My Favorite Piece of Gear

["M. Erickson" <erickm@xxxxxxxxx>]

My favorite, most used piece of equipment is without a doubt my Crate Taxi
Limo amp. The amp has two channels -- a PA input with a hi-Z quarter inch
jack and a lo-z XLR input, and a hi-Z instrument quarter inch input. It's
solid-state, is powered off a lead-acid battery and is rated at 50 watts. It
sports a 10 inch speaker and a 2 inch driver. It's equipped with DSP
effects. It has 5 year warranty.

I've written about this amp before, but I just keep being amazed at the
versatility of it.

Last night we did a 3 1/2 hour gig and used the Limo for one of the stage
monitor. We ran it off batteries and it performed wonderfully all night. We
did a gig a few weeks ago and all of the house monitors died. We ended up
using the Crate as our only stage monitor.

This amp is used weekly as a practice PA. We stick it on a speaker stand and
it's all we need for practice.

It's used as a back-up amp for gigs. It can back-up my harp amp, or the
guitar player's amp. It's fairly small and light weight, so it's not a
hassle to pack around.

It was used during the holiday season as a busking amp. I ran my harp into
the instrument channel, and a vocal mic into the PA channel. It's not the
best harp amp, but it's the best solid-state harp amp I've used. For the
street, it's great. The amp is tough and can take the rigors of the
street -- it can also take the rigors of a Rocky Mountain winter. (You and
your gear have got to be tough to play the streets in a Rocky Mountain
winter!) Last year, we used the amp to play in the streets during the Winter
Olympics. We had the whole band out on the streets this season -- the bass
player has a Crate Taxi bass amp, The guitar player played a Taxi, and the
drummer rigged a snare to a high-hat stand. It was great -- we drew big
crowds with people dancing in the streets.

This amp is used as a guitar practice amp. It has a headphone jack which
keeps neighbors happy.

This summer it'll be used as a camp-fire amp. When it runs low, it can be
charged from a car cigarette lighter.

I am not affiliated with Crate, and know no one who is. I think they have
some great "Made in the USA" equipment. I think they get a bad rap a lot of
the times. I just know that I use my Crate Limo continually, and it's given
me no trouble what-so-ever.