MIJ fender 54 strat reissue

ok previously i wrote abt how i was gassing for this strat copy and i changed my mind abit. that didn't sit very well with my wallet. i blew $600 on a fender strat instead of only $260 on the smash strat. but then again, not only is it a fender mij, it also has a dimarzio fast track (or so i think) in the bridge. so i think $600 is pretty worth it.

so here's my review of this fender 54 strat reissue with US vintage(N&M) and a dimarzio fast track(B):
let's start from the top down. 1stly the tuners, they're vintage correct tuners. how i'm gonna change the strings on these things i have no idea lol. will learn soon enough when the strings snap haha. they stay in tune pretty well....if i dun dive bomb :D

next the nut. its bone nut i think. but its kinda not really well lubricated i think cos the strings go out of tune when i whammy.

the neck is a well laquered bolt-on maple neck with maple fretboard, not my cup of tea but it still plays fine. oh yea, its a hell of a fat neck haha. luckily for me, there are some scalloped frets. some is good, i dun think i can play on a neck with all frets scalloped. i can't play any chords like that. the strings would be cutting my fingers all over!!

pickups are us vintage n&m and a fast track bridge. the fast track has pretty awesome power to it, sounding more like a humbucker than a single coil. i dun expect to go extreme heavy metal with this but i think it can pretty much do most of the metal i have enough skill to play lol. the neck and mid pups are pretty sweet sounding. dont use them to play any kinda power chords in overdrive though, sounds damn horrible. but in mild overdrive is where these pups shine. the tone knob rolled down for the neck pup (which is the only pup that has a working tone control) allows for that smooth creamy and thick warm tone that reminds me of people like albert king. in position 2 (neck and mid) the tone still rolled all the way down, u get this smooth tone with just enough highs for some nice solos. with tone at full, both neck and mid pups have a really nice bright chimey sound to it. works wonders w/o any gain or overdrive.

bridge wise, its a standard vintage tremolo, no mods whatsoever. didn't open the backplate to check how many springs there are in there but from the resistance of the whammy bar, i'm thinking 3 springs. sustain is not that compromised on it though, just not as great as my ltd forester due to the latter's fixed bridge and string through body.

weight wise, its a pretty heavy guitar, since h4t isn't really sure which kinda body wood it is, we cant tell for sure its alder. i think its basswood though, but then again, its pretty solid and has a great tone.

now all thats left is to change the neck and mid pups to some noiseless pups and it's ready for the high gain stuff. what i'm aiming for are the area 58 and 67 neck and mid respectively. then after that, i'll be waiting for a good amp to come along in soft. i think this sg-15 i have has served me well enough for the past year or so. no idea what to get next though, just waiting...

just waiting....

GASSING!!!

ok i'm gassing again. for all who ain't sure what that means, it's Gear Acquisition Syndrome, where one is desperate for a piece of equipment(gear) and thus scringes and saves for it. yea so i'm saving for a new axe. it ain't gonna cost a bomb but its more than what my pathetic allowance can afford me. and thus the scringing.

it's yet another entry level axe that has this solid body. and i mean really solid. and since i'm not sure abt it, i'm thinking of dragging a friend of mine to sv to check it out with me soon. i hope pay's coming in soon :D then at least i can set aside some of it for this new axe. ok so here is the link: http://standardvalue.com.sg/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=424

for those music geeks whom i've grown musically with, i know it ain't a 24-fretter. BUT it's rather solid and the tone is nice. and i'm into single coils again for a change in tone once in awhile. i'm just hesitant on one thing...do i have the time to constantly maintain both axes? well i should have. considering i usually set aside alot of time for playing =p

oh well ok that's it for now...back to practice. :)

the break

Ok this is my 1st entry since my new com arrived, well it's my 1st entry in a long time...and I have nothing but depressing stuff to type.

My family is now in pieces. Yes it's a divorce. My dad wants out cos my mom has been quarrelling with him for the past few nights so much so that he can't get any sleep. He’s packed up and gone elsewhere to live for now, and I’ve to take care of my mom, who's currently going on a hunger strike.

Sounds like my dad's the bad guy here huh? Well can’t put the blame totally on him either. i was expecting this breakup for quite some time. Just didn't expect it to happen in such a vulnerable time. I’m in mandatory jail term and I’ve got almost peanuts as income.

ok i shall explain each side's views on this breakup, and I’ll let the floor decide. Those in red italic fonts are my personal input.

my dad says that my mom's never there for the family as she's sold her life to the company. (there's truth in it, she wakes up at 5.30am every morning, leaves home for work at 6.30am, then only reaches home at 12am or 1am the next morning. ok then he also says that there is no family here. just a roof over his head.) He has been trying to tell her for the past 10 years to quit her job and that he can provide for the family but she never listens. I’m also following my mom's footsteps, not going to my granny's place on Saturday evenings even though she's the only granny I have left, or only grandparent I have left on either side for that matter. (also happens to be true, i'm always out with my friends, prob cos i feel no connection with, ok not really none at all, just not much connection with my granny.) And now that I stay in camp from Monday to Thursday, my dad goes home to blank four walls, not seeing my mom till the 1st few hours of each weekend. (weekend bride, no diff from a batam bride eh? but let's not reduce my mom to that) then recently, my mom keeps complaining about his business in Vietnam so much so that he can't sleep at night anymore. This plus 2 other selfish (selfish to my dad, though i find them rather selfish as well.) decisions that pissed my dad off the past year or so made him finally pull out.

Ok on to my mom. This is what i can gather from the rubbish she's been speaking since she learnt of the breakup. She’s been working so hard for the past 20++ coming 30 years in this company to get to where she is. (still she doesn't earn much, really, not much diff from a fresh grad out of poly) and she stays on only cos my dad's job doesn't have job security. (like which job has anyway?) She doesn't like this job and wishes to quit after i finish my uni. Even if my dad doesn't like her job why can't he just say out? (See i told u she's talking rubbish) he shouldn’t just leave home without a word and let someone tell her about the divorce. It’s not being fair to her. And now that he’s got a woman in Vietnam while still in the marriage, it’s not fair too; she’s been faithful all this while. Things in Vietnam should be communicated with her, not only with me.

Ok now on to my own views. It might be rather biased but fuck who isn’t biased? I feel that dad could have told mom that he has no feelings anymore now that she treats home like a hotel to come home and sleep for the night. She doesn’t do any shopping for groceries, doesn’t go out with us for meals unless there’s a special occasion, which is rather rare. To go out with her, one needs to book an appointment, pretty much similar to most women, so ok I can accept, oh wait, most women put family 1st when it comes to appointments! Damn! Are we not family enough to her?? Well didn’t dad try to tell her not to cont working in that fucked up ST Aerospace anymore?? It’s a fucking government company with no fucking overtime pay. Why the fuck does she have to stay so late every night?? Her pay isn’t high anyway! I mean if she’s gonna work like that for a few days a year during the close of the financial year, quarterly reports or something like that, it’s ok. But why work like a slave every day of the year? Does not make sense at all. There is still a lot that I have to say, I’m just lazy to type it down. It’s making me sick just thinking about it.

update

ain't much of a diary writer so yea, posts come far and few between now that i've got other things in mind to do. i'm running into a dead end with my fingers, they simply won't go faster without putting some dead notes in the melody. argh!! oh well, i guess that means more practice and more blood boiling sessions before i see any marked improvements.

oh boy guess what? just a few days ago, i realised i totally forgot the chord theory!! wtf!! major, minor, minor, major, dominant, minor, minor7b5. is it? i cant remember alr!! wtf!! die alr lar. next time i go back i'm gonna die big time, confirm kenna scold until nowhere put my face...sian.

oh well, not all is gloom and doom. my new com arrived not long ago. now all there is to bring over is alr over. probably the only thing left is to reformat my lappy. then i can pass it over to my dad. and there's alot of space in this new com!! add the space together with my hard disk, and i got almost 800++gb of space for anything that comes my way haha. anyway, all the websites are accessible now, life goes back to normal on my com.

dilemma

arghh!! help!! ok i'm totally lost :(

what to choose? which to pick? anyone? any ideas? any input? :(

okok its just a change of pickups. i've totally no idea what will sound nice with the amps i play with so i have no idea which combi to pick up. should i go totally off the scale with dimebucker/distortion combi? or should i tip the scale right with jazz/JB combi? or somewhere in between? c'mon with all the different input i get from diff friends, its more plausible to get off the scale distortion then use the pedal or amp to tone it down. then i might just have to get my tone pot changed to have coil tapping, which will cost another...no idea how much haha.

ok anyone with any ideas just lemme know, cos i'm totally lost lol.

ok, we've recently recorded our jamming for the 1st time. its 2min ++ of the cover of sweet child o mine from guns n roses. sounds ok except for gan's part. bloody rich bastard flopped some parts of the solo LOL. okok at least we're heading in the right direction haha. ok maybe except the bassist, i hope to have someone else there soon :)

i'm back...

...but not necessarily with a vengeance lol.

anyway, life's been monotonous since i entered this new Only Eat Talk & Idle camp. here's the routine:
- on monday mornings, we got nothing to look foward to, therefore we're mostly in a bad mood or stoning mood.
- on tuesdays, we look foward to book out, so that we can go home and create havoc.
- on wednesdays, we look foward to book out, so that we can go home and create havoc.
- on thursdays, we look foward to book out, so that we can go home and create havoc. then comes the anticipation of the weekend which starts right after friday book out.
- on fridays, we look foward to book out, so that we can go home and create havoc and SLEEP LATE! ! ! and not forgetting no worries about waking up early.
- on sundays, (i'm skipping saturdays cos they're diff for us all) we go crazy then sober down near the evening as we have to book in the next day.

so yea...nothing to look foward to in these 2 years ahead really.

well, on the brighter side...i've got my new guitar!! the LTD F100FM. it's more or less a custom guitar at a budget rate. why do i say that? look at it this way. go to www.espguitars.com and check out the LTD F100FM. any guitarist would prob tell u that u can get the exact same model from a custom shop of any brand. here are the specs:
- bolt on maple neck
- rosewood fretboard
- 24 XJ frets
- basswood body
all these screams custom shop!! let me explain. bolt on necks allow for changing of necks when it is too warped to tweak the trust rod. rosewood fingerboard just means the neck has no frets so they had to put a fretboard on top. 24 frets is just my fetish so leave that out. body wood is just meant for tone. yea so u can get any part of the guitar from any shop! its that simple!! all i gotta do now is sell my prs to fund my pickups and other mods. i'll post them here when i get it done haha...gotta run now :)

happy new year

happy new year to all :)

new year's eve wasn't exactly what i'd expected...i planned it to be more monotonous but in the end, i ended up counting down at zouk. some fucked up countdown they had. super impromptu and only lasted for 5 counts w/o any warning whatsoever. besides that, the club was still as over-flowing as usual. $35 to club again after so long only to be once again disappointed :( on the bright side, at least i had the whole fb group together in the same place XD

anyway, on to my 1st music performance onstage...i wasn't as nervous as my teacher expected me to be hehe but actually quite calm. we did 3 songs: felis navidad, we wish u a merry xmas, and that thing you do. the solo for that thing you do ended up perfect during the performance, which is a good thing, cos my fingers tend to go random once in awhile and hit the wrong note =/ but since the crowd was happy, i think it means we've done a pretty good job :)