New Pickups Day!!!

My recent craze for David Gilmour has got to me! So my strat has to undergo some pickup mods!
Therefore, I ordered a custom set of pickups from Ornamac Windery, after scouring the internet for days for a custom pickup maker.

At first, the pickup winder, Kerry, did not have a Gilmour set available for sale, so I sent him a message on ebay, asking whether he could make me a set to match the pups of  Mr. Gilmour.

Surprisingly the next day when i checked my email, Kerry has already replied me with the build specs of : 

It's comprised of a vintage style alnico five heavy Formvar neck pickup with a vinatge 50's stagger wound to a conservative 5.5k. The middle is a 60's style alnico five wound with 42 awg plain enamel to a sweet sounding 6.2k. And the standout of the set, the bridge is a high output alnico two coil with SPN 42 awg piled high to the mid 9k range.

^ Taken from his ebay site.

After some problems encountered with postage and Singpost, I finally got this set of pickups at my door!

I have wired a pickguard up good before i have these pickups at my door (They were nicely packed in a USPS box and they were shock-proofed with Styrofoam pads) and as soon as i got my pickups, I dropped em into my guitar, complete with stratcat.biz wiring!

I did not have the bent steel plate to mount the neck on pickup switch , therefore, all I did was to drill a hole in my pickguard and install it straight onto the pickguard.

As you can see, its above the volume and neck tone knobs.

Here is a review of these pickups. The neck pickup is fat and vintage sounding, with scooped midrange and a glassy top.

The middle pickup is twangy, sweet sounding and is definitely the best for cleans. I absolutely loved playing through it for the cleans, even though I do not thread through the clean territory that often!! 

The bridge pickup is not a little bit thin sounding, thanks to the AlNiCo2 Magnet, while soloing through this pickup, you get a smooth drive and sweet highs (think comfortably numb), while not sounding thin. Also, it has the compression for you to cut through the mix, therefore, it is definitely a pickup to do solos with! Nothing shred crazy, but for classic rock and blues, definitely!

Big thanks to Kerry of Ornamac Windery for helping me out when Singpost decides to screw me over, kudos!!

So there you go, my lovely stratocaster, albeit not black, but my tribute to Mr David Gilmour!

If anyone is interested in pickups from Ornamac windery, here is a link to his ebay page: http://myworld.ebay.com/klea3031

Tommy Emmanuel @SG

20th of October is just 8 days away. Anyone going for this? If I am in Singapore right now, I would definitely go for this. Finger-style guitarists are awesome.

The Story of the Picks

Picks are very important. The tone of your guitar is made up of everything and picks are no exception. 

Previously, I use V-picks for my picks. My favourite V-picks was the Traditional. It has a traditional shape of a guitar pick, unlike the triangle ones. These picks were my favourite because of the material it is made of, acrylic. This material makes every note you play fuller and… solid and the thickness of 3mm also contributes to that as well. Using thin picks (about 0.60mm) especially for music that is ‘heavy’ seem to makes the notes sound as if they are forced out. The bevelled sides of the V-picks also makes alternative picking easier. A few problems with the bevelled sides and that 3mm thickness, is that it is harder for pick scratching and when playing certain genres like blues where I don't add any compression effect, it makes it harder for me to control the volume of my picking. A delicate touch may end up with a much louder volume than I expect.

So I am using much thinner picks along with the V-picks when I play music that is certainly less ‘heavier’, to the thickness of about 1.14mm or even 0.60mm which is the thickness I occasionally use to play acoustic. Dunlops Tortex picks are what I'm using now. Actually, 1.14mm is still considered a heavy pick but not as heavy as the 3mm (this is extra heavy).  It gives me more control over the volume of the uncompressed notes I play. Pick-scratching is also much easier. And the notes won't sound forced as well since it is thick enough. The material 'Tortex' also produces a good tone, a name given for plastic which is used to replace tortoise shell picks since it was banned in the 70s. Another of such material is Delrex used on the Dunlops Gator picks which spots a matte finish instead. I tried the Gator but the feel of them isn't really to my likings. After all, one of the main reasons I use Tortex is because they feel the same as the Everly Star Picks I used to use and same material as well. Ever since Davis stopped bringing them in, I replaced them with Tortex picks. Oh! Tortex picks are less slippery than V-picks too. Of course I am not getting that 'acrylic' tone much Tortex sounds good as well.

For those small-sized picks, I used to use Alice 3mm picks. Now I am using the Small Tortex, too. I use these picks especially if I am using a lot of artificial harmonics, since it is easier for me to play them with these.

All these picks I used are more or less wear-resistant. And they don't break easily. As far as I know, nylon picks are those that will break so easily. Usually in 1-2 months, it loses its flexibility and become fragile. That is why I always tell my church youths to not buy nylon picks for carol-singing. Well, they don't listen. =/

Guitar Connection Theft (28 09 2012/Friday)

Another theft occurred at Guitar Connection last Friday (28th of September, 2012).

The guitar stolen was a 1999 Gretsch 6128T Duo Jet Black.

The serial number of that guitar is 999128-1846.

So if you happened to see a Gretsch like this for sales on Ebay, soft.com or guitar4christ, please do help by contacting Kelvin Ho at +65 96994466, the shop at +65 63390606 or the police.
Click here for more pictures.

I don't work for Guitar Connection and am not related to anyone in that shop. However, I hate low-life thieves. 

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.