that sounded like garbage in comparison, and regret that I no longer have it, but I have moved onto using a Line 6 helix and the tone is just so much better.
My first electric was a red Peavey Predator that had the pointy Peavey logo along with the crafted in the USA printing. It was S-S-S format with a maple fretboard and a generous bit of flame on the back of the maple neck. I'm thinking it was maybe an early version, when they just changed from the H-H fortmat to the S-S-S format.
My only real issue with it was that the electronics were a little scratchy with maybe a short in the wiring. I held onto that guitar until my mid 20's as a backup guitar. I also had what I believe was a matching 10 watt Peavey (Rage or Rogue?) practice amp that had, I believe, an 8 inch speaker.
Still pretty nostalgic for me as well, even though I have moved on to much better rigs since then.
I've got a Peavey Raptor EXP Plus of an unknown generation. I have no idea what's in it but I love it.
couple years ago i picked up a squier hm strat from 89 and it was a really good guitar imo. only problems with it were some slightly microphonic pickups and worn down frets
I love this type of video. I started on Peavey and crate as well. I'm 43 now hooray to my teen years trying to start a rock band!
I’m a bass player (primarily) but I was interested in this video in large part because my first bass was a 90s Peavey Milestone II. It’s essentially a P Bass knockoff, but it’s pretty damn good and a LOT less money than its Fender counterpart. I got mine used and I still have it and still play it. (Though I have replaced a few parts in the 20+ years I’ve had it.)
First rig was a finger hut special harmony stratocaster and the little amp it came with in the 90s that I got for Christmas
My first "rig"..a Solidstate Traynor2x10, a 83' G&L SC-3. Pedals were a KMD distortion which came from buying like 10 sets of KMD strings, and 🥁 a DoD Vibrothang. All patched together with the shortest Brite Green cables and an ancient coil cable that came with the amp.
I was a first time viewer and now all Liked and Subscribed up. ✌️
Thanks for taking us down memory lane. I do agree that there are do many options for beginning guitar players these days! My first real rig was a Series A Jackson clone, gun metal metallic finish with a matching headstock, black hardware. A somewhat Floyd rose-ish trem bridge and a coil split switch. The amp I had was the exact model Crate you had in the demo which, when I saw it I said "Ahh there's my good ol' reliable Crate!" It wasn't too bad for what it was tho. But again, they didn't have too many choices for budget gear in 1988.
I had one of those back then and it was ok for a total beginner but then I got a JB Player for around $300. I have no idea what that brand is but that was one sturdy little sucker that I still have in storage to this day. Never had a warped neck or fret/intonation issues with it. Cheap guitars seemed sturdier back then.
My first rig was absolutely along those lines. Washburn BT3 (strat style guitar) because at the time Dime played Washburns, and I had to at very least have the same brand as my guitar hero. I absolutely busted that bridge and the wood behind it off within a matter of weeks because 13 year old me in 1996 had no idea a strat tremolo wasn't a Floyd Rose. After some rescue from my dad, I learned about blocking the trem early on.. I had that exact same Crate amp and the Boss Metal Zone. I still have the neck from that guitar to this day and have been meaning to put it on some crazy partscaster, probably NOT with those cheezy thin ceramic single coils though.
I got a Predator for Christmas 1995. I still have it but it's in rough shape. It reminded me of Hendrix's white Woodstock Strat so I had to have it. The last time I played it was 2002.
Lately I've been thinking of having it cleaned up and restored and putting in some Duncan Red Devils or Hot Rails. That'd cost a fortune, though, I think.
The weird thing was, it sounded more like a real Strat than my actual Strat.
great video!! my first rig: Greg Bennett Malibu strat sss, an ibanez 10 watt amp and a digitech RP50, and yes! I still have everything!!! oh that was back in 2005 I was in my late 20s
There's a red super strat HH predator plus with floyd rose in my area for $100usd, I'm tempted. I want a SSS guitar though. Too many humbuckers in my arsenal 😅
I'm aiming for one at $30. There's so much gear available secondhand that people are letting it go for so cheap. Bought a laguna le422 super strat with a coating trem in HSS with a dimebucker and two fender noiseless for $100 and an 80s transistor based Peavey Studio Pro 40 with an eminence designed speaker for $20. It's becoming dangerous for my wallet 😅
Started in 1994 on a Yamaha Pacifica. Wish I had the peavy.
Those Pacificas are HEAVY, weight wise!
It was the Yamaha Pacifica I did. Had an ssh that played VERY well. I didn't realize it until the more I played it...
would love to see you try out the 20 yr old vintage wraith axxe
I had a later (mid-2000s) Peavey Raptor, and a Peavey Predator (when they changed it to a dual-humbucker Superstrat with a licensed Floyd) and both were made in China, I believe. I still have another Raptor, I bought it for $40 off a guy online, and it's surprisingly good for a guitar that cheap, at least in terms of feel and fret work... the pickups leave much to be desired. Hell, even the whammy bar isn't the worst for slight vibrato, definitely not doing Van Halen dives though.
Love the 90s Peaveys! I have 2 Reactor models (the tele clones), one from '93 and one from '96. At this point they've been modded with everything... locking machine heads, pickups, you name it... But at their core they're still a cheap 90s guitar that play & feel great. Can't go wrong!
Peavey Raptor was my first electric guitar 20 years ago and my mom got it on sale for $120. I still have it and it’s got the most smoothest neck
This is definetly the most hyped I've seen you in a video yet the excitement is rather obvious.
I just got back my original bass I bought back in 93/94 a yamaha bb300. It's kinda rough but neck still looks good have to refinish the back of neck and replace the nut and pickups/ wiring. Plus found the special tool for the lock type feature on the tuners. Can't wait to play it again but so cool I got it back after dude who borrowed it disappeared back in 2001.
Oh and to add my first amp was a muscle 10in amp black with pink lol
Ah Rippers music lol 😆
The neck is a little beefier than a lot of Squiers. It's great for funk. It also doesn't have a skunk stripe. The neck is two pieces with the grain running opposite ways to prevent twisting. Kind of a nerdy engineering touch thats pretty innovative for a budget guitar.
My first rig was a blue Squier stagemaster with Licenced FR HSH, a 15 watts fender amp and the boss Metal Zone
I've got an HSH, HSS, 2 SSS, and a rockmaster single humbucker. All killer. My oldest is a 1986 predator zero fretted SSS beast!
My 1st gear set up was a 2013 or 2014 starcaster and a beginner Jackson amp at the time and my 1st pedal was a fab distorson
You should try using the effects out on that little Crate into a bigger amp's power amp section.
You'll need a 1/4" inch stereo into two 1/4" mono splitter Y-cable.
I have a squier strat and I love it
Have had it for a year and a half with only minor and very very very occasional issues
However, the squier *mustang* I got has been having problems since I got it (none that have to do with the guitar electronics but they're still minor annoyances)
And due to personal error, it has thicker frets than I would've preferred and it's kind of a bummer cuz I love both guitars
A black Peavey Predator and a Crate GX-15 was the first guitar rig I bought with my own money from a summer job when I was 16. I loaned them to my cousin about thirty years ago and he still hasn't returned them. Really need to give him a call, I miss those...
*I still have a Predator AX from '94 that has H-S-S configuration. I swapped out the stock bridge HB for a Kent Armstrong. It's my cheapie guitar!*
I bought a Squier in the 90s, a Pro Tone P-Bass 5 and while many of my basses have come and gone that beautiful cherry red Squier is still hanging on the wall next to me. Maybe for a follow up vid you could see what you missed out on and get a Pro Tone Strat from the 90s They sing like birds and even today they only go for between $400-$500 on Reverb.
My first rig was literally the same as yours; grunge pedal, crate practice amp and a peavey predator! Still have the guitar 🎸
I used to have a Peavey predator guitar. It eventually became an ashtray. Before that though it was fantastic!!
Peavey & Crate were awesome and how i wish i still had my Grunge pedal from the 90s, but now i want to hear your Crate GX 15 hooked to your Mesa 412 as I still think these tiny Crate practice amps sound great and I bet it sound awesome running thru your 412
In 1989 my first gear was the Peavey tracer guitar and the peavey rage amp.
I had a strat with no branding that my mom bought me from a pawn shop for $100, a shitty crate combo amp, and the DOD death.etal pedal. I still love that pedal, I have owned 3 since the 90s
That was my first setup too!!! DOD Grunge pedal and a Crate amp!!! But I had a black and white epiphone strat that got stolen.
I currently own 2 Peavey Predators and aside from my PRS, theyre my second fave!
Some months ago I got a 90's Peavey Predator Plus... Made in Vietnam I think. But is a version that have a Wolfhang body style and 3+3 headstock, Bronze color. It need midle pickup remplace and a very deep clean. But I notice 2 interesting thing on this guitar. First is the Pickups, it have wide pole pickups, seem a like to Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound and I can't find another similars, and second, This guitar have 500k pots despite is a SSS guitar. I just need find a new pickup and it gonna be ready to back to life.
My first was a white Peavey raptor. It came with a Rage 158 amp. I was so excited. I remember a guy came iver and played it and said it had no tone. I jad no idea what he was talking about 😂😂
the digi tech grunge was my first pedal, for my bronze series warlock, and the GAS diddnt stop for DECADES
Love your channel great topic!!! Been rebuying all of my old guitars as I’ve gotten older and can definitely relate to this !!!!! I had the Memphis series 10 with a fender Champ amp OD1 😂
My first guitar was a cheap strat copy that looked exactly like this. In the 90’s you didn’t really have much of a choice outside of the big brands as the China guitar industry hadn’t taken off yet. The brand name was “Magnum” and it cost me $500 AU with a 10w solid state amp. It was really bad so as soon as I had some money I upgraded to a 60’s Aria Diamond, a really nice ES 330 copy made in Japan in the early 60’s. I traded my Strat in and ended up paying $350 for it. I still have it today. In fact I’m currently restoring it with new parts and I’m upgrading the pickups with some vintage voice Alnico 5 humbuckers. All gold hardware with a floating roller bridge, bigsby and locking tuners. All hardware will be gold. Also need to redo the binding as the nitrocellulose original binding has decayed and is falling apart. Also needs a paint touch up near the neck.
My first rig was a Washburn N2, Fender Princeton Super Chorus amp with a DoD Classic Tube Overdrive. In my senior year of high school (1994), I added a Zoom 2020 effects processor. 😛😛
My first guitar was a strat clone from Traditions that I bought for $250 in...2002, 2003-ish...I think? I don't know, time is weird man. Old man at this little backwoods music shop threw in a Dean Markley combo to get me started. Blew up the amp, but the guitar is still with me, and it's still a really nice instrument. It's a nearly 10 pound boat anchor though, so I dont play it that often Got a Crate Mx-10 combo from a buddy a couple years ago and I pulled the amp and turned it into a stand-alone head...actually freaking rips through my 112 loaded with an Eminence Swamp Thang. Still prefer my Orange Micro Terror, though.
In the late 80's - early 90's C.F. Martin (Martin acoustic guitars) put out Indonesian made Strat copies called the Stinger. They were decent guitars and cheap.
My first guitar I got in 2016 and it's a modded Peavey. It's a strat style but the headstock says Peavey Generation EXP (that's their tele style) I have no idea what was done to it but it looks great and I still love it
They make (made) really cool guitars!
Nice video and content. This is very reminiscent to me as well. First gear for me was a Kramer Striker 300 and a Fender Deluxe 85
I started with the same guitar (also in white like you), a small ARIA amp and some Ibanez pedals (Distortion, Chorus, Delay).
Then I switched to an Epiphone Les Paul, a Marshal 50W combo and a Line 6 XT live.
Nowadays my rig is far from that (I sold all that stuff above over the time) but I still have good (and bad) memories 😂
Peavey bros! 😂💪
My first rig was a bc rich bronze series warlock and a randall rg80. Was actually pretty good lol.
That was my first axe too in 1995. My mom got it at a pawn shop and it had a big crack in the middle of the neck so i could bend the neck a little.
Those things came with 500k pots from the factory, you can almost never find the truss rod cover on these, I've had 3 of them and they're all from 93-94. The neck is actually 2 piece maple, they even had an iteration where instead of having a rosewood board, they just painted the whole neck black. I'm actually selling one just like yours in this video because i thought i had a strat killer. I just went back to my fenders.
I had a white/rosewood Peavey Raptor as my first guitar. Part of me wishes I still did. Traded it with someone for a Zoom 505 multi-effects pedal. Totally not worth it.
mid to late 90's Squier Strats are legit. Most were made in China and back then, the body was still made of Alder (At least the Chinese ones) and were the same thickness as the Fender line. AAAAND had some premium hardware. I have 2 40th anniversary models and they are fantastic. One I got back in '97 and recently gave it to one of my sons. I missed it so much, I tracked down another one. They had great hardware and are just so playable.
Never liked the predators much. Didn't feel right to me. The raptors though, fastest guitar in my collection. If I want to go light speed, I grab my raptor. But my hands down favorite guitar is a Peavey EXP limited. Damn thing just feels great.
These Peaveys were actually made in Korea. They were then assembled in the US.
That grunge petal looks awesome
A Cort Flying V thru a solid state 1 x 12 fender amp with no distortion. The struggle was real.
My first rig: Yamaha Guitar (H-S-H), nothing fancy, DOD Thrashmaster and Stereo Chorus, no amp, plug straight into a Sunn Console (Fender, mexican made) I thought I sounded pretty decent, pretty grunge. Now I just can't find those DOD pedals in the used market! I still have the Yamaha collecting dust, I'll fix it one day... Those were the times! Oh: all this in '96 to 2000
I remember that sound of the 90s i was thinking about my stuoid strange weird jams just b4 now im like no distortion really clean tones for solo's and patient stuff to think in the space instead of doff dof doff in the 90s the Mexico squires were good
Noice! I still have my first gear. A 1983 Fender Super Sounds and Fender Super Champ. I tiny Strat style guitar and a tiny but extremely heavy and LOUD tube amp. My dad bought them for me when I was five. I wanted a drum set so he bought me a guitar. lol After I got older and bigger, my dad gave me his 57 Buddy Holly reissue. I sold it to pay the rent during some tough times. I so regret it.
First rig? Zeny Stratocaster, through a jack to usb and a 30 day trial of studio one
Peaveys made killer guitars. I used to have a Destiny Custom I had to get rid of, neck through, thick maple top. I had to sell it to eat. My brother (rip) had a Predator though. It was pretty killer for a cheaper guitar
I traded a dude a while back a quarter bag of weed for a 94 white on white Predator and straight up I love this guitar. The neck is so smooth and I think it plays and sounds great!
My 1st rig was a squire strat, into a DS-1 to the same Crate amp. It sounded so tiny to me haha
*Squier
yoooo Crate GX-15! that was my first amp! So many Slayer riffs went through mine + a metalzone. Peak tone.
The reason is budget players can only afford budget amps my guy. Cannot afford a 2k amp if you can’t afford 300 for a guitar that way we get a good representation of what our gear will sound like with the guitar. The katana doesn’t come with the Bluetooth built in due to legal restrictions within countries that boss sell amps. Some countries where Bluetooth is restricted and or out right illegal. That way boss can still sell the amp.
The cheapest katana is 150 in usd, 270 for one that is more than enough for almost anybody in terms of capability (from what I remember, at least)
My first guitar was a 91 made in usa Squier stratocaster. Bought new with a hardshell case for $110.
And a peavey bandit 112 amp. Horrific
Holy crap dude! I had a red Raptor exp at around 12yrs old and played it throughout my teens and even gigged with it for like 5 years until I got a Jackson Dinky 😂❤
Cane here to say it. They had to change em cuz they were perfectly strat shaped. My first decent guitar was a US made predator. I traded it for a T-30 i think it was. The one woth the humbuckers instead of single coils. Peavey gear was solid workhorse equipment back in the day.
that Crate amp takes me back. I had a BX-50 12" combo, and I used it for bass and guitar. I had the DOD FX-86 Death Metal :D
I have a Death Metal pedal as well! I actually had to rebuy it a few years ago because I have no idea where my original went.
@@TaylorDanley a friend had the DOD FX7 which was shockingly good for the time tbh, it even had a Grunge pedal emulation. Preset 24, or 27, was heavy AF lol
I just bought a Jackson Soloist replica, made in Korea in 1990, for 100$. I wish I could have you review it, it came with real Floyd Rose on it and has good weight to it. I can't find anything on the internet on the brand unfortunately 😣
I found one of these in the trash. The action was really good and sounded great. Very impressed for a cheaper guitar
Also just for a comparison to kind of point out what a golden age we live in for guitarists rn... My local shop sold tf out of peaveys in the late 90s when i was learning to play and brand new a predator was $289 sticker price. This was a small town in south eastern KY. Anything else in terms of a new guitar was like a jb player or something like that. They were truly awful. Squire still sucked by and large and the 'strat packs' werent even a thing just yet. So starting out as a guitarist really was a lot harder in terms of getting a usable instrument for the money a kid could earn or even talk their parents into. Like my Peavey was my second electric guitar. The year before i got a 2 pickup harmony that looked a bit like the theodore that gibson released a while back. The next year since i had stuck with it my parents were willing to spend a bit more on it. They were worried (i was about ten years old) that i would lose interest and then feel like i ripped myself off for christmas lol. They thought for sure id end up wanting a video game instead. I got that peavey the next year and sold my tv to buy an amp. I literally havent owned a tv since.
For some reason hearing a 90s Crate amp makes me so happy.