Rally buzz

This would be my last post before I leave for airport in an hour time. But like I said, I'll be back on 6th of January.

Recently, there'd been a lot of buzz about Rally guitars, many speak of how good it is while there is one of the member who said Rally is crap. So rather than judging on their arguments, I decided to go down to SVguitars just to come to a conclusion myself.. since I'm going down there to grab some guitar strings as well.

Managed to try Rally GL-300.

Never try the GL-400 though.

GL-300 and GL-400 basically has the same specs, except that GL-400 has gold-plated hardwares. Gold-plated hardwares are more tedious to make than usual chrome hardwares and thus, there is a difference in the price of GL-300 (S$360) and GL-400 (S$400).

Unknown to most of us, according to the staff there, the production plant where Rally are made, also produce Epiphone guitars for Gibson. In other words, he's trying to imply that the standard of Rally guitars can match up that of Epiphone and getting a Rally would be getting an Epiphone at a cheaper price.

And indeed, the GL-300 doesn't fail to give the feeling of an Epiphone Standard. It is also set-neck just like an Epiphone Std too. The neck is of the same thickness, the rosewood fret board feels the same. It is also about the same weight as an Epiphone. Body is made of mahogany, not alder as some said. Tone-wise, the pickups gives your a very bright and sweet sound but not very vintage in my opinion though. It is somehow very difficult to describe the 'vintage' tone in words.

As a conclusion, Rally is really worth getting with the price listed. Normally, an Epiphone Standard Top Plus would cost around S$800. Again, it is up to individual decision in which is really worth getting. Some may prefer having the 'Epiphone' name on the headstock rather than a 'Rally'. Well, if that's the case, go ahead. :)

To Be Continued

To all dear readers..

Sorry but I have to go back to Myanmar for at least a month. Will only be coming back by 6th of January. During that time, I cannot blog from Myanmar as blogger is blocked back there. But I will keep writing blogs entry for as much I can so that it can be posted once I return!

See you all by 6th of January.

--Loki . Regnarok--

Antique Fernandes

Hope this will be helpful to those who owns a Fernandes of a model as old as 2003.

I myself own one. A Fernandes FGZ-400. It is already discontinued in 2003, its last year of production. Many of the model are discontinued in 2003, too.

All old model guitars DO NOT have a serial number on the back of the headstock like many guitars do. This leads many into thinking that these are fake Fernandes and indeed it would be rather difficult to differentiate as well. However, it is normal for these Fernandes guitars, which are mostly discontinued, to not have a serial number. Fernandes had never keep track of all their guitar during that time. It was only in 2007 (or 2008 <I can't remember>) that the company had finally decided to keep track of their production and thus giving their guitars a serial number each.

So, if anyone is buying old Fernandes guitars, please do not think that it is fake. Instead, check all the hardwares, the pickups, its built and the tone to judge instead.

Shopping again & again!

Shopping is what girls always do.

I'm not a girl but I also love to shop - on guitar stuffs~

As I walked pass TY music, I saw that Davis renovation sale is still on. Many stuffs, especially basses are sold out but it doesn't really matter. I still got my S$19 worth FAB Overdrive. Not an very bad overdrive but its tone is very limited. Well, you can't expect Fulltone OCD standard for $19 right. My main purpose of buying this is: it is cheap and I can at least play around with it for relaxation. 

I also got myself a new padded bag for my Fernandes to bring back Myanmar, too. 

This is Rockbag by Warwick, a well-known bag to many guitarists. These bags are going for $35 at SV guitar in Peninsula.
It is very well padded and has more padding at the headstock and neck area of the guitar, to protect the neck of the guitar. As you all may know, this area is the most fragile part of the neck and there are incidents of broken headstocks from falls.

There is also a strap to hold the neck of the guitar at the neck padding as well. The purpose of this strap is to keep the guitar headstock in place and prevent knocking onto the sides and thus keeping the guitar more in tune.

Well, that's all I'd bought. 

Ivan had ordered this Digitech Grunge from themusicden at eBay for S$78.40. It is new, comes with everything it should come with. The effect is installed with a 9V battery as well.

The manual provides quite a lot of useful information, too. Such as how to join the pedals in correct order and so on. It also introduces its other products as well.

Smash B1's goodness

Ivan had finally bought his guitar, a Smash B1 (as shown below).

Price: S$270

Many had heard of Fender, Gibson and Ibanez's budget series namely Squier, Epiphone and Ibanez Gio. But Smash doesn't lose to them, too. Smash is a budget series of Swing guitar from Korea. Many may look away from these not-so-famous brands, especially those who are ONLY aware of the more famous ones. 

Body
B1 has an Indonesian mahogany body. The shape of the body is somewhat like the shape of RG but it doesn't have sharp cutaway like RGs. I thought it was a basswood body but I had my doubts since it was TOO heavy for a basswood guitar.

Pickups

The guitar is loaded with Swing Heartbreaker pickups, featuring Alnico 5 magnet and plain Enamel coil. It is also the highest output pickups produced by Swing. Smash B1 is also the only guitar that comes with Swing pickups among all the Smash. These pickups has very distinctive high and mid tone. They are rather good pickups and it is rather hard get a guitar with relatively good pickups with this price range. A good beginner guitar. 


Controls
The guitar comes with a 5-way pickup switch so it is possible to get the single coil in its 2nd position (neck) and 4th position (bridge). Comes with one tone and one volume control.

Headstock and tuners

This is Swing/Smash style headstock. At the back of it includes its serial number. It has stringtree for its low E and B strings, like many other swing and smash guitars.

The tuners are Smash diecast tuners.

Neck and Fretboard
The neck construction is bolt-on. It is rather hard to find a guitar with set-neck within this price range as well.

This hard maple neck isn't that thin even though Smash B1 looks very alike to Ibanez RGs and GRGs. They are relatively thicker but not as thick as that of strats. The staff at SV had set up this guitar well and the strings are as low as possible, giving it its maximum low action.
B1 has a rosewood fret board with jumbo frets. What I like about SV is that they always care to set up their guitars. This is evident by looking at the polishing done on the fretboard

Bridge

The bridge of this guitar is 2-point synchronised roller saddle tremolo. Well, it is not a fixed bridge. To be frank, fixed bridges are more appealing to me than tremolo. The irony is.. both of my current guitars are tremolo bridges. But i had 5 springs to pull back both of my bridges.


Others

Many of Swing and Smash guitars include a soft bag as show above. The bag is not of a very lousy quality. It is still properly padded. To buy this 'A la Carte' would costs $25 dollars. 


Rating: 4.5 / 5
I rate this 4 stars because it is indeed a good guitar for its price. Would rate is 0.5 if the bridge is a fixed one. Of course you couldn't expect it to be at a Ibanez Prestige standard. But, if I am to buy a guitar with a budget of $300 and is looking for something of an RG shape, I would get Smash B1 rather than choose one from Ibanez Gio series.


Hope this help

White >> Black

Imagine having white colour knobs on a black body guitar. In my opinion, they don't go along together.

So, I went to SV Guitars in Peninsula to get some ToneDrive volume and tone knobs for my strat. With these new parts, it seems much better now~

Heavy consumer

I was playing my strat with my Modtone Extreme Metal when the sound starts to fade away slowly. At first, I thought it was the cables so I changed to other cables. The problem still persists. Next, I switch my Extreme Metal to bypass. Shockingly, the sound came back when I do so. The blue LED light of the Extreme Metal was still there so I thought my Modtone cocked up. So as my last test, I plugged in my Zoom 9V adapter into it. It was really a relieve to know that my Modtone is still functioning properly. 

So what is the problem then?

The problem all lies on the stock 9V battery (as shown above) inside the pedal. Apparently, it had not run out completely but had enough power to light up the blue LED on the pedal, which tricked me into thinking that the pedal actually went hay-wired.

From this event, I would conclude that Modtone pedals are indeed heavy battery eaters as many reviews had highlighted. This new battery didn't even last for more than 8 hours of playing. But again, the stock battery life would have be shortened significantly as it was installed inside the pedal ever since the pedal was manufactured and was never removed since then. So, there is a probability of the battery installed for over 5 months++.

Well, I'd now changed the battery to Vinnic Extra Heavy Duty battery bought from Standard Value which I bought it on the same day as Extreme Metal. 

Padded Bags

I was looking for some padded bags for my Fernandes as the stock gig bag is not padded well. It is too thin that it fails to give any protection to the guitar. Then, I came across Crossrock bags. Here is the product catalogue for Crossrock products. Some of its bags aren't really that expensive. They are affordable. So far, I only see them in Ranking as Bras Basah and Music Theme at Peninsula.

New look (final)

My long-waited Squier has finally returned. Well, it has the 'Loki Regnarok" words and the logo, which I made myself one it.. This is one of the neat work done by Aaron, the person who I had entrusted my guitar to. My favourite would be the logo, it is very very neat!

 The inlays were bought from Music Ensemble. I'd mentioned this in the previous post, too. I'd also gotten ready a fresh set of GHS Coated Guitar Boomers. This set of string is one of the cheap coated strings from SV Guitars but the feel of this strings are still there.

I'd been playing it for the whole of today, giving my Fernandes a rest for a change. Miss the neck of a strat. =), which is thicker than my Fernandes and Ibanez

Boss GT-10

I'd managed to try KJ's Boss GT-10 which he had traded for his Epiphone Les Paul Standard Top Plus with some guy in soft.com.sg. Well, these are my personal comment on this multi-effects.

It is very big. Got the length of about 2 x 30 cm long ruler and width of one 30 cm ruler long. Hope this helps you to visualise it. As for weight, it is very heavy. 4.9 kg heavy. For those who go to gym, type imagine yourself carrying a 10 lbs dumbbell and that's how heavy it is.

Now about its function. I only managed to understand most of its basic functions. Well, basically, there are banks. In each 'bank', there are 4 effects, which can be chosen with the numbered foot switches as seen above. Well, there are rather a lot of combinations, and in order to know them all well will take time. Some example of the combinations are chorus, clean, delay and distortion in one bank. Well, you can also create your own bank and make a combination of 4 effects as well.

For those who think multi-effects are better than compact, this is the equipment they should get.

Strymon back in stock

Stymon pedals, which some of its pedals were out of stock before, are now back in stock at SV guitars. Apparently, SV is the only dealer of these pedals. Frankly speaking, I'd never tried them before but I won't mind to give it a try though. =)

To the Extremes

I had finally bought an distortion pedal after trying out much of distortion pedals. Well, it is the ModTone Extreme Metal Distortion. I had been telling Mike at Standard Value that I will, one day, come and buy it. Finally, I'd done as I'd wanted and as I'd said.

As on about this effect, I had mentioned it previously on a post. Click >>here<< to read~

Sorry for not updating properly, I'd been rather busy though my exams are long over.

Carried away

I m supposed to write about the new distortion I'd bought yesterday, but got carried away while trying it.. that I was oblivious of the time. Will write it tomorrow.

Anyway, just wanna share this video. This band is remarkably unique.

Inspiration

I saw this in the local music forum, posted by one of the member. Found this rather inspiring so I decided to share it here.

Crunchy, Grungy

Need a distortion pedal with large tonal spectrum than normal distortion pedal? Need more crunchy tone than a DS-1.

Digitech Grunge Distortion can fulfill all these needs.

Grunge has a special feature from other distortion pedal. Most distortion pedals, like BOSS DS-1 or ModTone Speedbox Distortion, only have one 'Tone' knob. However, Grunge is equipped with a Low and High instead which gives the user a larger tonal spectrum. It only requires the user's creativity to produce various tone from this Grunge. The DigiTech Website provides a few of its presets though. It is also provided in the manual booklet you get from buying this, too.

Grunge, when in comparison to DS-1, has more crunchy sound, the first impression I got from it when I first listen to it at its website. This would be a suitable pedal for anyone who seek for a distortion power of DS-1 but with more crunch and colour. I personally find DS-1 very raw but empty.

Grunge can be bought at Swee Lee, the sole DigiTech distributor. It costs around S$107. If you are looking for a cheaper deal and willing to wait for 2 weeks, you may also check on eBay. However, eBay has its own limitation; you can't see the pedal's condition beforehand.

Updates

Arron, who I had entrusted my guitar to help me make a decal, had finally finished it. I'll only get it back by next Friday or earlier as he said he needed to brush up some of the parts. Take a look at the quality of work he'd done for my guitar!

I also have another photo of his work as well. Not on my guitar but somebody else's SG.

If you want to get one for yourself, add him in his FACEBOOK GROUP.

Again.. New Inlays

Once again, I went down to Music Ensemble to get another set of inlays for my Fernandes. I'd mentioned before that I would get the red cross inlays if I ever get a red colour guitar. Well, I finally managed to buy the red one. 

This is how it looks like.

The 24th fret sticker goes onto my neck pickup which managed to fit it perfectly.

Unrelated post..

My today post is unrelated to the guitars. However, I still think it is worth blogging about this.

I was browsing the drums buy and sell section at soft.com.sg when I come across THIS POST.

As you can see in this post, I think someone is trying to buy these drumsticks bags from somewhere, probably from Drums Resources. In fact, the photos were taken from that shop itself. Hmm....
I suspect that one of the staff there is trying to sell these and make money out of the shop's stock. Well, I wouldn't say it IS as I thought since there is no evidence. So I just contact the Nigel, the shop owner about it. He'd confirmed that it is not him.

New Family member

My Fernandes has finally arrived back from SV Guitars which I'd left it there for a new pickup switch to be installed in it. They get the job done quick and the price is also reasonable. 

Now it's time for cleaning. 

Quite a lot of cleaning is required. It seems that the previous owner has never polish the guitar at all. The hardwares, fretboard and body. White patches can be seen on fretboard and this shows the dryness of the fret. A little of lemon oil will do... hmmm...

So I removed the strings and do a overall cleaning. Then I restring it with my Everly strings I bought some days ago.

This is the overall look. It looks better than I'd expected. I will talk about its playability tomorrow. =)

New stuffs

I'd finally managed to trade a MIJ Fernandes guitar with Nicholas. I saw his post in SVguitar forum. He'd been selling it for 2 years but never managed to sell it. So long that he is willing to sell it for S$350 with all the accessories. I wonder why. Why hadn't he put it up on soft instead?

Well that doesn't matter any longer. I managed to bargain a S$50 off. So it's S$300

 1. ZOOM G2 multi-effect pedal.
Somewhat similar to the G2.1u I got.

2. Planet Waves 25ft Cable
The longest cable among all my other cables with locking jack pins.

3. Zoom Driver 5000
Gives you quite a lot of distortions as you can see from the picture below. Hadn't got a chance to try them yet.

4. Some unknown cable, 10ft long


Nicholas seemed to have keep all the things rather properly. All the manuals are still there, the pedal still intact and the box still in a good condition. (better than my g2.1u box)

But what about my guitar? It's right now at SVguitars. There seems to be some problems with the pickup switch. The neck pickup isn't working after I'd removed the tissue paper Nicholas has used to somehow make the pickup switch usable.