Hey all I just wanted to start a fun thread about some of the more off the wall gear we've used in the past and got great results from. Could be old pro stuff or whatever, but I'm constantly rigging stuff up to get different sounds or try something new to get new sounds in my recordings. I recently found some stuff on ebay and a had a great time getting some really cool acoustic guitar sounds. I'm in afghanistan for a year so I came over hear with almost nothing and I'm just rounding up whatever and recording every day. First I got a cheap AT 3035 (i believe it's Kurt Foster who recommends these for under 100$) and it's a great little clean mic and actually has some warmth. I sent that into a Joe meek 3q that i also got for next to nothing on ebay, which actually really surprised me (the compressor is clean and the pre adds some character). I was using this to record acoustic guitars for a clean sound, but also used the same setup and then some tape distortion from a Retro transformer plugin in my DAW (reason 7) on solo parts giving out the flavor of an old archtop guitar running through some tubes. I like making acoustic guitars sound like distorted electric guitars and I've been doing it for years. Just have to eq out some of the boominess, but something about the slower attack that just does something cool and gives these thick melody lines. I like to detune acoustic guitars and use them for bass lines as well, especially like now when I don't have a bass guitar with me. Throw on a low pass filter and you have an improvised bass that sounds "woody" for lack of a better expression.

So what are your favorite pieces of gear that you may have used or misused for the purpose of experimentation or creativity? Come on, we've all sat around either high or just bored and said "I wonder what it would sound like if I ran this vocal through blah blah blah".