.11 gauge

I got a thicker gauge this time upon recommendation from the music shop, these days i like to play COB a lot so i use drop C# tuning and then shift it down to drop C using the pitch shifter in guitar rig. .10 had a super flappy upper string so they said the .11 gauge set wud be better. True that, it sounded more closely to the COB sound. I first tried C tuning but it was still too flappy, so went up to C# and the rest is guitar rig xD.

Since my guitar is full body mahogany it made a pretty beefy and thick sound in this tuning, a bit too much really, had to tone down the bass setting on guitar rig, it still doesn't sound as sharp as i want it to but i guess its the pickups fault at this point, they are rather dull.

With this new gauge, i dunno, it doesn't seem any harder to keep it at C# (basically D# but with the lowest string tuned down to C#) compared to gauge .10. Sure the thin strings are harder to control as i please, and also sounds a lil, i dunno, not ringy i spose is the right word. Also i seem to be making a nintendo sorta sound when i do arpeggios on the higher frets :P, it was making that kinda sound before but now its more so.

But the improvement i get from the thick string sounds pretty much makes up for that really, and since my fingers got tougher it doesn't seem any much harder to play with this level of tension though my fingers do seem to get tired a bit faster.But well i had just installed them anyways so i guess its just a matter of getting used to it.

I do believe i cannot get the sound i want at this tuning without better pickups, its muddy as anything right now.

Also since i just installed a fresh batch i noticed sure the sound is a lot cleaner but guitar rig still makes a slight fuzz sound on the thicker strings.. maybe i didn't do the settings right, maybe i put too much gain, i cant be sure but its kinda annoying for me personally though i spose everyone else wud just shrug it off and say that's how a guitar sounds like :P

Next ive raised the action just a little bit higher than i need to, i noticed at bare minimum the strings makes a very minute buzz sound in all the frets... and it seems harder to palm mute as well, i raised it just a lil bit more and the sound suddenly cleaned up and palm muting got a lil more natural, as in i didn't have to concentrate on how i was doing the muting. I dont feel like going too high cos that makes playing rather uncomfortable, not difficult, just doesn't feel right

I may have mentioned before the guitar pick needs to be suited to the guitar string tension in order to play comfortably. I used my old delrin .4 pick and even when its the flappiest pick i have it was still easy enuf to do arpeggios with this new gauge set. interesting indeed but i still prefer my stubby.

lastly it looks like i may have found the second guitar i was looking to buy. A friend is selling his Jackson Rhoads RR3 for a reasonable price. The specs are good actually.

Pros:
1) its made from alder and got a maple neck so its gonna have a different sound and feel to it than my kinki so wud love to try that out

2) Its got a floyd rose bridge and thats good cos i was looking for a guitar with a tremolo

3) Its got proper pickups by seymour duncan XD

4) its color and shape is like... the word im looking for is in between awesome and awesome :P

Cons:
1) Its not THAT reasonable a price considering its a used guitar

2) As cool as the Rhoads looks its not the most comfy guitar to play with

3) It doesn't have 24 frets for gods sake O_O, this is pretty much a blow in the nards if u wanna play most modern metal

4) Too many controls and awkwardly placed to be honest, I don't really need two volume knobs and a tone knob, i always have the tone at full (hey it maybe a dumb idea for some ppl but i just like the biting sound it makes okay? O_O ), and the pickup switch is placed in between all that D:

5) horrible bolt on joint makes playing the 18 and higher frets really really hard...well it looks like its gonna be hard i haven't played it yet ._.

6) I prefer the ESP LTD V401DX over the RR3 in terms of looks, specs and ofcos im a huge ESP fan, all my fav guitar players use esps and ive heard only good things about even their low end guitars

7) A lot of ppl in Maldives owns jackson brand guitars and thinks they are awesome and blah...really wud prefer to have something different and unique, like my current guitar, ive not seen one person who owns my axe or even a metallic gray colored guitar for that matter :P. Id hate to go up on stage and ppl go ooh he owns a jackson rhoads too!, that's why he sounds so great!...bleh.

But it really just comes down to what it feels and sounds like in my hands, if the fabled compound radius neck that Jackson regards as its trademark is as great as they claim this might just be what im getting as my 6 string trem guitar.

Im not sure though, the playability sure looks horrible but cant tell for sure till i actually play it :P, it wud be pretty hard to beat the comfort of kinki though. Only something like the Roukangas hellcat or ESP M300 could give me more room to reach for the highest frets.

And anyways there are only two more guitars i ever want to buy, one 6 string with trem, the other is a 7 string with a trem, that wud pretty much cover anything i want to play. Kinki is great as non trem guitars are said to sound superior to floating trem guitars but ill only confirm that after i play a trem guitar myself.

As for tunings i think id have all my guitars at D# tuning and drop tune now and then. In D# all i have to do is either pitch shift one half step up or down and that pretty much covers all of the stuff i want to play, the rest can be done on the 7 string which is also going to be at D#.

Guess thats all there is to say at this moment, and here is wishing they wud bring ernie ball hybrid sets already! *waves angry fist*

Dunlop again!

Yep i heard there were some Ultexs in town, went there and i found a pick that i prefer over it. Dunlop stubby 1.0 mm :D. A true successor to my old Alice, less noise and more comfy to grip. Also it is just a lil less rounded so it seems easier to sweep with this pick

Its been at least two weeks since i got this pick along with the dunlop triangle. I bought that one simply becos it looks cool xD.

Now my strings have really worn and are showing the effects of it. Cant play a damn thing without background noise.

Speaking of noise now that i am able to play 6 string arpeggios properly and somewhat at speed, i observed a few things

1) I have a rather odd way of learning new licks or riffs, first id play it till i get the fingering right at slow speed, then immediately attempt to play it fast and struggle for a long time until i play it smoothly and cleanly, and right after that i attempt to play it at hyper speed, and when i eventually do get there i want to learn a more advanced version of it._. Its not really voluntary, this same pattern has been repeating ever since i started playing guitar in the first place.

This is not exactly the best way to learn techniques but its just how i roll *shrugs*

2) Palm muting is even harder with six string arpeggios. I have this problem of raising my right hand up so much when i sweep across the thick strings that i do not maintain contact on the strings with my palm, its just easier for me to sweep if i raise my hand to that position just above the strings, guess its easier to apply more and constant force to the pick, which is crucial to get a smooth sweep >.<. The issue is as my left hand fingers leave the thin strings to go for the thicker ones there is nothing to mute those strings thus make a small hum which is a bitch when i play at higher distortion levels.

3) my thickest string, makes a totally unrelated sound compared to the other strings, i didn't notice this until i realized i was sweeping perfectly and the thick string still makes a 'thunk' sound which sounds almost comical compared to the rest of the strings played. I cant tell for sure if that is the sound that string is supposed to make, or its an issue with my pickups, guitar rig or guitar itself. But i do know that ppl like jeff loomis who do a lot of 6 string stuff have a custom gauge set and the thickest string they use is far far higher a gauge compared to the standard gauge sets sold in shops, for example jeff used .10 on his older 25.5" scale guitars but where the 6th should be a 46 he used a 52 as i remember. Maybe it is to address this thunk sound and ofcos to get a tighter riff sound.

With those things observed i did notice my song learning speed has increased dramatically, before id have trouble just syncing the left and right hand if it was a new song. Now its like, a few days practicing and i can get the song dead on xD. Guess the guitar has stopped being such a new thing to me i spose. Not like ive been sucking in theory so much that i know how phrases are supposed to go without really bothering about what it says on the tabs. But i can hear and imagine the song and what im supposed to play and what does what on the guitar more i spose. Its not like i have reached the "can tab stuff by ear" level just yet O_O, hell i dunno how ppl do that, its amazing in my opinion O_O. But i spose its not THAT hard or its a gift or something...when someone talks nearly anyone can copy the accent simply by listening, guess i am not that in touch with the instrument just yet. Or rather, im not too sharp in the language of the guitar :P

One of my good friends, i showed him no boundaries by Michael Angelo Batio, and just by listening he managed to figure out the tabs real time...though he could not keep up to speed he could definitely tell what exactly Batio was doing, i was pretty much shocked for words O_O. Well i spose there is nothing much else to write here, besides maybe how gamefest is probably gonna suck away whats left of my practice time, commitments are such a bitch. Also, note to self, never keep a string set on for this long...its just bleargh to be blunt >.<

Also one last note, tuned back down to Eb simply becos i have no trouble sweeping in that tuning now and its just so much easier to do vibrato in this tuning XD

Well back to practice, lots to do, so very little time.

Its E standard nao!

Yep, just for the heck of it i tuned all the way up to standard tuning. And i remember very clearly the first time i tuned up to E on gauge 10 strings like two months ago, it was literally incompatible with me back then D:. Just way waaay too tight.

Now, its the best tension i found to play any arpeggios. The strings do not budge but a little and my pick can slide across them with greater ease. Kinda reduces the slight jolts i make to my fingers while sweeping. Less jolts means i can play faster and the sound is smoother and closer to what it should sound as played by a computerized guitar simulator (yes i compete with the machine! )

Its only been a few days but i have no intention of going back to eb tuning. this is clearly more suited to me right now. Apparently John Petrucci uses standard gauge 10 Ernie ball strings for his E tuning guitars as well. Well he is one of the most articulate shredders Ive ever heard so i can see how he gets his sound.

It does limit what kinda music i can play now that its on E standard, most neo classical stuff like malmsteen or galneryus are in eb after all. Well doesn't matter that's what pitch shifters are for, right now all i want is to master guitar technique rather than actually play songs mm.

Next thing, i adjusted the string heights on my bridge individually by grinding off bits of the metal pivot with a scissor. the aim here is to make all the strings rest in a line. Right now its in a curve like the fretboard radius. Not exactly suitable. The strings are comfy for sweeping if the thickest string is highest height and descending in height until the thinnest one is lowest, in a angled line.But for now just adjusted the third thin string. It has already proved to aid my 5 string sweeps. ^_^

And finally today i finally got my hands on a dunlop ultex sharp pick O_O. well it's my cousin's really. Anyhow, its too pointy, Ive gotten too used to playing on a more tear drop shaped pick. Ultex did have better tone as it was less scratchy and felt nicer to the tough and gripped better too. Rhythm playing was better too. I could actually feel the coils on the thick strings O_O. Also alternate picking was slightly better sounding too. The only thing difficult was sweep picking which i rely on the alice picks rounder shape to make contact on the guitar.

It wud seem i need to get the wider ultex pick or syu's signature pick. Only those two seem to be able to properly replace my current one. My current is an Alice brand (its Chinese O_O ) 1 mm pick with a pointy tip and rounder sides. I have to smooth out the edges with sandpaper now and then since notches form very easily O_O. It needs to be replaced but so far non seems better.

Thats it for now back to practice.

All 6 strings

Yeap today i have begun playing 6 string arpeggios. I managed to get the hang of it after like an hour or so of it. Also have tuned the guitar back to Eb, this time its staying that way. I find the thick strings way waaay too loose to play 6 string arpeggios in D. Its necessary.

Not really a prob my fingers have gotten stronger and Eb actually feels better on the picking hand,since i employ a smoother and lighter touch now. Stiff strings are indeed dandy xD.

Speaking of strings it looks like my current set is wearing down finally. Its making odd high frequency noises and i cant hold on to a note without this buzzing getting in the way almost completely. oh well, its been a while anyways. In my electric guitar playing lifetime this would be the third string set id be buying. And already i am playing 6 string arpeggios at moderate speed and shredding the 3s. Cant say im not pleased with these results ^_^.

Im gonna master my current picking style. Its called economy picking. Kinda like a morphing of sweep picking used for arpeggios and alternate picking used for shredding. Economy picking is the one and only right hand picking technique one would ever need to actually learn. Rhythm playing in my opinion is something that comes to someone naturally. Master economy picking and shredding suddenly wont look like its something only a gifted few can hope to do. My picking is not perfect just yet. Sure i do sweep pick when changing strings but not all the time, my picking hand is "impatient" and goes to the right position faster than the left hand and i end up doing a upstroke when i move down a string or vice versa. Well i have a lifetime left to perfect it but right now my speed is improving on a daily basis and that's more than enough for me xD.

On other things found out how jeff loomis and buckethead gets their rather techno like guitar tone in some of their solos. A synthesizer. And guitar rig has a fairly simple yet capable one O_O. Ive only begun tweaking with it but its one fun toy xD

Inconsistency

This is becoming a habit now, one day i can play arpeggios perfectly, the following day i totally screw it up O_O. I traced down this randomness to my picking hand...to go even further the exact way i hold the pick. Depends on how warmed up my hand is and how the pick is held i can either rip thru arpeggios and shreds or keep snagging at notes over and over in a sloppy messy heap of rubbish O_O. Ive played nearly all day, till i figured which position is perfect for me. The way i hold is that the pick is slightly at an angle that points towards the bridge of the guitar. The stiffest area of my thumb tip at the line of pick that hits the string.

Hard to describe in words. really shud put a photo but in no real mood for that :P. Also how i make contact with the string is also vital O_O. I can play the fastest when i tap the string, even when sweep picking.

Have further refined my picking really. Ive gotten even faster than ever before in both alternate picking and sweeping. And just for amusement i put some lubricant on the part of the strings that the pick comes into contact with, in my case its just behind the neck pickup. It actually reduces the scratchy sound and helps to really glide the pick on the strings.

Since ive further lightened my picking style, i needed more sensitivity from my guitar setup. So increased the height of the pickups. Now it makes quite a lot of noise when i play with my yamaha amp. But with guitar rig its still just as smooth and even more responsive to my picking and also legato playing.

Right now im not really sure how long it would take to really get fast picking techniques under my fingers (literally :P ). But its nice to see a steady improvement from day to day even with the occasional retardation >.<. I might as well start 6 strings now, 5 strings I am tearing thru really.

The real fun can begin when i get proper pickups honestly, i have to squeeze my rig and guitar to get the right amount of sensitivity without blowing up the guitar tone. If i upped the gain or overdrive any further the single notes break up O_O.

Oh and also learning chord playing now. Thats the area i lack most in right now, in my rush to gain lead guitar technique ive really neglected that part of guitar playing. So really going back to it. Its a few times easier to play chords now than when i started since my fingers got faster and far more flexible than before. Not to mention overall stamina. I can play all day now without signs of cramping up.

Well that being said, back to practice

Back to D

No sooner i changed to Eb, i disliked it ._. . Well its too tight to play arpeggios on but the thick strings felt easier to play and sounded better.

Well if they bring ernie ball bottom heavy hybrid set that would be ideal for me now, then i can tune to D and still have stiff coiled strings.

So back to D it is. And at first I was wondering why i cudnt play arpeggios like i cud just the other day. I thought maybe the strings gave way already, but that cant possibly be D: . And like after days and days of struggling with it i like accidently held my pick the way i used to when i played it properly. To an angle and a bit behind the tip of my thumb. Most important i don't move my entire palm up and down the strings to make the sweep motion, i kinda twiddle my thumb up and down for that, the twiddling motion also changes the pick angle, much like how a wood carver would make a spherical hole on the wood.Or like the motion one would use to apply crumpy on bread :P

Ive never really seen anyone else play like this, maybe this is a flawed way of going about it. Doesn't matter to me at this stage. It brings out the sound i want from the arpeggio itself, smooth, fluid, clear and actually less scratchy noises the pick makes upon contact with the string. This sound is almost overpowering when i sweep up and down while keeping the pick in a fixed angle.

I know for a fact the scratchy sound is so intense due to the material my pick is made off, well its already bad enough i cant use any other pick to play arpeggios at speed. Its a pain they wouldn't bring dunlop picks that are stiff and pointed like my alice. >.>

Well today I did learn to play arpeggios all over again almost since i had to recall and really understand what i was doing with both hands so i wouldn't forget again. After a few hours of really polishing i played much better than i ever had. It was perfect now. So now heading for the 5 string arpeggios XD

Kitty is outta the bag

So like two nights back a friend said please, so i just had to show her..right did warn her about the blah blah nature and well she did appreciate that it did serve its function well, a journal to myself thanks :P

And the day after a friend searched Kinki guitar blog on google and got to this blog anyways O_O. Karma u didn't get me this time :P. So yea its outta the bag, so i told my bestie as well.

so yea cats outta the bag, nothing much to see here anyways, but i took a read of my blog from the bottom to here.

Hmm yes past jin was a total noob at guitar, he thought most ppl are experts and most guitars are fantastic. He wasn't totally wrong, just that he didn't see the stuff i see now.My mindset from then and now are rather different.

My favorite music has also changed over this past year too, children of bodom is still my fav but there are many more now, not just Scandinavian metal x].

As for a summary of my guitar playing so far. Well, been playing acoustic since last year December ish. And electric guitar since august. Not much time really, but I'm not a rookie no more. Obviously my theory is still terrible but i do believe my technique is getting there ^_^.

I used to play gauge 9 strings on e tuning. Now i play Eb tuning with gauge 10 partly because of the lack of availability for gauge 9 but I'm very comfy with this setup. Before my gauge 10 would be D tuning since the tension was too high in higher tunings.

At the very beginning it hurt almost everywhere on the hand and my arm would cramp, right now it just hurts at rather odd lines along my forearm and the palm of my hands. Arpeggios are weird like that i suppose. Also the muscles along the elbows also seems to be strained as well. Well i am new to this so my body has yet to even physically develop enough to keep up with my exercises. It feels like gym all over again really :P

As for the mental side, Ive learned only a few scales and i don't really intend to learn more theory unless need calls for it. Main thing right now is to develop technique and thats being going at a very suitable rate of learning.

The internet has been more or the less the only source of learning for me, youtube vids of players demonstrating their magic and sites made by well wishing ppl who dump all this info freely. Only about a percent or so from real life friends.

Ive gone through lots of picks, strings, amp and effects setups and guitar adjustments and i think I'm finally getting to the near perfect settings for myself. The rest is for me to keep going forward, i still have a way to go.

My other commitments do have a way of totally getting in the way of practices but well that's life for you. Not a kid anymore where u can spend all day doing anything you want.

For everyone reading so far. Its still just me blabbing about guitars right now. But you all are more than welcome to waste your time reading it though :P.

That's it for now, back to practice :3

Tuned to near perfection

So i finally got new strings attached after coming back from the gaming exhibition in lanka (fun fun fun xD). I had the action set just high enough for the all the frets to work. It feels great! O_O. And after that nearly week long break from guitar playing (i tore of the old ones so i cud focus on gaming instead of kinki :P ) my hands seems to have gotten even stronger. I had the inclination to tune up to an even tighter Eb tuning on the gauge 10 string set. Yep, they no longer felt hard to budge.

Speaking of strings the music shop didn't have the correct gauges for me to set up my own string set. Sad but kinda expected there is absolutely nothing that is readily available in this country. Not really a prob anymore anyways Ive finally gotten used to the gauge 10 set. Which is a good thing since even the gauge 9 sets are no longer available when i went to buy.

On the note of progress. I can play three string arpeggios to an acceptable proficiency xD. Very very pleased and soon gonna move up to 5 and 6 string sets.. But before that gonna learn harder 3 stringers just to get the feel of it.

The hard thing about arpeggios are that i have to worry about more than just picking and moving my left hand fingers into the right position. At the same time i have to make sure my palm is placed right to mute the strings not being played and make sure not to mute the one being played. Not exactly a picnic at any rate. Luckily the technique has completely blended into my picking technique now. So it doesn't take much thought to execute now. After i had crossed that barrier the sweep motion was the next difficulty. Arpeggios should be treated as chords with each note played individually, and naturally rather fast to get the intended sound out. As such the right hand technique should be the same as when u play a rhythm riff only even more refined.Also sweeping across the thinners strings are actually harder compared to the the coiled strings since the pick has a habit of accidentally getting stuck on a particular string for a split second. That is quite irritating when your playing at least 2 notes or 3 notes per second. You have to adjust the angle and height at which the pick touches the strings to be able to glide smoothly to the next string without yanking the current one. For me I had to record myself and listen to realize that my final hurdle was to equalize my up and down stroke speed. I was going down far too fast and i didn't even figure that was the problem until i took a listen.

So spent yesterday and today slowing down again and really pass each string when going up and down. The results are very pleasing. To me personally it sounds cleaner and more articulate compared to the video that was demonstrating it.

So time to bring on the next challenge really. No songs, just scale runs, up and down left and right runs. Arpeggios and faster riff sequences. These three things are what i will be working on for the next few weeks until i reach a suitable level.

On other things guitar rig is getting under my thumb as well, albeit stubbornly.The main effects setup i use have been tweaked to something that finally sounds pleasing when played for long and I figured out how to use the pitch shifter to get out any tuning i wanted without turning a single peg on the guitar. Very very useful since i like the string tension that kinki has right now. Any more or less would just be annoying. It doesn't sound odd or weird or anything as long as i put the pedal in the right position on the effects rack (it tends to make auto wah wah like sounds when on the top of the chain and odd distortion volume changing when at the very bottom).

I noticed how my instrument has a slight weakness in the third and fourth string. They are not bright or got any attack whatsoever. They sound different and dull in comparison to the other strings on the sides. Ive read that mahogany does have problems with the mid range. However it might just be the really crappy pickups that my guitar has. Its not just me, Ive been told by far better players that my setup has little sensitivity making pull off and hammer ons really hard. Honestly speaking i can make the pull off sounds come without anything plugged, it might be me just used to my setup or they have a point and getting better gear would improve my playing.

I'm not gonna pass judgment on my guitar's apparent mid range weakness until i have a pair of blackouts installed.If the problem persists then its time to move to a maple/mahogany combo guitar. Cant help it mahogany always makes the best distortion sound :P. Also not to mention kinki's bridge has wobbly pivots D:, its god's grace the sustain is as good as it is right now. The bridge needs to go at the soonest opportunity. Who knows maybe that is the reason for the dullness of the thicker strings.

Next thing on my mind. I notice that each person who plays my guitar sounds..different. I don't let anyone change my settings on the amp or guitar rig. But each single person, the way the sound comes from even one single note is different and unique O_O. My brother and older cousin sounds sharper and harsher. Younger cousin sounds smoother but less sustain. My dad plays distortion riffs that like it was clean on a higher volume O_O, so damn smooth. A friend of ours came along (a rather good player) , and he sounded more like he was playing with jabs rather than placing his fingers behind the frets. Kinda cool how everyone sounds unique on the guitar. I guess its part of the charm, how u can sound like yourself on the instrument :D

Enough talk, back to practice

The wonder that is guitar rig

Now im not talking about my guitar rig or guitar rigs in general, im talking about a software called Guitar Rig.

That one thing app alone has put a smile on my face. A smile so wide it threatens to reach the eyes :D.

I did mention about my not so awesome amp that i own. It sucked. period.

So i didnt get the zoom G2 like i wanted. And then a friend of mine suggested i try a computer based guitar effects processor. And im like oh sure why not my amp has an ear splitting sound anyways. Before i was under the impression that u need some kinda special hardware for the computer to process the input. Apparently not. But it does help to have a sound card..that improves performance, sound quality and this thing called latency...yea its like an online game where u give an input and the output takes a while to come. Now this happens as the processing itself doesn't occur fast enough. If you simply plug in your guitar cable (well ofcos u need a small microphone jack adapter thingy ) straight to ur microphone jack its gonna cause a lot of noise and not to mention the above said latency issues. Believe me its not a picnic to play guitar when u hit a note and u hear that note just a little later...its very, very, VERY irritating.

Me on the other hand was lucky enough to own a sound card. Creative XFi Xtreme Gamer. Yea i actually bought it cos i hate standard motherboard onboard sound quality. It is simply crap though most ppl only ever listen to that anyways amusingly enough. My sound card is actually a little bit more expensive compared to my 5.1 speaker system, so yea its at the very top end in its class. I loved it the moment i played the then new inflames album come clarity through it. And now its given me another reason to love it more. Its got this cool port thats kind of a combo jack. Its called a Flexi jack and its the same size as a microphone/speaker port but also has a red glowy light inside. So ive always assumed it was only for optical inputs or outputs. But actually i could use it as a line in port as well. A line in port is basically the same as the port u connect the guitar cable to the guitar amp. Just the size was a little smaller so you would need to attach a small adapter to the end of your cable (in my case i have a modified one for one end for guitar the other for the small port). As soon as i plugged it in. Woah, the sound quality just went from crap to almost the same level as what i heard on the albums (well i am not too good with setting up effects on the guitar rig software yet and my strings were dying :P ).

And apparently my sound card supports this thing called ASIO, so it kinda stopped the operating system getting in the way of the input-process-output sound chain. My latency went from super irritating 100ms to cant hear the difference 7 ms (im talking milli seconds btw).Any further and my processor gave way so it made some clicking sounds. Not really a bother, i was fine with 7 really. Apparently i could go as low as 2 ms if my pc was a bit more powerful but oh well dont care really, this is better than i could have ever wished for.

I thought maybe a multi effects pedal would be all i need to get the tone i want. This one software kicks the crap out of zoom's specs without even trying. I could set it up so that when in stereo I could have a different effects setup coming out of each speaker. Though all the effects like distortion pedal are based on real pedals the software gives even further options for adjustment on each effect. By far this is better than anything even near guitar rig's price range.

I could spend quite a while trying to say the many cool stuff i could do with it but well Id rather show it when i am able to record.

Right now there is still just a little bit of noise coming from the guitar input even when plugged to the flexi jack port. I asked my friend and he said its just a prob that u can ignore simply by adding noise gates and stuff (which by the way this software has intelligent noise remover modules that adjusts itself to cut off the bare minimum so that just the noise is gone and the guitar tone is not affected that much, its not perfect but well its a computer, its hard for it to understand the good from the bad :P )

I believe if i changed my rather crappy modded cable to a more professional one and added shieldings to the guitar it would remove the noise even further.

Well thats for another day i spose, this software is second to only perhaps the Axe Fx multi effects processor. But that one device costs like 3k dollars :P, and for me thats just too much to spend as of now really, id rather buy a better guitar or something :P. Not like im an effects maniac anyways, the basic idea for me is to drive the sound hard enough so that i can hear all the little nuances of my playing. I like adding bends, vibratos, freaky picking styles and what not. So basically all i want is a distortion pedal effect going into a max gain amp. XD. Delay, reverb and other fancies can wait for now, they are not exactly friends when you are learning or practicing yep.

Another thing i understood finally. I am a heavy palm muter. I love to remove all excess string vibrations yeap. But now with this software i can simulate having a real guitar rig equipped with quality amps and noise gates and noise reduction pedals so it cuts and maims the noise down to something that would be "ignorable". It becomes something like a background sound. Well, it still annoyed the crap out of me XD. So looks like im keeping my style.

Also a funny thing. The way you set up the sound u can have two ways to go about it, one way to have the effects and such hush out the excess string vibration noise or just overdrive the pure uncut sound all the way up! I prefer the latter. really i do. Ive noticed the good players have a tone that stands out and says "look at me i sound awesome" sorta vibe to it yea. Cos like it or not noise reduction effects eat tone,sustain and SENSITIVITY. i cant stress the last word enough. the more u bog down ur sound with gates the less of the really light touches u would hear.So it comes down to a simple formula really

Awesome hard to control super sensitive do what ever u want tone -inbetween- keyboard like guitar

I pick the awesome one ofcos but with some noise cutters to remove the hiss from the full drive distortion pedals (tube screamer is my fav yea xD ). Ive yet to dial in a tone that i remotely like. like each day im totally wiping the setup and dialing a fresh one only to hate that one the next day as well, kinda fun very distracting as well, havent practiced a thing all week, well nothing seriously anyways.

Oh btw checked my truss rod yesterday. looks like its nonadjustable....im grateful in a way..i have an urge to tweak everything that looks easily tweakable :P. In this case i have to leave it be the way it is, which might just be a good thing hehe :P

So its back to tweaking the guitar rig really. I am one pleased person today. Only thing better than this setup would be to get better speakers or perhaps headphones, my current set makes odd sounds when playing distortion. And perhaps the Rig Kontrol Floor control system, yea that would be cool. Go up on stage plug ur floor pedal to a frikking laptop...sounds techy and cool yea xD

Tweak tweak tweaaak

So was fiddling around with odd tunings yesterday. Like it just occurred to me that I should try seeing what the strings are like at even lower tunings compared to D, Im still using that .10 gauge string set from like a month ago. I can see why ppl talk about changing strings at least once three weeks, at distortion one single note sounds like I accidentally set of a fire alarm or something O_O. Makes this odd buzzing sound.

Anyways tuned it all the way down to C and tried playing my exercises ( I don't usually learn songs just practice certain things like scales or arpeggios or chords, and as days go by I evolve the exercises to more difficult ones as my own skill increases ) , now at this tuning the coiled strings behaved very oddly as they were too lose to make chords ring out nicely and not much good to pick on single notes either. It got just a lil bit more cumbersome, not really difficult. The thin strings on the other hand got a lil easier to play on O_O. My left hand needed less effort to move around faster and with just a lil adjustment of my picking style I could keep up with the increased speed.

Basically I like very slack spaghetti like string tension. It feels smoother to play on in general. Though it would seem i need to get a custom string set next time. Since i like the coiled strings to be tight and rigid to get a nice sound out of them. And somehow playing fast on coiled strings is really easy.Ill take a nod from yngwie's custom gauge set, 8 11 14 22 32 46. the thickest string is the same as my current 10 gauge set. While the rest are thinner than the 9 gauge set. This type of gauge set is apparently called Hybrid gauge. Where the thin strings are thinner and the coiled strings are thicker compared to the normal string sets.

Well its rather out of the ordinary. But well it suits my out of the ordinary style so i don't really mind as long as it works for me.

Ive also tried adjusting the string action even lower to the one i have right now. Sure it feels a lil easier to shred on....but it just feels weird too. I am one of those unfortunate ppl who cant stand the sound the guitar silently makes when the string even glances on more than one fret. It just annoys the crap out of me, if I turn up the volume even then my rather delicate fingers somehow pick it up, to me it feels like the sustain is going off somewhat, to me it feels like Im cheating a lil bit too :P. As mentioned before about metalheads do keep it low it just doesn't feel right for me.

Its also not only the feel that Im annoyed about. Since I have a TOM bridge (google it if u haven't already :P) I cannot adjust each string height individually. Meaning when I lower the thin strings to a nice amount the thick strings touch two frets at almost each position. Now Ive been told that its not a problem at all. Oh but it is. its a huge problem since it sorta cuts away the growling sound the guitar makes right after I hit a chord on high distortion, I really like that "roar" kinki has. And at lower settings the sound is very percussive and also has lesser sustain. Im afraid that is an absolute no no for me. I love playing heavy distortion rhythm guitar bits.And I love the ringing sound the strings make at high gain.Songs like Temptation- cradle of filth shows a really good example of a nice sounding rhythm guitar.

Ive also noticed many shredders (the ppl who play so fast u cant tell what they are doing) have really shitty rhythm tones. Well now it finally makes sense to me as why it is that way. Its no wonder some guitarists are hailed as heroes while others who play just as fast are known only as mediocre in sound. Its a very subtle difference perhaps to the average ear. But just try listening to someone like Steve Vai. He would sound so much smoother and clearer compared to most guitarists. Its easy to see how high string action really cuts out the weird ambient 'noise' that most electric guitars have, sometimes its the amp, sometimes its the guitar's own hardware noise,sometimes its sloppy playing but a lot of times its the slight double fretting sound you subconsciously hear even with distortion.

It looks like Ive come to a decision then. High enough string action so there is no double fretting from the areas i play on. And hybrid strings to accommodate my style of picking and of course my rather weak left hand : P.

This is going to hurt actually, high action always means my mistakes would be more pronounced and of course have to rely more on palm muting as well. But Im slowly getting better at it so I guess in good time Ill be fine. Besides, this is just another challenge really xD

To make things a little easier i dug the nut joint a lil bit, just for the thickest string so playing rhythm bits are now a lot lot easier than before xD. I dont see any need to to lower all the strings from the nut joint, adjust only when needed.

Back to practice.

Alice in pointy 1.0 mm

I took an advice from one of those free online lessons for arpeggios yea. recommended i use a hard pick no less than 1 mm with a pointy tip. Now before this i was using the dunlop delrin 0.4 mm as my main one. So this new Alice (yea they didn't have pointy dunlop brand picks >.> ) 1.0mm pointy tip pick was like completely different from any other Ive tried before. At first i bought the small sized one that was similar to the dunlop jazz 3, unfortunately i didn't like how it was hard to hold on to because i was used to big picks by then. So went back and bought the normal sized one. And Ive been saying this for a while now, but i have to say it again. This is the best pick Ive ever used O_O.

Suddenly I could glide from string to string almost effortlessly, the flexible pink one I used before also glided but had an unpredictability to it and thus made fast playing hard on it. This new one was rock solid but just as smooth.

I love this pick, perhaps the only thing better than this would be the dunlop ultex sharp 1mm, but well lets just wait and see, Id be getting that in like a week, its not available here after all.

Now lets see, a progress report, by now i can play chords and three string arpeggios and some other intermediate stuff perfectly at moderate speed. Define this "moderate" as...well say Yngwie malmsteen is super fast almost always, ppl like alexi and gus g are fast on most of their songs, kirk hammet usually plays moderately fast...below that is me. At fast speeds I usually bump extra strings either with the pick or my left hand or screw up the fingering pattern or melody, so too sloppy to actually play the faster or harder stuff.

Its all right I suppose, Ive changed my picking style like three times this month not to mention the pick and the string action. So I am always having to adjust to these changing factors.

Reason Ive been changing picking style is I am still having problems muting out all the strings without muting the string I am currently playing on, and this gets harder with harder pieces of music. Ive only begun mastering the right hand but at least the left hand isn't giving me so much trouble as before. As in I can play for longer without cramping and I can stretch around a lot more than before.

Anyways I am going to learn a couple more songs to play along to. Playing along is more demanding than just playing bits of music for practicing. And its easier to follow compared to a metronome. Obviously more fun to practice too. Most importantly I need to reduce my sloppiness and increase accuracy and this is the best thing I can do to improve that. Play note for note behind a good song xD

Thats it for now, back to practice

Adjusting kinki

So recently ive been told my guitar's string action is too high. What that means is the bridge on which the strings rest upon is set high. This would mean the strings are higher up from the fretboard and pressing down on the strings are harder plus when u let go the strings go up faster and make some vibrating noise (well i sure call it noise as it is unwanted). This noise was why i palm mute all the time. It irritates me personally though most ppl dont seem to notice while others thinks its a natural sound of the electric guitar and it adds to the sound.

Either way i notice it, i dont like it, so ive been trying hard to remove it completely. Yesterday i lowered the bridge and lo and behold, the "noise" went down quite a bit, almost to unnoticeable levels. Finally i was getting just the pure single note i was picking and not some "harmonics" or body along with it ._. .

Not only that picking the strings went from kinda resistive to sliding over a rubber mat sorta feel. It was such a drastic improvement and i lowered it just a little bit as i like to avoid strings hitting two frets at any point on the fretboard, though ive been advised that metal guitarists who play with distortion set it damn low as with distortion on u cannot hear the fret touching the adjacent strings when picked. That is true actually but i am not only a metal music player. So i lowered it just a little.

Still the difference was very big, it has become far easier to pick notes, legato and playing chords as well as the strings need less force applied to them to budge and in general more flexible.

Oh and on other things a friend finally told me how to intonate my guitar. Now what that means is....okay first google tune-o-matic bridge. okay see the metal pivots on which the strings rest on? okay it is possible to move them back and forth and thus effectively changes the strings maximum length. Now this is essential as the strings are of different thicknesses and does not vibrate at a uniform frequency ratio at different fret notes compared to each other. What this means in english is that all the strings behave differently. To compensate for this the different strings are set at slightly different lengths. (must remember that the fret positions are the same for all the strings ) .

So the method is simple. I first tune the open string. then i play the 12th fret of the string. If the note is higher in pitch than it should be move the pivot back. re tune from open and play the 12th, basically keep tweaking until both open and 12th string are dead on perfect note. Rinse and repeat on all the strings and you have a properly intoned instrument. The difference may seem slight but i notice some improvements in the notes when i play scales or arpeggios, it seems to sound the way its supposed to, if that makes any sense when i say that :P.

Anyways thats it for now, oh and considering to buy a seven string as of now. More details on that later.

Learn the theory

I am a bit of a nerd so even playing guitar involves me learning the scales and the musical theory behind...well....making good music!

Ive only had friends so far teach me a few things now and then and mostly its the internet free stuff that i look up to learn. So far its been working for me, lots of helpful ppl out there ready to share what they know on the matter.Here are a few of my favs

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/

Like one of the best one stop no strings attached totally free sites with all the info u would ever need literally dumped in a clear and simple format. I totally dig and even ive yet to read up everything on the site

http://www.insaneguitar.com/mc/sweeping.html

Since currently i am learning arpeggio technique this site is kinda useful for me, just one page but loaded with very helpful insight into mastering the sweep technique.

Metronome

Ever heard of the word? Well its a simple device used to produce a steady beat. Simple enough really, but apparently vital to music as the human mind cannot measure time on its own, and music is all about timing the notes.

Initially i was pretty bad at following the metronome due to the extremely slow beat rate of 44 beats per minute. Could barely time one note per beat properly. But today did a little searching around on the internet and found a proper online metronome. Now what i mean by proper is it produces a beat in a sound that my brain can unconsciously pickup and also it is possible to set the beat at any rate i chose.

http://www.seventhstring.com/metronome/metronome.html

Its from the same site as the online tuner. Seventh string.com is definitely a great place to find resources and information regarding guitars and playing them

Anyways this metronome makes a sound similar to the classic mechanical metronome used in the olden days, it doesn't sound irritating to the ears and is extremely easy to catch on to.And now i finally have an easier way to master those arpeggios Ive been having trouble with these past weeks. Now there are complex arpeggios and other sequences that does not follow a simple note per beat system obviously. But luckily the one i was having trouble with does not have a pattern as such, i tested it out playing a note per beat and it sounds just the way it should x]. Also this is by far the easiest metronome Ive ever used, could basically noodle all over the finger board while syncing to the beat, this one just feels comfortable to me. Maybe its just due to my own ability increasing over time but this time, the metronome is actually helping.

Practicing with the metronome really brought out some other flaws i had in my playing, my legato playing (hammer on and pull offs) were badly timed and most of the time i didn't let them ring for too long. By trying to follow the metronome beat my arpeggios finally sound the way they should, all there is left to do is to slowly increase the beat as i improve.

Out of topic it would seem my guitar pickups are not so well suited for legato playing. I have to pull off and hammer rather hard to get a decent sound out and even when i do the sound is quite different from picking the note, different is a good thing, but this, its too different, sounds more like squeaks and thunks with legato.

Oh and for the ppl who want a more advanced metronome shud definitely check out these two

http://bestmetronome.com/

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/metronome.php

Pretty fun to mess around with the metronomes available on these sites besides being a great help to practice sessions x]

Well thats it for now, more practice awaits

More Jamming

So just finished another jam session, as usual i was sorely lacking behind, really should have practiced some songs beforehand aye :P. Oh well the actual point was to test out his effects pedal, an MXR fullbore distortion. Now that. thats the shitz

Plug that into my rather crappy amp on the clean channel and i get a bone grindingly deep crunch for a rhythm tone. Crisp, clear, deep and noiseless O_O. It was quite amazing how one single pedal could alter the sound so much, the built in noise gate was also kinda fancy as it quieted down needless string vibration and hiss noises. But the pedal was good with the gate turned off.

I can see how i can make my rather sad excuse for an amp cud be made useful now. Buy a proper effects pedal and tone, well don't have to worry about that factor of my playing any longer thats for sure xD

Though to be fair a proper amp would still make a better sound. Even the clean channel of my amp adds some coloring, and its not good coloring either.

Still it would be irrelevant if i manage to get my hands on the zoom multi effects pedal. Can record directly to the comp, and i have the option of using its built in preamp. Meaning i can plug it into any speaker system and not necessarily a guitar amp.

And i s'pose i want a marshall mini amp too now, check it out on google the MS 4. Cutest little amp ive ever seen, and makes a killer sound, so perfect for carrying around to friends places for jam sessions, my current one is a bit too big for that which is ironic as its too small for any size of gig as well. My what a worthless piece of hardware i should think. I play the thing on a volume setting somewhere between 1 and 0, the sound literally explodes like a flash bang at higher volumes as if it were just asking the neighborhood to call the police. Yamaha, wait... all of you small amp makers, should really have put this in mind.

Well thats all there is to say right now, oh yea working on some higher level guitar techniques, some of them i can only do for about 30 seconds before arm cramps O_O. Its back to pain again. This time its finger joints, forearms, palm muscles...well basically everywhere on my arm besides the tips of the fingers.

So now working on learning some more mainstream songs too, to make jam sessions a little more entertaining....kinda lame to go over and play stuff and they go like...so what are u playing? and im like okay this song from this band...and they are like, oh cool never heard of em. sigh

Thats it for now. ciao

New strings, thicker and stiffer- part 2

Well interesting turn of events, i was fiddling around with the guitar after i took a cat nap in the evening, the sound was still crap in E flat tuning, too much noise, then i thought lets try going down to drop C just to see what happens... couldn't believe it, this time the strings properly held the tension and the noise just... disappeared, i cud finally play stuff like bullet for my valentine properly, (on the super slinky strings it felt more like spaghetti at anything below E flat tuning) .

Its a good thing Paget doesn't use much effects, i cud cough up a similar sound to him. This is rather and interesting turn of events, now i can play all the heavy metal stuff ive wanted! xD. Though one little prob, i wish the heavy C string was thicker, as it is a further step down from the standard C tuning, so that string particularly is a lil wobbly. Every other string is just fine though.

So moral of the story, always use the appropriate string gauge, not thicker, not thinner :3

Otherwise, beware the noise , spaghetti and moar noise D:

New strings, thicker and stiffer

So today i went about setting up new strings into kinki yea. This time got ernie ball regular slinky, thats like a notch thicker than the previous super slinky set I got the guitar with. Oh yea and a gig bag and a white guitar strap too.

Anyways kinda accidentally i unscrewed the bolts holding the tune o matic bridge O_O, well thats what i get for poking screw drivers into screws just to see what happens, anyways took out the bridge itself along with the screws from the bridge...and then i realized i didn't really know the original height the bridge was set up on ahhaa xD. Big whoops there but well it was set too low anyways, the strings did hit two frets on the at 1 to 4th fret. So spend the day tweaking around with the height while keeping the strings on, cos lets face it, if it was too high it would be really hard to play on the higher frets.

Eventually i figured i didn't exactly use the thinner string's first few frets anyways, and the higher frets for the thicker strings, so had the bridge set up in an angle accordingly, i recorded some of the crap that was coming out of the amp (yea well its too noisy to call music i figure) and well i could not register any fret buzz in there any longer from any string at any point after a couple of tweaks.

I am still sure the strings are higher up from the fretboard from before, that much im sure.

And about the noise, yea, apparently the bridge is kinda flimsy, its built like an old day gibson tune o matic bridge, and in the case of mine the holding wire seems to have rusted, very irritating. Read up google, would give u a better idea of what i am talking about.

Anyways due to the wobbly nature of the pivots and such i think it reduces the sustain of my instrument even if it didn't contribute to the noise.

Also the new strings i attached were giving me a hard time as well, as they were fresh they made quite a bigger sound, now this is nice in a way, less effort to make more sound, now problem with this way of thinking is also that it produces more noise too, sigh. I hate this amp more than my old acoustic. At least it made a sound its supposed to >.>.

Oh and a note to all of u other guitar players. try not to set the neck or bridge pickup too low, that somehow makes more noise too, fancy that eh?

So right now i am almost wishing i didn't restring my guitar, i feels like a diff instrument almost. The thicker strings are a bit harder to play on, but more importantly they have this sticky nature and my fingers had a lil trouble sliding around on them, thats very annoying as i like to slide and bend a lot in my playing. Oh well cud always play the heck out of it and wear out the strings so it would be good like the old ones :P.

Oh and got me two new picks just for the heck of it yea, dunlop delrin 0.4 and a dunlop tortex 0.88. I kinda love the pink delrin, its the thinnest and easiest pick ive used ever. It lets me play more effortlessly as i have to worry less about my right hand movements as the pick changes shape when i attack a string too hard or when i try to slide the pick from string to string yea. No need for wrist and finger twitches when transitioning string to string almost.

Said all that i still use the other picks, they still have a faster response and well a thicker tone i think, might just be my imagination because it feels like i actually picked a string properly with the other stiff picks i own.

The last matter of the day, gig bag and guitar strap, not much to say about the gig bag really, its just a bag to fit a guitar in :P. As for the strap, ah, now i understand why all guitarists play worse one stage compared to studio, its frikking hard to play with the strap on O_O. Maybe im doing it all wrong but right now i feel i have to wrap my wrist and fingers all around the neck to reach the fretboard O_O. Like i suddenly lost 75% of playing skill when i stand up to play ._. . Well its interesting in a way, gonna be fun learning guitar all over again just to play standing hahha xD

I spose thats all thats to say for now, gonna be jamming with another friend like tomorrow maybe. And this time we are gonna jam to some actual metal yea x]. The songs we agreed to practice on are into battle (my fav metal song of all time and half the reason i want to play guitar is just to play that one song ) and dread and the fugitive mind too.

Now i have tried to play dread and the fugitive mind before. I gave up trying to play that one song cos the beginning riff..... well...i don't really understand how whats in the tabs translate to what im hearing in the song at all. Oh well he knows how to play it, he can teach me, my problem solved then :D.

Jamming

So i went last friday to my teachers place, and we jammed, well that was the first jam ive ever done, was horrible at improvisition but hey, it was fun, it was the closest thing ive felt so far to playing in a band. Its a lil bit more demanding compared to solo playing as u have to sync to the other player as well.

Maybe this week id be going too, who knows anyways back to practice bye for now.

Gear limitations and pain again

So now that ive begun playing guitar a bit more thoroughly again as time has finally slowed down for me a bit. And yet again my fingers have started shedding, literally. My middle finger now has three layers of skin ripped off from the tip, and well all four hurt a lot yet again. Its not even half as bad as when i started, back then i had to stop playing to relieve pain. Now i cud simply go through it mm. Another thing the muscles at the back of my hard are really stressed as i have moved on to sequences that makes me stretch my fingers over the fretboard. But ive been told that with regular basic practice the muscles wud get stronger just like body building in gym makes one stronger mm.

Besides this i realize my distortion really is a limitation now besides being a sore to my ears. Now to do some arpeggios and such i need to be able to do pull off and hammer ons, both are finger tapping techniques, no picking to make the sound. Now the problem is in a clean setting u cannot hear the tapping sounds unless u bash the guitar or something :P. And with distortion when i do play the arpeggio as fast as i shud it just makes noise, no im not playing badly, i noticed even when i play one single note its half sound and half noise. So at high speed all i am hearing is noise. I am into metal and other extreme stuff but even i dont like ear splitting noise, this is utterly impossible without better gear, sigh, oh well better get back to practice. There are always stuff i can practice with just the clean setting anyways

Tone is what matters

So ive got the hang of the major scale and was just doodling around on the drive setting of the amp. Well i only had 5 knobs to work with really, including the volume and tone knob of my guitar yea. Anyways after a lil tweakin with the bass and treble i managed to get a pretty cool roar for a rhythm distortion, it sounded so great i was intending to learn a good rhythm guitar song just to play ha! But today i woke and played it just didnt seem good at all, like there was something missing, went and tweaked a bit and again aha! i laike... i get the feeling im gonna end up being a tone nut, gonna be fun looking back at this post after i buy hundreds of dollars worth of effects pedals and amps in search of that sound that is perfect. Hey im no yngwie malmsteen, he knew what he wanted. Me? im not so sure what im looking for right now, gonna be a lot of trial and error and got it right and wake up the next day and hate it moments in the near future O_O.

Besides that still learning the basic theory of music, and sometimes the note sequences i have to play are a bit tricky as i have to spread my fingers across the board and also slide down to the lower string without losing the beat yes, im glad i did a lot of basic finger exercises on the acoustic guitar before this. If i cud advice any newbie guitarist even now, it wud be to practice only basic sequences and chords so ur arms and fingers and even ur mind get the hang of the instrument, after a couple of months of that ud realize u can play any song you want with minimal time spent on the learning.

Finally an amp

So i got my first amp yesterday, spent the whole day tweaking it to remove the noise and fuzz, (it was a used amp, got it off some dude who was selling it). Now its fine really. Its the Yamaha GA-10.You wud get the amp as part of the yamaha guitar starter kit that comes with a guitar and tuner and other essential gear needed for someone starting out yea.

As for its performance, the clean setting sounds like its an old radio :P, the drive is kind of like a classical rock instrument, not much settings available just treble, bass and volume so hard to adjust the overdriven tone. It kinda sucks actually as the drive mode is kinda noisy and irritating to the ears, and me personally am not used to the sensitivity of the drive so i kinda add to it with my bad playing haha.

So yea since yesterday i have started playing electric guitar for real. Its freaking awesome yea though the amp utterly fails, its enough for me to know what im playing so its fine for now. Had to reduce my picking force drastically and smoothen out my note rhythm and finger co ordination to stop any noise occurring or a wrong note (yea with the acoustic i was used to really thick and stiff strings so now these electric guitar strings bend way too easy in my hands and produce the wrong note).

But after a couple of tries i was able to get it right and today its fine really. Im still a bit rough but hey just a couple hours into playin the instrument right? :P

And a friend of mine is teaching me musical theory from scratch, it would seem i missed a few essentials while playing acoustic as i was too into covering songs back then. So yea yesterday learned the notes in western music, and the major scale. Ill get specific with the major scale on another post, its all in paper for now hah xD.

Anyways with just the major scale the fretboard makes a lot of sense to me, i sing so im not a total musical idiot. Now i can finally make the guitar play what i want rather than guessing some random notes hehe. Will get into the details in another post, right now im just anxious to get back to practice, thats all for now

A most fortunate coincidence

So today i was checking out Michael Amott's (arch enemy lead guitarist, the one with the cool V shape guitar) signature instrument on the Dean guitars site. Was looking at the specs and i realised his guitar has the exact same specs as my instrument besides him having an ebony fretboard while i have rosewood.

But not the point! besides that its the same damn thing! D:, mahogany body and neck, set neck joint and same string thru body bridge D: . It was no small wonder then that my guitar had a very thick, heavy crushing tone when plugged into a marshal amp, and that was without any effects pedals or anything O_O.

And for all of u geniuses....in electric guitars the shape of the instrument does not affect the sound whatsoever, what counts is perhaps the weight (as in size) as that affects sustain.

This is quite an unexpected coincidence...as soon as i get my recording gear ima post a hell lot of arch enemy songs then XD.

Feel like getting a guitar similar to Chris Amott's instrument ( he was the one holding the fancy tail guitar) for my lil brother sometime :P. See its funny becos mike and chris are brothers too :)

I just picked my guitar when i did becos that was the only instrument i found in maldives that was made with mahogany wood, the rest of the crappy unbranded stuff im not even sure what kinda plywood it was made from. And also becos it was a string thru body so restringing the instrument would be a piece of cake, and ofcos changing tunings. That would be very convenient for a beginner like myself.

But as of now i am still stuck without any sort of amplification, yes they open new music stores and have grand openings and crap, hell they bring drum kits, violins,trumpets,hell the place was full of new guitars (not one of them as nice as my one though *smug*) and concert sized amps and they forget to stock up MINI PRACTICE AMPS! this is quit infuriating, i cannot state my anger in words so i will go back to blowing the house down with some speed metal.

Thats it for now.

The purpose of the blog

I kinda aimed this blog to be a reference to myself and as a journal of sorts yea. Not really meant to be read by anyone besides myself. But i noticed i dont really write any tabs here anyways, i have a book for that as looking at a piece of paper on my lap is a lot easier than staring at the computer screen while playing.

Not to mention when i write tabs i sort of draw it...weird markings and stuff to indicate stroke movements and stuff mm.

Another thing i kinda slipped that i do have a blog (yes this is big news since i make fun of other ppl's rather emotional blabbering kinda blogs thats got more stuff about other ppl than themselves :P ). And now ppl wanted to see it. And i thought okay its unfair if the ppl who ask alone gets to see it. So now im planning to have a grand opening or something. Dump a lot of cover vids and improve the look of the blog in general.

And gonna edit the existing posts and make em look like im not talking to myself and such ahah xD

Hey if jin is gonna have a public blog it shall at least be appealing to the said public :D. So here goes nothing mm. Gonna have this blog open as soon as a couple of vids are up :D

random stuff that i didnt wanna include in the new guitar post

So besides that headlining moment of owning an electric... arch enemy show is today....the first ever internationally renowned band to play in the maldives....they call it rockstorm but i might as well just call it the arch enemy blowing out maldives metal scene :D

One of my most favourite bands, love their vocalist, she sings so damn well. michael and chris amott are one of my biggest inspirations as guitarists and for their twin guitar harmonics.

Other news im fixing up my acoustic, apparently strings on guitars are to be replaced every two weeks if u play with em for 4 hours a day or more. i had my SIT strings on them for like 3 months or more...no wonder it made a more dreadful noise as days went by. the last time i played it the tone was so messed up i cudnt cover songs at all, it just sounded like twangs and thunks...and it was extremely hard to pick the strings later on too, i didnt really notice as im still really new to this yea so i just assumed i was picking wrong and adjusted accordingly, only after i played kinki i realized just how much of a pain it was...kinki was effortless like floating in the air compared to the gravely mud shifting that was the acoustic picking.

So i removed the strings and gonna put nylon ones. let my sis practice on em yea. and they wud last longer too mm, i dont plan on throwing it, hey, its my first guitar yea. Gonna replace the bridge as a whole as the strings seems to have ripped the plastic apart, the holes are torn up completely and thus the tension and tone have suffered.

My First Electric D: D: D:

Yep, I finally own an electric, and shes a beaut :D. Bought it three days ago arnd 10 am.

http://www.spearguitar.com/product/pro_1/T-p/t-200.asp

I got it from the same place as my acoustic oddly enough, I forgot where they were for a while too. Place is called Music World

Anyways was gonna go on that eurotour but due to some government blah blah we were not able to make it...long story there and not really the point.

So i used some of the dough i saved up for the trip to get this one. that was my plan anyways go abroad and bring home a guitar.

But this baby kinda exceeded all my expectations and im almost glad i didnt go on the trip, forget missing the arch enemy show today.

The entire instrument is mahogany with a set neck joint.....the sound...omg the sound...its perfect even with stock pickups...i wanted to buy the test marshall amp they had at the shop and just go home and die of happiness D:

Alas the amp was not for sale ,only one they had left and too big anyways...and speaking of amps, i still dont own one cos Mal'e ran out of em...the only left are in Island Music but those amps are kinda full sized(the huge speakers u see on concerts)...so overkill for me.

Now im just waiting for more amps to arrive and as they claimed by 26 th. Its a crying shame there are only three music shops arnd. And they all had to run out of small sized amps. For lords sake thats the highest product in demand!

Well ill just wait then....i got my guitar, it was better than anything i hoped to buy abroad even, to get a full mahogany guitar at the price I paid its a total steal :D

I called it kinki (cos its made in korea and there is this korean popstar called jinki...see how that relates to me? :P ). And it was just for the fun of it but ppl kinda liked it and even call me that now so now its official, my first guitar is named Kinki :D

pick durability

hmm i noticed when i play rather fast alternate picking pieces my picks edge seems to wear off, this is not something the tortex did, well it has rounded edges so that wud be the case yes, so that wud be a problem with the gator grips i guess? oh well doesnt matter, its still the best for me so far

anyways nothing much to really post here since im too busy with game practice, so all im doing with guitar is doing the exercises every day to keep sharp

two more picks :D, got crocs on em ahah xD

yea got two more picks today, dunlop gator grip .71 and .96, i found that the tortex was too thick and stiff and got these two, they both have sharp-ish edges and make a cleaner sound due to that with a bit more edge

.71 is great for chords and any of that type, .96 is a perfect replacement for my old tortex as its great for the high speed playing and the like.

i cant really decide which of em i want to use since they both are good for different things, (.71 is better for notes at the top of the board and .96 is better for the notes at the end) though i feel ive found a good successor to the tortex

though tortex is good in its own way as it makes this really smooth sound cos of the round edges, and makes a heavier sound since its the thickest.

But lets face it, the gator grips have a louder sharper sound, its easier to play with em due to less resistance and somehow the notes pick out better when playing at the 10 to 18 frets.

oh well i think i have found nearly the perfect pick for me, but id wanna test some more, who knows there might be one even better suited to me ^_^

A proper online tuner

I found a proper online guitar for once

http://www.seventhstring.com/tuner/tuner.html

Its different cos it uses any microphone attached to your system, be it a webcam mike even in my case, listens to your guitar and determines what tuning its on right now, very very useful for the ppl among us that cant tune a guitar just by hearing another guitar sound, that requires a good deal of practice and ofcos doesnt give an accurate tuning.

To make the best of the tuner one i believe its good to know what the tuning's frequency is...for me thats the easier way to fine tune, wikipedia has a nifty page for all guitar tunings and types and its frequencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_tuning

Well then, this wud be the last time i have to wait to borrow my friend's tuners :P, life just got a hell load easier, thats it for now, back to practice XD

Found my old pick!

YAY i found my old peavy pick, well now that i found it, i compared it with my dunlop one, and well the dunlop is thinner and harder....and even more purple too O_O, so there.. kinda weird but now my main pick is gonna be the tortex, maybe its good that i lost it in the first place hehe.

Nothing much else to post about really, just practicing as usual and in the process of acquiring an electric guitar

Thats it for now, laters

My Acoustic sux

If anyone of u think that guitar brand in mal'e called SoulCallback (okay that was what was on the head ) is any good u can forget it, my ones neck is bending forward!! and the body itself is warping as well, its not like i tuned it to a drop tuning or anythin, its just made from bad wood and even if its a lil better than some other brands this guitar is only good as a temporary one.

Ive said it once, ill say it again, i cant wait to get my hands on an electric! and speaking of that my friend cudnt bring me an effects pedal, well so much for not not needing an amp then...

dunno what im talking about? see this pedal then

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/g1u/index.php

Yea with that i can record directly to my comp, i can apply any effects i want, hell i wont need a big ass amp to get the sound i want... oh well, he cudnt bring it, so ill order it, aint playing any guitar without that lil guy ^_^

Thats it for now i suppose, im gonna go abuse my acoustic a bit more, did u know if u press and pick and then while the sound comes if u press even harder it makes a wah wah kinda sound? yea if u apply enuf force that is....i kinda like the sound and i hate this guitar, more the reason to do it jeah! xD

Its a great feeling

It feels kinda awesome to be good enuf to play songs without actually looking or paying much attention to it and just let ur fingers do the work, now i can actually listen to what im playing....... and it feels pretty sweet, bet being at a pro level wud be even more rewarding xD

another pick! >.>

How irritating, i lost my purple peavy now o.o. Well i got a new one instead of waiting arnd, me new pick is a Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm, and its purple too and got a turtle drawn on it....

It feels the same as the peavy to the touch, but its a lot harder and rigid..and well this is the hardest pick to use thus far, but makes the most pleasing sound actually :D, im not a fan of ringy sorta notes when i pick, and this pick gives out a rather solid sound, but i get tired a lot faster practicing with it anyways due to the higher resistence..no resistance aint the right word, this pick doesnt even budge when i chug on the low E string O.O, and to think this is one of the thinner picks available in the Tortex range....

Many a pro player uses Dunlop, and they have a point, they make good picks ^_^.

Other notes, i took out the yellowish plastic bit that the strings rest on at the bridge, and smoothened it out with sand paper...the strings were kinda diggin into the material and were stuck in grooves which reduced the harmonics in my opinion, cos right now they are really ringing xD.

I actually smoothened it out in hopes of lowering the height of the string from the fret board, i know how acoustics are meant to have the strings abt a centimetre abt the fretboard but its kinda annoying to play then, and well, though i shaved off a few milimetres off the plastic piece it wasnt a noticeble difference to the pitch, oh well, who cares, the guitar sounds better now, so floats my boat.Guess thats enuf said for now.

buckethead will always be buckethead

Has any of u heard of a guitar player called buckethead? well if u havent go read it on wikipedia and listen to one of his songs already, awesome player thats for sure, even made it to ozzy ozborne, rather surprising what happened there, this is so hilarious i just had to post it in the blog xD

Source : http://www.digitalburn.org/the-complete-list-of-bucketheads-guitar-gear/

Here's an interesting piece of Buckethead trivia. Ozzy Osbourne has gone on record (in Revolver) saying that he'd offered Buckethead the chance to play guitar in his band at Ozzfest. The offer fell through after Buckethead refused to go onstage without his costume. Here are some choice quotes from Ozzy (for more on this visitroadrunnerrecords.com):

"I tried out that Buckethead guy. I met with him and asked him to work with me but only if he got rid of the f**king bucket. So I came back a bit later and he's wearing this green f**king Martian's-hat thing! I said, 'Look, just be yourself'. He told me his name was Brian, so I said that's what I'd call him. He says, 'No one calls me Brian except my mother'. So I said, 'Pretend I'm your mum then!'. I haven't even got out of the room and I'm already playing f**king mind games with the guy. What happens if one day he's gone and there's a note saying, 'I've been beamed up'? Don't get me wrong, he's a great player. He plays like a motherf**ker!"

The step after learning to breath

Ah due to a trouble with my net i have not been able to post for a while now, well now its upgraded and far better than ever before.. so time for a summary of whats been up guitar side for me

The first thing wud be, i got a new pick a while before. a purple peavy pick. kay, just had to crack dat one, its 1.4 mm thick and rather rigid. It feels so so much better than the ernie ball one i had lost before, i found it under my bed recently and well, comparing the two ernie ball seems better for the acoustic, but for picking notes in general even my new one is better, so yea, very pleased with the purple peavy ( xD ).

Second thing, my high e string broke, so i got it replaced with a set of SIT strings from island music, the thicker set mind u, and the new ones are far more flexible, smoother and make a way better sound in general. a huge upgrade to my playing in general really.

My playing ability has improved quite a bit, say two months ago me wud be a fire cracker next to a ton of C4 explosives now, i cud play nearly any rhythme part of songs and yea...it feels good, finally got the hang of my instrument and feels comfortable and rather pleasant to play now.

So this is the step after getting the basics such as being able to hit a note and pick a string. How can i say this? to go to level three....i just need a lotta solid practice. so these past days been just practicing exercises and chords and such...it doesnt seem boring even a little now, the hard part seems over, and now im just waiting to get my hands on my electric....thats when it wud get really fun xD, so looking forward to dat. guess thats all there is to say for now.