Tune, Like a sir!

Snark has its own pedal tuner right now. It has a similar display as its clip tuner. I would say that Snark tuners are pretty accurate. I was sold after I tried its clip tuner (though the main reason I got it is because it is red).

(From Premier Guitar October Issue 2012)

This advertisement reminds of me the "Like a Sir" meme so I decided to post this XD. Well, I am sure there are many 9gagers out there, regardless of where you are from (Singapore, Myanmar, Bangkok, etc...)

Clearance @Katong Showroom

 

Yes, Swee Lee is having another sales. I've seen many people complaining about Swee Lee setting a high price for their products. Well, if you haven't realise it yet, Swee Lee has a major price revision and many of the guitars are now priced decently. You now have an affordable Ibanez (and I'm not talking about Gio). So what's there to whine about anyway?

The tone cap

For so many years players have been chasing after the "vintage" sound, and they have gone to the extent of paying hundreds of dollars for this!

Notice the small area that is popping out? That is a sign of the capacitor being a Paper in oil cap! If it is a poly capacitor there wont be a notch there, as the notch is there as a result of sealing the oil inside the capacitor.

Recently (like two years ago), gibson released a series of historic reissue parts for sale.

http://www.gibson.com/absolutenm/templates/FeatureTemplatePressRelease.aspx?articleid=1314&zoneid=6

Here you can see they released another batch of bumblebees?

The answer to that is NO.

Those are just wesco film capacitors. Gibson simply repackaged it with some plastic cover that looked like bumblebees from the 50s and sell it to consumers.

http://store.gibson.com/historic-spec-bumble-bee-capacitors-two-pack/

A pair of caps with a production cost of ~10cents for 200 dollars? You gotta be kidding me right?

Unfortunately, there are still people who think that gibson found a entire stock of NOS (New Old Stock) capacitors and are selling it now. God knows where that myth came from.

The conflict about neck tenons

When you first venture into the world of the les pauls, one question would probably be: WHAT THE HELL ARE NECK TENONS?

Neck tenons are basically the part of wood on the guitar neck that joints the body.

Long neck tenons are used in Gibsons when they made guitars in Kalamzoo, Michigan.

Short neck tenons are used in Gibsons when they made guitars in Nashville, Tennessee.

Is that all ?? @#$!!#$

The answer is No!

From the top you can see that the wooden section that is in contact with the body is larger, and this is usually found on Gibson Historic Reissues. For the one that you see that the wooden section in contact with the body is smaller, this is generally found on epiphones and gibson standards/custom (not custom shop, mind you!)

What does the long neck tenon do better than the short one does ?

Basically a long neck tenon increases the area of contact between the body and the neck of the guitar, hence giving it increased sustain and making the tone sound smoother. By increasing the area of contact, the guitar is allowed to resonate better, hence giving it a better tone!!

However, does it justify the cost of $2,000 for the neck tenon (and better quality, possibly) to get a historic reissue? The answer is up to you :)

Zoom goes Stompbox? (MS-50G)

Yes but it is still an multi-effect processor, just much smaller. About the size of a Boss pedal I guess.

It is just like any of those in the G-series. It uses the same effects modeled in the G3, featuring the same ZFX-IV chip that you may find in any of the new range of Zoom effects starting from G3. Just like a multi-effect, it allows you to arrange and hook up to 6 different types of effects simultaneously as you like. Just like any multi-effect, it comes with a tuner. Being made into a size of a stomp box, the good news is that it eats less space on your pedal board.

Is this a plus? That's your call. For me, I may not be getting any Zoom effects for the time being, until one is good enough to stun me.

Jack Thammarat @ SG

Jack Thammarat is coming to Singapore, featuring mainly Yamaha and Laney products. 

All the good things have to take place when I am away from Singapore: Avenged Sevenfold, Joe Bonamassa, flumpool (Japanese band), Alex Hutchings, etc... I would say Singapore is quite fortunate to have all these privileges, well I mean... think of Myanmar. We have nothing....yet.

Bangkok trip - Music places (Chinatown)

Well, I felt as if a load has been taken away from my back, now that the audition is done and all that is left for me is to wait for October 24th, the day when my school starts.

During my one week stay in Bangkok, needless to say, I went for guitar-shopping. Well, window guitar-shopping. It took me quite a while to find the places there. The biggest problem is that not all the people can speak English or even some of them do, their English is so broken that you will hardly understand them unless you have great patience. Luckily, technology like GPS helped me a lot. I got lost 4-6 times and if not for GPS, I don't know where I would be right now.

While I was in Singapore, I asked on Soft.com.sg for places where I can get musical instruments. I got the most common reply. "Google it", "Search up for old posts", "Don't ask us to spoon-feed you". Well, Googling works of course but you get tons of answers and you won't have the time to read every single thing. So I am just sharing on how I managed to find the places here myself.

The best place to shop for instruments stuff in Bangkok is at Chinatown.
Inside that red circle is where all the music shops are located.There's quite a number of them there and the main distributors of some brands are located there, too (Swing guitar, Schecter, Fender, Gibson, Boss, Roland, Korg).

How to get there:
You can of course walk there but it is ridiculously far. Taxi would be expensive as well especially if you are unlucky enough to meet one of those taxi-drivers who charges a lot to non-Thai speaking foreigners. So the best way is take bus. But firstly, you have to get to Hua Lamphong MRT station. Next, you exit through Exit 4 and you will see a bus stop around you. From there you can take many buses but I will just list a few easy-to-remember bus routes: 4, 40, 53, 73ก, 529. Ok. All these 5 buses have slightly different bus route but what you have to remember is to alight on the next stop when the bus makes a 90 degree left turn. Here's an example on the route 73ก takes.

As simple as that. The name of the bus stop is Wat Chakkrawat School. Then you have to walk back to the opposite direction.

Then try to spot Panasonic as you walk. When you see it, cross the road and there you will see Asia Music. After that, it is shopping time!

NOTE: There will be some fake stuff around so beware of them. I saw a few of them. They are usually priced much lower than the authentic ones but they will claim its real if you ask them. So to be safe, if you are worried of getting scammed, shop at those bigger shops with a more trust-able shop settings.

Interesting reading....

There are some things that will work with any guitar to make them sound
better. All operations are easy to do and really worth the time.
1. If your guitar has a rear-routed tremolo cavity (eg. Stratocaster) that is
covered with a plastic cover and some screws, take it away. It´s amazing
how the overall sound of a guitar can change by simply taking away this
cover.
2. Take care of all screws on your guitar, they should be fasten VERY tight
and strong for a better sound. Critical locations are the screws for the
neck, the bridge and the tuners. Check them regularly.
3. If your guitar has a tremolo (eg. Stratocaster) and you don´t use it,
get it blocked with a piece of wood. This will increase sustain and
response drastically.
4. Shield your guitar (see corresponding project for this)
5. Let your guitar breath: for this you should take away the paint at any
location that can´t be seen, a critical location is the surface underneath
the bridge of a Tele or a Strat. Eric Johnson knows why he is doing that to
all of his guitars. You can also take away the complete paint of the inside
of the pickup cavities and the complete surface that is covered with the
pickguard.
6. Let your guitar breath: check the wiring of your guitar, you will often
find a lot of crappy cables in there. Get a high-quality cable and rewire the
complete electronics. It´s nearly unbelieveable what this can do to your
tone.
7. Let your guitar breath: check the routing for the neck on your guitar´s
body. Remove any paint, dirt etc. you find there and sand it until you
have an absolutely plain and clean surface. Do the same with the
corresponding location of the neck - sand away the paint and bolt on the
screws very tight.
8. Restring your guitar with pure-nickel strings and hear details you never
heard before from your guitar. Replace your cheap plastic nut with a good
bone nut to hear even more subtle details.
9. Change your cable with a very high quality cable (eg. George L´s) and
hear details you never heard before from your guitar.
10. Have fun :-)

Credits to http://singlecoil.com :) :)
If anyone is interested to talk tone, add me on msn limzeyi@hotmail.com !