Evolution of my Pedal Board part 4

As stated in my last post, this is the time where my Pedal boad evolved really fast. I really wanted to go for something similar to what Steve Vai had. Actually, to be honest, most of my pedal purchase doesn't make much tone sense. It's more of, "Oh Steve Vai uses that, I shall get me one of those" impulse buying.

We can see from the picture that I added a Digitech Whammy and a Boss CE5 pedal into the mix. The main reason of getting the Digitech Whammy pedal, other than the reason being "cause Steve Vai has it" is that I wanted a harmonizer pedal. Something like what Rob Marcello would have. Of course, I bought it without actually knowing how it sounds like. I later realized that I actually need 2 amps to get that Rob Marcello Harmonizer sound. The CE5 is actually a great pedal. It's one of those subtle kind of Chorus pedals without overpowering in your face. It has a mellow and warm tone and it's great if I want to do Shoe Gaze (Not that I do that) or atmospheric kind of sound.

Well and of course, Steve Vai once used it during his Fire Garden Tour. How do I know it? There is a picture to prove it! To be continued

Half a Million Dollars Worth of Timber Being Ceased from Gibson!

This isn't exactly new news but I came across this video reporting on why Gibson has supposedly the Lacey Act. What means is that Gibson has supposedly imported timber not according to it's home country's law. The Lacey act also applies to guitars that are already being build. Meaning, if the guitar is made with illegally smuggled wood or illegally forested wood, the guitar can also be confiscated by the government of the country, should they chose to enforce the Lacey Act. However, rest assured that it does not apply to individuals as stated in the video. Meaning, if you own a Gibson passed down to you by your father or grandfather, they can confiscate the guitar away from you by enforcing the Lacey Act. Now, we can all sign a relief.

Evolution of my Pedal Board part 3

This was the time where my Pedalboard evolved really fast. I kept reading up on pedals and I wanted to achieve the "Steve Vai" sound in the cheapest possible way. The MXR EVH Phaser was really expensive and Steve Vai has kind of a delay in his setup. I couldn't afford a DD7 at that time and hence I've decided to try for Biyang effects. This decision was based on the fact that the TS-7 I've tried from the Biyang range was excellent for it's price range. The most important factor of the Biyang range was, it is mechanical true bypass. A feature well sought after by tone purist.

I went ahead and got myself the Phaser and Delay, Both at a really good price from Ebay and I have nothing but praise for these pedals. Even though I've already cycled them out, these pedals are still with me till this day. They are being used permanently in front of my amplifier. The phaser was being used for one of those "Bad Horsie" moments while the adding a slight analog delay to an existing reverbs creates the "For the Love of God" effect. This pedal board lasted me quite a long while. To be continued.

Leap Year!

Have a great leap year everyone. You only get to go through this day once every 4 years! For those who are born on this day, Happy Birthday! Keep on rocking everyone!

Ohms what?

Just as I was writing yesterday about getting this Y cable so that I can actually make full use of the 2 of my Marshall mini stack cabinets, like most average bedroom player, I have no idea what this resistance thing is all about. I always thought that I could just plug in cables that fit and the head and cabs will automatically works. I found out that I was wrong. Very very wrong.

Anyway, I ain't going to go through the details on how to calculate the resistance. Or rather, I have no idea how to do that. I shall tell my readers the answer on how to use a Y cable for an amp head with only one input for 4, 8 and 16 ohms. So the problem is I have one of each and I want to connect to 2 different cabinets measured at 16 ohms each. I have a parallel Y cable. Which one do I plug it out from? The answer is 8 ohms.

Take note that running your speakers at a lower resistance or lower ohm than your head will spoil your head and speakers. This is true to even audio grade amplifier. No matter what, you will need to run your head with speakers with greater resistance. Having a pair of speakers with greater resistance will only cause the sound to be lack of power. In layman terms, softer audio with less punch and power. However that won't kill it.

Now, you might ask me why do I pluck it into the 8ohms to 2 speaker out instead of 16 ohms to 2 16 ohms speakers? Apparently, when wired parallel, the resistance is doubled from the head. Hence, 8 x 2 = 16 ohms. Meaning if I have two of 8 ohms speakers, I will have to plug it out from the 4 ohms slot. Just always remember when using a parallel Y cable that your resistance will be 2 times of it's original value and make sure that either cabinet's resistance will not be lower than that value.

Evolution of my Pedal Board part 2

This is the second incarnation of my pedal board. This is the time when I actually started saving up money for "better" pedals. You can see in the picture that there are 2 new additions to the board. The Jemini and the Biyang TS7. I am a huge Steve Vai fan and as such, the Jemini is pretty much a no brainer when it came out around that time. I got it at a very nice and irresistible price from a friend. Special thanks to you if you are reading this.

The Biyang TS-7 was actually also bought second hand from him. I wanted to see what was all the rave about with Ibanez Tubescreamers and well, as a boost pedal it is really amazing. The Biyang TS-7 is actually a modified Ibanez Tubescreamer clone with boost switch and true bypass by the way.

There still a lot of Danelectro pedals, or rather all of what I've owned within the board. However most of them are sold later on when I slowly cycled out for "better" pedals. That being said, Danelectro pedals are still bang for the buck pedals with good tone. For budget guitarist,I highly recommend it. To be continued.

Y Cable for my BlackHeart Killer Ant BH1H

Went out and got a Y cable for my Amp head. The Killer Ant, as awesome as it is for a one watt head, has only one output jack for 4 ohms, 8 ohms and 16 ohms. My Marshall mini stack comes with two 16 ohms cabinets and for the past few times I was messing around with it, I could only utilize one cab. With this Y cable I am now able to utilize 2 cabs. This gave it a lot more volume and headroom in terms of sound. A really amazing mini tube amp head from Blackheart.

As usual, I chose Canare cables coupled with Neutrik plugs. This combo has never failed me before and have been using this combo for all my guitar cables. Meanwhile, back to amp testing.

Evolution of my Pedal Board part 1

Facebook is such an amazing tool for keeping track of our memories. I was looking back at old pictures of my gears. Some of them are still around while some of them, have already been sold. This is the very first incarnation of my pedal board.

Danelectro pedals are really cheap and actually, pretty good. When I just started learning how to play the electric guitar, being a student, I wasn't too rich in resources to buy expensive pedals. Even Boss was still too expensive for me to be able to afford. Hence, used Danelectro pedals seemed to be the perfect choice. Note that there are pretty much all kinds of fanciful effects in the chain. I pretty much thought that if I have every effect, I can create super cool sounds. Apparently, that isn't true at all. To be continue.

Enwistle Darkstar Pickups Equipped!

My Frankenstein is now Entwistle Dark Star equipped. Hadn't had the time to extensively test it. It has been a really busy day. First thoughts on the pickups is, it's closer to my Seymour Duncan in terms of tone instead of Dimarzio Evolutions. Nonetheless, the output is way higher compared to Seymour Duncan Jazz and Customs. My new Amp head was already breaking up pass 9 o'clock. The tone is smooth and sweet, closer to mid range which is perfect for solos. Watch out for more indepth reviews!

We have successfully migrated!

Finally, I've finish migrating the whole blog over to the new address and checked all the links making sure that they are all linked properly. There shouldn't be any broken links I hope.

Special thanks to all my readers who has continue to show me support and please continue to give me your support. Even if it's just reading my articles or blog post. Have a wonderful night everyone!

Something came in the mail today!

Something came in the mail today. This is part of my quest looking for cheaper and good pickups alternative. I've yet to test them though. Will probably do so after I finish testing my loot from yesterday (Blackheart Killer Ant).

Alan Entwistle is a guitar designer from UK and his CV includes heading up Hohner’s UK based Custom Shop where he designed models including the JT60, Blond, Black Widow and Revelation. More recently he has designed guitars for Alden and Tanglewood and his electronic circuit wizardry is being incorporated into selected Burns models. People who knows him hails him as the Guru of Guitars in the UK. The line of pickups are his own designed model and manufactured by Artec.

His pickups are one of those which are designed based off Neodymium magnets. For more information about his pickups, please click here.

My loot from the Yamaha Clearance sale

Look at that cute little thing

Today is a great day. Even though I had to go to Yamaha at Clementi two separate times today. I went to the sale after finishing off some stuff however was met with a disappointment. The only thing that I was aiming from the start is the Blackheart Killerant 1W tube head. Unfortunately when I was there, the only piece was already sold to one lucky person, who was a step ahead of me. Luckily for me, a staff (Trevor) was kind enough to take down my particulars and gave me a call if there are any other pieces left for the amp head.

At about 3pm, I received a call from Trevor, telling me that the stock has arrived and has been reserved for me. Even though i was already at home, I decided to make my way down and grab the amp. The amp, as expected and suggested by the name, is a really small amp head. It's pretty heavy for it's size but that is expected, due to the transformer for tube amps.

The Amp head is currently sitting on top of my Marshall Microstack. Yes, the head is going to be paired with my existing Microstack's cabinets. Why would I buy a amp head, if I already have one from my Marshall? Well, the problem with Marshall is that, since it is a solid state amp, it is a good amp by itself but when paired with external drive pedal units, I find the tone somewhat lacking. I've always wanted a tube amp just for this purpose and this is a perfect opportunity to get such a great amp head at a really irresistible price.

More to come after I get to sit down and test the amp thoroughly.

Yamaha Clearance sale 24/02/12 to 26/02/12

Today was Yamaha's first day of the clearance sale. There was a long queue waiting just outside the doorstep before the opening at 10.30am and a lot of the items were immediately grabbed and sold out. There were a lot of nice solid tops that were at a very irresistible price and in terms of electrics, there were guitars of both Yamaha and non Yamaha brands.

The Yamaha A2 series (both the guitar and bass) are great offerings and are also being sold at a very nice price. The Yamaha A2 series is a guitar that is innovated uniquely by Yamaha and is considered a mid to high level guitar. At the discounted price, it is very irresistible indeed. Other items on sale includes drums, keyboard, bass guitars and amplifiers.

There are still 2 more days to the sale and do not lose the chance to grab one piece of gear at a heavily discounted price. The sale is happening at the Clementi branch of Yamaha.

Guitar shop at Queensway shopping center

I was around the area of Queensway shopping center recently and after a demoralizing interview, I went ahead and took a short walk in the old shopping center. I vaguely recall that there was a guitar shop there and went ahead to proceed and take a look.

It wasn't exactly hard to find, located at the second floor (#02-09) with varieties of many other fashion related shops in the vicinity. Upon stepping into the shop, I was immediately being greeted with a smile from the friendly shop assistant.

The shop is rather interesting in the sense that they also sell guitar related fashion in the shops. For peeps who are looking for guitar branded shirts and bags, this is the place to go to. They also sell a variety of strings picks and minor guitar parts. They also have a small selection of guitars and related accessories on sale. Lastly, they provide restringing and minor repair services (nut and machine head replacement) cater to the people living in the west. Overall experience and customer service in the shop is excellent and I would encourage people to go ahead and visit the shop for your regular guitar needs.

Pickups that gives a run for your money part 1

Every now and then, I enjoy surfing the net looking for cheaper alternative replacements to the higher end parts. One of such parts are the pickups of the electric guitar. Let's admit it. Not everyone is able to afford Dimarzios, Seymour duncans or Bareknukles for all our guitars. Precisely for such reasons, I look for alternative pickups choices.

One such instance which i come across is Dragonfire pickups. I've recently gotten myself a pair of these for $29.90 and installed them in my Frankenstien. These pickups are definitely by far better than the stock pickups that come with the newer Ibanez models. Even compared to the older Ibanez V series, this pickup probably surpass in terms of tone.

The pickup doesn't go muddy when gain levels are cranked up high while the pickup remained highly define with responsive pick attack. These pickups also gives a hot, fat and creamy kind of tone without the harshness while leaning more towards on the bass side of the curve. The best part about these pickups is it comes with 5 wire allowing you to split the pickups giving you the option of single coil tone. This is a huge advantage compared to cheap or most stock pickups. For more information regarding the pickups, please click here.

My only qualms about these are that they lean too much on the bassy side to my liking. However, for people looking to replace their crappy stock pickups, these pickups are highly recommended. As a matter of fact, these pickups are even comparable to their higher priced counterparts of other brands such as Dimarzio and Seymour Duncans.

These pickups are made in Korea by Artec. Artec has been producing pickups for cheaper and lower end guitars for a long while and has since broke into the pickup market with their own line of pickups, going by the name of Artec Giovanni. Artec has also produced custom spec pickups for companies such as Guitarheads and Guitar Fetish.

Brand Concious Syndrome Part 1

There are many times when we decide to buy a piece of gear, the first thing that comes to our mind is probably the brand name of a product that we usually associate the product with. This is hardly a surprise and this is pretty evident in especially in Singapore. When I started changing the pickups of my first guitar, i wanted the best pickups with the amount of money I have. I bought a pair of Dimarzio Evolutions and don't take this in a wrong way. Dimarzio Evolutions are really good and probably still is my favourite pickup up till today. However, contrary to my believe at that time, installing Dimarzio Evolutions didn't make me sound or play anywhere closer to Steve Vai, as much as I would have liked.

However, there are many times when we make our decision relying too much on the brand image that we are being conditioned with and we make our decisions picking up those costly "branded product" without giving other lesser brands a chance. Guitar pickups are definitely one of those that are always being overlooked.

Thanks to a few local shops (namely Tymc and SVguitars), they have provide our market an alternative voice in the choice of lesser priced pickups; namely Tesla and Artec Giovanni. I personally believe that products of lesser brands should be given a chance instead of being bash and shove aside due to it's lesser known brand name and country of origin.

Next time, before anyone of us decide to buy any product be it pedals, pickups or tunners, do our necessary research on what's available to us and what exactly are we looking out for, before we make our final decision. We might just pick up a golden egg while saving a lot more money in the progress.

Happy Valentine's day

Today is a special day for both people with significant others and people who are single. For the people who have significant others, take this day as an opportunity to once again show your love and care for the other. For those who are still single, do not fret as you have something that you care about and it's time to shower your love to your beloved instruments. Have a Happy Valentine's day!

Carvin Legacy 3

I have always been a big fan of Steve Vai and this year, Carvin has created yet another amp head under Steve Vai's legacy series. This time, it takes the form of a small 100 watt head with 3 separate channels. Channel 1 & 2 are the same as the original channel 1 & channel 2 circuitry found on the Legacy I. Channel 3 is a 2nd lead channel with a high gain switch. It also features a master volume switch which controls the volume for all 3 channels without affecting the Pre-amp stage. This also means, for players who enjoys high gain, the player has the the option of pushing the volume to saturated the gain while keeping the volume low without breaking your ear drums.

Additionally, the Legacy 3 sports MIDI in/through connections compatible with standard MIDI controllers, effect loop, bias and impedance switches, and much more. This is yet another great opportunity for Vai fans to acquire a tone similar to Steve Vai while also giving players the opportunity to create their own tones from the extensive options available to players with the amp settings. Check out the demo, brought to us by Mr Steve Vai himself.

Cheap Tremolo Stopper

Most of us have probably heard of the Tremolo no. It's a device that you install at the back cavity of the guitar to prevent a floating bridge from floating. Lone Phantom from Jemsite had this brilliant idea of creating a cheap tremolo stopper from parts that you can probably buy from any DIY stall in the world.

By using a barrel bolt meant for doors, instead of installing it on a door, you install it at the back of the guitar, replacing the middle spring. It gives you the option to set your floating bridge into non floating or floating position. More information on how to do the procedure can be found here.

Marshall Headphones

Past few days has been really busy of sorts and I've just returned from a trip to Penang. However, during my wait at the Singapore Changi airport, I came across a earphone/headphone store of sorts and they had demo sets displayed at the counter.

I haven't really tried the Marshall line of earphones or headphones but my curiosity compelled me to go over, pick it up and try the headphones. I am one who prefers to listen my music with higher quality headphones and earphones and when Marshall first announced their line of headphones and earphones, it struck me that they might actually produce something good and being a fan of guitars affiliated brand names, I always wanted to try one but never the chance.

I picked up the headphone and jacked it into my player and have a go with my auditioning songs. The headphone exhibit typical closed sound which also means less sound stage. Due to it's closed nature, the driver headphones also has inherent boom boom kind of bass while the trebles suffered with the lack of definition.

The earphones sound at most similar to a $60 pair of Audio Technica close headphones and is definitely not worth the heavy price tag on it. However, I do have to admit that the design of the headphones do look very cool. But since it's headphones we are talking about, the "Tone" is definitely way more important than the design or brand of the headphones.