If the title hasn't already given it away, I've spent this week watching anime and cartoons. I have done other things, for instance I had band practice earlier, I have been playing a hell of a lot of guitar, and I have been drooling over Killing Floor 2. Weirdly, I have even done a bit of gaming this week, I've played about 10 matches of League of Legends, did a few levels on Serious Sam 3, and I pushed my monk through Westfall in World of Warcraft.
This week has mainly been about the cartoon/anime watching for me though. I was coming up on the end of Bleach (I had about 40 episodes left) and so I decided to power through that. Once that was completed, the season finale of Archer was available, so I watched that. After that I was stuck, but then I remembered an advert for a cartoon I saw on Disney Channel while I was at my mates on Monday.
That cartoon is called Star versus the Forces of Evil, and I for one think it is incredible. so far there are only three episodes, each is split into two mini episodes. I plowed through the three episodes in one sitting, and now I stare at the recent releases section of my preferred website waiting for the next episode(s) to be uploaded.
Since I could watch Star, I decided it was time to embrace my masculinity and watch Dragon Ball Z. It was actually a hard choice to make, a large portion of me said to watch Sailor Moon, which I had started in August, but I then stopped for some reason. I really don't know why I stopped, I was loving Sailor Moon. Finally to top off my cartoon watching, the season premiere of My Little Pony was uploaded last night, and so I watched that while I ate my breakfast this morning. I loved it.
As I also mentioned, I have been playing a lot of guitar this week. It's nothing new, but I thought I'd mention it because it wasn't until band practice earlier that I actually properly started playing anything close to metal. I've had a week of clean guitar and finger picking, only occasionally flicking to the bridge pickup and adding a bit of crunch, but those crunch moments didn't last long, it was usually for a quick lick or riff to just break up the strangeness of my clean guitar playing.
I've also declared it restringing time, but only for my three main axes. So far I've only ordered strings for one of my guitars, I'll have to take some of my wages out of my vault and put them in the bank before I order my next set just so I can continue to have an acceptable amount of funds in my account. I would have ordered the other strings with the set I ordered for my 8-string guitar, but I've only just decided what strings I'm getting for what guitar, and I'm still not sure whether or not to go with it, chances are I'll change my mind last minute.
I've also decided I should get an acoustic guitar, but I won't get one. at least not for awhile. It's time to buy an amp head, and that is more important to me right now. However, I will be buying an acoustic guitar at some point. Correction: three acoustic guitars. as it stands I want to own a 6 and a 12 string western guitar as well as a classical guitar. I won't be buying any that are too flashy, but they'll still be good, as long as I hand Nathan the money and get him to order them, he has more luck than I do.
As I said, the amp head is my next step, after that it'll most probably be a new bridge pick-up for my 8-string. Another 8-string would be nice, but I'm trying to be realistic. If I'm lucky and my repair idea works, I may not buy a new pick-up and simple try to sort out a pedal board for myself, I have some of the parts I want, such as the power supply and a delay pedal, I could probably also borrow Nathan's drive pedal for gigs since he won't need it then. Unfortunately, I'm still short on a few things, namely a chorus, a pedal tuner and some form of octaver or pitch shifter, which ever gets the sound I want.
I'm happy, at least I'm mostly happy. Nathan has ordered a mic, a stand, I believe he's also ordered a lead for it, and thankfully we already have an amp for it. I should be able to gig with my amp, but I'd feel much safer with a new amp head which can be easily transported, and isn't likely to explode on me. I have been warned by my brother that my current amp will probably do just that if I crank it up too much.
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Sunday, 5 April 2015
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Slow and Shreddy Wins the Race
Since it has been half term I have spent the majority of my time playing guitar and watching Bleach, and I have just finished watching the Dorje livestream on Youtube, So I this post has been a little delayed, but while I wait for the Centered and One pre-order page to load I thought I'd quickly get my post in.
I think in this one week I've made a great improvement in my guitar playing, I say that mostly because I've learned quite a lot of new things, such as modes and two handed tapping. I've had quite a nice amount of fun using two handed tapping, and I've been enjoying the Phrygian and Locrian scales, I have also learned the Dorian, Lydian and Mixolydyian modes, I already knew the Aeolian and Ionian modes, but I didn't know those names for them.
I find there is a great satisfaction in learning new things, especially when it has something to do with what you love, and what I love is heavy metal. Don't get me wrong, I don't cast an artist aside just because they aren't a metal band, I am quite partial to blues, prog and even classical music, but my preference is metal. When asked what kind of metal is my preference I usually say extreme metal, because I love the four sub-genres it covers, and it makes the decision easier.
Unfortunately my playing has one major problem, which I presume time and practice with help me overcome, everything sounds samey, on top of that, the Black Sabbath influences are very prominent in what I write, so I could really do with breaking free of this, and adding a bit more variation into my playing. I doubt I'll ever be anywhere near as versatile as Guthrie Govan, but I don't want to be limited as a metal guitarist.
I have got one thing that makes me quite versatile, I've got a guitar designed for country and blues and yet I can get some incredible metal sounds out of it also, and I have both channels nicely set up to give me a different sound, the clean channel is slightly driven which gives me a nice sound somewhere between Rush and Joe Bonamassa. My crunch channel gives me an excellent metal tone perfect for pretty much every sub genre of metal, it doesn't work so well for hair metal though.
It helps that the Marshall Valvestate 80 combo I use isn't really a specialised amp, I wouldn't call it one anyway. I can get many sounds out of it, for many different genres, I just have to set it up right. I'd like to upgrade my amp, preferably into a separate head and a cab, The head I'd like to own is the Laney Iron Heart IRT60H, and I'd get a matching 412 cab. I've been looking through a lot of amps, and so far that has been my favourite.
As for guitars, my current primary guitar is a Dearmond M-75T, it's an incredible instrument, but it has one major problem: the last seven frets are hard to reach. This is because the singlecut design is very chunky, and also very heavy, and so guitar solos that take place past the fifteenth fret become very difficult.
This means a change in guitar is necessary, the easiest solution would be to use the ESP that I own, but I don't like it enough, it's an incredible instrument (despite the awkward bridge, which I'm starting to like a little bit more), but it doesn't fit as well in my hands as my Dearmond, my current thoughts are to buy a Chapman ML-2 and then customise that to get a tone worthy of me, but then I'd just end up with an over the top metal axe that I probably won't be able to use anywhere but my bedroom.
Either way it's a long road for a budding guitarist like myself, but if I'm lucky I might be able to make it as one within the armed forces. As they say, slow and steady wins the race.
I think in this one week I've made a great improvement in my guitar playing, I say that mostly because I've learned quite a lot of new things, such as modes and two handed tapping. I've had quite a nice amount of fun using two handed tapping, and I've been enjoying the Phrygian and Locrian scales, I have also learned the Dorian, Lydian and Mixolydyian modes, I already knew the Aeolian and Ionian modes, but I didn't know those names for them.
I find there is a great satisfaction in learning new things, especially when it has something to do with what you love, and what I love is heavy metal. Don't get me wrong, I don't cast an artist aside just because they aren't a metal band, I am quite partial to blues, prog and even classical music, but my preference is metal. When asked what kind of metal is my preference I usually say extreme metal, because I love the four sub-genres it covers, and it makes the decision easier.
Unfortunately my playing has one major problem, which I presume time and practice with help me overcome, everything sounds samey, on top of that, the Black Sabbath influences are very prominent in what I write, so I could really do with breaking free of this, and adding a bit more variation into my playing. I doubt I'll ever be anywhere near as versatile as Guthrie Govan, but I don't want to be limited as a metal guitarist.
I have got one thing that makes me quite versatile, I've got a guitar designed for country and blues and yet I can get some incredible metal sounds out of it also, and I have both channels nicely set up to give me a different sound, the clean channel is slightly driven which gives me a nice sound somewhere between Rush and Joe Bonamassa. My crunch channel gives me an excellent metal tone perfect for pretty much every sub genre of metal, it doesn't work so well for hair metal though.
It helps that the Marshall Valvestate 80 combo I use isn't really a specialised amp, I wouldn't call it one anyway. I can get many sounds out of it, for many different genres, I just have to set it up right. I'd like to upgrade my amp, preferably into a separate head and a cab, The head I'd like to own is the Laney Iron Heart IRT60H, and I'd get a matching 412 cab. I've been looking through a lot of amps, and so far that has been my favourite.
As for guitars, my current primary guitar is a Dearmond M-75T, it's an incredible instrument, but it has one major problem: the last seven frets are hard to reach. This is because the singlecut design is very chunky, and also very heavy, and so guitar solos that take place past the fifteenth fret become very difficult.
This means a change in guitar is necessary, the easiest solution would be to use the ESP that I own, but I don't like it enough, it's an incredible instrument (despite the awkward bridge, which I'm starting to like a little bit more), but it doesn't fit as well in my hands as my Dearmond, my current thoughts are to buy a Chapman ML-2 and then customise that to get a tone worthy of me, but then I'd just end up with an over the top metal axe that I probably won't be able to use anywhere but my bedroom.
Either way it's a long road for a budding guitarist like myself, but if I'm lucky I might be able to make it as one within the armed forces. As they say, slow and steady wins the race.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Random Annoyances
As I might have mentioned in my last post, I had my army interview this week, I believe it went quite well, but I can't be bothered to talk about that again, I went through it in my Bronies UK post. I also went through my Valentines Day in that post, and so I won't be talking about that either. I also had my nineteenth birthday on Monday, which went by pretty much unnoticed, I'm not complaining, I hate the fuss and attention that birthdays usually bring.
So surely something worth talking about happened during the week, and in fact something did. A prime example of which is I realised just how much I dislike Floyd Rose floating tremolo bridges. I'm going to point out now that it's not because they are bad in any way, I actually think they're quite clever, and they hold their tuning extremely well. I do however believe that setting them up, and dealing with them is more effort than it's worth.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with that system, in order to change the tuning on your guitar you can't just play around with the tuning heads. Instead you have to undo the locking nut, providing you have one, which most guitars loaded with this system do, then you can play with the tuning heads until you get to whatever tuning you desire, after that you have to undo the back plate, and then you have to adjust the tremolo springs until the bridge is flat (for lack of a more accurate term), repeat those steps as long as necessary, reattach the back plate, redo the locking nut, and then you can finally fine tune.
Doing that was far too much effort when all I wanted to do was set it for C# standard (1 1/2 step down). I also gave it a restring so thankfully the locks on the nut were already removed, but in order to restring you need to cut the bullets off the end off your strings, unscrew a small block from the bridge, insert the string into where you pulled the block from, replace the block and tighten the screw. I'll give it one thing, at least I don't have to hold the string in place at both ends like I do with the Bigsby on my primary guitar, but it's still too much of a pain for my taste.
I shouldn't really complain about it too much though, I've been given a damn good guitar, and so it's worth maintaining, it needed a cleaning, and it also needed a pick-up ring replacing. I might as well change the strings while I'm at it, and if I wasn't awkward, and I was willing to use .010 - .046 gauge strings and keep it in standard tuning, a nice portion of the setup could have been avoided.
I was also nicely annoyed when my precious .011 gauge D'addario string snapped whilst retuning my primary guitar, to make matters worse, I only had a .010 gauge Rotosound string to replace it with, a .010 gauge E string sounds weird when it's attached to a set designed for an .011 gauge E string.
Another annoyance of the week, I was able to start working on that Vintage Metal Axxe bass yesterday, everything had finally arrived. There were two problems, one of which has been solved. the one that has been solved involved one of the screws holding the P-style pick-up in place. It was worn down to the point that a screwdriver would do anything. I sat there for what felt like an eternity with a dull saw (all I could find) turning the once-cross-headed screw into a flat-headed screw. It worked in the end, but I wasn't happy about the whole ordeal. The other problem has put me at a bit of a standstill, the pots I had ordered were too small, so now I need to order some long shafted pots.
I have also been annoyed by things that don't involve guitars. Mostly a few of the things that occurred to me this morning while delivering papers, and the happy memories that keep popping into my head. Yes, happy memories annoy me, this is because of the nature of those happy memories. I'd rather not go into the nature of those memories, but my realisation this morning that the biggest mistake I have made in my life as of yet was going to Sixth Form.
I don't now where I'd be without Sixth Form, But I still firmly believe that that was my biggest mistake, and I reckon it'll be awhile before I make a bigger one. I might be wrong about that, but I don't fancy making another huge mistake any time soon. So those of you year 11 students thinking about staying on for Sixth Form, I'd strongly advise against it, go to a college instead.
So surely something worth talking about happened during the week, and in fact something did. A prime example of which is I realised just how much I dislike Floyd Rose floating tremolo bridges. I'm going to point out now that it's not because they are bad in any way, I actually think they're quite clever, and they hold their tuning extremely well. I do however believe that setting them up, and dealing with them is more effort than it's worth.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with that system, in order to change the tuning on your guitar you can't just play around with the tuning heads. Instead you have to undo the locking nut, providing you have one, which most guitars loaded with this system do, then you can play with the tuning heads until you get to whatever tuning you desire, after that you have to undo the back plate, and then you have to adjust the tremolo springs until the bridge is flat (for lack of a more accurate term), repeat those steps as long as necessary, reattach the back plate, redo the locking nut, and then you can finally fine tune.
Doing that was far too much effort when all I wanted to do was set it for C# standard (1 1/2 step down). I also gave it a restring so thankfully the locks on the nut were already removed, but in order to restring you need to cut the bullets off the end off your strings, unscrew a small block from the bridge, insert the string into where you pulled the block from, replace the block and tighten the screw. I'll give it one thing, at least I don't have to hold the string in place at both ends like I do with the Bigsby on my primary guitar, but it's still too much of a pain for my taste.
I shouldn't really complain about it too much though, I've been given a damn good guitar, and so it's worth maintaining, it needed a cleaning, and it also needed a pick-up ring replacing. I might as well change the strings while I'm at it, and if I wasn't awkward, and I was willing to use .010 - .046 gauge strings and keep it in standard tuning, a nice portion of the setup could have been avoided.
I was also nicely annoyed when my precious .011 gauge D'addario string snapped whilst retuning my primary guitar, to make matters worse, I only had a .010 gauge Rotosound string to replace it with, a .010 gauge E string sounds weird when it's attached to a set designed for an .011 gauge E string.
Another annoyance of the week, I was able to start working on that Vintage Metal Axxe bass yesterday, everything had finally arrived. There were two problems, one of which has been solved. the one that has been solved involved one of the screws holding the P-style pick-up in place. It was worn down to the point that a screwdriver would do anything. I sat there for what felt like an eternity with a dull saw (all I could find) turning the once-cross-headed screw into a flat-headed screw. It worked in the end, but I wasn't happy about the whole ordeal. The other problem has put me at a bit of a standstill, the pots I had ordered were too small, so now I need to order some long shafted pots.
I have also been annoyed by things that don't involve guitars. Mostly a few of the things that occurred to me this morning while delivering papers, and the happy memories that keep popping into my head. Yes, happy memories annoy me, this is because of the nature of those happy memories. I'd rather not go into the nature of those memories, but my realisation this morning that the biggest mistake I have made in my life as of yet was going to Sixth Form.
I don't now where I'd be without Sixth Form, But I still firmly believe that that was my biggest mistake, and I reckon it'll be awhile before I make a bigger one. I might be wrong about that, but I don't fancy making another huge mistake any time soon. So those of you year 11 students thinking about staying on for Sixth Form, I'd strongly advise against it, go to a college instead.
Sunday, 8 February 2015
Another Rally: Frozen Nuts! (And also some other stuff)
In case the title didn't give it I went on another bike rally, and I have just finished sewing the patch onto my cut-off. The Frozen Nuts patch was one of the three rally patches I wanted, meaning I now have the Another Piggin' Rally patch and the Frozen Nuts patch, the third patch of the three is for the Last Wolf Rally which I'll hopefully be going to this year.
Patches and rallies aside, for the time being t least, I have also been up to quite a bit this week. To be perfectly honest, this week didn't have the best of starts, self-doubt kicked in, and I spent the first half of the week thinking I'd get nowhere in life. Thankfully that disappeared on Wednesday, and the week could return to normality, which was good, especially since I had the first part of my army interview on Friday.
Thankfully it wasn't the real deal, it was a pre-interview in order to sort out my three job choices, since there is only a slim chance of me getting my first choice, I need to have back-up options. I'd also like to point out that I don't exaggerate when I say slim chance, in-fact I think a slim chance would be bigger than the chance I have. I say this because I plan to be a musician in the army, and I plan on entering as a bassist (but I will happily go for guitarist if need be). with there only being three army bands that require a bass guitarist, and each band will only need one bassist, there are only three potential jobs for me, that could be boosted up to nine by adding six guitarist slots (two for each contemporary band), but there are jazz bands which I might be able to slot myself into.
I now have two back-up jobs, I had to change at least one of my original jobs because the staff sergeant interviewing me, didn't want to send me into one of those job choices. This meant he gave me a nice big pile of job briefs to take home, sift through, select three jobs from and rank them in order of preference. The end result (in order of preference) was Musician, Combat Medical Technician and Military Policeman.
Army aside, the day before I restrung my bass. I used the thicker four strings of a five-string set (leaving me with a spare G string), and after about twenty minutes of playing part of the nut shot off making a satisfying ping sound. I literally busted a nut. I made a few quick measurement and ordered a new nut from eBay, while I was measuring I noticed that there was enough nut left to raise the string, but not enough left to hold the string in place. I decided to use my engineering prowess and I wrapped duct tape around the strings to hold the thick B string on the remainder of the nut.
The duct tape idea works quite nicely, but I had to put a bit more tape on not long after taking the picture, because the B string only stayed in place for two minutes of playing, I now get fifteen minutes of playing before I have to adjust it. At least I now have another nut on the way to replace my current on. Hopefully my new nut will be stronger, I order a graphite one to replace the original plastic lump.
That bass has a few more problems with it, which should be fixed by the next post. as it stands it an active on-board pre-amp which has died. I don't really know much about electronics, but I do know that the wiring is a mess, and it makes no sense to me, or to Nathan, and so I have decided to remove all the wiring and the pre-amp, and replace everything. I'm even going to replace the pick-ups with the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-J set. This will leave me with a pot connected to nothing (I'll ground to that) and an empty hole where the battery should go which I'll fill with a block of lead hopefully adding enough weight to counteract the headstock heaviness of the stock bass. I will at some point also add a set of Schaller Strap Locks, and buy a decent strap.
I have also had a bit more misfortune with guitars this week, this time it was my primary guitar. I've had her tuned down a step-and-a-half for six days, and so when I decided to tune her back up to E standard the 0.011 gauge high E string snapped and struck me on the infected scab on my right middle finger. My finger hurt enough as it was, that string really didn't help. Thankfully the Rotosound set I bought awhile back for another guitar came with a spare 0.010 gauge string, which will suffice for now.
I have now also decided it was time to restring the guitar I got off my brother. I've been putting this off for awhile because the Floyd Rose Floating Tremolo bridge seemed like it would be a ball-ache to deal with, I've also decided to replace the busted pick-up ring holding the neck humbucker in place, I'd like to replace both pick-ups at some point, but I don't really want to do something that will annoy my brother since I don't fully consider the guitar mine. That guitar is now back in her box after a vigourous cleaning, and there she will remain until her new pick-up ring arrives.
Hopefully I can get both of those guitars finished and theoretically, I should be done working on my guitars until June, when my Epiphone and Harley Benton basses get restrung. That is, of course, unless I buy a rolling tune-o-matic bridge, which won't take long to fit.
Anyway, as some of you know, this weekend was the weekend of the 29th annual Frozen Nuts Rally! Naturally as soon as we arrived some woman with a very hoarse voice came up to us and gave us a tongue lashing for something that happened six hours prior to our arrival. One of the lads from the Greedy Pigs started a very loud argument at four in the morning and kept everyone awake for the next three hours while they all shouted and screamed at each other. If you were one of those unfortunates who were affected by their arguing, I have a very strong feeling that disciplinary action will take place at the next meeting, but since I'm not a member of the Greedy Pigs, I can't say anything with any certainty.
Other than the bad start, the rally was quite enjoyable, I was only there for the Saturday, and so I didn't get to the the Jalepenos perform, but I hear they were good. I did however see half of Disturbin' the Peace's performance. I say half because I went outside for a breather during there interval and all the booze, the cold and the fact I had been awake since six O'clock that morning all struck me at once. I just couldn't continue, and so I dragged myself to the tent and slowly drifted to sleep.
I may have missed the half naked sexy girls, I may have missed Disturbin' the Peace cover a Rush song, but I did witness the worst proposal ever, which naturally took place in the middle of a hen party. I then saw (about five minutes later) the newly engaged woman fall over on the dance floor, spilling booze all over the singers pedals and the monitor by his feet. I reached out to help her up, and she gave me a really dirty look.
The bride-to-be from the hen party also randomly gave me, and a few other confused looking dudes, a big hug, while someone followed her with a camera. As soon as she stepped away from me, Dion (Nathan's dad) walked up to me and said "You lucky git, I've been eyeing her up all night." I on the other hand was eyeing up another member of her party, that entire group were wearing corsets, and one of those corsets looked like it was about to pop, so I was eyeing up the owner of that corset.
At some point between the proposal and the band kicking in, the bride-to-be had a male stripper, I get the feeling that he was her soon-to-be husband, judging by everyone's reaction. He didn't do the full monty, but it was still funny as hell to watch. Shortly after that I went to get me and Nath a drink, and on the way back from the bar I congratulated the newly engaged lady, turns out she has a voice that can break glass, I don't know if that's normal or just because she was drunk and/or excited.
I am also aware that none of this post is in chronological order, but the rally has thrown everything out of perspective and so I don't actually know what order anything happened in, I just know within two hours of getting to the rally I had had four different beers in three different pubs, one of those beers was a can I had bought with me, which I drank by the fire.
Patches and rallies aside, for the time being t least, I have also been up to quite a bit this week. To be perfectly honest, this week didn't have the best of starts, self-doubt kicked in, and I spent the first half of the week thinking I'd get nowhere in life. Thankfully that disappeared on Wednesday, and the week could return to normality, which was good, especially since I had the first part of my army interview on Friday.
Thankfully it wasn't the real deal, it was a pre-interview in order to sort out my three job choices, since there is only a slim chance of me getting my first choice, I need to have back-up options. I'd also like to point out that I don't exaggerate when I say slim chance, in-fact I think a slim chance would be bigger than the chance I have. I say this because I plan to be a musician in the army, and I plan on entering as a bassist (but I will happily go for guitarist if need be). with there only being three army bands that require a bass guitarist, and each band will only need one bassist, there are only three potential jobs for me, that could be boosted up to nine by adding six guitarist slots (two for each contemporary band), but there are jazz bands which I might be able to slot myself into.
I now have two back-up jobs, I had to change at least one of my original jobs because the staff sergeant interviewing me, didn't want to send me into one of those job choices. This meant he gave me a nice big pile of job briefs to take home, sift through, select three jobs from and rank them in order of preference. The end result (in order of preference) was Musician, Combat Medical Technician and Military Policeman.Army aside, the day before I restrung my bass. I used the thicker four strings of a five-string set (leaving me with a spare G string), and after about twenty minutes of playing part of the nut shot off making a satisfying ping sound. I literally busted a nut. I made a few quick measurement and ordered a new nut from eBay, while I was measuring I noticed that there was enough nut left to raise the string, but not enough left to hold the string in place. I decided to use my engineering prowess and I wrapped duct tape around the strings to hold the thick B string on the remainder of the nut.
The duct tape idea works quite nicely, but I had to put a bit more tape on not long after taking the picture, because the B string only stayed in place for two minutes of playing, I now get fifteen minutes of playing before I have to adjust it. At least I now have another nut on the way to replace my current on. Hopefully my new nut will be stronger, I order a graphite one to replace the original plastic lump.
That bass has a few more problems with it, which should be fixed by the next post. as it stands it an active on-board pre-amp which has died. I don't really know much about electronics, but I do know that the wiring is a mess, and it makes no sense to me, or to Nathan, and so I have decided to remove all the wiring and the pre-amp, and replace everything. I'm even going to replace the pick-ups with the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-J set. This will leave me with a pot connected to nothing (I'll ground to that) and an empty hole where the battery should go which I'll fill with a block of lead hopefully adding enough weight to counteract the headstock heaviness of the stock bass. I will at some point also add a set of Schaller Strap Locks, and buy a decent strap.
I have also had a bit more misfortune with guitars this week, this time it was my primary guitar. I've had her tuned down a step-and-a-half for six days, and so when I decided to tune her back up to E standard the 0.011 gauge high E string snapped and struck me on the infected scab on my right middle finger. My finger hurt enough as it was, that string really didn't help. Thankfully the Rotosound set I bought awhile back for another guitar came with a spare 0.010 gauge string, which will suffice for now.
I have now also decided it was time to restring the guitar I got off my brother. I've been putting this off for awhile because the Floyd Rose Floating Tremolo bridge seemed like it would be a ball-ache to deal with, I've also decided to replace the busted pick-up ring holding the neck humbucker in place, I'd like to replace both pick-ups at some point, but I don't really want to do something that will annoy my brother since I don't fully consider the guitar mine. That guitar is now back in her box after a vigourous cleaning, and there she will remain until her new pick-up ring arrives.
Hopefully I can get both of those guitars finished and theoretically, I should be done working on my guitars until June, when my Epiphone and Harley Benton basses get restrung. That is, of course, unless I buy a rolling tune-o-matic bridge, which won't take long to fit.
Anyway, as some of you know, this weekend was the weekend of the 29th annual Frozen Nuts Rally! Naturally as soon as we arrived some woman with a very hoarse voice came up to us and gave us a tongue lashing for something that happened six hours prior to our arrival. One of the lads from the Greedy Pigs started a very loud argument at four in the morning and kept everyone awake for the next three hours while they all shouted and screamed at each other. If you were one of those unfortunates who were affected by their arguing, I have a very strong feeling that disciplinary action will take place at the next meeting, but since I'm not a member of the Greedy Pigs, I can't say anything with any certainty.
Other than the bad start, the rally was quite enjoyable, I was only there for the Saturday, and so I didn't get to the the Jalepenos perform, but I hear they were good. I did however see half of Disturbin' the Peace's performance. I say half because I went outside for a breather during there interval and all the booze, the cold and the fact I had been awake since six O'clock that morning all struck me at once. I just couldn't continue, and so I dragged myself to the tent and slowly drifted to sleep.
I may have missed the half naked sexy girls, I may have missed Disturbin' the Peace cover a Rush song, but I did witness the worst proposal ever, which naturally took place in the middle of a hen party. I then saw (about five minutes later) the newly engaged woman fall over on the dance floor, spilling booze all over the singers pedals and the monitor by his feet. I reached out to help her up, and she gave me a really dirty look.
The bride-to-be from the hen party also randomly gave me, and a few other confused looking dudes, a big hug, while someone followed her with a camera. As soon as she stepped away from me, Dion (Nathan's dad) walked up to me and said "You lucky git, I've been eyeing her up all night." I on the other hand was eyeing up another member of her party, that entire group were wearing corsets, and one of those corsets looked like it was about to pop, so I was eyeing up the owner of that corset.
At some point between the proposal and the band kicking in, the bride-to-be had a male stripper, I get the feeling that he was her soon-to-be husband, judging by everyone's reaction. He didn't do the full monty, but it was still funny as hell to watch. Shortly after that I went to get me and Nath a drink, and on the way back from the bar I congratulated the newly engaged lady, turns out she has a voice that can break glass, I don't know if that's normal or just because she was drunk and/or excited.
I am also aware that none of this post is in chronological order, but the rally has thrown everything out of perspective and so I don't actually know what order anything happened in, I just know within two hours of getting to the rally I had had four different beers in three different pubs, one of those beers was a can I had bought with me, which I drank by the fire.
Monday, 15 December 2014
Bollocks
Naturally last week went by very slowly and was about as entertaining as rubbing my own face in raw sewage. I have to admit, it would be great fun to rub someone else's face in raw sewage, but that wouldn't make much of a difference to most of the people I know.
In contrast to the empty week, this weekend was almost eventful, which is why this post is a wee bit late. So what happened? well on Saturday I went to the House of Zed for the first time in forever. It started off being quite enjoyable, before I started getting bombarded by bollocks. The bollocks briefly settled down a few times, but it soon returned.
So what was the bollocks? It was mainly Zed talking absolute bollocks to try and stop me from becoming a musician in the British Armed Forces. I could understand her wanting me to not sign up if I was going to join the Infantry, but I'm going in to be a musician, I won't see much combat, and even so, the job brief states that during those times I'll be assisting the Army Medical Services.
After I don't know how much bollocks she ended up laying on me, I was able to work out the reason she started all this: she doesn't like the way the Army does things. I don't think she knows how the Army does things, likewise she thinks that I don't know how the Army does things, she also thinks I have an over-romanticised view on it all, and that I'd never get a woman in my life if I join.
One thing is true, I don't know how the Army does things, I only know what I have been told, and what I have read. But I think I know more about my chosen career choice than what she does. As for thesecond point, I do have a bit of a romantic view towards the Army, but not in the way she believes. Finally, for the last point, I always thought girls were looking for a knight in shining armour, I know for a fact that shining armour is bollocks, I'd much rather become the soldier in battle-worn Kevlar.
Her third point was then improved slightly by saying that she wouldn't expect girls in the Army to go for a submissive chap like me. I think quite the contrary, I imagine the girls in the Army would be fed up of having a man tell them what to do all day, every day, I think they'd appreciate the change. Anyway, the bollocks continued, and I tried to direct it at her, but my attempts failed.
After awhile, there was a pause. The pause didn't last very long, and when it ended the bollocks had changed into something completely different. She said I needed to stop falling in love with every girl I meet. I straight up told her that was bollocks,adding that in the time she had known me I had only fallen for one person: her. That ended ages ago, when she decided to spend a forty-five minute long Skype call telling me how big of a cunt I was.
I then had to explain to her why I fell for her, and I then said that it was a common occurrence. Here is a link to an article that explains everything. I don't know how reliable that website is, but that topic is at least touched on in various psychology books. if you read it you'll notice it that it's about falling for your therapist, which is what Zed used to be for me, and she helped me overcome my depression, before sending me back into it, albeit, only briefly.
It wasn't long before the bollocks went back to what it originally was, I was fighting a losing battle, but I'm not going to change just because she asked me to. Thankfully it was soon time for me to leave, and I was grateful to find at home that pizza was in the oven, and my favourite brother was visiting us so we could all sit down together and watch Guardians of the Galaxy, which I'd highly recommend for those of you who haven't yet seen it.
The next day was full of less bollocks, but I get the feeling, I'm going to feel the wrath of more this week, and maybe my angry ex-girlfriend Dana, will come and brutally murder me, which might be nice, or maybe Jade (an annoying dumbass from college) will murder me. Anyway, back to the original topic, I bought my old guitar back off my ex yesterday, it's in a better condition than I thought, but it needs a proper set-up, I've done the best I can and it still isn't right.
As to why this post wasn't posted yesterday, after I bought (and mostly set-up) that guitar, my favourite brother picked me up and so we went up to his and watched films. We only watched two, but we had to go pick his wife up from the train station after the first which took awhile, and then we all sat down to watch the second film while eating dinner.
So I have some film recommendations for those of you who haven't yet seen them: The Lego Movie, Porco Rosso, 40 Year Old Virgin, Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes, I did just chose all the films I watched this week, I think all of them are awesome, and I get the feeling you'll like them all too. Enjoy!
In contrast to the empty week, this weekend was almost eventful, which is why this post is a wee bit late. So what happened? well on Saturday I went to the House of Zed for the first time in forever. It started off being quite enjoyable, before I started getting bombarded by bollocks. The bollocks briefly settled down a few times, but it soon returned.
So what was the bollocks? It was mainly Zed talking absolute bollocks to try and stop me from becoming a musician in the British Armed Forces. I could understand her wanting me to not sign up if I was going to join the Infantry, but I'm going in to be a musician, I won't see much combat, and even so, the job brief states that during those times I'll be assisting the Army Medical Services.
After I don't know how much bollocks she ended up laying on me, I was able to work out the reason she started all this: she doesn't like the way the Army does things. I don't think she knows how the Army does things, likewise she thinks that I don't know how the Army does things, she also thinks I have an over-romanticised view on it all, and that I'd never get a woman in my life if I join.
One thing is true, I don't know how the Army does things, I only know what I have been told, and what I have read. But I think I know more about my chosen career choice than what she does. As for thesecond point, I do have a bit of a romantic view towards the Army, but not in the way she believes. Finally, for the last point, I always thought girls were looking for a knight in shining armour, I know for a fact that shining armour is bollocks, I'd much rather become the soldier in battle-worn Kevlar.
Her third point was then improved slightly by saying that she wouldn't expect girls in the Army to go for a submissive chap like me. I think quite the contrary, I imagine the girls in the Army would be fed up of having a man tell them what to do all day, every day, I think they'd appreciate the change. Anyway, the bollocks continued, and I tried to direct it at her, but my attempts failed.
After awhile, there was a pause. The pause didn't last very long, and when it ended the bollocks had changed into something completely different. She said I needed to stop falling in love with every girl I meet. I straight up told her that was bollocks,adding that in the time she had known me I had only fallen for one person: her. That ended ages ago, when she decided to spend a forty-five minute long Skype call telling me how big of a cunt I was.
I then had to explain to her why I fell for her, and I then said that it was a common occurrence. Here is a link to an article that explains everything. I don't know how reliable that website is, but that topic is at least touched on in various psychology books. if you read it you'll notice it that it's about falling for your therapist, which is what Zed used to be for me, and she helped me overcome my depression, before sending me back into it, albeit, only briefly.
It wasn't long before the bollocks went back to what it originally was, I was fighting a losing battle, but I'm not going to change just because she asked me to. Thankfully it was soon time for me to leave, and I was grateful to find at home that pizza was in the oven, and my favourite brother was visiting us so we could all sit down together and watch Guardians of the Galaxy, which I'd highly recommend for those of you who haven't yet seen it.
The next day was full of less bollocks, but I get the feeling, I'm going to feel the wrath of more this week, and maybe my angry ex-girlfriend Dana, will come and brutally murder me, which might be nice, or maybe Jade (an annoying dumbass from college) will murder me. Anyway, back to the original topic, I bought my old guitar back off my ex yesterday, it's in a better condition than I thought, but it needs a proper set-up, I've done the best I can and it still isn't right.
As to why this post wasn't posted yesterday, after I bought (and mostly set-up) that guitar, my favourite brother picked me up and so we went up to his and watched films. We only watched two, but we had to go pick his wife up from the train station after the first which took awhile, and then we all sat down to watch the second film while eating dinner.
So I have some film recommendations for those of you who haven't yet seen them: The Lego Movie, Porco Rosso, 40 Year Old Virgin, Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes, I did just chose all the films I watched this week, I think all of them are awesome, and I get the feeling you'll like them all too. Enjoy!
Sunday, 24 August 2014
HEAVY SMEGGING METAL!!!!! (and various other genres)
I'm just going to be frank and simply say that this week hasn't been particularly good. In fact it's welcomed my old friend depression back into my life with open arms, and even decided it was time for me to feel ill. I do however have at least one good thing to say about this week, so instead of returning this blog to it'd old ways of documenting my depression, I'm going to focus on the cool bit.
This week came with four gifts, first and foremost being my brothers entire CD collection which includes quite a lot of CD's I was also given the CD cabinet to stick everything in. Included in the CD collection are some albums I've been wanting for quite some time such as The Wall, Moving Pictures and Dance of Death. Unfortunately I haven't found Master of Reality or Killer yet, but I've only briefly scanned. I have however found a signed copy of Dirty Diamonds by Alice Cooper, so I'm not complaining.
The next gift I received was a customised 100 watt Marshall amplifier. It's had the mesh kicked in, but it's had the capacitors replaced meaning it works at an obscenely high volume without having that annoying "Signature Marshall Hum" which I'm not a big fan of. There are however two problems with the amp, firstly it doesn't do quiet, so It very loud and quickly deafens you when you stand in such a small room (like my own), and secondly it doesn't work without the pedal board.
Coincidentally the pedal board was the third gift, annoyingly it isn't Velcro'd down so the pedals move a little, it has also been customised to smeg so that nothing is as labelled. It does however include a distortion pedal, a wah-wah, a delay pedal, a tremolo pedal, a flanger, a volume, and another random pedal which is used to turn on the flanger and tremolo. It's a lot of fun to use, but it's experimental and it doesn't provide the sounds I want which is a shame. There is also a compressor on there which is permanently active to stop the amp from exploding, and also a foot switch for controlling the amp (which has been customised to smeg like the pedal board) .
The final gift, is my favourite, it's an ESP LTD MH-201, it's such a nice guitar featuring most of what I like about guitars. It features 24 frets and a floating tremolo bridge, which is perfect for some of the songs I've been wanting to use, since my other guitar has 22 frets and a Bigsby bridge, and unfortunately you can't dive-bomb with a Bigsby. That guitar is a lot of fun to play with, and it has been set up so perfectly, but there are a few minor imperfections in it's finish and feel.
Thanks to my gifts I don't think my neighbours like me much anymore, but screw them, I'm a musician they aren't meant to like me. Anyway I'm not sure how long the guitar, amp and pedal board will be in my possession since I'm only supposed to be looking after them. I'm actually surprised I was able to convince my brother to let me look after the ESP let alone everything else, which he sort of just dumped on me, I was however, expecting the CD's, and there are a lot of good ones in that selection.
This week came with four gifts, first and foremost being my brothers entire CD collection which includes quite a lot of CD's I was also given the CD cabinet to stick everything in. Included in the CD collection are some albums I've been wanting for quite some time such as The Wall, Moving Pictures and Dance of Death. Unfortunately I haven't found Master of Reality or Killer yet, but I've only briefly scanned. I have however found a signed copy of Dirty Diamonds by Alice Cooper, so I'm not complaining.
The next gift I received was a customised 100 watt Marshall amplifier. It's had the mesh kicked in, but it's had the capacitors replaced meaning it works at an obscenely high volume without having that annoying "Signature Marshall Hum" which I'm not a big fan of. There are however two problems with the amp, firstly it doesn't do quiet, so It very loud and quickly deafens you when you stand in such a small room (like my own), and secondly it doesn't work without the pedal board.
Coincidentally the pedal board was the third gift, annoyingly it isn't Velcro'd down so the pedals move a little, it has also been customised to smeg so that nothing is as labelled. It does however include a distortion pedal, a wah-wah, a delay pedal, a tremolo pedal, a flanger, a volume, and another random pedal which is used to turn on the flanger and tremolo. It's a lot of fun to use, but it's experimental and it doesn't provide the sounds I want which is a shame. There is also a compressor on there which is permanently active to stop the amp from exploding, and also a foot switch for controlling the amp (which has been customised to smeg like the pedal board) .
The final gift, is my favourite, it's an ESP LTD MH-201, it's such a nice guitar featuring most of what I like about guitars. It features 24 frets and a floating tremolo bridge, which is perfect for some of the songs I've been wanting to use, since my other guitar has 22 frets and a Bigsby bridge, and unfortunately you can't dive-bomb with a Bigsby. That guitar is a lot of fun to play with, and it has been set up so perfectly, but there are a few minor imperfections in it's finish and feel.
Thanks to my gifts I don't think my neighbours like me much anymore, but screw them, I'm a musician they aren't meant to like me. Anyway I'm not sure how long the guitar, amp and pedal board will be in my possession since I'm only supposed to be looking after them. I'm actually surprised I was able to convince my brother to let me look after the ESP let alone everything else, which he sort of just dumped on me, I was however, expecting the CD's, and there are a lot of good ones in that selection.
Monday, 28 July 2014
Rocking Tunes!
As you may know from reading my previous posts I'm in a pop-punk band called Six Stories Up. So far we have written a grand total of two of our own songs, and we are also preparing a crap load of covers to perform. At least two of us are taking this seriously, that's me and Nathan, we're not so sure about the third.
Anyway we have been spending a nice amount of time jamming together, and decided just the other day that we should each choose four songs to cover (making twelve covers), those songs have all been chosen and we're now learning how to play them, unfortunately we don't have access to a drum kit at the moment, which is a bit of a pain, especially since we have an area to put it (Nath's garage, which will soon be converted for our band practice).
As I said we have two songs, one of them just needs a few minor adjustments, and the other one we have forgotten how to play, but we still have the lyrics so at least something is on our side. the first song simply just needs the guitar part for it's quieter bridge rewritten.
On to other ventures, I celebrated my 100th YouTube video last Monday and I had a nice little party with my friends, after I had finished celebrating that I started a secondary YouTube channel called G_Man TV! which is essentially me doing the stupidest things I can think of for the sake of it. So far I only have one video, which is me attempting what I call the Mustard Challenge, and failing miserably.
I also went to Hanley the other day, which made a nice change, I spent the day causing chaos with my friends and wishing I had money to buy myself some nice things. I did however visit the new music shop that has opened in The Potteries Center, it didn't have a very good selection of basses which was a shame but there were some damn nice guitars there, more importantly there was a lot of other nice things there, including, and not limited to, a sexy female employee.
Overall my week hasn't been too interesting but I've been enjoying myself nonetheless, and now I have yet another fun day at the House of Zed, unfortunately I wasted all my money whilst at Hanley so I need to ride my bike there.
Anyway we have been spending a nice amount of time jamming together, and decided just the other day that we should each choose four songs to cover (making twelve covers), those songs have all been chosen and we're now learning how to play them, unfortunately we don't have access to a drum kit at the moment, which is a bit of a pain, especially since we have an area to put it (Nath's garage, which will soon be converted for our band practice).
As I said we have two songs, one of them just needs a few minor adjustments, and the other one we have forgotten how to play, but we still have the lyrics so at least something is on our side. the first song simply just needs the guitar part for it's quieter bridge rewritten.
On to other ventures, I celebrated my 100th YouTube video last Monday and I had a nice little party with my friends, after I had finished celebrating that I started a secondary YouTube channel called G_Man TV! which is essentially me doing the stupidest things I can think of for the sake of it. So far I only have one video, which is me attempting what I call the Mustard Challenge, and failing miserably.
I also went to Hanley the other day, which made a nice change, I spent the day causing chaos with my friends and wishing I had money to buy myself some nice things. I did however visit the new music shop that has opened in The Potteries Center, it didn't have a very good selection of basses which was a shame but there were some damn nice guitars there, more importantly there was a lot of other nice things there, including, and not limited to, a sexy female employee.
Overall my week hasn't been too interesting but I've been enjoying myself nonetheless, and now I have yet another fun day at the House of Zed, unfortunately I wasted all my money whilst at Hanley so I need to ride my bike there.
Monday, 31 March 2014
Late Post is Late... Again
I'd like to apologise for the lateness of this post, yet again my brother threw my schedule off. I'll be honest with you last week was not even remotely interesting, I thought it would be, but it really wasn't. So this post is just about today.
The first thing I did when I got into school today was cause a lot of controversy and get my self into some serious trouble. How you ask? I wrote a song, however, this wasn't just any song, this was a special song that was designed to be performed at the Sixth Form Leavers Assembly. The reason it caused so much controversy is because I named certain people I despise, and insulted them. It was worth all the trouble, it brightened up my day, it was an epic experiment to see how quickly news travels around the school (25 minutes), and the damn annoying wench I hate, now knows that I hate her. Job well done if you ask me.
The annoying thing that happened to me today is that I found out I only have one more guitar lesson left, so I won't be doing a graded exam. It's a shame, but I can cope, I'll just buy the books from Amazon and learn everything myself (well that's the idea anyway).
Finally I got dumped, I sure as hell hope she doesn't want to remain friends because that didn't work last time, so it sure as hell won't work again, I plan on staying dumped, until another subject approaches worth dating, and no, I don't care how bad that sounds.
About this "damn annoying wench" I mentioned earlier, the only reason I included her into this song was to prove to my jealous (at the time) girlfriend that I didn't like her, so I was quite pleased to know that the "damn annoying wench" was giving me nasty looks between tears. Now I think it was a waste to include her in my song (which I titled Screw You by the way), since Dana dumped me anyway. I guess jealousy wasn't the only reason she wanted me gone.
Anyway the one thing the "damn annoying wench" doesn't know is that the song I wrote for my year 11 music GCSE was actually about her, I hated her vanity (back when I had self-esteem issues), so I wrote a song about how she'd only look pretty if I doused her in kerosene and burned her alive. It got me a Distinction.
Anyway now that I'm no longer tethered to a post, I guess I can go back to doing stupid things again! The only problem is, I've had a girlfriend for so long I can't remember how to be single. I guess I'll just have to sit at home with my Warhammer figures and watch cartoons while I either paint them or play bass.
Speaking of basses I'm being lent a 6-string bass, so I can finally start learning some Dream Theater songs.
The first thing I did when I got into school today was cause a lot of controversy and get my self into some serious trouble. How you ask? I wrote a song, however, this wasn't just any song, this was a special song that was designed to be performed at the Sixth Form Leavers Assembly. The reason it caused so much controversy is because I named certain people I despise, and insulted them. It was worth all the trouble, it brightened up my day, it was an epic experiment to see how quickly news travels around the school (25 minutes), and the damn annoying wench I hate, now knows that I hate her. Job well done if you ask me.
The annoying thing that happened to me today is that I found out I only have one more guitar lesson left, so I won't be doing a graded exam. It's a shame, but I can cope, I'll just buy the books from Amazon and learn everything myself (well that's the idea anyway).
Finally I got dumped, I sure as hell hope she doesn't want to remain friends because that didn't work last time, so it sure as hell won't work again, I plan on staying dumped, until another subject approaches worth dating, and no, I don't care how bad that sounds.
About this "damn annoying wench" I mentioned earlier, the only reason I included her into this song was to prove to my jealous (at the time) girlfriend that I didn't like her, so I was quite pleased to know that the "damn annoying wench" was giving me nasty looks between tears. Now I think it was a waste to include her in my song (which I titled Screw You by the way), since Dana dumped me anyway. I guess jealousy wasn't the only reason she wanted me gone.
Anyway the one thing the "damn annoying wench" doesn't know is that the song I wrote for my year 11 music GCSE was actually about her, I hated her vanity (back when I had self-esteem issues), so I wrote a song about how she'd only look pretty if I doused her in kerosene and burned her alive. It got me a Distinction.
Anyway now that I'm no longer tethered to a post, I guess I can go back to doing stupid things again! The only problem is, I've had a girlfriend for so long I can't remember how to be single. I guess I'll just have to sit at home with my Warhammer figures and watch cartoons while I either paint them or play bass.
Speaking of basses I'm being lent a 6-string bass, so I can finally start learning some Dream Theater songs.
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