The 'Pot' & 'taper' story

Someone once told me that all the pots in Fender and Squier guitars are audio tapered. My nature is not to believe in something until I see it for myself. So I looked for the stock parts of my Squier and decided to give the pots in it a closer look.

If everything is supposed to be audio tapers, all the pots there should be A500K. But see the B500K there? That is a linear taper and it must have been the volume pot on my Squier. That is usually the case anyway. Now we know that not all Squiers have audio tapered pot in it. 500K pots on a Stratocaster with all single coils? It is not a very good idea as it will make sound very bright? But my Squier is made of Agathis, a lineage of mahogany. So it has some characteristics of mahogany. So I guess it balances out.

Fender and Jackson Day @ Bras Basah

Well, the picture says it all. If you are trying to get a new Fender or Jackson (especially Jackson), you might be interested to pay Bras Basah a visit. Please expect long queues and stuffs as well. It's normal.

Physics (II)

I was too bored. So I decided to strip a humbucker pickup. What pickup? The Fernandes stock humbucker.
A humbucker is just two single coil pickups. As simple as that. I had a hard time trying to remove all the pickup cover on it. They put too much glue on it.

A humbucker?

Now two single coils. That black bar is the ceramic magnet of the pickup.

The copper wire is wounded around the two pieces separately. This two piece of 'single coil' is held together on the pickup mounting plate with screws. 

Now there is a common mistake that is made among a lot of people, even the physics teachers. They thought that the metallic parts on the pickups are magnets themselves. True but not always true. For this case, the poles are not permanent magnets. They are temporary magnets: they will gain magnetism when there is a magnet is in contact with it and loses it immediately when it is removed.

The magnet is not attached to the poles. It doesn't attack the screw.

Now, the poles with the magnet. The screw is attracted to the poles. This shows that the poles itself isn't magnetic.

This is at least true for pickups with ceramic magnets. =/ Might be a different story for Alnico pole pieces.

SOLD: Boss PS-6 Harmonist

Actually, I have never wanted to sell this pedal. However, I need some cash for some other purpose (non-guitar related). So, PS-6 has to go.

• Condition is still new (10/10). Bought it during the National Day sales at Swee Lee.

•  It hasn't left my house and was never gigged. I used it only to play at home 3 times or so.

•  Cosmetic condition is like new as well.

•  It is velcroed.

• Comes with box and all the manuals.

I will provide a 9V battery along with it if you want. 

SOLD at 9:13 PM, 5/9/2011

My temper is as short as 2 cm nowadays thanks to my exams. So I think I might not respond to negotiations that well like last time. So yeah. Hehehe. Hope you guys understand. 

New MXR shipments @ Davis

Davis Guitars Music Centre has a fresh shipment of MXR pedals.

(taken from their Facebook)

If you are looking for certain pedals like the Carbon Copy, this might be some good news for you!

HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY

I'm definitely not a very good student. I may seem like one to the teachers but these are a few things they don't know about me, such as skipping lectures. Anyway, it is the best to show our teachers some love at least once a year, isn't? So this blog post is dedicated to all my teachers.

It is for all those who had taught me. Happy Teacher's Day!

The GazettE - Remember the Urge

The GazettE's new single - Remember The Urge. Released on 31st August 2011.

The Gazette has always been my favourite visual kei band. Yes, I do listen to Japanese songs and in fact, 60% of all the songs I listen to are Japanese. I might want to get the single from CDJapan, IF I have any spare cash.

Da Death Metal

Here is the Digitech Death Metal Distortion, something I tried yesterday (because I was too bored). I did try it once last time but not thorough enough to write anything about it. 

As you can see, there is no Gain knob on it. This means you have no control over the intensity of the distortion. It is fixed. You may find it strange but personally, I find that this pedal can do without that gain control. Some of my friends would set the gain at a fixed position and never touching it after that. If you are one of them, maybe this might be for you. 

Instead of a gain, it has the mid knob there though. I think it is more useful that way. I've tried Digitech Grunge and at times, I was often annoyed by Grunge that it doesn't have a mid knob for me to smoothen the distortion. By having a 3-band EQ on a distortion pedal, it gives you a large spectrum of distortion tone. 

This pedal kinda sounds like my Metal End King. It doesn't not have a Amp simulator like Metal End but the distortion it gives is very much like Metal End. So if you are looking for alternatives of Boss MT-2 or find that Metal End King is too big, you may consider this. 

Price: S$107~110. If someone is selling at a price higher than that, don't fall for it. I once had someone trying to sell his Death Metal for $180. Yes.. such people exists.

Martin Lifespan SP

Actually, I do have something to write for today but econ essays won't allow me. So just a short simple update.

I was on my way to Hillsongs Concert at Suntec today. However, I arrived a little too early so I decided to walk to Bras Basah. I went to Guitar Workshop to look for some guitar parts (but didn't find any). I managed to grab a pack of strings before I left the place. Martin Lifespan SP. As usual, it is phosphor bronze once again. These strings have a different style of coating which make sure that it still feels like the uncoated ones. (Will talk about that next time)

This is Week 35

This week is Week 35 of 2011. Anything special about this week? Well, not really unless you are looking forward to new Cioks stuffs, DC8. Week 36 marks the release of AC8.

I am looking forward for its release. Some may argue that Voodoo Lab is better and so on. However, DC-8 is definitely more useful if all your pedals feed on DC supply. Another good thing about DC8 is that it can fit under Pedaltrain 2.