Fender Mustang Micro

The urge to go gadget crazy, when getting a new hobby, or reviving an old one, is a real thing. Having recently bought the new guitar with a view to trying to learn to play properly, it's something I'm very mindful of and doing my best to avoid. However, in the middle of the week I did crack and buy one little extra thing:

As I said in the previous blog post about the guitar: I ended up getting something that could be played acoustic without being annoying for neighbours, which in turn meant I didn't need any sort of amp, or pedals, etc. This has been working out just fine. But early last week, in an idle moment, I was looking up what might be good options for a small amp for practising should I want to and I stumbled on the Mustang Micro.

Reading up on it and checking out some reviews, it sounded perfect for my setup. I enjoy living in a small space, so could do without a proper amp kicking about, so something that just plugs right into the guitar sounded ideal.

I added it to a list of things to keep in mind and then... a couple of days later I was working from home which meant I'd be about to receive a delivery if I was to place an order and... oops!

I've been using it every day since it turned up and I'm so damn impressed! This thing might be small, but it's pretty mighty! For a complete notice like me, to muck about, and fiddle and get some great sounds out of it, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

The range of amp styles is way more than I could possibly do justice right now, but what's important for me is it's got versions that are nice and clean, and versions that are dirty and distorted. The effects are pretty much spot on too; there's everything I could ever possibly want there.

My only real complaint about it is that the UI itself -- small lights that use colour to indicate their setting -- is terrible. I don't know how else they could have done it, but I know this is bad. I am at least grateful that it's standalone and doesn't require some app on a phone to control or something like that.

I know it's going to take a while for me to get the most out of this, but already it's giving me a bit more confidence to experiment and doodle away in idle moments. Also, the USB connection means it can be plugged into my Mac, presumably allowing me to record with GarageBand or similar software. While I wouldn't use it to subject anyone to my terrible playing, that will be something for me to explore in terms of keeping a record of my progress.