Guitarist's Blog

How does this happen?

2012-02-09T13:50:00.001-08:00

So lately I've been having some... we'll say issues, with how my grades in school correlate AT ALL with what is really going on.

I have a 73 in Architecture. Now, though the reason is simple (yet makes little sense*), it makes no sense because I am studying to be an architect.

In my literature class, I have a 45 (ouch...) simply due to the fact that I almost never understand what answers we are supposed to have. I have always had this problem, but it's like, though the question and selected literature is open to interpretation, there is pretty much only one right answer.

Math is for some reason a 9 (possibly the lowest grade I have ever seen). In our studies of solving polynomial functions and their zeros, I become totally lost. I understand how to do it, the required steps and everything, I just always end up skipping a step or miscalculating or something like that. I also, just going by school records, apparently never turn in my homework, but unless I'm dreaming when I do it and when I turn it in, I smell something fishy (metaphorically).

Media Literacy, which is pretty much the study of the media and how it works, I totally do not understand how I have a 93 in. It's pretty much everything I hate: news and its workings, journalism and reporting, government affairs, and drama. Oh, and weekly essays. Yet I somehow have a 93. WHAT THE F***!!!

In Government I have a 79, which is more fitting because it is also full of stuff I hate: government crap, politics, political and governmental history, and just something about the teacher I totally distaste. Again, WTF.

And finally, Physics. I actually have no official grade in that class at this time, but I looked on the teacher's computer where there is a virtual gradebook and I had a 60. Physics is pretty much given to you: you have a problem with set values, either known or obvious (such as the velocity of gravity and such), and you use equations to give you other values which you may need for other equations, and eventually you'll get the answer you were looking for. So, question... HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET SUCH A BAD GRADE DOING THAT?????

It has been argued that music is getting in the way, but that really can't be stopped unless you strip me of everything but... well, you'd have to rid me of all instruments, objects that can make a sound -- so, pretty much my studio and body, so given the last one I'd be dead. Hm. So yeah, the only way to stop me and music is to kill me, which is totally counter-productive.

So what do I do? Dearest readers (yes, all like... 4 of you), how do I go about fixing this? And don't try the standard answers. I wouldn't ask for help over such a medium if I hadn't tried all the obvious stuff.

Rock on!

*In Architecture, I have a poorish grade merely due to the fact that the teacher (who is an art teacher, not an architecture teacher) forgot to inform the class that we could not do as she said and use any drafting medium we want. I used AutoCAD because, well, aside from its vast superiority over pretty much every other drafting program, I actually know how to use it. Most of the class used Google SketchUp, which, though I can use, I am more inefficient unless I'm running multiple add-ons.

I will relate this to synthesizers because that's the best comparison I can think of currently: It's not like going from a complex synth with all sorts of controls, oscillators, and mods to a simpler synth like a KORG monotron. All synths use the same basic principles to operate, and thus, one can be just as efficient on a simple synth as a more complex one.

As with SketchUp and AutoCAD, though the similarities of basic drawing do exist, how one goes about creating complex shapes in 3D is far more difficult in Sketchup and usually ends up with more problems than drawings. That's just me, anyway.

[Psych] Absolutes, Definitives, and Abstracts

2012-02-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

I have this problem with absolutes, definitives, and abstract questions like "how can..." "what if..." and "it could be that..."

1+1 is two because we have been told such, we can prove such, and, assuming the term 'one' does actually mean a singular thing, it makes sense. This is a definitive.

An absolute is quite similar, in that it is complete. Taking the same example but reversing it, we find that 2 is really made up of an infinite number of decimals. However, since 1 represents the same number of decimals, we find that 1 is really a summation of all these decimals. Thus, we find that 2 is an absolute because it completes two 1's and thus fills the entire decimal spectrum from 0 to 2. Again, this simply makes sense.

So if a writer were to go about saying something like "Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice." (Robert Frost), I get all sorts of messed up. There are so many derivatives, so many "what if..." and "it could be that..." questions, all with legitimate answers. I usually try answering the "How can..." questions because that's how I think.

In mankind's need to understand the world, I find myself not asking why, or what something means, but instead I go more for the facts: who? what was it? when was it? where was it? how did it happen???

Obviously, the first four are easy, as they are usually not too obscured by anything. But, how, oh HOW does this thing work?? I almost always find the need to know how something works, exists, and sometimes even what it does helps.

As with most [Psych] posts, I will leave you hanging and allow you to share what you think.

My Weekend? Eh, Just Normal.

2012-01-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

So recently my father has been buying woodworking tools on eBay. In his travels through the largest online auction site, he also managed to get a few things for me, which have greatly helped my more experimental side. Here's to KORG!! (I bloody love KORG, by the way)

This is pretty much a small electronic workstation. From left to right: microKORG, miniKP, monotron, Kaossilator. The miniKP (dynamic effects processor) has the microKORG running through it. You may also note that the microKORG/miniKP assembly is atop my M-Audio Keystation 88es. That's because I don't have a table for the KORG stuff just yet. That's in the works. However, I do have the Keystation connected to the microKORG via MIDI.

Here you see my nano stuff. The top one is the nanoPAD, and the bottom is the nanoKEY. The incredible usefulness of these two working in conjunction with each other is indescribable.

So, aside from sounding amazing, this used bass has very few problems. The jack was smashed in but still functions. The last owner apparently didn't really care much for his instruments because there is residue of stickers, sweat, general grime, and other just stuff all over it. But, for $99, it's practically a steal! And I'm not just saying that because I didn't spend any money: this thing can be priced for $750 to $900. We found one on eBay that was similar for $400 as a starting price. I can't really tell exactly what model it is, but it's either a standard or Special model.

...Ok, slight HTML problem there... basically, new bass. Aria Pro II RSB Series II. Oh, adn the torn apart thing is a KORG Pandora PX5D guitar multi-effects processor. Input jack has problems.

-*-OTHER SUBJECT CHANGE-*-

Dad has friends in odd places. We went to see a few of them this weekend, and one of them has a rather large collection of computers, mostly laptops. They all have problems, though. The guy decided to let me have 3, and he gave me another to work on for him.

What were they? One was an IBM NetVista All-In-One. It does boot, but with no hard drive, and a mere 512MB+128MB RAM, you can't do much with it. I plan to get a 160GB HDD and 1GB of RAM (its max) for it, then maybe use it as either a server for Minecraft (probably not) or a pure music production workstation (if I can).

I also ended up with two Apple Macintosh Powerbooks: a 5300cs and a 3400c. No problems as of yet except for no power supply. It needs a 24v, which I can probably find at like Wal-Mart or something. I'm pretty sure Claire is jealous (she's a MacAddict. Not kidding.)

The one to work on is a Dell XPS M1330. No hard drive or power supply. It's like a mix of the IBM and Apples!!

Here is a pic of all 4:

And a pic of the 5300cs:

So yeah, pretty interesting weekend, actually.

Rock on!

PS: Dad, if you're reading this, when you do finally get into glasswork, do you think you could make this for me?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to imform you that this Christmas, December 25, 2011, has been yet another cheer-filled day for pretty much everyone. I've not a clue what one could say when they blog about something like this, so uh... oh, what to talk about...

Oh, I'm sick. My sinuses are clogged. That kind of is a lead into what I was going to talk about...

Gifts!! This year was one of the few I've actually been able to get Dad something that he wanted rather than some last-minute craft thing like I usually do. Now, of course, I've yet to get a job, so I used his money, but it's totally the thought that counts.

Now, how does this correlate to having clogged sinuses? Well, one of the things I got in what I will now call Musical Ex-Mass (sounds kinda fun) is a Digeridoo. If you don't know, it's basically a tribal Australian instrument played with the embrochure of a tuba with modulations performed with your tongue, throat, and really whatever else you can use to 'disrupt' the flow of air.

As you can well imagine, breathing, especially circular breathing, is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, now. I can really only play it for about 20 seconds at a time. But, hey, that's enough to learn with.

Now, the reason this particular christmas was so Musical is because I got a bunch of musical stuff:
Electronic drums
Mixer
Microphones
Digeridoo
Korg Monotron
Zildjian sticks
MIDI cable
Headphones
Metronome (like one of the awesome ones. Y'know, like in the mahogany box n' stuff.)

I mean COME ON! Tell me that's not a pretty epic Christmas for a musician.

Of course, this does mean something: I need to take my music to the next level. NAO.

Rock on.

[Music] Chinese Koto

2011-12-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

This thing's just awesome.

Ok, so in a mall around here there is a Chinese store with all sorts of Chinese stuff. Like this:

Yeah, it's a Chinese Koto. I forget the actual name of it, but dude, when I get a few grand I can spend on whatever, this is mine.

That's all.

Rock on.

Oh, wait, PS: Tell me this wouldn't make an amazing band name:

It says Apothic Red. Sounds like an epic Goth-Metal band. haha

[Guitar] YouTube Vids!

2011-10-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

So, I have started using my Flip Mino and am currently uploading my first of hopefully many lessons: How To Change Strings.

I started with a tour of my studio. I started getting a feel for the camera with that vid, and I also found that occasionally the audio needs help (mainly for noise removal).

Now, I still have frame problems, but I feel as though you will be able to get a really freaking good grip on how to change strings. Most of what I will be doing will not be a total of 25 minutes long as this string-changing series is, thankfully. I can only imagine how effing annoying that would be.

I went really in depth into the entire process aside from part of the tuning process and part of the restringing process (mainly because I messed up several times on just one string). I hope this series helps you out!!

What do you want me to go over next time? Tell me in the comments!!

[Psych] Fasting Eminem Hates The World.

2011-10-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start adding beginning titles so you can skip boring posts. Or for organisation. Whichever.

The title says it all in a funny sentence, so let me extrapolate: The last few weeks or so, for whatever reason, I've been not hungry, like, at all, listening to a BUNCH of Eminem (and other depressing or hatred artists/songs), and still hating most of the world. Why? Well, I'll tell ya what I think.

First and probably most true explanation: I'm a teenager and it could be hormones. But, man, that's the typical answer. Eff that crap. Let's be creative!

My explantion is simple... kinda. I'm thinking the reason I haven't been hungry is because I easily weigh over 200 pounds and my body's like, "Mayn, lose dat junk!" Well, it's an idea.

I feel the last two (music and hating the world) kinda go together. Now, I have generally hated most of humanity since I started studying psychology. I noticed just how stupid people can be. Even today, in math, my math teacher made 3 errors, one after the other. If you take a square root of (x2), 2 being squared, it's x, not x2. Derp.

So I also recently rekindled my likeness for Eminem. Recently being like... 2 months ago? Anyway, in the last few weeks, I've acquired a few more Eminem songs, mainly ones that pretty much perfectly reflect what I've been thinking about:

Revenge
Love and hate
Retaliation
Standing up for yourself and your friends
Apology, sorrow, and sadness (kinda all the same deal)

Of course, with thoughts like that, you can imagine I'd have to keep it all to myself, or at least not take action.

I also found that I kinda like Skrillex, who, of course, has a song that has one theme: "I want to kill everybody in the world." Hm, not a bad idea, Skrillex. Too bad I can't do that. But, I also can't really act like I want to kill people, so all I do is keep to myself.

Dubstep, also, is something I've been getting more into. I've liked dubstep, but I'm talking hardcore, brash stuff. Oh, and turn it up to 11. Nah, 12, just because. I'm thinking, due to past experience, this is due to my renewed hatred for humanity. I mean, really:

When I was mad, I would listen to metal. When I wanted to kill people, I'd listen to dubstep and death/black metal. When I wanted to kill people and metal didn't help, I'd take a sword to my archery target and an hour later be vacuuming its remains.

I once had a perfect body pillow. Soft polyester and cotton. Now it has several holes in it, one of which was done by a blade that I decided to effing murder with. It's a big hole :)

I've been thinking about anger management, yesh. But, well, that costs money. I need at least a scooter, if not a car, and a license, soon I'll be moving out (well, within the year hopefully), and I want upwards of $10,000 worth of music equipment, instruments being only half of that. I can't afford anger management. LOL.

I've been like this for several years now. I found, going through legal records, that I've always not given a crap, too. No, for real, the records lady wrote that I had a "devil could care" attitude. This is known as stoicism, aka not giving a crap. Of course, I have feelings, but I've found it's hard to access them, but possible.

What's my point with this whole blog post? Um, rage post? Explanation of odd behaviour? Why I've been blocking out most of the world? Yeah, let's go with the last one. I'm unsure of how this will turn out. I'll either be hated by all, dead, or go back to normal (which is predicted to be the best chance). So yeah.

Basically, your fellow musician/architect is messed up. Aww yeah.

About those songs...

2011-10-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Turns out, recording songs is a rather problematic thing to do when you record each track separately and attempt to turn it into one big homogeneous song. Also, I found it it could possibly break at least 3 song's copyrights. Check it:

The song is called Sum It Up. It's based off of Sum 41's "Pain for Pleasure". Turns out, this song is inadvertently based off of Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter." So, instead of following through with piecing together a song with horrid bass lines, out-of time guitars, and no drums (more on that later), I'm going to post the Audacity project, Guitar Pro 6 file, and PDF tabulature, on Mediafire.

About the drums: So, I created a MIDI file of the drums, threw it into Music Maker 15, chose a sick sounding set, and tried doing a mixdown. For some odd reason, MM15 dies at the end of the mixdown process. It creates the audio file, but otherwise fails epically. Anyone know what's up with that?

But, I have (aside from a few small projects) all day to work on songs tomorrow, and maybe I'll not mess it up and produce a decent song! I'm not sure which song to do, but I'll figure it out. I may do an easy song and wait for my Flip camera to come in so I can show you the process.

WAIT, WHAT????

Right, yes, of course, remember when I was saying having a camera would be awesome so I could vlog and do lessons and whatever? Well, my dad found an epic deal on a Flip Mino HD: $40! It should be on its way now. I hope it is, anyway.

Until then (whenever that is, exactly),
Rock On!

Preferrably with your new Jackson, of course:

Dumbfounded look and Runescape all the way, baby!! Ok, not the best pic. Whatev.

C'est une update

2011-10-06T17:19:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don't know French, This is an update. But, this isn't just an ordinary, boring (no promises) update, this is an update on life and music and other good happiness stuff.

Starting about 2 months ago (lol), my father and I moved from Alabama to New Hampshire. I used to live in New England (and mainly New Hampshire), and lived there -- here -- whatever for 7-ish years. I then moved to Alabama, and now, due to my dad finding and getting an epic job, we now live back here, which we like to call home. Alabama was referred to as hell simply because it was only slightly less hot than hell. Well, ostensibly.

After an oh-so-fun move in a 17' U-Haul, a neat stay in the mountains (epic biking trails, by the way), and a fair amount of stress later, we ended up here in Exeter, NH.

Aside from that, life is now again fairly standard: wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, help with housework (as in fixing the house), chill in the studio, and sleep.

_____As for music related news (seeing as how this blog is for music and such)..._____

If you did not know, I have both a Soundcloud and a Bandcamp account. Soundcloud carries my electronic music, whereas Bandcamp holds everything else. I don't have much on either, but at least Soundcloud makes sense because I don't have much electronic stuff.

My reason for stating that is not just because it's a place to listen to and download my stuff, it's where a burst on inspiration came from. If you go to Soundcloud and click on the first song "Damn High," you will note that it is a rather shoddy 'political dubstep remix' of Jimmy McMillan's governor debate. But, for some reason, this song has inspired me.

By inspire, I mean that it has for some unknown reason made me want to record and produce a bunch of songs I've just had waiting. Hopefully I will do such a thing to at least 5 songs within the next two weeks. But, knowing me, well, things can not always go to plan. We'll see what happens.

Expect to see songs such as Sum It Up, The Rain Song, Baaesh (electronic), hfs, Hi, and maybe others, showing up on Facebook, maybe Youtube, and the above listed sites.

_____EPIC THOUGHT TRANSITION_____

So, I've been thinking, how neat would it be if I were to start doing YouTube vids of lessons, vlogs, and maybe even show you the process I go through to create a song? Well, I've been thinking it would be really cool since my YouTube channel is rather boring and unused, and it would be fun for me and educational for others.

I would be able to do this normally, but my current webcam takes blurry, slow-mo videos in poor quality. I was thinking of using an actual camera, one that can shoot in clear 720p. I can do audio separately if need be. I found out there are several for under $100, so it's a plausible idea.

___small thought transition___

Instruments!! Gosh, I feel like I'm becoming an instrument connoisseur. Not to boast, but to proclaim, I have a:
Crescent violin
Stradivarius violin
Dean Vcoustic
BC Rich Warlock Bronze Series
BC Rich Warlock KKW
Rogue LX205B 5-string Bass
Harmony H-802
Epiphone C-25
Korg Kaossilator
M-Audio Keystation 88es
Train whistle
Recorder
Tin Whistle
Fun Gear Harmonica
Tanzanian Kalimba
Kazoo

And that's not mentioning my accessories or the new instruments I've gotten since moving:
Jackson Dinky (or Soloist, not sure)
Vintage hammered dulcimer

And so what am I wanting to buy along with of Starbucks coffee and socks? Well...
Korg X50
Korg M3
Korg Kaosspad
Korg MicroKORG
Ibanez 7-string (forget which one exactly)
Schecter 8-string (forget which one exactly)
YouRock MIDI guitar

And that's just a few of the things I'm looking at. Yes, I am looking for a job. Speaking of which...

I have a few applications out to various places all asking essentially the same thing: any job, minimum wage. Turns out, even the place with the "help wanted" sign by its front door isn't really hiring just random people like you'd think. It kinda bites because a local music shop is selling the MicroKORG at a mere $300. I know the X50 is only a little more, but the MicroKORG has a vocoder (same engine as the MS2000, actually) and is smaller.

We just won't mention the $2600 M3 that has like everything, y'know...

___Nearing the End!!!___

Right, so, uh, anything else random that you might care about (as if you cared about the rest)... mmm, nope, not really.

So yeah, hopefully I can get a camera (comes 2nd in my list of things I want to buy, first being nice stuff, like anything not pertaining to me), that would be cool. Also, new songs (assuming all goes well). I may finish one tonight. I'm thinking of just adding a neat harpsichord bit over the drums and sustained synth and it'll work out nicely!

Until then...
Rock on!!

Neat and strange tones

2011-08-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have moved to New Hampshire. Among other things happening (and a few things that aren't), I have been playing around with techniques and tones. I thought I'd share a few with you.

Just as a note before I go on, my equipment is as follows:
Bass: Rogue LX205B
Guitar: (in this case) BC Rich KKW
Pedals: DigiTech Death Metal Distortion->Boss DS-1 Distortion->Peavey AOD-2 Overdrive->Ibanez CF7 Chorus/Flange->Ibanez WD7 Wah->Ibanez DL5 Digital Delay
Amp: Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe

If you are unaware of any settings I am talking about, just look up which pedal it is. It will be set up into 2 sections, Guitar and Bass, and settings will be... well, explained, anyway. lol

Guitar Tones:

First, I'd like to share my main tone: a nice, creamy-yet-crunchy tone that I use a lot. It's fairly simple: Overdrive into chorus into delay. Amp is set to clean, with the 3-band eq set to 6, 5, and 4. Reverb is set to 2, Presence is set to about 4, with the TD dynamics (power level) set to 5 or below. It's kind of ghostly.

The next tone is just the lead tone for the last tone: it just adds the distortion pedal.

Transistor Radio is a totally random tone. It uses the Death metal pedal with a full HIGH eq setting. The amp totally cuts the bass, but has full mid and high.

Punk Rock is really just a nice punk rock tone. It consists of just the Boss DS-1, set to tone: 60%, Distortion 60-70%. It sounds nice with various settings that really can be variables and still sound kinda punky.

There are more, but that's enough for one post.

Bass Tones

S00perBASS:
All the S00perBASS tone is is my bass's neck pu with the tone all the way to 0 and the amp set with full bass, no mid or highs. It shakes things even at low volume. Me gusta.

Nonabass
This tone is pretty much picking a bass by the bridge with a full-tone bridge pu, and eq full high, no bass or mid, and going through a very trebly wah filter.

My normal bass tone is simple, depending on which you like more. They sound similar. I either use just the bridge pu with full tone, or both pu's, bridge at 0 tone, neck at 100% tone. Both sound nice.

So yeah, play around on your equipment and see how you fare. Heck, tell me some of your settings, too!!

Rock on.

Be it musically legal or not...

2011-06-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I like throwing genres together into compilations of insanity that occasionally work. Well, I did it again.

Currently in .gpx (Guitar Pro 6) and .png (picture) formats, I re-arranged Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat for Classical guitar.

Guitar Pro: http://www.mediafire.com/file/hcbr9riqt96rdv0

Picture: http://www.mediafire.com/?fdc5e4p81pz5hvr

Or, you can just get the picture off of this blog because...

I want to kind of teach you how to play it. Here's the tab/music:

As for playing this, it's easy. Each bar can be played by holding down barre chords. The chords are C, Am, G, G, C, Bdim, Am, G.

See? Easy. Harder than on a synth or organ, but still easy.

Now if I could just find some way to play the percussion part on the guitar while playing it...

KAOSS!!!

2011-06-02T15:47:00.001-07:00

Know what this is?

I'll give you a hint. Its name is written on it, it's a synth, and it's amazing.

It's a Korg Kaossilator!

I've been eyeing it for some time now... actually, ever since Dad showed it to me when Think Geek started carrying it a few years ago. I can barely even describe its awesomeness because it is so interesting.

It looks like a cheaply made plastic box with typical parts: stardard volume and output parts, basic screen, etc. But, once you turn it on and touch the touchpad for the first time, you know it's awesome.

It has 100 synth programs, all fully modulateable with the pad -- x axis is usually pitch, y is usually mod. Each program's axis fuunction is slightly different, and for some, a slight move on the pad makes a totally different sound. It's really neat, and, for what it is, pretty cheap!

Anyway, just wanted to point that out :)

Gear+software

2011-03-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

Woooooowww. I knew I hadn't posted in a while, but DANG!

Today I decided I would talk about equipment. Like what I recently acuired.

Last Wednesday, I finally took home a piano from school. It's in perect condition aside from missing 2 strings and is out of tune just a bit. A couple other minor problems exist, but if my research is correct*, it's in great shape for being an instrument from 1943 that I found sitting outside at a high school! The coolest thing is this: it's a Baldwin piano, and I was able to get it FOR FREE! Woot!

*I contacted Gibson (you know, the guitar company), owner of Baldwin (pianos), about the piano, but have yet to get a response. Typical of big businesses.

Also, Dad found a great deal on a Peavey Bandit 112 "Red Stripe" on eBay. I was shopping for amps, and it was down to a Bandit or some big thing by B-52. Well, since Dad found this one, he got it. I love it. It has everything I wanted:
50+ watts
A capable speaker for the power (which in that range is pretty much 10"+)
Effects looping
Preferrably no digital modeling or effects (considering I wanted a replacement for my Line 6, which is full digital and sounds like it's digital)
Good or at least OK reviews
And preferrably under $400

This amp has it all: 80 watts (100 to external), 1-12" speaker, Effects looping, no digital anything, amazing reviews (even lowest review was 3/5 stars), and I think it was around $200. And, it sounds amazing.

I also downloaded the trial version of Guitar Pro 6, and I must say, it is definitely a step up from 5. I own 5, so I know. Guitar Pro 6 includes Realistic Sound Engines for I think 300+ instruments, fully adjustable pedal models of popular pedals, like Ibanez Tube Screamers and Dunlop Crybabies, fully adjustable amp models including Fender Tweed and Marshall Stacks, a totally new layout with easier to use placement of instruments, effects, musical notational thingies, and a bunch of other stuff, and... well, you get the idea. It's awesome. I want. NAO.

But I can't because I don't have $65. :(

Rock on.

Quick update

2010-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

My newest song, Sian, is on the way. So far, all I have is the first parts of the synth and drums:

Trust me, this song is EPIC. Er, it will be.

As for the Christmas Album, I think I will leak out a song or two from it onto Youtube as a sneak preview. I think you will like it. I probably won't release the entire album until 2012, but I will include with it a secret joker song about the world not ending. :)

I don't think I've mentioned it before, so... I'm giving lessons! Like, somewhat legitimate ones, too! I'm giving lessons to a friend on bass guitar. Why choose me, I have no clue. I only have an intermediate understanding of music theory, and translating that and techniques to a guitar usually ends up in utter demise of every musician's train of thought! But, hey, I'm helping a friend for free, so why not?

As a random side note: LEARNING SCALES IS IMPORTANT! I can make prettyful music on my violin thanks to my learning the Major scale. I might make a random song up (aka improv) on it just to show you. Next I might move on to actual songs!

And as for Me News in general:

Dude! I gotz a cell phone!

That's more than it deserves. It's the Pantech Crux, and, to be honest, all I do with it is text my dad if I'm coming home late. I've made 1 call. One. Uno. More of a random object than something I use often, but it is nice to be able to do that.

Over & out. Rock on.

D.T.

Hello again, my good friend...

2010-11-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

Muahahahaha!!!

Ok, maybe not quite. Hallowe'en weekend just passed, and, among other things that happened, I did not get the chance to even have a good idea for a 2010 Hallowe'en song! Currently, two days after Hallowe'en, it is only half written. I've decided to not have a Hallowe'en song this year, which I guess is okay. I just feel bad about the one last year -- eww!!

On to other news...

It seems I have not posted jack since I found the keyboard, so...

I got the keyboard, and it is AMAZING!! I have both Magix Music Maker 15 and M-audio Session to use.... wait, I also have Ableton Live 6 M-powered, but I never use it. Maybe I should.

Yes, the links may be to updated versions. Whatevs.

Remember my violin? Cool. Yes I still kinda suck at it. Check this out: one thing I did over the weekend was go to a Time for Three concert. These guys will amaze you. Sure, it may be just a Double Bass and two violins, but they are both rock stars and a classically trained garage band. Trust me - amazing. Anyway, I got my violin signed by them after the concert!

Overall picture.

Closeup of Zack DePue's Signature.

Closeup of Ranaan Meyer's signature, with "TF3" written as well.

Nick Kendall's signature, with the message "Rock on buddy!"

Aside form the epic coolness of this, if I ever had to sell it (which I hope to God never to have to do), it's a $25 violin turned several hundred to the right customer. It is also the first ever violin signed by Time for Three; Ranaan even stated that he had never signed one before.

In not so late news...

Yesterday I got a new instrument (surprised?)! Boiling the story down, my cousin's parents are moving and they were trying to get rid of stuff. I found his mother's Coronet, and she said I could have it! So, now I have a Coronet:

No, I can't really play the thing. I just now was able to hold a solid note for more than a second. It took me 20 minutes just to figure out how to buzz my lips! Yes, I know it is a Coronet, by the way. The band director at school seriously asked if it was a coronet or a trumpet. I know I'm kinda dumb in areas, but that's a pretty obvious difference.

So, yeah. That's about it for now. Maybe I'll have something actually noteworthy next post!

Rock on.

Coolnezz!

2010-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have great news! Or, should I say, EpiK news...

Firstly, I am getting a keyboard! I decided that a synth costs too much, so I'd go for a keyboard. And, since a keyboard would help me a lot, I am not getting that 7-string. I figure a) I have 6 guitars already, and b) I should save for an actually good guitar, like a Schecter or something.

So, what am I getting?

*drumroll*

An M-Audio Keystation 88es MIDI controller! It is a really good keyboard (really MIDI controller, but whatever), with its 88 Semi-Weighted keys, many programmable controls, and USB connection. It is also powered by said USB connection, or by a 9-V adapter (I'll go with USB, since it needs a computer to work anyway), which are switchable.

Specs:

-88-note velocity-sensitive, semi-weighted action
-pitch bend and modulation wheels
-volume/assignable control slider
-advanced function button for programming
-sustain pedal input (pedal sold separately)
-assignable data up/down buttons
-built-in USB MIDI interface
-MIDI out jack routes MIDI signals from keyboard or computer to external devices
-powered via USB or 9VDC power adapter (sold separately)
-Mac OS X and Windows XP class compliant for plug-and-play operation
-includes Ableton Live Lite music production software, so you can make music right away
-53" x 9.5" x 4" 22 lbs.

Not bad...

I am also thinking about new recording gear. I found many awesome things:

-A package consisting of:
**Audio-Technica ATH-M20 Closed-Back Headphones,
**MXL 990/MXL 991 Recording Microphones,
**two KRK Rokit G2 (Generation 2) powered studio monitors,
**2 - 20' XLR mic cables ,
**2 - 10' Livewire instrument cables, and
**2 MS-220 Tripod Microphone Stands.

This is one of the best sets I have seen. For around $500, this isn't bad at all! Some of the best stuff out there! I also found these:

-M-Audio Studiophile AV40 powered monitors (in case I can't get Rokits)
-MXL MXL 990 condenser mic with shockmount (Epic mic, really)
-MXL MXL 990 and 991 condenser and dynamic mic package (just a package, included in the package stated above)
-Shure C606N Vocal Mic with mic to 1/4" cable (1/4" mic? Heck yeah! Guitar effects (and easy recording) here I come!!)
-Shure SM58 and X2u XLR-To-USB digital bundle (A USB MIC?? Perfect!!)

Not like I can afford any of that, all I have is $60! Ok, I could get the epic MXL mics... or I can save up for the kit. Or something else.

I have new songs coming into existence: EpiK, t, and maybe some classical songs. I am working on EpiK slowly (yes, actually spelled like that), but it's coming along. I really just need to finish the drums and record the guitar and bass (about an hour process, I hope), then it will be done.

t, however, is already finished, and has been for a while. Here it is:

This is a song about love, friendship, and serenity. Ok, not really, but it is a neat song. I used a Cm harmony with the lead track, and over the progressive E, G, and A rhythm, I think it sounds great. Sorry about the minor clipping; I'm working on fixing that. Mixing is hard with this song.

The classical songs I mentioned are so far called Easy Song and B-Droned. I have such creative names (you should see what I name some of my files...)!

Easy song is just that: easy. It consists of 5 chords: Bm, Am, C, G, and D. I play them as two-note chords, just the root and a second, higher note, that makes it either major or minor. Let me explain...

Pictures always work best. This is the entire song: just repeat that. Take the first chord, Bm. You see the root, B, and then, on the B string, you see the D note. If it were D#, it would be major. Forget major, minor FTW!! It is just one of those songs that sounds great but is very easy.

B-Droned is also easy, yet an idea I have played with for a while. I guess then it isn't really a song, but a technique uncommon to most popular genres of music (except for some... there are always some...). Here's how it works: pick two strings that are adjacent, in this example, the high B and e strings (I don't want to confuse any 7- or 8+-users, but it would work down there too). Play the lower note open -- always. When you pick that, play the higher string in chord fashion. Then, start fretting in scale with the B note so that it sounds good with the droned string. Here's an example (pictorial, because I am a bad teacher and am not good at explaining things):

Play it, if you want. Same tempo as the last pictorial reference, 60. You can also see a few other techniques, such as using the drone itself, and switching the drone to the higher string.

Lastly, I wanted to mention something awesome. I went to Florida for Labour Day Weekend, and while I was there I got to spend some time (not as much as I would have liked, but my family was getting tired from other shopping and it would really take me days to go through the place anyway) in a Guitar Center for the first time ever! Though I only got to spend a little while there, I'll tell you about it. My blog, I say what I wish.

When we first walked in, I was awed and amazed at what they had about 20 feet from the entrance: a JVM Marshall stack! That is almost the exact amp I want, except I want the JVM412H, and cabs to go with (duh). This was a 410H I think, and it also had a slant top cab, which I hate for some reason. I stopped in my tracks, which of course made my dad stop suddenly as he was behind me. He told me to keep going, so I did... right to the amp. I. Need. One.

I then immediately was drawn to the main part of the store, the guitar section. I was walking around, looking at the amps they had set up for you to play guitars on, looking at the guitars they had on display, along with the many, many, MANY pedals of all sorts, all testable in-store. That would be a day right there. I continued to the freaking WALL of Gibsons: LPs, SGs, all in every colour and type imaginable. And, of course, they were on a backdrop of a cardboard wall of Marshalls, like what Ozzy uses live (or used to, at least). I continued looking around, and came across the Vault. Keep in mind by this point, my mind was in guitar land, and I could barely think about anything else. My knowledge of random guitar facts, parts, etc. came to mind all at once, and I had a slight headache.

The Vault had oen thing in it that I almost died over: Steve Vai's main Ibanez: EVO. It wasn't actually EVO, but, though strange to hear, Steve Vai uses production model guitars, unlike many artists. What you buy is what he plays. Add the word EVO below the Tiger Claw and bang it up, replace the neck, and add whatever else he has on there (mainly a strap and sticky tape on the headstock to hold picks), and you have EVO. I nearly had a heart attack over it, being but a mere foot away from it. I could have played it, but I would have had to talk to a sales rep and probably needed intent to buy, which, at $2500, I wouldn't do. Not yet.

Yes, I realise I had a mini-heart attack from wood and wire, but whatever.

I moved on into the Bass realm of GC, which was awesome. While going in, though, out of the corner of my eye I noticed something: a BC Rich KKW Warlock, exactly like the one I have. Woot! Anyway, I went into teh Bass Realm and I got to play a Hofner Violin bass (one of my must-have bass guitars), and, though I couldn't figure out the amps in the amp room, it played beautifully. I also noticed how the body was very much like a violin, with the hollow body, general shape, and weight. I. Need. One. Too.

I then found myself wandering around, when a Schecter caught my eye. I picked it up, plugged it into I think a Vox amp, and by that point my dad came over basically to say we were leaving. He found a shell and had me play for my grandmother, which I played very badly, but still impressed her a bit. If my kind of bad impresses people, what does my good do? On the way out, I looked into the vault again and noticed Jimmy Page's custom made Gibson double neck: another instrument to stare at for hours.

So, I still must explore drum land, Keyboard land, and whatever else may be in there, but in general I think I have to go back.

Until next time...
Rock On!!

Today was amazing!!!

2010-08-10T18:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day for not only myself, but apparently a lot of people. Why was it great for me?

I got new stuff!!! In order of appearance, I got a Yamaha PSR-273 keyboard, and a Crescent VL-WT violin!!

I got the keyboard for free, actually, from a great friend of mine. It was a problematic little bugger for them, that, when I tested it, did not work at ALL at their house. So, they asked if I wanted it, and I was like "sure!" Once I got it home, I discovered a little box in my studio! But, that's coming up...

This keyboard works at my house... kinda. Using its speakers, it is EXTREMELY quiet. When you plug in headphones, it buzzes and hums, even if you aren't touching the keys and turn the volume down all the way. It also seems to not have stereo plugged in; only Left or Right, not both. Strange thing is, it is left when you mostly insert it, and right when you fully insert it. Weird...

The violin was a spontaneous buy my dad made on eBay. I have been wanting a violin for a while, and I was saving up for a nice Cremona SV-175. Dad found this for about $45 total and got it. It is a nice instrument (I think), but... (please don't mind the quality of photos, I was using my web cam)

In the case.

WTF. I just found out this thing has a freaking heart in the case.

The case!

The outside of the case (this is a very nice case, too, if you couldn't tell).

Teh (intentional) bow.

No, not a Hostess cupcake. This is the rosin which wanted to be cut so it was rough. That's what Claire said would help, and she's an amazing violinist, so I assume she's right.

The violin, on my desk. Also showing is the red cap of the rosin.

Here we see the bridge, fine tuners, and whatever that big black thing is called.

See the blurry black splotch below the F hole? I think that is part of the Sharpie they used to make the outline.

Rather rough job on the outline, possibly the aforementioned Sharpie.

Maybe a fine paintbrush, though...

Here, we see the head. Beautiful instrument aside from a few cosmetic flaws.

And here, we see some guitarist trying to look like he can play the thing. Didn't work, but I also have maybe a total of an hour behind a violin. I already know basic stuff, like bowing technique, how to hold it, and stuff like that.

So yeah. I now have a non-functional keyboard that I will try to fix (but will probably not be able to figure it out) and a violin. I currently now do not have enough to afford the 7-string I want. Eh, I'll get to it.

Rock on.

Ah, right, also, school has started, and I must say I think I will like this year as a junior. I have great classes (but with honours you really can't go wrong), friends in every class aside from PE, and out school also just got a face lift and new software. Of course, the teachers can't use it because they weren't trained to use it, so now students in CSI (computer science investigations) such as myself need to teach teachers how to use it. That is really the entire point of the class.

Finally!

2010-08-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

So, I finally got around to doing it. The following posts will (for real this time) be documentaries/reports/reviews of my current instruments. I also have a couple videos I would like to do on each instrument showing the features each has. The general order for the Warlocks, Harmony, and Dean I will follow is this:

Introduction
Instrument name
Woods used
Fret # and type
Electronics: pickups and controls
Hardware
Play:
Clean riff is the interlude to To Live is to Die by Metallica, then the chords G, D, Cadd9, C6add9, then back to Cadd9.
Distorted riff is the most of the main riff to Frank by Steve Vai, then the lead is the first Canon Rock solo by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Fin.

For the Bass, I will use this schedule:

Introduction
Instrument name
Woods used
Fret # and type
Electronics: pickups and controls
Hardware
Play:
I will play a walking bass riff that goes in this order: Root, 3rd, 5th, 6th, b7th.
Fin.

And for the Classical, I will do this:

Introduction
Instrument name
Woods used
Fret # and type
Hardware
Play:
I will first play a song called Country Dance. Then, I will do the same chord sequence as before.
Fin.

Enjoy...

Rock On.

New stuff!!!

2010-07-27T20:44:00.001-07:00

...Plans, that is.

Now that I have money, I have to think rationally on what I should get. I need to keep stuff in mind like what instruments have I been wanting, what do I really need, etc. I have actually made a few calculations, too (can you tell I have free time during the summer?).

~~Finances~~

I have $314.46 as of July 27, 2010.

Wish Liszt:

Danelectro Talkbox ($84.95) (15)
Cremona SV-175 ($190.75) (32)
Douglas SR-370 ($213.38) (36)
Dell Inspiron 15R, Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit ($497.71) (83)
On Revolute + Shove the Sun Aside ($25.00) (5)
M-Audio Studiophile AV40 ($149.00) (25)
MXL 990-USB USB Powered Condenser Microphone ($99.95) (17)
Synth (still deciding, but will be expensive) (x)

Let me explain what this is.

The first part shows that I have $314.46 to spend (once I cash my checks, that is). Simple enough.

The second is a wish list showing thing I want. This list does not show everything, but whatever. Pretty much, the breakdown is like this:

Item (Price in USD) (Hours I have to work [rounded up] to attain said value)

Let me tell you a bit about each of these.

The talkbox is the only talkbox I can find that doesn't require this strange setup of a mic and double inputs and crap. It works just like a normal pedal, and, hey, I can be a nooby Peter Frampton!

The Cremona SV-175 is a violin. It is a fairly cheap yet high quality instrument, according to my friend, Claire. That was her first violin, and 6 years later, she still has it. It also sounds great and plays great, too, she says. I figure I can trust that, considering that's what most reviews tend to say as well. Why a violin? Why the crap NOT a violin? It's friggen cool!!

The Douglas SR-370... you know about that. No, I still haven't gotten it.

The Dell Inspiron 15R. I need a new friggen computer. I currently have an "Ultra" brand box that has been modded to about 2004-era computers. I need to run AutoCAD and the new GP, man, I need better than Windows XP Home, Version 2002, SP3 running off of an AMD Duron processor, 1.79 GHz, and 1.25 GB of RAM! I also still have a CRT monitor, which frankly uses more power than if I had all my guitar equipment on for a week. Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

On Revolute and Shove the Sun Aside are Dave Wiener's two albums that I must have. Hey, for that price for two albums, a pick, and a shirt, why not?

M-Audio Studiophile AV40 = studio monitors!!! Sorry, but normal PC speakers just don't give my instruments the sound they need.

The MXL 990-USB USB Powered Condenser Microphone is in the list for several reasons:
1. My mic sucks.
2. I want to record my acoustics instruments.
3. I want to see why most people use mics instead of direct line in, like I use.

A Synth... man, I wish I had that. I don't know which to get, but pretty much all of them are WAAAY out of my price range.

So... yeah.

In other news...

I am finding out a new genre that I really like. Keep in mind while reading the following that I've come to like at least something about every genre I've heard. Why else would I like Folk, Rock, Metal, Celtic, Traditional, Jazz, Blues, Steve Vai, Ravi Shankar, The Irish Rovers, Arany Zoltan, Joe Satriani, Slayer, Korn, Loreena Mckennitt, Lord of the Dance, Billy Whelan, Mark Knopfler, Medwyn Goodall, Orianthi, John Petrucci... you get the point.

That new genre is JPOP! Japanese Pop, in case you didn't know. I've really only heard one pop group, Morning Musume. They are EpiK (note the "K")! Well, i think so. Everyone else who I've had listen to it did not like it, but there's one easy reason: everyone grows into a certain area of music, and branching out is like trying to break down a metaphorical brick wall with your hand.

People such as myself found the metaphorical drill bit on the ground.

Once you find that metaphorical drill bit, you can then break free and discover the whole world of music out there. Only problem is, people are comfortable with what they listen to. If they want to stay, that's fine with me! 8^)

Yeah... that's pretty much it for today. I think I have thoroughly annoyed you musically.

Rock ON!!! With two-part harmony, of course, in the key of Cm...

SR-370

2010-07-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

Dang... haven't said jack here for nearly a month...

There really isn't much to say, either. I really only have two major things going on: I got a job, and I am getting a new guitar.

The job is with a local realty office... or more so with their Owner/Broker. It is a fairly straightforward job with good pay. Basically I am a lawn care dude: caring for lawns of houses to be sold, removing various organic deposits from places like roofs, and clearing vines and stuff. The pay is good: $6 per hour.

This being the Guitarist's Blog, talking about the new guitar makes sense. For really the last few months I have been thinking about getting a 7-string guitar or a guitar with a tremolo. I have discussed it with various people, and in general I'm getting a neutral response. I'm the judge, and I say I'm getting both!

Say hello to the Douglas SR-370. This beautifully crafted 7 String Guitar with a Licensed Floyd Rose tremolo system and beautiful 3 piece solid mahogany body with ash veneer is a good comparison to a Schecter C-7, as one review says. With it’s wonderful hardware, great looks, and killer tone (even through crappy webcams on YouTube), I would have to say this is a good instrument. This is also the next instrument I am planning on getting.

Here are a few stats:

Neck: Truss rod adjustable 24 fret maple neck with rosewood fretboard and shark tooth/fin inlays, as seen on many Jackson guitars.
Tuners: Die cast brushed chrome Grover tuners
Bridge: Licensed Floyd Rose Tremolo
Electronics: Two Humbucker pickups, three way switch, and one volume and one tone control.
Body: Mahogany body - Ash top
Weight: 7.5 lbs
Length: 39 1/2"
Scale length: 25.5"
Width: 12.5"
Width of nut: 1 11/16"

And, the final shocker: this guitar is very cheaply priced at a mere $189.95, with $23.43 shipping. For $213.38, I would say this guitar is pretty sweet… and pretty in general. Adding this machine to my arsenal will be sweet.

Of course, we always have the few who argue “Well, you aren’t good enough for that instrument” or “why do you need another guitar?” or “7-strings are useless!” Well, let me tell you something:
a) There are people out there who get paid a million bucks a year for playing three chords. I think I’m freaking good enough.
b) I don’t need a 7-string. It’s like why do I NEED a bed, or a 5-string bass, or pretty much anything we have: we don’t need it, but we want it. Case closed.
c) 7 string guitars can play anything a 6 string can, the only difference being that it feels different to do. Granted, a 7 string is a completely different instrument from a 6, but in general, it’s just like a 6, just with one extra string.

Then you may ask “Why the extra string?” Well, that is fun or all sorts of things:

--fun improvisation (the 7 was first used in genres like Jazz, where improvisation is a big part),
--heavy riffs (I may not like new rock and metal, but I do like that low sound),
--adding a new dimension to the limits of a standard guitar with the ability to tune up or down (BEADGBE or EADGBEA),
--and even for use as just another bass string (there is a 7 string classical guitarist out there).

Dave Weiner, ladies and gentlemen.

Now that THOSE are closed, I would like to say why I want one:

Like I say, I have wanted one for months, but now I actually have a job (see above) and can afford one. My main influence was Dave Weiner, Steve Vai’s rhythm guitarist, Mr. Riff of the Week, and a generally (from what I can tell) a really, really cool dude. See above image. He is like me in that he studies different genres and learns about how they work, too. I also want one just for experimental purposes, because I have never really had a tremolo system and I want to learn to use that, and really, a 7 just sounds fun.

Those in favour say “Aye, those opposed say “nay”, and those neutral, don’t say jack. Preferably in the comments 8^)

Rock on.

News

2010-06-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Musical news, let's see...

I am working on a new song for the bass guitar. It has this nice melodic part that goes something - actually, exactly - like this:

It's really neat how you play it. The first part is really the first two bars repeated three times. What you do is you finger the bass note, then also finger some fret on the D and G strings. For me, I finger it like this:

Why do that? Ease. Think about it: on a bass, the distance from the fretboard to the string on the open sting is about 3/8ths of an inch. That is a really far way, is it not? Finger it, and the distance is lower, making it easier to use a the technique to play these which is somewhat uncommon on a bass: tapping.

So, basically you finger those fingerings, play the bass note with your thumb, and tap the indicated notes with your index and middle fingers. Totally not complicated.

The second part, starting on bar 7, is much easier. You use the same fingerings as you do the tapping part, except you play the fingered notes. Still rather melodic, eh? Here's a video of me playing it:

I still have to work on it, but it's pretty good so far.

I've been playing my guitar in a fun way too. I know it's no new concept, but I tried something that worked really beautifully: Tap a string, finger a note behind it, pull off the tapped note, and slide the fingered note. Also, sliding the tapped note works, too. It works beautifully. See?

Other than that, Not much is up musically. I'm still awaiting a summer job, I'm still kinda here. Wewt.

Rock on.

Canon + Bass

2010-06-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

I want to tell ya a bit about a couple things.

Firstly, Canon. Remember my older version of Canon, the one I played at the pageant a year ago? It's getting a re-work. The older version had too much music from other bands (Joe Satriani, Mattrach, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra); in fact, it was pretty much entirely those bands, just arranged in a fun way.

Now, however, I'm making it more mine. It still includes transcriptions from those artists, but far less of it and in such a fashion you couldn't even tell. It's also intertwined with my work, so all anyone could complain about is using the same notes and speed! Even the order is changed on parts of it!

Don't expect it out for a while. I need to finish writing it, learn it (just to jog my fingers), then record it. That could take days, especially if I do get a summer job.

Secondly, "Bass".

Yeah, that's kinda vague and broad, but its the best way to describe it. I've been working a lot more on my bass lately, trying to get fingerings right and making my fingers go faster. I've also been learning how to use a pick witha bass in a sensical manner. I'm thinking of writing a song that is only bass guitars.

Other than that, uh, not much is going on.

Rock on!

Summer Job

2010-06-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Dad suggested I get a summer job. Here's how I've come:

I tried the Architect's office, but to no avail. They apparently don't have anything for me to do.

Otherwise, I have pretty much wasted the last three weeks doing next to nothing; basic housework, playing games, composing music, etc. I find this as both good and bad:

It's good because I'm getting stuff done that otherwise would... well, get done later. In composing, it's giving me more reason to get a job. I'm experimenting with sounds, and it would help to have either a MIDI pickup system or a synthesizer. Reason to get a job.

It's bad because I've been focusing all of my focus on the stated activities. This afternoon (after prompt from my father) I went around locally looking for a summer job.

In the newspaper, there was an ad for the Boys and Girls club wanting help for a summer job. With my scouting experience, I can probably be at least somewhat helpful. Now all I need is a resume.

I went to a local grocery store and got an application. I also went to the local Rite-Aid and other stores, but they apparently need 17 year olds or need to be hiring... or both.

Well, one application isn't bad. I also can try the local Cyber Cafe - they've been hiring since they opened last year sometime.

On a completely different note...

I am working on a re-write of my version of Canon. it's mostly finished, and I make use of three more instruments. I still need to work on the rhythm track, but so far it's not bad.

Rock on.

New Blogs!!

2010-05-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have decided to make things a little less crowded on this blog. I thought through ideas (for about two seconds) and decided to make two separate blogs.

At Teenaged Architecture, I will start posting all of my architecture-related musings.

At Sir Yoa's Runescapian Life , I will post all of my Runescape-related doings.

This blog will still be used for two things: musical purposes and a few life stories. Hey, it's my first blog, I have to make it personal. It's almost like My first guitar: it has all of my thoughts, feelings, energy, mojo, and ideas locked in it. This blog will be like a mini version of that.

I may move related posts to the respective blogs as well.

Rock on. (for organisation!!)

Remember this blog?

2010-05-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hi, Devin here.

I figured I'd tell you what's been going on, seeing as how there are no videos or any sort of description for any of my instruments... or posts, really.

School is nearing to a close; in fact, it will be over in 9 days. I will have more stuff on here when the said time comes around, such as these videos. I have actually recorded a few, but I didn't do them right. They didn't show off the instruments well, and I only did a couple. I'm thinking of this general outline for all my instruments:

Musical introduction

Describe instrument: name and history

Describe instrument: technical data, such as fret count, scale length, type of instrument.

Describe instrument: electronics, if applicable.

Play: clean

Distortion introduction: types used (Fuzz, Distortion pedal, Overdrive, Insane)

Play: distortion

Final words: opinions (would I buy again, would I recommend, what I think of it)

Musical ending

I will also include the random instruments I have that I can't really play well, like my tin flute, recorder, and harmonica. I'll probably also show my train whistle and cow horn.

On a totally different note...

My studio has been vamped up with a new set up and desk. I currently have plenty of equipment to last me a while:

6 guitars (1 bass, 3 electrics, one classical, and one acoustic-electric)

3 amplifiers (Line 6, B C Rich, Peavey)

5 effects pedals (one of which is a multi-effects pedal)

Plenty of sound programs

Random instruments

Tuners (both for finding pitch and actual tuning machines)

Cleaner + washcloth

Et cetera

What have I been wrapped up in?

Well, I have been playing a lot, and learning a lot. I also seem to be having trouble with the classical, which I found has completely different physics than a normal guitar string wise. Apparently, where a steel-string can have just one or two wraps around the tuning peg, a classical needs about 5. Yay...

I haven't recorded much, but I do have a new song on Youtube called "Artisans." This is really more of a practice in interpolation. You may notice I use a "G" major scale and an "E" major scale in conjunction with a riff in "E". A "G" is a 3rd above "E".

I also attend this random place just about everyday called "school," and am for some reason doing this thing called "homework" that is required by the school.

I probably will have something of some epicness on here after school or sometime.

Rock on.

BTW notes:
Ronnie James Dio died Sunday, May 16, at about 7:10 am. Rest in peace, valiant rock knight.
Youtube's 5th birthday is today, May 17! Happy birthday, YouTube!

Guitars (Other)

2010-04-29T19:18:00.001-07:00

The Harmony H-802 is a great instrument. It sounds great for classic stuff, when everyone used fuzz, and it also works well in more modern situations. It may be vintage, but it isn't worth jack. This is the guitar I lend to friends and such. Here's its video:

I love my bass! It is definitely the most fun instrument I have, and it also is much better than expected. Usually Rogue has a high reputaion for low quality, but this bass, though no Rickenbacher, is amazing. And the 5th string is awesome for when I must release my inner... uh.. bass... Just watch the video:

Rock on.

Guitars (Acoustic)

2010-04-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

In this post I will talk about (or fool around with, your choice) my Dean Vcoustic acoustic-electric and my Epiphone C-25 classical guitar.

The Dean Vcoustic Acoustic-Electric guitar is certainly interesting. I got it as a birthday present (I think), and ever since I guess it has worked out. Not quite a ML, but it will suffice 8^) It is incredibly hard to hold due to its Flying-V shape, and really it sounds, well, not the best. Here is its video:

The Epiphone C-25 Classical guitar is a great instrument. You already know a little about this thing, so let me tell you more. This instrument was bought from my dad's boss for around $50. Its B tuner was broken, but I fixed that with new tuners. I also got new strings and everything for it, and now it works fine! It sounds good, and really helps when playing anything that uses fingerpicking! Here's its video:

Rock on.

Epiphone C-25

2010-04-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

Remember I wanted a nylon-string? Well, thanks to the power of my dad, my dad's boss, and $50, I have one! With a case, too!

Let me show you around.

Here, you can see that it is an Epiphone C-25, made in Korea.

We have moved out of the body to show you the hole's outline.

Turning around, we have the bridge. I have no idea how to string this, so that should be fun.

We have passed the neck to show you that Epiphone doesn't like their guitar, seeing as how it has no name on the headstock. I want you to also note that the 2nd string tuner has a broken head, and therefore cannot be tuned without the use of something like pliers.

Here, we see the case it came with. It is very fluffy inside.

Here, I want you to note the epically wide neck in comparision with a standard acoustic neck (kinda) and an electric neck. Like I have said, this is for fingerings.

So, after all, I did get a nylon-string. Yay!!

Rock on. Hey, it works for acoustics, too.

Splidoosh!

2010-04-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

A fine name for such a day. Today is, as you are probably aware, Easter. Yesterday was my birthday (W007). I have some awesome news for ya concerning it:

Remember this? That borrowed Warlock from my guitar teacher? It's mine.

I was talking to him earlier and he said that because I've used it more than he would and have worked on it nore than he would, it's mine. So now, I have epic, edgy jazz/blues tone encased in a spiky, flaming mahogany body!

What's really bad is this little anecdote:

Ok, so we were in Gorilla Guitars in Columbus, GA, yesterday looking for a nylon-string guitar, or a "classical" guitar, if you will. I figured I play enough classical and fingerpicking stuff I might as well get one.

We walked in, and, after a bit of playing around with a Floyd Rose and seeing that they don't know the difference between a baritone guitar and a 6-string bass -- unless 6 string basses have really, REALLY light strings --, I started playing a classical guitar. I was really intent on buying the one I was playing: a full-sized Cort AC12 guitar. Gorrilla is a HUGE Cort carrier. I really liked the feel of it, too. However, I only had $60 bucks to throw in, plus about $40 my dad would throw in. It was $200.

I tried a 3/4 sized guitar (which was actually in our price range), but it felt just like my other guitars, which was not helpful. The main reason nowadays to get a nylon-string is the string spacing. It is wider, making it easier to use classical fingerings. If you have an axe around, pick it up and finger pick something. If you watch closely, you'll see that your fingers touch two strings if you have a normal guitar. With nylon-strings, you tend to only touch one unless you really don't know what you're doing.

So, final result? No nylon-string. I'll try again next time; maybe they'll have a cheaper one.

Rock on.

Epic LOLZ

2010-03-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, you know those emails about getting billions of dollars from foreign countries? Well, I checked my Gmail Spam folder and found three:

$15 million and even Google knows it fake!

Africans with $25.3 million?

1 million pounds!! And still very easily known that it's fake.

My point? Well, for one, these are just funny to me. Secondly, DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TRAP. You will get pwned in the face nine times, be stripped of your identity, and become a blubbering idiot. Kapish? I mean, don't even reply back with several swear words, degrading remarks on their stupidity, or even just to say "Hello to you too, 84574r)!" If you know half-leet you can read that.

Rock on.

Guitars (BC Rich)

2010-03-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

In this post, I will feature my BC Rich Warlock Bronze Series and my BC Rich Warlock KKW guitars.

The BC Rich Warlock Bronze Series was my first guitar. Back up time to about September 4th, 2006. I started thinking about how awesome it would be to play a bass guitar. I kept thinking about it, then finally, after 2 days and adding 2 strings to my thoughts, I asked my dad for a guitar so I could learn to play. I sketched out the guitar I wanted because I forgot the name (found out later it was a Dean ML). Dad told me to prove I wanted to play by playing his acoustic for a month. In that month I learned all the major and a few minor chords, and the major scale fingering. On October 8th, my B.C. Rich Warlock arrived at 8:42 p.m. I had found it on Ebay for $75 with $25 shipping. From there I have just progressed. Here's its video:

The BC Rich KKW Metal Master Warlock is a guitar from my guitar teacher. I don't know it's history, all I know is that it is shiny and sounds great. It has a really nice, almost bluesy tone on the neck pickup, and (when it works) the bridge sounds just stellar. It does have a few problems, however, like all used guitars would. It seems that the toggle switch needs replacement, seeing as how it cannot stay in the bridge position except once in a blue moon. The volume pot is also broken; the plastic interior that grips the actual pot slides freely inside the metal casing. Here's its video:

Rock on.

Reviews

2010-03-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

I have thought of a great idea! I'm going to post a bunch of text/video reviews of all 13 peices of gear I have.

For this post, however, I'll review the things most people don't think about: my cables, tuner, and picks.

I use 5 kinds of cables: a Monster 8", a Radioshack 15' coil, two custom George L's (8" and a 3'), two HOSA 6" cables, and a generic 9'.

The Monster cable is a really nice cable. It is a double straight double male tip cable. It uses special shielding to make a "High Clarity Low Noise Musical Instrument Cable". It has interchangeable decorative stripes, to boot! My only problem with Monster is that even this little 8" cable cost me $8. A dollar an inch, I don't think so, sorry.

The Radioshack 15' coiled cable is my main guitar-to-effects/amp cable. It is also my first cable. The coil makes it slightly less useful, making the max length more like maybe 8', but it is unique in that most people use straight cables. Jimi Hendrix also used a coiled cable. It is a double male straight and angled cable. In general, it is a great cable. I only wish I would have chosen a double straight.

The two George L's were custom made for me at my favourite guitar shop, Gorilla Guitars. The cables work out in such a way that I can use one for between effects and one for between the last effect and my amp. They are great cables, too: they are specially shielded, like all my cables, and they are tough little buggers. They are both double male, double straight cables. I have nothing bad to say about them!

The 8" cable.

The 3' cable.

The two HOSA 6" cables are my newest cables, along with my bass cable. They are double angle, double male cables, and work very well for my needs (see pic). Nothing bad about them!

The 15' cable is my main Bass to effects/amp cable. It came with the bass and has no logo on it, so I guess it's a Rouge cable. it is a nice cable: very clean, even with interference from my monitor 3 feet away. It's angle and straight design are helpful with wrapping it around my bass' strap so it doesn't get unplugged. I see nothing bad to say about it.

My picks are varied in all sorts of ways.

In order from top left:
Jim Dunlop Jazz pick (looked fun)
Random white pick (I think a Fender thin)
Stylus pick (as is the one below it)
DAVA Pick (has rubber on it plus a split design... near pointless, really)
Fender Thin (woot)
Haverhill Music store pick (from a music store in Haverhill, MA, that my dad had)
Fender Abalone coloured pick (one of a collection of 12 my grandparents got me... I can only assume the rest are in their box in my dresser)
Gorrilla Guitars pick (my favourite music store has picks)
Fender medium (coloured patriotically, also a freebie from a fellow guitarist I met a while ago and haven't seen since)
The black hole pick (a pure black pick with no label, but it used to be a Gibson pick)

I mainly use GG's pick, the abalone pick, and the stylus pick. All others are stored in a little canister.

My tuner is a Lyon (by Washburn) LSMT-30 Metronome/tuner that works with acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and basses. It can tune very accurately; it's always in tune with Guitar Pro's MIDI! It has a metronome feature that works out very well when my computer isn't on. It can be set like a normal metronome, or you can tap a steady, normal beat into it and use that! Here's it's picture:

The next few posts will cover my instruments and amplifiers, using both horrible video and text.

Rock on.

Bass!!

2010-02-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

Or, to be more exact, a Rouge LX205B Series II 5-string Bass with a sparkly black paint job.

I had $200 to spend on whatever I wanted due to tax refunds (epic win). What do I do? Uh, dude, hello... "back up time to about September 4th, 2006. I started thinking about how awesome it would be to play a bass guitar. I thought less strings would be easier." (quoted from a past post) We can tell from this that I wanted to be a bassist to begin with.

Granted, I kept thinking about it, then finally, after 2 days and adding 2 strings to my thoughts, I asked my dad for a normal guitar so I could learn to play, but in general... you get the point.

So, after much searching on Musician's Friend's website, I found a nice little combo: the Rouge LX205B Series II 5-string Bass and the Peavey MAX 126 amplifier. I also got a couple 6"cables for between my effects.

Now, obviously, I'm not amazing like Billy Sheehan or Stu Hamm, but I am able to pick it up at anytime and play a scale or small parts of songs, mostly Pink Floyd (namely Money, Time, and Another Brick in the Wall).

Which do I prefer, guitar or bass? Well, currently guitar because it's more natural to me. The bass is still kind of a mystery, but I'm working on it.

I'll slap some updates here when something cool happens.

Rock on.

Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal review

2010-02-18T19:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Thursday, meaning that I had my guitar lesson yesterday. I need to work on playing the whole chord in the great Ozzy song "Bark at the Moon" and speed it up (I currently play it at about 100, the song is at 144).

Guitar lessons also can mean something else: a new toy to play with. My teacher has already let me borrow his B.C. Rich KKW, his Behringer V-amp2, and a cable. Now, he has let me borrow the distortion pedal I have been looking into: the Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal. I've played with it a bit, and here's my review:

It has three control knobs:Tone, Level, and Dist[ortion].

Tone affects The muddiness of the sound: all the way down is really bassy and muddy, all the way up makes it really a kind of shearing tone.

Level is the overall volume.

Dist effects the amount of "dirt", "grind", or whatever you want to call it (it's actually called gain). Note this does not ever completely take away distortion. It never acts like an overdrive pedal.

The Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal is a great choice for anyone. I personally like to set the Tone to about 1/3 and the Dist knob to full. It gives a really nice tone that I can see being used in a lot of future songs. Another good use is to put the Tone knob on halfway and set the Dist knob to 0. This makes an overdrive feel, without the clean channel. It's great for playing styles of the likes of David Gilmour, Clapton, or really any artists who has a slight overdrive.

In any effects rig, you want everything to work smoothly. Distortions and overdrives work well before transformers, such as wahs and phasers. Here's how I have my effects rig set up:

Behringer Vamp2 Multi-effects Processor
>>Boss DS-1 Distortion<<
Peavey AOD-2 Accelerator Overdrive
Ibanez WD7 Weeping Demon Wah
Ibanez DL5 Digital Delay

This pedal is a great pedal for it's price of a mere $40. It can really give you almost any tone you want, and mixes well with Fuzz distortions. It also works well with wahs and other transformers.

A highly recommended pedal for any guitarist.

Rock on.

Canon!

2010-02-13T17:51:00.000-08:00

As you well know, I love Pachelbel's Canon in D. I asked a really cool friend of mine to make her own version of Canon. Here's what she came up with:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=104297952931577&ref=mf

You may need to log in. If you do, then check out her blog post (just scroll past all the stuff about her Ferrari and whatever) at http://claire2011.blogspot.com/2010/02/february-13.html.

She explains how she made it at her blog.

I still like my version (except she did a better job... whatever) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Fdb08Tv9c.

Rock on.

Snow!!

2010-02-12T16:50:00.001-08:00

It snowed today here in little old Eufaula. Here are a few pics from it:

Our side yard.

The street: slushy.

Our house.

Teh driveway (teh intentional).

Our grass-like object thing.

I made a snowball and took it inside.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

This is the most epic picture EVER!!! our snow-covered backyard.

Finally! After 7.5-8 years I was finally able to live in a snow-covered land once more! Now we probably have to wait about 100 years. eh, I wanna go back up north soon anyway.

Rock on.

Carpals.

2010-02-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

That's another word for crap in Devin language.

Everything was going so well. I had emailed the Xanu drawing to my Gmail so I could work on it at school. I had gotten into drafting class, got my drawing, and fixed it.

At this point I find it a suitable place to say that my computer here in my studio can not handle the Floyd Rose very effectively. Its 1805 objects are too much for my computer. I knew the computers at school could handle it.

Anyway, so I moved the Floyd Rose bridge to its position and saved it. Bad idea. It saved as a 2010 file, I have 2009 at home. I then proceeded to email it back to my normal Bellsouth email to open at home.

After realizing that I have 2009 software trying to open 2010 files, I went to AutoDesk to get the 2010 TrueView which requires a special processor that I don't have in my old machine. So, here I am with a file I can't open as of yet. "As of yet", you say?

My dad is Mr. Awesome in that he is getting the 2010 TrueView software so that HE can convert the file. Wewtnezz. Dad's coolness shows once again.

In other completely non-related news...

It's supposed to snow tomorrow. Snow. In southeastern Alabama. I would have seen snow three times (if we count tomorrow) since I've lived here. Once in Atlana, GA, once last year {See picture below}, and now tomorrow. How is it Global Warming if stuff is freezing?

Snow last year in Eufaula. Also a nice picture of Dad's Matrix.

Rock on.

Wow...

2010-02-10T19:18:00.001-08:00

Over the past few days I have been going over my old recorded tracks in Krystal. I am doing such for two reasons

1. Krystal has a bad habit of overwriting your older files after a while, and
2. I need to know what's good, what's OK, and what just plain sucks guitar string balls.

I have several hundred recordings to go through. So far I have found that I have recorded stuff from an amazingly amazing vintage-style rhythm to silence (and everything in between). I am organising all of these into three folders: Awesome, OK I guess, and Keep just in case.

Awesome- Super-cool riffs that i didn't even know I could think of.
OK I guess- Riffs that are OK, but certainly aren't wicked awesome.
Keep just in case- riffs that are horrible in their own right, but a song just might come up that it could be incorporated with.

All other, worse, files, are being deleted on the spot, such as silence, "Gas Noise", and anything else I find unsuitable for even Modern Rock. "Gas Noise" is this thing that I haven't mastered that is really basic: Take my recording cable and plug it in most of the way, leaving one of the contacts open. For some neat reason that I don't know, this creates a tone/excess noise that reminds me of gasoline/petrol flowing in an engine.

And, of course, I am coming up with new stuff all the time, so this could take at least through Monday. Thankfully Monday is a school holiday (President's Day I think), so I should be able to get an OK chunk of things out of the way.

Overall, I think that most of the files will end up being OK.

Rock on.

House!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-05T21:32:00.001-08:00

11:32 PM: finished annotating the pictures of my house I'm designing to post on here.

That house has overcome a lot from its humble beginnings on a large piece of graph paper. It has also been helped out by the likes of at least three people: My Father (Blog / Twitter), Claire Schaparelli (Blog / Twitter / Facebook), and myself. My drafting teacher, Mrs. Andrea Tew, also encouraged me. OK, enough with the thanks you's, let's see it!!!

From the top down, we have the fourth floor, aka my studio. Click the picture to make it bigger and read the annotations. I also got AutoCAD's compass in there so you can see how everything is related UCS-wise.

I really couldn't think of anything to do with this third floor, so it has a closet and that's it.

Second Floor, aka the bedroom floor. It too has a blank area, but at least it has a spacious purpose. Like, maybe, hang some art on the walls or something. The curtain wall really is epic. Like, epically huge.

I got mud on the compass, sorry. Ha ha ha... OK this is the 1st floor. The small room north of the mud room is the kitchen pantry. The triangular thingy is for the HVAC system.

Here's the garage. It has that huge ramp thing to the West that's like, I think 120 feet long. It can fit up to actually 5 cars, 4 in the main area and one in the shop kind of area. Yes, even a teenager who doesn't even have a permit knows that you need a place to work on your cars.

So, that's it, really. I like the design, but I've always liked the modern boxy styling. When the Scion xB came out, I just HAD to have it. Now, it's too curvy. 8^( Anyway, so tell me what you think by leaving a comment, emailing me at theyoa01@gmail.com, tweeting me on Twitter, or telling me on Facebook.

By the way, there's this architecture firm called Don Gardner that is a great resource for house plans. They have just about every design you want... unless you are trying to make a house like the one shown above. That's mine. Completely.

Rock on. (in your new studio!!!)

Pedals!!

2010-01-31T07:09:00.000-08:00

I remembered that the name of this blog is "Guitarist's Blog", and not "Devin's life", so I think I'll talk about something a little more worthwhile: my effects pedals.

I rearranged my pedals to make them work slightly better together. Having an overdrive and a wah before a multi-effects processor is not a good idea. Just trust me. So, here's a newer picture of my pedal line-up.

I go from the Vamp2 (big blue thing) to the Overdrive (yellow thing) to the wah (big silver and black thing) to the delay (small black thing) to the amplifier.

The Behringer Vamp2 is really a nice thing to have. It comes with a gig bag and power adapter. Also, to the right of the overdrive you can see its footswitch. The Vamp is capable of millions of different sounds using its 32 amplifier models and 15 cabinet models, plus an additional 17 effects, all fully tweakable. It also has a bypass system which allows you to either have a mostly-true-bypass or you can set up one of its effects. 16 of the effects are adjusted by the Effects knob in the upper right. The lower right knob adjusts the reverb level.

I mainly use the bypass because I love the effects, but if you use the neck pickup on any of my electrics, it likes to be distorted even on clean. The reason is because the neck pickup gets a greater vibration intenstiy than the bridge pickup does. Why that affects the Vamp2, I don't know.

The next pedal in the line-up, a tube-style Peavey Accelerator Overdrive (AOD-2) pedal, was a gift from my father. This pedal has the longest battery life I have ever heard of; it still has the same 9-volt battery I put in it about two years ago! It has three knobs, Sensitivity, Drive, and Level. Sensitivity controls the overall gain. The Drive knob controls the voicing efect of overall distortion and presence. The Level knob is the volume knob.

I usually use it with the Sensitivity and Level knobs at about 45% and the Drive knob at 100%.

The next pedal is the Ibanez Tone-Lok Weeping Demon WD7 Wah pedal. It has horrible battery life, but with a simple Wal-Mart power adapter, it works fine (I didn't get a power adapter with it). This is probably the best wah pedal on the market because it can emulate the sound of any wah pedal to date, including bass wah pedals (that's right, it works with basses too). It has two main modes, footswitch and auto. In footswitch mode, you press the battery compartment cover to turn the effect on and off. In auto mode, it is in true bypass mode until you depress the main pedal slightly.

It has 5 knobs and 1 switch that affect its sound. The switch switches between bass and guitar mode. The three knobs you see in the picture are Lo, Q, and Level. Lo adjusts the low frequncy range, acting as a low pass filter in the clockwise direction, allowing more bass notes to come through. Q adjusts the intensity of the wah, allowing for subtle wahing to extreme wah sounds. Level affects the overall volume of the effect.

There are also two hidden knobs under the main pedal, auto delay off and range finr tuning. Auto delay off determines the amount of time, in auto mode, that the effects stays active after releasing the pedal. The range fine tuning knob adjusts the frequency at the point where the pedal is advanced all the way.

I usually have it set to guitar mode, Level, Q, Lo, and Range Fine Tuning knobs all at 50%, and the auto delay off knob at 0%.

The last pedal in the line-up is an Ibanez Soundtank Digital Delay (DL5), another gift from my father. This too has horrible battery life, so I use another Wal-Mart power adapter for it and it works fine (but it does produce a hum sometimes, so watch out). It has three knobs, Delay Level, Repeat, and D-time. Delay Level controls the level of the delayed signal (aka volume knob). Repeat controls the number of repeats. D-time controls the amount of time between delays, up to 400 ms (that's .4 seconds).

I usually have all three knobs at 100%.

There is a trick to the DL5 that Ibanez does not state anywhere. If you are playing something and adjust the D-time knob while playing, it will both speed up the amount of time between delays and bend the pitch of what you're playing, capable of lowering or raising the pitch 4 octaves plus one whole step: basically from the 24th fret on the high e string to the open D string.

So yeah, those are my pedals.

Rock on.

House Dimensions

2010-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

I found a house plan in Drafting today for a 51' X 31' house that had some nice room sizes. Here's what I came up with to somehow spread across 4 floors.

bedrooms 13X13
kitchen 13X11 (includes 3X4 pantry, 90° curved 7X7 bar counter, plenty
of 3' deep counter space)
Foyer 4X6 (includes 3X4 mud room)
Dining Room 8X11
Bath 14X11 (large tub, separate shower)
Laundry 10X10 (washer, dryer, folding table)
two walk-in closets for bedrooms (8X4 each)
Studio 20X20
air register/return 3X4 (you need that for the heating and air conditioning)
Garage 40X40 (with 10X10 workshop, 4X4 closet, 8X8 1/2 bath, and 40X20
parking area)

I kinda guessed on some dimensions (like the ones for the garage and studio). I may need to add more rooms, but I have a general idea, at least 8^).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That was mostly copied from an email I sent from school to both myself and Claire. She's interested in the house and wants to see how I make it all work out. So do I... better get drawing.

Rock on.

SQL Saturday #32 (again)

2010-01-25T19:42:00.000-08:00

My last post about SQL Saturday 32 seemed kinda short and like it sucked guitar string balls because I was tired and wanted to go to bed. Here's a more in-depth post.

My father and I set off Friday morning, 8:00 exactly. The trip was rather quick to Tampa, FL. It usually takes about 8 hours, but it only took about 7 this time. When we got there, we stopped by my grandparents house to kinda settle in a bit before we left to help set up for SQL Saturday 32. After a "bag stuffing", where we stuffed bags with ads from the sponsors, a T-shirt organisation where we organised the special shirts made for this event, and a brief tour of the areas it would take place, we set off to the Spaghetti Warehouse for a group SQL dinner (aka Geek fest). After everyone left, my dad and his friend, Jorge Segarra (pronounced Horhay), Jorge's wife, Jessica Segarra, and myself were stuck around Jorge's laptop because Dad forgot his laptop at the house. After that was taken care of, we then left to the grandparent's house to get some shut-eye.

The next day, Saturday, started at around 7:00 am. We left after donning proper attire (the special shirts) to help set up some more. When the actual event started, there was much to do in my role as volunteer. With a fair amount of help from Ryan Shaw, I had to pass out water to all the rooms, pass around little cards for the attendees to fill out, count the number of attendees at each session, and generally make things work smoothly. However, once about the 3rd session started, things really started to slow down.

I watched Ryan play a computer game for a while, then read a magazine for a while, went outside for a little fresh air, visited with my best girl friend, Claire Schaparelli, and ate lunch (which was superb, by the way), all amidst the quick sprints of counting and passing out cards when the sessions changed. This part is sadly what I remember best because it happened last and seemed to last forever. I should have attended some of the sessions, but I'm afraid that because of my great lack of SQL knowledge, I would just not pay attention because, well, that's what I do when such high-leveled information is thrown at me like that. I have about as much SQL knowledge as my guitars.

A the end of the day there was a raffle/giveaway, in which several people got stuff like free licenses for software, t-shirts, and even an Xbox 360 and a netbook were given away. I wanted that netbook!!

I'm again sorry if my last post about #SQLSat32 (the Twitter hash tag for SQL Saturday) seemed like it was the worst thing ever. I'm sure that if I were into SQL Server then I would have enjoyed it much more.

Rock on.

My Latest Rig

2010-01-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

As I currently am playing through my BCL10 and BC Rich KK Warlock (fig. 2), I have a new rig picture that shows off all of my effects (fig. 1).

Figure 1

Here's the setup:
Guitar
Peavey Accelerator Overdrive
Ibanez Weeping Demon 7 Wah
Ibanez Digital Delay
Behringer Vamp2 Mulit-effects Processor
Line 6 Spider III 15

Figure 2

See? I really like the tone that this KKW makes when you use the neck pickup; it's a really nice bluesy tone.

Rock on.

SQL Saturday #32

2010-01-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

I attended a SQL Server meeting today in Tampa, Florida. SQL Server is a RDBMS (relational database management system) By Microsoft. SQL stands for structured query language. I obviously have no idea what any of this means, but I was volunteered by my dad to go. I basically just took head counts, helped set up, and just generally helped out.

I had brought my Warlock this time (no amp) so that I could have some fun while I'm down here (my Dean isn't a very fun thing to play). I wished that I could have brought it to the SQL thing, because there was a LOT of down time. Thankfully, the other kid that was helping out was friendly, so we got along well. Most of the down time I was watching this guy play Reign Online, a kinda half-anime based MMORPG, reading TIME magazine, chatting, and... yeah. Like I said, enjoyable, but kinda boring.

The lunch was really good, though: baked chicken, rice, and kinda fry-baked plantains (I think I spelled that wrong. oh well).

Thankfully, a friend of mine, Claire, came along for about 2 seconds. I'm not sure what she was supposed to be doing, but I'm fairly sure it was nothing to do with SQL Saturday since she said she technically wasn't supposed to be there. Typical.

I did get a few thing from it, though. I got two shirts, one for SQL Saturday 32 and one from Quest Software. I also got a couple SQL based stickers, and a sound guy I met got me a couple sound programs, I think a mixer and recording thing.

Then I had dinner with my grandparents at Carrabba's. Though we had to wait a while, it was good food (as per usual). Now, I write this post with Warlock in hand and dad reading a SQL book next to me.

Rock on.

Frets

2010-01-18T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I managed to get all of the frets in place. I'm not sure how accurate the last two frets are, but they are pretty close. I'm not too worried 8^)

Now, all I have to do is lower the Floyd's bridge (you may note that it is not inset fully), build the single pickup, fix the two E tuners (they are randomly shorter than the others), and apply stringage.

Rock on.

Xanu!!

2010-01-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I finally got some work done on the Xanu (again, pronounced "Zawnoo").

The neck and fretboard are made, this time correctly. Because a Floyd Rose bridge is so large, and the Xanu has a small body, I had to do a little adjusting to make it all work. I was able to move the Floyd bridge to give me another inch of clearance, then I turned the neck into a 26-fret neck. This is based off of the Steinberger Synapse, which also has a 26-fret system. It uses a capo to give you a 25.5" scale, standard for a Fender Stratocaster. I then have two options, tune it in standard with the strings open to achieve another whole step on the neck, or follow the Synapse and use a capo.

The neck of this beast is really a wonder, to me at least. I have it going in such a way that it flattens out towards the higher frets, but is curvier near the nut. Most guitars have a continuous arc of about a 16-20 inch radius. Classical guitars are rather flat, steel strings are more round, and electrics are very visibly round. Also, it being a 26-fret, I'll have to try to make the truss rod work.

Most truss rods follow the entire scale of the neck, usually ending within an inch or two from the end of the neck. Since truss rods go both from the head and body, the end depends entirely on the placement. Acoustics have it starting in the body, while most electrics have it start in the headstock. Where it starts is where you adjust it from.

Since this is an experimental guitar, I figured I'd try everything I can, from an aluminum pickup, to the extended scale neck, to the built-in effects. This could become a revolutionary guitar, but I doubt it. A guitar is a guitar, no matter how many frets or effects.

I'll post pictures once I get the frets made.

Rots.

(Remember? That's rock on in German!)

Notes

2010-01-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

This is a general overview of what I have going on:

Musically:

*Find the green guitar instruction book that I kinda... lost
*Practice bark at the moon (remember to mute chords)(this is one of my instructional songs)
*Learn the rest of Country dance (this is one of my instructional songs)
*Practice Stairway to Heaven (this is one of my instructional songs)
*Found out that a bigsby would be a nice touch to my Vintage Harmony H-802, but I'm sure if I should get one (and I'm broke, so...)
*I'm also trying to learn "Flight of the Bumblebee" (call me weird)

CAD-ually (totally a word, right?):

*Must finish Xanu's neck (truss rod slot=.5"X.5") (since AutoCAD hates it's Z axis, I haven't gotten much work done on the Xanu, so I hope to get something done soon)
*Got a new piece of software (not telling what, though)
*Building weird things in 3ds Max at school like faces and twisted buildings

Socially:

*I am working on getting Eagle rank in Boy Scouts; I even have the plan laid out!
*School is going well; Geometry is being boring because I already know all of what he's shown us so far and use it just about daily in AutoCAD.
*Being in High School tends to mean that there is always something weird going to happen, be that with close friends or friends hundreds of miles away. Yesterday someone in Geometry handed in her book and said goodbye to everyone. Turns out later that they were moving and had to fill out a form... go figure.

So yeah.

New YouTube

2010-01-12T19:41:00.000-08:00

I posted a new video to the Youtubez tonight, Szymphony # 0.

Fear me for I am awezome!

Love me because I am great!

Bow down before me for my worshipfulnezz!

That was what my dad wrote after hacking my blog. Now, for me... (though following those orders may lead to "awezomenezz")

As you may have guessed, I made a new song called "Symphony #0" and it is currently on YouTube. Though not my greatest composition, I do like it because it sounds like a little brass section and sitar duet. It also gives you insight into Kristal. Now, for how I did it...

As you know, I love experimenting with random things like techniques, effects, and the like. For the sitar bit, I set up two reverbs at once: a super delay-like reverb and my amp's reverb. This combined with playing right by the saddles on the bridge makes it sound a little bit like a sitar with reverb. The chords used are E Minor Add 9 and a C7 Major.

The lead guitar is using two distortions at once ("British Hi Gain" on the Vamp2 and my overdrive pedal), delay, and wah. The wah is subtle: on my WD7, the Q knob is set to the lowest setting, allowing a small bit of wah through, but mainly acting as a volume pedal. I'll admit, the solo is crappy as, well, crap, but if nothing else, the mix was perfect.

There are two bass guitars, both with the exact same settings: neck pickup with tone knob set to 0, amp set to 0 Drive, 100 Bass, 0 Mid, 0 Treble. The first bass is simply your normal bass line that just follows the music. The second, I tried to act like my friend Morgan, who is quite possibly the best bassist I know of (next to Billy Sheehan and Stu Hamm, of course). I know that seems impssible for a 17-year-old girl to play that well, but from what I hear, she's that good. I basically soloed through the whole song with that line. Parts of it are lost in the mix, however. Oh well.

The rhythm guitar is playing a riff I made up pretty much on the spot: B5, C/F (no5), and E5. when this guitar is playing, all the other instruments follow in at some point. The lead guitar plays it an octave higher, the basses generally follow suit, then the sitar comes in with its normal E Minor Add 9 and C7 Major arpeggios. The lead bass plays a little arpeggio using all sorts of chords that are in the scales of Em and C (ie. take the notes in the scales, finger the chords, and run some arpeggios).

This was a really fun song to play. I think I might use the sitar thing again, but with slightly less reverb next time.

Rock on.

Bass

2010-01-10T18:01:00.001-08:00

I like bass. A lotta bass.

When I first started thinking about playing guitar, I originally wanted to play bass guitar because "I thought it would be easier since it had less strings." Dad said it would be easier to play guitar because the string gauges were thinner. I agreed, then set out to find a suitable guitar: originally wanted a Dean ML, ended up being a B.C. Rich Warlock.

Ever since I've put maybe a total of about 3 hours into bass in about 4 years. This weekend, I got to play two basses: a 5 string and a 4 string. I've played both before of varying brands and owners, And have to say I prefer 5 strings. Here's why...

4 string basses are easy. The strings aren't outrageously thick, and it plays very similar to a normal guitar. It is tuned like a standard guitar should be, too. I picked it up and asked the store employee if I could plug it in (at Gorilla Guitars, they let you pick up any guitar and play it any amp. It's awesome!). He said I could and went to the "Amp Room" to get me a cable. I then started playing bass licks I knew like the bass part to Sweet Child O' Mine (GnR) and scales and fun stuff.

I then picked up the 5 string, and ooh, man was that thing fun! The low B string was different because the only other 5 string bass I've played was tuned up to standard (EADGB). It is so much more fun to play it tuned in 5 string standard; it makes it more bassy. I was playing all sorts of fun little Vai riffs and scales and I was havin' a blast! Sadly, I was there for guitar strings, not to buy either the 4 string at $175 or the 5 string at $395, or the amp I was playing through at $50. When I get money, though, I am going to Gorrilla and getting that rig (or whatever they have at about the same price range).

I did a bit of research and found out that normal guitar effects, especially older ones, work wonderfully with bass guitars. Before they had specialised pedals (1950-1970-ish), bassists used guitar pedals for their basses. Nowadays, guitar effects are built only for guitar and bass effects exist. I, however, am lucky: though modern pedals will work with bass guitars, I have two pedals from the 80's that would probably work well. Also, my WD7 wah pedal will work with both guitar and bass, so all I really need to worry about is the Vamp (since it's not mine). Yay! I can sound like an idiot an octave lower, too!

When I get a bass, we'll see if I was right or my dad was right in my desicion on necked instruments. LOL

Rock on.

School...

2010-01-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

...has officially started and is in full swing as of 8:13 am this morning.

The bike ride there was cold. Very cold. Like, my fingers were still hurting a few hours later it was so cold. They were probably literally freezing. I did get to school safely, though, and I was able to lock up my bike, tuck in my shirt (stupid rule BTW), open the door, hold the door open for a teacher, close the door, unlock my locker (after thinking about what it was for a few seconds), get my binder, and sit down. By this point my fingers were burning because it was suddenly 40 degrees warmer. To make that shorter: I'm riding the bus for a while.

Anyway...

So at precisely 8:13 am, the bell rang for us to go to our homeroom classes to get our schedules (good thing because I had no idea what order my classes were in and it turns out it changed slightly). Mine goes as follows:

1st: Physical Science with Mr. Savage (who also teaches chemistry. Funny thing about that later)
2nd: 3d Solids Model Design with Mrs. Tew (in which I got to play with Autodesk 3ds max. More on that later as well)
3rd: English 10 Honours with Mr. Wooten (again, to be explained later)
4th: Geometry with Mr. Whitfield (more on tha--zzzzzz....)

Ok, so science is fun. We got a lecture on how the class works, and at the end we asked various questions, from the smart to absurd. I asked both, ranging from asking what parts of the classroom are for (there's a vacuum box that sucks "harmful vapors" like smoke and such out of the class... now I know where to burn stuff at!!) to what kinds of chemicals are in the chemical storage room (there's one that he never touches that he says will explode if it falls and breaks... I'm guessing a form of glycerin, possibly nitroglycerin which equals W007!!! 8^). I have several friends in that class which just makes it better.

3D modeling is (obviously) cool. I didn't do anything much, just draw random stuff like 3d trees and torus knots and teapots and crap. I did manage to get something on the screen before the senior, who is the only other person taking 3d with me and did a college course on 3D modeling, did, but he was experiencing... technical difficulties. He crashed his computer twice, then finally was able to get things moving again. All he ever got on the screen were a few lines. I laughed mentally. I don't know many people in there, so I can make a few new friends I'm sure.

English is well, English. Giant class: 33 students, which is the largest ever for that school for that class. We'z gettin' smaats, I tellz ya. Several friends are in there as well. I don't know how it will work out, but we'll see.

Geometry. Math in general is fun, but dealing with shapes and planes and crap just has to be kinda fun. I have a few friends in there, one of which is a really cute girl who I've known for at least two years, a few friends I met pretty much when I first moved down, and, to top it all off, it's right by the music building, so I can catch up with about half of my friends after class. Sadly, I think the first little bit of material is waaay too easy for me, because I was struggling to keep myself awake due to boredom because I was done when everyone else was still working. I wasn't allowed to go on to the next portion of material, so I was stuck in the abyss of thought.

Apparently my own thoughts, no matter how screwed up, violent, or complex I made them, were just enough to make me realise when I was dozing off, by which point I would think of some absolutely random thing that would make me be awake for another small void of time.

All in all, not a bad day. Everyone on Facebook was complaining yesterday even thought I said there's nothing to be whining about. However, now they are all happy and stuff. Wewt. Mage wins.

Rock on.

W00t!

2010-01-03T10:38:00.001-08:00

So that techie was my dad, and he did a basic Google search and found out that it was a corrupt font: Arial Unicode MS. Most fonts are fairly small in size, but this was like 2 megs. Delete that and problem solved. Sometimes I feel like such a newb.

Annoyances

2010-01-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

As we all probably have, I have a few things that annoy me just about every day. One of these things is my computer.

I can constantly reproduce this one problem: I go into a folder, usually one of my picture folders, but it works with others too, and Windows will say that is has unexpectedly died. The cause is a file called gdiplus.dll.

After moving that window aside (because all you have to do is move it aside and you can continue working like nothing happened), if you then go to the next folder inside the first folder or go out and into a different folder, usually Windows says that it is officially dead and it tells you to press the ok button to terminate Windows.

You can usually also move this aside and continue on your merry little way, but sometimes you have to push the ok button, which kills all applications running at the time (except for usually IE, AutoCAD, GP5, whatever) and restarts windows. The desktop picture stays the entire time... I guess Steve Vai is just that cool.

So, I ran a search to see where the nooby little gdiplus.dll file is, and I got 51 results, 24 of which are called exactly the same thing: gdiplus.dll. Other results included GdiPlus.dll, gdiplus.dll_manifest, and GDIPLUS.DLL.

Weird thing is is that 22 of the results, including both gdiplus.dll and both of the gdiplus.dll_manifest files were from AutoCAD. All other results had nothing to do with Windows, but with various programs such as AutoCAD, Guitar Pro, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Microsoft Office.

I think I could try deleting those ones because the Windows applicable ones are the GdiPlus.dll. files.

BTW the folders you see open are the ones that caused the error messages. I have scanned the living crap out of these folders and there is nothing wrong.

ANY TECHIES OUT THERE THAT KNOW WTF IS GOING ON??

And on top of all that, my Warlock (the awesome black one) broke its high e string yesterday while I was detuning from standard to drop c. That's like an 'epic wtf'!

Otherwise, things are goin' good! and I have like... today and tomorrow to prepare for school, which pretty much means getting my backpack out and making sure the bike is still useable.

Rock on.

How do you know you live in Eufaula, Alabama?

2010-01-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

- You know exactly what someone’s talking about when they say, “The Italian Restaurant.” [Which actually doesn't exist anymore, but is the River City Grill, I believe]

- The mention of the name Kay Whaley still strikes fear into your heart. [Kay is the supposedly hardest teacher in the High School, in which about half the students fail]

- You don’t see anything unusual about a bi-weekly newspaper.

- You’ve had to plan to go to the movies at least a day in advance. [Because the nearest theatre is what, an hour away?]

- You know the importance behind the age-old question, “Auburn or Alabama?” [Refers to the two major college football teams]

- You have the sense not to swim in Lake Eufaula. [Gross!!]

- You’ve driven to Georgetown to get gas.

- You know where Georgetown is. [Go across the causeway into Georgia]

- You don’t mind driving 50 miles to get to a mall.

- You know exactly who Eufaula’s only yellow X-Terra belongs to. [David Robbins' Dad, but you also see David's sister, Rachel, driving it.]

- You’ve met friends at the Waffle House after a football game.

- You know someone who drives their tractor to school. [uhhh...]

- You don’t think Toaster is a weird name for someone to have.

- You’ve participated in/dressed up for the Pilgrimage. [several times]

- You know what the Pilgrimage is. [annual celebration of the "old" homes in town, the oldest dating to about 1818]

- You’ve gone to Wal-Mart late at night just to have something to do. [I have an axe, I'm fine]

- You’ve been in an issue of the Eufaula Tribune at least once. [yup, and that's the newspaper BTW]

- You’re used to EVERYTHING being closed on Sundays.

- You’ve heard the rumor about Burger King mayonnaise. [I actually don't know that]

- You’ve seen the opening and closing of Dakota Café on Broad Street and 431. [yup, that lasted about a month, and is currently a bank]

- You dread the day the EHS football team has to play a Birmingham school in the playoffs. [I actually laugh because I know they'll lose]

- You would rather die on the way to Dothan than go to Lakeview (a.k.a. Deathview) for medical care. [Well, it is right around the corner, but they send people to the dothan medical centre a lot, so I've heard.]

Just a little insight into life in Eufaula.

New Year!!!

2009-12-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

It's quite literally the final hours of this year, 2009. This brings much to think about, really, such as "Did I do anything helpful to further my life goals?" I feel this is a very necessary question, because if you don't know if you have, or if you haven't, you basically wasted a year. I'm all for wasting time, just ask my family and friends 8^) But if you waste too much time, well, that could lead to some... interesting... results. Usually on the bad side.

In other news...

AutoCAD doesn't know what the Z axis is, or where its own snaps are. This makes making a garage with enrty ramp difficult to draw. Otherwise... well yeah. It doesn't go so well.

The Xanu just saw the light of day today, which is I believe the first time in about a month. I still need to fix its neck, which I think I'll just bind the neck segments together to make for a stronger neck. If you don't recall, I have to lengthen the neck due to scale factor issues. I hope to get this done sometime soon now that the Xanu is screaming at me every day.

I would also like to point out that one of my friends' birthday, Claire's birthday, is tomorrow. I still think that's unreal, but if I can be born on Easter Sunday, she can be born on New Year's day.

Rock on.

Christmas!!

2009-12-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

Christmastime is here...

So yeah, I hope you all had a fun/neat/awesome Christmas this year. I didn't get much in the way of anything on my list, but hey, how can you turn down Queen Anne Cordial Cherries, an awesome Snoopy "Season to Rock" shirt, a Webcam, and... yeah! That's about it, really, but the webcam will be helpful in taking videos instead of taking internet pics into a slideshow 8^). The mic works very well, so I won't have to cross the audio and video, either! Here's my first main use of the webcam: a glamour (oh yeah, real glamourous...) shot of my axes and amps with me disrupting the mix (at least I'm wearing my new awesome shirt...).

From left to right: Dean Vcoustic Acoustic Electric, B.C. Rich Bronze Series Warlock, Me, Harmony H-802, B.C. Rich Metal Master KK Warlock, Line 6 Spider III 15, B.C. Rich BCL10 Lead Guitar Amplifier (what the Line 6 is sitting on).

Should have gotten my pedals in there somehow too...

It's not such a bad shot until you zoom in. I think I still need to adjust the focus a bit, and I should have used the 1.3 megapixel option. The camera is sluggish when it comes to video, however. It has like a blurry 1-2 second delay in real-time feed. I haven't really tried seeing if it does that in the recording, though.

So yeah. That's that.

Kamene na/Rots/Rock on.

Monday, Monday

2009-12-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

First day of Christmas break. Yay!!!! Havin' a blast so far.

I recorded the first track of Christmastime is Here yesterday. I found that the second track, the chords, is going to be tough, because the chords are really, really weird. I think I'll record that with my Vintage. It has that nice shimmer to it. I recorded the first bit in Audacity so that I can change it up a bit, such as adding reverb to the last little riff and getting rid of some of the mistakes.

I have made a logo of sorts about Warock's Reprise. It shows all the guitars that the members use.

From left to right:

David Robbins (yes, the guy from the pageant)-Fender Standard Telecaster, Cobalt Blue

Devin Taylor (me)-B.C. Rich Warlock Bronze Series, Onyx

Morgan Thomas (awesome bassist BTW)-Schecter Hellraiser C-5 with Floyd Rose Custom Tremolo, Black Cherry

Devin Taylor (me)-B.C. Rich Kerry King Signature Metal Master Warlock, Tribal Fire

Claire Schaparelli (really good friend of mine)-Fender Highway One Stratocaster '66, Custom Teal

Of course, we all have different roles other than playing axes.

Claire - Lead vocals, violin, piano, guitarist

Devin - Lead guitarist, MIDI user, Mixer, Backup singer

Morgan - Bassist, Backup vocals

David - Rhythm guitar, Lead vocals, Keyboard/Synth

Now whether or not we actually do anything, that's a different story. Really, we're just friends who happen to be talented in music. Our Facebook page is just to get people to know that "Hey, these people are musical. Cool!"

Still have 11 hours 'til bed, too!

Rock on.

KTHXBAI

2009-12-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

Playing the guitar is a cathartic expression of self-discovery... Anyone can play guitar, and maybe everyone should. Please hear this loud and clear: It's your right to play it, and it does not matter how good or bad you are. Guitar playing is a form of artistic expression and freedom, and in reality, there's no wrong way to do it. Even if you have the technique or strength to set only one note into motion, it can envelop your spirit and light up your world. Just try it!

That was a quote from Steve Vai's forward in Neil Zlozower's Six String Heroes book.

Ok, in other news not stolen from vai.com...

Christmas Album is going well. I still think my version of Carol of the Bells is the third or fourth best I've heard.

W007! I have done all my final exams for school. Made the second highest grade in drafting: 84.64. I feel good about my other exams, too. Of course, no school means two things: housework and music!! (reverse the order). Thank you studying!!

Yeah. that's pretty much it. Bye.

Rock on.

PS: note the title is KTHXBAI. This is LOLcat for ok, thanks, bye. Try to find the Ok, the Thank you, and the Bye (I gave you hints)

W007 100th Post!

2009-12-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

So yeah I just realised this is my 100th post! Requires a song to be made. Instrumental, of course!! I'll work on that.

I'd like to point out that I officially have two Facebook pages (one for me(http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000495513078) and one for "Warlock's Reprise"(http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Warlocks-Reprise/246934598624?ref=nf), which is what I'm calling myself as a band) and a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/yoa01). Follow/Friend/Become a Fan of me if you wish. On the Warlock's Reprise page, you'll see "exclusive" interviews of me (done by yours truly; I need to find someone to do that for me because interviewing myself is kinda awkward), where I'm playing next, and other new things.

I have had zilch work done to the virtual house, but I have added some nice ideas, like a garage in the basement and partials ideas for floor plans.

The Xanu has had no work done on it, but I have had a new idea: a kill switch. I think it's best to describe what all this thing's going to have built-in:
Floyd Rose Original Tremolo (but I have to start with an official licensed because an original costs like $160 and a licensed one is like $60)
Wah bar (Wah-wah effect in the shape of a second trem bar)
Sustain (the effect)
Octaviser (the effect)
1 Volume
1 Tone
Killswitch
Oh yeah, it's gonna be loaded down. I haven't drawn any of this, but hey, it's all good. As long as the instrument can take it, it's cool.

So, yeah. I'll get to work on that 100th post song (obviously named something else).

Rock on.

Bizarre Tunings

2009-12-11T20:03:00.001-08:00

So I thought I'd make a small blog about some of the bizarre tunings I've tuned my guitars to. They do have some neat applications.

Double A Tuning: AADGBE, where the first A is tuned an octave below the normal A string; essentially standard tuning, drop the E to an A. I like to use it as an effect, as it gives an octaviser feel to the A string when played with the lower A string.

Half & Half Tuning: EADGBE, may look like standard, except the EAD is tuned an octave below normal; watch out, though, because prolonged tuning like this will require a two-way truss rod because the neck will want to warp due to more tension on the treble side. Just think: nice way to play the bass line and treble line on the same guitar at the same time.

DGCFAD Tuning: basically drop all the strings down a whole step; I like to play 'Canon in C' in this tuning because the whole-step drop gives more of a mean tone to the piece. I played it in standard tuning when I performed, however.

Double-Up tuning: AAGGEE, where you tune the E, D, and B strings down an octave from their high counterparts. God knows what this has a use for other than sound like a wierd 12 string simulation. Again, prolonged tuning may require a two-way truss rod.

Terms:

Tuning- refers to the pitch of your strings.
Two-way Truss Rod- used in most modern Stratocasters, this truss rod affects the neck in 4 directions, as compared to two on most truss rods.
[Random Letters]- refer to the musical letter assigned to each note that the strings play.

Rock on.

House Property

2009-12-11T17:24:00.000-08:00

I found a "suitable" piece of land on which to build my house. I know it's a farm, but I might be able to buy the land from Mr./Mrs. Farmer. I love the road names, too: I think I'd have a driveway off of A Road because it's closest to the site and has an awesome name. I imagine my address now...

0 (Zero) A Road

Conway, NH

The yellow oval points out that this is in fact Conway, New Hampshire, because the only White Mountain Highway, route 16, runs through both Conway and North Conway, NH. I want to live in Conway because I want to live up north again. I don't like Alabama. I've been to the Conway area and know there are nice places to shop and what not. Average house prices for a starter home cost about $150k. There are ski slopes and awesome mountain views around there. Only thing wrong is that it snows a lot in New Hampshire (great, until I have to drive through it 8^/ ) and it isn't close enough to Mike's Pastry in Boston, MA (fav city BTW). I found this plot of land in Google Earth and took the second picture from White Mountain Highway. It shows the wooded area between the highway and my plot of land, and also the nice mountain view that the property has. The first picture shows the flight simulator view of the mountains from the property (yes, in the F16 you can use 8^).

So yeah, that's pretty much the land I found. By the time I fully design the house and have enough money to have it built, the land may be for sale anyway. I found a lot somewhere around there for like $76k, but I don't know how much land it was.

Rock on.

Why I Hate Buses

2009-12-09T14:33:00.000-08:00

This is to show one reason for why I hate several things, these including:
Bus rides
Idiots
People who act like they are tough yet have horrible grammar and think they are better than everyone.

There is but one reason I hate these kinds of things. Today on the bus, after pretty much half of the people got off the bus, then all but four got back on, the four people were shortly thereafter found fighting. Apparently, the four delinquents had been arguing since school sometime. The group was made up of two guys and two girls. I watched them for some time (mainly because Mrs. Washington, the driver, was calling the *cops and I had time to) from inside the bus because, hey, I don't want to get charged with some assault and battery charge for getting out and watching. I was comfy... kinda... in my seat.

*by cops, I refer to what I learned. Our school has this big, I mean BIG, police officer as our security guard. While he was talking through the bus's door, I saw that on his badge it read "DETECTIVE", which could explain why he was allowed to weigh 400 pounds and still be on the force: all he had to do was think.

Anyway, I saw that the kids were arguing, looked away and stared across the panorama that was where we were parked, and when I looked back, one of the girls was on the ground having the *insert word you prefer here* beat out of her by the other three. I watched for some time longer, and saw that they were switching out who was on the ground (by pushing one another over, of course). People were running from all over the place calling 911 and trying to break up the whole thing. The whole rest of the trip all I could hear was people yelling about the whole ordeal.

To sum it all up, I hate bus rides, idiots, and people who act like they are tough yet have horrible grammar and think they are better than everyone because all tend to have some form of violence immanent at all times. Hence I own several knives, a bow with a few arrows, and a sword that makes a better lance than a sword: they all make great things to make people get away from you, wether on a bike ride, a walk, or at home alone.

In other news...

In one of the school clubs I'm in, FBLA (Future Buisness leaders of America - Phi Beta Lambda division), we are having a Christmas party tomorrow. I get to bring my guitar and play around. I might play a few Christmas songs. I'm thinking of bringing the Kerry King Signature Warlock just because it's more of a show guitar than my other Bronze Series Warlock. It should be fun, because I have a feeling people might bring their PS3's and Xbox's. The whole thing lasts from like 3:45 pm to 5:15 pm, which gives us plenty of time to play games, have an FBLA meeting, play a few songs, and generally have fun! 8^)

Rock on.

Album+Iraq

2009-12-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have lately had a lot of time to work on my album. Though I only have like one complete song done, I think I'm doing pretty good. Right now I'm working on the intro riff to my Carol of the Bells version (it's like a spinoff of TSO's Siberian Sleigh Ride intro).

About Iraq. Now, i realise I don't usually talk about stuff liek this, But I figure it's for the better anyway and only takes like a minute to do. Go to www.LetsSayThanks.com. It lets you send a thank you card to the soldiers in Iraq via Xerox. Like I say, it only takes like a minute or so. I will admit it takes for-EVER to load, though.

Christmas Album

2009-12-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

I really need a friggen' Name for this album. However, "Christmas Album" would be a new one...

It is final. I have the song list for the album: 20 songs. They sound really neat, but only if I practise them a looo000ooot and had a MIDI controller, because there are a lot of instruments other than a guitar or two. Here's the song list in picture format because, well, it has a cool title font.

So yeah, better get practising...

Rock on.

Cat!!

2009-12-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

I really just said that because my cat is sniffing me 8^).

No, really, things aren't so well. I'm coming down with the sickness (for those of you who don't get the reference to the song "Coming Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed, I'm getting a cold or something), which, as per usual, makes me feel crappy. I also just had my guitar lesson, which really just means he gave me a few things to work on, things to improve, but mainly made me feel like I'm not as good as I thought on guitar (wait a day, I'll be fine 8^).

The KKW thing is going nicely. I still need to fine-tune it a bit. I found out that my guitar teacher said he'll let me borrow it for forever except for the few minutes he wants to play it, along with the Behringer V-amp 2. No free lessons though. 2 out of 3, not bad.

I've made zilch progress on my house except for showing my drafting teacher. She so far likes it, so that's a plus. A friend of mine wants it too, though, so let the games begin.

As for school... Well, I'm starting to actually learn something I might actively use someday: Microsoft Access. So far I have made it so I can enter data into a table. That's better than yesterday.
I finally paid my fee for driver's ed and drove around today. It's amazing how similar a go kart and a Chevy Cobalt are alike: both are almost too small to fit into, both have touchy brakes, both are easy to drive, and both have a small turning radius.
In drafting, we are getting into making bolts and nuts. And what do I do? After drawing a bolt with nut, I find that Google Earth has a flight sim with a F16 jet!
In history, we are getting into the civil war and making a quilt for a family in Enterprise, AL, whose house burned down. Ain't we nice?

I have added a couple songs to my X-mas album. Now I have at least 15 songs. Going nicely... except they aren't recorded yet 8^). I think you'll like the versions of the songs I have. They are really just songs I found on Ultimate Guitar and songbooks and e-sheet music that I modded. Yes, like modding a Halo map, but sounds better. I have a year at least, so I have time.

My guitar teacher tells me I should utilise stuff he's taught me in my work. That might make sense, now wouldn't it? I do play it, just not record it into songs except for alternate picking and string skipping (pretty easy now that i have practised it... amazing what you can do with a little screwing around 8^).

So yeah, there's an update on my life. Anything not metioned has either been not thought of or has not had much progress on anyway.

Rock on.

Hai!!! again...

2009-11-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

What's up people!!

Came back from Florida Sunday. On our way out, we met up with someone on Twitter by the user name of SQLChicken (aka Jorge Segarra, really awesome dude BTW). From there, it was a looo000ooo000o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0ong way home. 400 miles. I got (finally) a corduory jacket (with elbow patches W007)!!!

Here's a list of songs I want on my Christmas album (again, sorry folks, not out until Novembre of 2010):

Carol of the Bells
Greensleeves
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
12 Days of Christmas
Sleigh Ride
Warlock's Canon
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Linus and Lucy
The Nutcracker
What Child Is This
Oh Christmas Tree
And maybe I'll add a few more as I go along.

There may be a few odd sounds on this album if I can get my guitar teacher to succumb to my whims. Let me explain...

Tonight he let me borrow his old KKW Warlock and his Behringner V-amp 2. I think when I see him next, I want to make a deal with him. You see, the Warlock is in even worse condition than mine -- and mine's in pretty rough shape. By this I mean not of paint or nicks, dings, and craters. I mean that my Warlock's action is kinda high, but the KKW is absurd. Also, the frets want to be smoothed on the KKW. It's frets are so out there that I can't bend much at all, and the fretboard feels very rough. It also needs it's output jack fixed (or something) because all it does is buzz. zzzzzz

My deal I want to make is like a tree: it has many branches to choose from. My deal is this: if I fix the KKW Warlock to a better state (even he calls it his "crap Warlock"), then I want at least one of the following: a free lesson, keep the KKW, and/or keep the V-amp (which I found there might be a few uses for... might be able to use a few in the X-mas album).

I just thought of something else: he wants to use my harmony H-802 with my BC Rich BCL10 amp someday for a little recording, so maybe we can swap things then as well! 8^)

Rock on.

Plans

2009-11-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, I have made a few plans to my various goings on.

1) Christmas album. I have chosen not to have this album out this Christmas. My reasons are, I feel, legitimate:

a. Thar be no way in heck I'm going to get a whole album recorded and sounding good by this Christmas!!
b. Well, there really is no b, I just felt there should be a b.

I currently have 4 songs recorded, all of which need work. I want at least 20 songs. I have a line-up of what I want, at least 8^)! Note please that I could not remember all the songs being here in Florida.

Carol of the Bells
Greensleeves
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
12 Days of Christmas
Sleigh Ride
Warlock's Canon
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Linus and Lucy
([{END OF MEMORY}])

Let's test your memory...

Kamene na.

Pink Floyd

2009-11-27T21:34:00.000-08:00

Well, fellow guitarists, I just came back from possibly the only Pink Floyd concert I will ever be able to attend. It was a tribute band playing Pink Floyd's stuff (rather well, might I add). All they were missing was 20 notes, 20 people, the actual band, and the lasers! Ok so it wasn't Pink Floyd but hey, spectacular lights, loud Pink Floyd music being played live...

WEWTNEZZAWESOMEZORZ.

Florida

2009-11-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

Here I sit, Dean Vcoustic in hand, feeling rather full from a fair Thanksgiving feast. How was your dinner?

Being in Florida is always fun. I get to see my grandparents, shop, get mega-huge meals... good thing I ride my bike to school 8^).

Obviously, this means that I will not be posting much for another few days. This is why I need a laptop: I can work on my house and work on my Christmas album. Or I can do what the Spaniards probably did in the 1700's and why they gave us Florida: chillax.

Rock on.

House+Guitar

2009-11-24T18:51:00.000-08:00

This is a dually post about my house I'm designing and my guitar stuff.

So, tonight I worked on my house a little. Though I did not follow my original plan of just making floor plan layouts, I did make stairs. See?

Clicketh thine image to maketh thine image of larger scale.

As you can see (and some you can't), several additions have been made. From last time, I have added a water-catcher (dontchaknow I'm a kind of eco-friendly person?) from the roof to the ground floor. This will eventually feed a large bucket in the basement (that I haven't made yet), as a way to save on water bills. Also new is the several flights of stairs that I made today. They require much more modification, but for now it works. Also, the walkway finally is like it is supposed to be, with the main curtain wall area hollow and the walkway roofed and ceiled in.

I could not record anything I wanted to with my songs. Here was my checklist for tonight:

Carol of the Bells

Lengthen the last note (needs to be like 5 seconds longer held out)
Redo solo (sounds like crap)
Maybe redo rhythm (out of time)
Bass is ok (finally, something that works)

O Christmas Tree

“WTF were you thinking when you did this??” redo

What Child is This?

Redo part after reversed part, for the sweeping is too fast.
Look over intro, too

Things planned to be recorded

God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman

Record with warlock tone + delay
Also do an acoustic basking track
Insane setting doing either what 1 is or a melody

12 Days of Christmas

Warlock tone + overdrive
Quieter insane with warlock tone doing melody
Quieter insane with warlock tone doing random soloing in the key of C/F.

This shows what my plans were, and what did I get done? I deleted two parts of Carol of the Bells, and edited another part in the intro. They were to be changed, anyway.

"Warlock Tone", since I'm sure something in your head is saying "What's 'Warlock Tone'"? Well, it's a crisp tone I made and use almost all the time with my amp. Please note this is a Line 6 Spider III 15 amp.

Drive: 100%
Bass: 40%
Mid: 50%
Treble: 100%
Chan Vol: 100%

This makes a really neat tone.

On another note, or should I say amp, I made a homemade half stack! Here is a picture:

It is my old amp with my new, really. A BC Rich BCL10 lead guitar amplifier on top of my Line 6 Spider III 15. And if it weren't for the fact that the two really don't like each other (by that I mean that they hiss and buzz together, but sometimes it works), I'd have a mega-huge, super astounding power output of...

25 WATTS!

Ok so it's not much but... yeah. Whatever. I also found this as an opportunity to show my pedals...and my crappy sword... and my coffin case! Yes, that's the Warlock hiding behind my SUPER HUGE MONSTROSITY OF A STACK that is shorter than my case.

Rock on.

Christmas

2009-11-17T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's kinda near that time of year when boughs of holly come into play in stabbing your feet 20 times when you step on it because it fell from the ceiling where your mother was kissing Santa. And for celebrating Jesus and getting presents and fun stuff. Whether or not I get anything...that's not in my power. What I am doing is this: finally recording my Christmas Album!

The cover and line-up of songs has been in the works for god knows how long. Now what I am doing is recording various Christmas songs that everyone knows, along with a few of my own songs. The traditional songs are (of course) vamped up a bit so that they are mine. I'll try to find a singer or two to actually sing some of the songs.

In case you wanted to hear one of the songs, I'll post my version of 'O Christmas Tree' on YouTube sometime between now and tomorrow.

Rock on.

Concert

2009-11-15T09:21:00.000-08:00

Testerday was pretty fun. I went with my father to a little "Battle of the Bands"-like show where...5 bands showed up? I think so. I'll try to recall as much as I can.

After waiting for about 35 minutes after the show was to start, the first band came up. The mix was horrible, like with all the bands, but this one...AH! You could barely hear the lead singer, and the one guitar, an acoustic (over the PA, of course) was the loudest thing. The backup singer's voice was the second loudest thing. At least they were kind of funny.

The next band was ok; they were a christian rock group. You couldn't hear the backup singer until her solo, and even then it didn't work too well. The mix was... you know.

After that there was this band that you really could not tell what they were saying due to massive distortion and again, mixing problems.

After them the band that we went there for came up. We went for really the drummer, who is the nephew of someone my dad works with. He was a show to himself, and the band was generally ok. They had the best mix, at least. And, of course, me being the annoyance that I am, I stole the stage.

Ok, so these were taken while I was on stage playing a Strat. Taken by my dad's Blackberry, they aren't the best pictures, but you can kind of see me holding a guitar I don't own in a strange establishment with a band, right? The first picture is clearest. The guy looking at me in the second picture with the look of "What the heck are you doing, get off stage...oh, wait, I like what you're playing" is the bassist. If it weren't for him, I would not have been up there. He graduated from my school last year, but he got the idea that I played.

I was only up there because I yelled "Freebird" (who doesn't do that?) and, after an awkward silence, I said "It starts with a G". The song does start on an open G, donchaknow. The bassist told me to get up there and show them, and after stealing the lead guitarist's axe and getting a feel for it, I played the slide guitar intro solo to Freebird. Wewt.

The next band was... odd. They had the weirdest distortion I had ever heard, and they were playing 3-4 thousand dollar guitars. PRS's, of course, for they were a christian rock group. The mix made it horrible, and though everyone said yes when he asked, you really couldn't hear what the singer was saying. The guitarist was too busy making his guitar have feedback.

All in all, it was cool. The mix was mainly due to two problems: Drums are loud, and someone didn't know how to work a microphone 8^0. You really couldn't make out anything that anyone sang, except for the band that let me play. They kinda knew what they were doing... kinda. You usually don't let random kids from the crowd play your lead guitarist's guitar between songs.

Two firsts happened yesterday as well. At the concert thingy, I found out how a 10-person (occasionally less) mosh-pit works firsthand (also my first time in a mosh pit). The second thing that I found was something when I was in Home Depot. Auto-hammers are loud as crap!

Rock on.

Today

2009-11-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

And on the Today Show, a fifteen year old boy in Alabama builds a guitar!

Poor man's wish. However today I did happen to finish scaling the Xanu. See?

Yup, that changed a lot. Well, ok, It's technically smaller and it has a Floyd Rose system. I did not scale the fret board as of yet (hence the giant wireframe fretboard 8^). Here is how scaling the left blade went.
Fun. The left measurement is what it is now, the left is what it was. I did find an easy way to do this: instead of calculating like I should have, I drew a line from the top point of the blade to the point where the bottom one should be. Then I scaled it until it looked really, really close. I did that to the blades because they don't matter like the body does, which I did calculate with the help of my dad. Here's what I had going on in the background:
Calculator is helpful. The calculation in there is .6875, the scaling number for the body (or was that for before I drew lines for the blades...?). Either way it is a number. I have a music player playing--ok, so technically in the picture it is stopped. The player is Winamp. And, of course, I have my awesome student version of AutoCAD Architecture 2009.

For those of you wondering, my "company", Xanu Guitar Co., has come up with several designs. I have not digitised them yet, but here are the names of the guitars. Obviously, Media, Recorded Tracks,and Floyd Rose aren't the names of three of the guitars. Those are for my KRYSTAL software and designing the Floyd aspect. The acoustic in the picture is actually a really neat double-neck acoustic: the necks being a bass on top and a normal 6-string below. The Holey Collection is basic: Gibson Explorer-like guitars with holes cut out. A big hole in the body has a customiseable letter in it. The HS 2008 is really a guitar based off of some foam hockey sticks at my middle school (like I ever want to go back there...2 years 'til college baby!!). The Violin is not a violin, but a guitar based off of a Lego Minifigure-sized guitar I made. It has a built in yet removeable amplifier.

Rock on.

::UPDATE::

Just got back from the shop. I've been sanding the blades for about the last hour or so. They still aren't shaped in their proposed shape yet; hopefully that will come in time. One section of each blade, called "flats", is a flat area on each blade that match up exactly with the body for attachment. Tomorrow we will hopefully begin shaping the flats to be, well, flat.

The Xanu

2009-11-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, another post about the Xanu. I am scaling the body to fit the cut specifications because my awesomeness allowed it to to be the same size as its drawn counterpart.

I have to:
::lengthen the neck,
::fully install a Floyd Rose (as in use the Über awesome AutoCAD command SUBTRACT to 'rout' out the Xanu's body for the Floyd [yes I want it inset; it looks stupid otherwise]),
::scale the body down to the cut size (which makes more sense than the drawing anyway), and
::install the pickup and electronics. Drawing the electronics is really going to bite.

Thankfully this awesome person on YouTube helped me out with the pickup and basically reaffirmed that I should use it, especially with this guitar. The guy's username is joeytruelove (http://www.youtube.com/user/joeytruelove), and he really helped me a bunch by telling me everything there is to know about this pickup, plus some. Joey, you rock. I originally saw the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP9aLgMTiUI.

Alongside all that, on my day off today (be sure to say Thanks to any veteran's you know or see today. If they understand variations, such as Thux, OMFGDUDEYOUROCKTHXSOMUCH, or any other odd variation, use it too) I have several chores to do, and I haven't picked up my guitar in like... 4 hours. I suppose I should probably do some chores then come back to this.

Rock on.

Xanu, Xanu

2009-11-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

This friggen thing is annoying!! Granted, as its creator, I must tame this beast and I also must take full responsiblility for anything pertaining to it, but GOD!! Well ok really the only thing affecting me is the fact that I didn't know that a Floyd Rose original was so friggen big! I mean seriously. That paired with the fact that everywhere I go says if you don't think you can install a Floyd, don't try. GAH!! This is getting random.

Honestly, this thing is no where near my original specs. The absolute original specs made the body 15x10. It is currently about 13x9. The neck is the only thing working so far, and that might have to change as well. It hasn't even been cut yet! Honestly there have been times I wanted to say screw it. For the sake of argument, I'll say keep trying, however.

Stuff

2009-11-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

The Xanu is nearing completion...kinda. We got the main section of the body glued together and is currently in clamps. Tomorrow I may start shaping the blades.

I just did a basic intonation test on my guitar. Intonation is basically how far in or out of tune you are. The test is simple: with a tuner (preferrably an analog one, but I use a digital at the moment), fret and play the 12th fret of any string. It should be the same note of the corresponding string (eg. the 5th string, A, should sound an A). Now, play the 12th fret harmonic of the string. This note should as well correspond to the note of the string. My guitar, sadly, is not intonated, even though it was supposedly fixed a while ago. All the strings are flat by about 1/4 semitone (basically I'm a quarter of a note off from where I should be). Like this: [--*--A-----] The * indicates about where I am on all my strings.

The fix is simple to get close: get a small screwdriver (for me, some people need a small allen wrench). Note that somewhere around or on your saddle (where the strings attach to your bridge) is the screw that moves the saddle. If you are flat, like myself, then move the saddle towards the nut. If you are sharp, move it away from the nut. I happen to be able to also angle my bridge within about 2° each way, and I can raise and lower the bridge. Another way to fix this is to take a file and grind down your nut slots. THIS ONLY WORKS IF YOU ARE SHARP. It is wise to do this test and possibly fix every time you put on new strings and they are set. i usually don't, hence i am waaay out of tune a lot of the time.

Hope that helps your intonation problems. Rock on!

House

2009-11-05T15:17:00.001-08:00

So, back to that house I've been working on...

As you can see, I added a nice 40' tall curtain window to the rear, with a curved walkway. This is really a picture between stages, for the walkway surrounding the curtain wall should have glass walls and the floors have no, well, floors. Or ceilings, for that matter. Just thought I'd update ya.

Xanu

2009-11-01T19:42:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I realise they are in a weird order, but so what. Check it out!!

These are pictures of me cutting the parts for the Xanu (remember that?). For those of you who thought I was kidding, think again. In the first shot, me holding the Warlock against the Xanu, I had actually dropped the Warlock on the ground, causing the lower-most spike to have its retarded nitro-cellulose finish shatter and have hairline fractures. By the way, for those of you wondering, Xanu is pronounced "zawnoo".

Rock on.

AutoCAD=Limits? Ha!

2009-11-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

I am designing my dream home in AutoCAD, as you can see. As you can also see, it's not quite complete. Not by a long shot.

Well, whaddaya think?

The day after...

2009-11-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

Here I am, once again, feeling the breezes of a million miles. I feel my feet are growing weary, yet I walk on in part of the war. Actually I just cleaned my Warlock and am playing my vintage Harmony whilst playing Runescape. Speaking of which...

Yeah, that's right. I dressed up like Death. Please note the use of somewhat hard-to-find/get attire: Grim Reaper Hood (HW Event '07), Web Cloak (HW Event '09), Beads of the Dead (Shilo Village), Shade Robes (kill a bunch of shades in the 4th level of the Stronghold of Security), Skull Sceptre (kill various monsters within the entire Stronghold of Secutity until you get the parts), Ghostly Gloves (yes I have the whole set; get when you do the first part in killing Damis in Desert Treasure, then talk to a ghost nearby and follow through with the dangerous path), and a Ring of Fire (do the first part of Varrock's Beacon minigame [of sorts]). The rune arrows are easy to get: stay on a pvp world and pick them up.

In guitar news...

I broke my Warlock's high e string, thus causing me to replace it, then follow through with a absolute full guitar cleaning. This included cleaning the strings until they had absolutely no gunk on them, cleaning the fretboard (including scrubbing around each fret), polishing the body, and polishing the neck and headstock.

Rock on.

Happy Hallowe'en!

2009-10-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

Boo! It's that time of year again, fellow kytaristé (Czech for guitarists)...Hallowe'en. Basically when everyone gets sick and/or fat from eating pounds of candy...and trying to scare the crap out of people. Me? I made a Hallowe'en song. My recording stuff was messed up, but I wanted to get my Hallowe'en thing out on Hallowe'en, so it sounds a little...muddled. And ja (dutch for yea), this post is a little late, but so what.

Rock on. For you Czech people, kamene na. For you Dutch people, rots. Everyone else, get the WordMonkey Translator gadget on your iGoogle.

Dream Axes

2009-10-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

One of my dream guitars is B. C. Rich Beast NT:

Specifications

Construction: Neck through
Body wood: nato (eastern mahogany)
Body thickness: 45mm
Top style: beveled
Body binding: no
Headstock style: Beast
Headstock color: onyx
Headstock binding: no
Tuners: diecast
Neck wood: maple
Back of neck: onyx
Neck binding: no
Fretboard: ebony
Inlay: white pearloid small diamond
Frets: 24 jumbo 2.7mm
Factory strings: 9 - 42
Nut: 43mm locking
Scale: 25 1/2”
Bridge / Tailpiece: Floyd Rose original tremolo
Pickups: 2 B.C. Rich B.D.S.M. humbuckers (to be changed to EMGs)
Controls: 1 volume, 1 tone and 1 three-way toggle
Hardware: black
Finish: painted glossy
Color: onyx

B. C. Rich Masterpiece Mockingbird rox:

Specifications

Construction: bolt on
Body wood: agathis
Top style: deep arched
Top wood: quilted AAA veneer
Body binding: single ply white
Headstock style: traditional 3 to a side
Headstock color: matching veneer and color
Headstock binding: single ply white
Tuners: BC Rich die cast
Neck wood: maple
Back of neck: stained to match
Neck binding: single ply white
Neck profile: standard BC Rich C
Nut width: 43 mm
Fretboard: rosewood
Inlay: white pearloid block
Frets: 24 jumbo 2.7mm
Scale: 24 5/8”
Bridge type: Tune O Matic
String termination: string through
Pickups: 2 B.C. Rich B.D.S.M. humbuckers (to be changed to Gibson Vintage)
Controls: two volumes, one tone and one 3 way toggle
Hardware: chrome
Finish: Transparent
Top wood: AAA quilted maple veneer
Color: Dragon Blood

Ibanez's JEM7V is Steve Vai's JEM:

Neck Material: 5pc Maple/ Walnut
Neck Type: JEM Prestige
Body: Alder body
Frets: 6105 frets
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Inlay: Pearl/ Abalone Vine inlay
Bridge: Edge Pro bridge
NeckPU: DiMarzio® Evolution® DP158
MiddlePU: DiMarzio® Evolution® DPS1
BridgePU: DiMarzio® Evolution® DP159
HW Color: Gold
Finishes: White

Ibanez Xiphos XPT707FX:

Neck Material: 5pc Maple/ Walnut
Neck Type: Wizard II-7 thru-neck
Body: Mahogany body
Frets: Jumbo frets
Fingerboard: Bound Rosewood
Inlay: Reversed Sharktooth inlay
Bridge: Gibraltar Custom 7 bridge
NeckPU: DiMarzio® D Activator™ 7
BridgePU: DiMarzio® D Activator™ 7
HW Color: CK
Finishes: Green Chameleon

And, of course, the Xanu Guitar Co. XGC Xanu:

Specs

Neck Material: 1pc Mahogany Neck
Neck Type: Based off of Plek'd Les Paul neck
Body: Ash body
Frets: 24-25 frets jumbo 2.7mm
Fingerboard: Mahogany
Inlay: Zebrawood X's
Bridge: Floyd Rose original tremolo or Floyd Rose Speedloader tremolo
MiddlePU: Lace Alumitone Humbucker-sized pickup
Finish: Black and Silver
Construction: neck-thru
Top style: Flat w/ peaked blades
Body binding: 3pc mortise+tenon
Headstock style: 3 on each side straight tuners
Headstock color: Silver
Headstock binding: 4pc stick-together
Tuners: Whatever straight tuners I can find
Back of neck: polyurethaned
Nut width: 38 mm
Scale: 24” somewhere in that range
Controls: one volumes, one tone and one octaviser/volume/sustain/tone controllers (essentially a Foxx Tone Machine built into the guitar itself)
Hardware: chrome
Finish: Opaque

What are your dream axes?

By the way...

2009-10-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, for those of you who either don't believe I played on stage or you are a good/well known pro and you are wondering who is writing the jibberish that is on this blog, this is me.

Just in case you wanted to know...

Scratch that last post.

2009-10-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

So, I got to the pageant at noon, and for the next six hours things went from "sweet" to "why aren't people here!!". Yeah Sharie went berserk and fun stuff (wewt?), it wasn't set up properly, and it just generally wasn't the idea Mrs. Lowman (aka Sharie, like Sharon) had in mind. It otherwise went perfectly...

My performance was cool. I'll update this post with a video of it (taken from a Blackberry by my Dad). I don't think I'll ever forget the crowd cheering and screaming. In the midst of all the excitement, that is after I did a major screw up in the intro, you hear people screaming stuff like "Freebird!" and stuff. Certainly fun, anyway. Now, I think my last post is invalid because that felt really cool to have a few hundred people screaming and cheering for me.

Here's the video.

Yay I Guess...

2009-10-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

It's odd, really...someone who is in the pageant walked up to me today and asked if I was the one playing the music as the girls were walking out. I said yes, and she said "Dang, I thought that was a recording! You're good!". Though these comments are always appreciated, I fail to see how I am that good. I get these comments just about every time I pick up my Warlock...I don't know what to think.

Tonight is the last practise for the pageant...last night sucked because everyone wanted to play my guitar. Thankfully, I don't need to be there tonight...or should I say didn't. It kinda ended 1 hour and 13 minutes ago.

Saturday is the day! I still don't know exactly when to come in, though, and I wish I did because I wanted to play the intro riff for "Mr. Crowley" by Ozzy Osbourne. It has a really mello yet dramatic (hey! melodramatic!) sound to it, I thought it could suit the look of full black.

Rock on.

Ooh Oh Yeah...

2009-10-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

K not really. Random heads-up of the day today is: National Cat Day (Oct 29).

Also today I did some not-so-scheduled maintenance on my bike today. After not riding my bike half of the time I was going home becasue I could swear the handlebars were about to fall off becasue they were shaking so much side to side, I tightened them...then my seat...then everything else. Then I lubricated the chain and gears. Fun day.

Boo-ya People!

2009-10-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

Yea! Well I am in the pageant now. Yay. All I need to do is work on a couple transitions and stuff like that, and it'll be good. Mrs. Lowman's look on her face was priceless; as was her word on the piece: "I love it...I like how you took a piano piece and modernised it." This will be on my Christmas album when I make it...and on YouTube whenever I can.

Canon!

2009-10-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

The pageant is turning again.

I have compiled three artists' versions of Pachelbel's Canon in D and Canon in C to create this: Canon-Warlock Style. The three artists are the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Joe Satriani, and some dude on YouTube who calls himself "Mattrach" (he's the guy at my bottom video bar on this blog). I am trying to get David to be my bassist because I am not a good enough classical guitarist to play the bass notes and the melody.

Why do I keep trying to get into the pageant? Because it would be fun, and Mrs. Lowman (the director) needs that entertainment slot filled, and no one else is trying out.

Rock on.

The Tables have Turned...

2009-10-16T14:35:00.001-07:00

So, David, you're out of luck.

Hello blog readers. Last night we basically summed up that we will not be in the pageant. My how that was wrong! We can audition next week during pageant practices or after school. Yay.

Also, a friend of mine wishes to have us be in his band. His one man band. He needs people, and, funnily enough (if that's a word), he has been trying to get people in a band for the last...2 years.

Just thought I'd give you a heads-up.

Being a band manager bites.

2009-10-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Our pageant band, Spoken Thoughts, is screwed. We have already had one dropout who pretty much tied us together. We have to audition by Friday (tomorrow). Here is our night's conversation via email over the subject. I am Devin, Cassie is our second singer, and David is our tie.

Devin-Should we have a band practice tonight, or have we lost hope? I have a guitar lesson tonight so it could have to be a late practice.

Cassie-I still want to audition.

David-I'm thinking we should drop it. But idk.

Devin-Cassie wants to audition, I want to, but you, David, wish to drop it. Honestly, I’d like to do it. Bicker amongst yourselves and decide.

David-Ok?

Devin-After some thought, I have discovered that if we do practice, we might not even go to the pageant. So far there are 3 girls in the pageant and counting us 3 performers. Let me explain further that if we are good, the pageant is so far too small. My matter-of-fact idea is that the pageant as a whole may not be worth it. Tell me your thoughts.

Cassie-Idk I guess so.

David-I agree. Its not worth it. We're just not ready and won't be unless we practice everyday next week. Which is not possible.

Later that evening...

Devin-Our biggest fan is in disgust. He really wanted us to play at the pageant, and still does. We aren’t ready, and this is a known issue…

David-Exactly. We're not ready, and won't be. Cassie apparently still wants me to bring my guitar. I can't. I have to be ready to leave for the game tomorrow right after school.

Cassie-I'm discussing it with David.

Devin-I don’t know what action to take as Spoken Thought’s manager. I need insight. Do we try to audition tomorrow or not?

David-When would we? I can't get out of my classes and I can't after school.

So, as you can see, things aren't going so well. I may try to get us at a city-wide gig, such as a art festival or something. Thankfully I know the mayor fairly well since I am a boy scout, so we might be able to get something done. Or we can drop it and pick it up in a decade, like some bands did, ha ha. Otherwise things are going good, so wewt. And yes the lesson tonight was helpful, in case you cared. Also, my new song Me-Tal II is out on Youtube (and kinda has been for a couple days, but I'm not sure if you already knew that.)

Rock on.

Bend video

2009-10-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

So the video for my bending blog post is out by the way. Look on the video bar (if you read this from a different source like Google reader, go to my blog. You'll see it.) for it.

General Music Theory

2009-10-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is copied and slightly edited from a Word document I found on my computer. It was later found to be from a Wikipedia article on Music Theory.

We all need it, so here it is.

In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, (Do)". The simplest major scale to write or play on the piano is C major, the only major scale not to require sharps or flats, using only the white keys on the piano keyboard:

A major scale may be seen as two identical tetra chords separated by a whole tone, or whole step, the new set of steps "Whole: Whole: Half: Whole: Whole: Whole: Half"(in Semi-tone 2 2 1 2 2 2 1). Each tetra chord consists of two whole steps followed by a half step. Western scales do not skip any line or space on the staff, and they do not repeat any note with a different accidental. This has the effect of forcing the key signature to feature just sharps or just flats.
· 1st – Tonic- key note
· 2nd – Supertonic
· 3rd – Mediant
· 4th – Subdominant
· 5th – Dominant
· 6th – Submediant
· 7th – Leading Tone (or Leading Note)
· 8th – Tonic ( or Octave)
Sharp key signatures consist of a number of sharps between one and seven, applied in this order: F C G D A E B. The key note or tonic is immediately above the last sharp in the signature. For example, one sharp (F#) in the key signature of a piece in a major key indicates the key of G major, the next note above F#. (Six sharps, the last one being E# (an enharmonic spelling of Fb) indicate the key of F# major, since F has already been sharped in the key signature.)

C maj – 0 sharps

G maj – 1 sharp – F#

D maj – 2 sharps – F#, C#

A maj – 3 sharps – F#, C#, G#

E maj – 4 sharps – F#, C#, G#, D#

B maj – 5 sharps – F#, C#, G#, D#, A#

F# maj – 6 sharps – F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#

C# maj – 7 sharps – F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#

This table shows that each scale starting on the fifth scale degree of the previous scale has one new sharp, added in the order given above.
Flat key signatures consist of one to seven flats, applied as: B E A D G C F (same as the order of sharps, but reversed.) The major scale with one flat is F major. In all other flat major scales, the tonic or key note is indicated by the second to last flat. In the major key with four flats, for example, the penultimate flat is Ab, indicating a key of Ab major.

C maj – 0 flats

F maj – 1 flat – Bb

Bb maj – 2 flats – Bb, Eb

Eb maj – 3 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab

Ab maj – 4 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab, Db

Db maj – 5 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb

Gb maj – 6 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb

Cb maj - 7 flats - Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb

In this case each new scale starts a fifth below (or a fourth above) the previous one.
The circle of fifths provides a useful way of seeing the relationship of the major keys:

See the big round image at the top.

The numbers inside the circle show the number of sharps or flats in the key signature, with the sharp keys going clockwise, and the flat keys counterclockwise from C major (which has no sharps or flats.) Six sharps or flats make the enharmonically identical keys of F# or Gb. Seven sharps or flats make major keys (C# major and Cb major) that may be more conveniently spelled with five flats or sharps (as Db major or B major).
The major scale may predominate the minor scale in Western music because of its unique harmonic properties; in particular the major third is much stronger in the harmonic series (it is the 5th, 10th and 20th harmonic - see below) than the minor third (the 19th harmonic).
In other words, the first six notes of the harmonic series provide a consonant major chord, the fourth to sixth of which form a major triad, and seven of the nine notes between the 8th and 16th harmonics (the 7th and 15th overtones) are notes in the major scale in just intonation. See the following:

see the smaller picture above the circle of fifths. click it to make it bigger.

An illustration of the harmonic series as musical notation. The numbers above the harmonic indicate the number of cents it deviates from equal temperament. Red notes are sharp. Blue notes are flat.
The major scale allows:
three-part major or minor chords, both stable and consonant, on every scale degree but the seventh
a diminished fifth within the seventh chord built on the fifth degree, the dominant
motion by a minor second from the leading tone to the tonic
root motion by perfect fifths, the strongest root motion, from nearly every degree in either direction, the two exceptions being up a perfect fifth from the seventh degree, and down a perfect fifth from the fourth degree

Hope that helps. I don't understand half of it yet, so if you're lost, don't be sad.

How to bend.

2009-10-09T16:41:00.001-07:00

I'll make a simple video on this later.

Hello fellow guitarists. I have lately been playing around a bit with bending strings, but not in conventional ways. Let me explain...

Let's face it: when we first learned how to play, we pressed down waaay too hard, thusly bending the string. This is how we first learn about string bending. Usually this is a simple thing and is fixed in hours. Also during this time some of us bend the whole neck. This is destructve but can be useful.

Later on, we probably learned a bit on simple bending, such as half bends and full bends. At the time, I had no idea how to use them.

Then, we went on to the more complex bends: directional bending, multiple bending, bending artificial harmonics (If you learned those by this point), and my favourite which I made up, tremolo bending. I will now explain all the listed bends.

Directional: Really basic, this is when you learn to bend strings both up and down.

Multiple: Also pretty simple, an example would be in David Gilmour's bend in his "Another Brick in the Wall" solo, where he bends the 13th fret of the b string a full, half, then double bend.

Bending Artificial Harmonics: Firstly you need to know how to an artificial harmonic, AKA squealie. You basically (for simplicity's sake) fret a note. You then find the exact halfway point, pluck your string, then follow your thumb through after your pick on that halfway point, thus causing a harmonic. It's called 'artificial' because it isn't an open stringed harmonic (natural harmonic). Once you sound a squealie, there's a lot you can do. My personal favourite is to bend the string a full bend, then add a little vibrato to the bent string.

Tremolo: No, you do not need a tremolo to do this. Maybe a new string though... What you do is simple: fret a note, preferably on the upper portion of the neck (12th fret up), and basically do a fricken' huge, fast vibrato that bends up to a 1-1/2 bend. I'll demonstrate in the video.

That's bending for ya. Bending really was created to replicate, as best as a guitar can, the sound of a human voice. Then people experimented. Enjoy these ideas of bending, and have fun. Try to make your own kind of bending.

::EDIT::

Because my recording system is not functioning properly (some days it's perfect, others god knows what), the video will not be out until hopefully tomorrow.

Ah, scheduling...

2009-10-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Scheduling can be a hassle (even to spell). This little gig at the pageant is no different. Here's our schedule for our practises:

Oct. 5-9:
Mon-practise
Tue-nothing special
Wed-nothing special
Thur-practise @ school
Fri-get approval to play @ school

Oct. 12-17:
Mon-practise
Tue-nothing
Wed-nothing
Thur-maybe practise
Fri-nothing
Sat-practise (also for me SkillsUSA community service 8:30-noon yay!)

Oct 19-24
Mon-maybe go to pageant practise
Tue-maybe go to pageant practise
Wed-nothing
Thur-maybe go to pageant practise
Fri-nothing
Sat-Pageant @ 4-4:30pm to probably 7-8 pm

Wewt huge schedule. Kinda. People with jobs and such are probably thinking 'man, that's nothing!' but it's pretty big for me, anyway. NOTE: this is mainly for our (the band's) purposes, so feel free to see the spanish blog after mine.

Hey Joe!

2009-10-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is the name of a Jimi Hendrix song. Along with some of his other works, one of his greatest is Little Wing. Mr. Guitar Instructor dude told me to learn the first 4 bars of this beloved song. I'll admit, yes, I can play a little Hendrix, but the longest riff I know is about...10 seconds. This new riff is shorter but harder. But what could one expect?

The pageant thing is going...better than least expectations, but I still can't play that friggen' "One Last Breath" riff! At least I do have the structure down-ish. I still think we like "Broken" best since we never work on the other song.

GAH and time is short, for the end is nigh. For no worse an enemy hast approached my dignity than that matter of time, the structure in which we keep our lives. It is our lover, yet our death.

Not bad for a bored teen trying to sound kinda cool and making it up on the spot, eh?

'Night Rockers.

Now that's thinkin' with yer...

2009-09-30T18:11:00.001-07:00

Dipstick!! Sorry that commercial is funny. OK, on to the meaning of why I said that. Techniques can give you a vast array of choices, tones, notes, et cetera, and most require thought. If you just pick up a guitar and play things you've learned, You are just being like those wanna-be rock stars who all know the same songs: Stairway to Heaven, Smoke on the Water, and some even know random stuff such as the Mario theme. But just playing these for people is entertainment, and if you aren't watching what you're doing, it could be costly.

Say you are learning how to play all parts of Bouree in E minor with finger picks. Here you are learning several things, if you think about it. You would be learning how to finger pick, how to use finger picks, how music is compiled and how it works together. Randy Rhoads, aka friggen cool guitarist from pre-1982 Ozzy Osbourne, was taught in the ways of Classical guitar. This is purely immanent in songs like Mr. Crowley, Crazy Train, and SATO.

Why bring thought to a dead man? Well, he was probably one of most influential guitarists in history. He also thought about what he was doing and was able to administer classical to Ozzy. Metal music is also partially influenced by Classical, mainly for the solo parts.

Technique is learned from either a tutor or self-taught by watching what you are doing when playing songs. So next time you pick up your guitar, note what you are playing, how it flows, and if it makes sense musically.

YouTube party!!

2009-09-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

I was looking at my friggin huge backup of .wav files that I recorded. If you didn't like much of my other stuff, you'll probably like at least one of these. I am (of course) going to make them slideshow movies, since I have not ever had myself replicated several times on stage playing. Really I've never actually played on 'stage' for anyone but myself and a few friends.

Otherwise, everything's cool. I will try to make that post I was going to make yesterday but I said I'd do it today, so...

Hai!!

2009-09-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

That's LOLcat for hi. Mainly I just wanted to tell you a few things. You of course being anyone who is seriously bored enough to find my blog, let alone read it. : /

I have a new song out, as you can tell on my YouTube sidebar, and yes it is another "wonderful" array of pictures from the Internet. This is basically a compilation of the generic 'I'm kinda bored' things I do when I am 'playing'. Still sounds cool though.

Monday felt like a Wednesday, likewise Tuesday felt like a Monday. At least today felt nice, as it was a wonderful 60 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and is now as well. Hopefully tomorrow will feel like at least a Thursday, if not a Wednesday. Get all that? Ha ha.

Otherwise, I haven't got much for you, so maybe I will make my next post about techniques I've picked up from various artists. That's for tomorrow, however.

Rock on.

It's official.

2009-09-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Really, a lot of things are official. I can't seem to ever play the main riff in "One Last Breath". I can play through "Broken", though. Also... see the picture? I finally have a D hatchet, the only hatchet in Runescape with a special attack. Only problem? It's not mine, it's lent to me by a friend 8^(. I'm working on getting a new one, though. Our little 'band' we have for the pageant is going well; we even have a name: Spoken Thoughts. A good name, I think. Originally we had whatever Eternal Flames was in Romanian; it sounded good I swear. We also looked up some other names in different languages (some we didn't want to know, like undead in Romanian). We finally settled on Spoken Thoughts. If we do my song 'Memories', it would all kinda make sense.

Finally!

2009-09-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well we finally have our pageant song list:

Seether + Amy Lee - "Broken"

Creed - "One Last Breath"

Got any comments?

Tunings

2009-09-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm sure you guitarists know what tunings are, and you are probably familiar with the common ones: standard, drop D, drop C, DADGAd, DADGBd, the like. But can you use them in creative fashions?

What I mean is this: Say you don't like playing '5' chords in standard tuning on the bass strings (EAD). '5' chords are power chords. in drop D tuning, you just bar the strings with your finger--much easier. But this tuning has much better uses. Take, for example and simplicity, the acoustic intro for 'Life is Beautiful' by SixxAM. It uses the low D note rather creatively, unlike, say, one of my friends who uses that tuning in everything he plays. Everything. And, of course, he only uses it for the 'easier' power chords.

Drop C is used a lot like drop D, but can be a bit more fun, like in 'Bad Horsie'. Of course, with Steve Vai at the wheel, everything is fun.

Led Zepplin used the tuning DADGBd in 'Kashmir'. It being Jimmy Page, I think we all know that he used that very well.

Can you think of many other good tunings/ways to use the most common tunings? Leave a comment describing how you use them.

Rock on.