New Year greetings

Blessed new year greetings to all Muslim blog readers. Stay true to faith & everything will fall in place. To the rest of us - have good weekend ahead. 

Price watch (96)

I am an advocate for affordable strings. I don't embrace those semi-trash cheap strings sold online; they sound bad, feel awful & don't last till our next paycheck. Olympia makes good, affordable strings & I've been using them a lot lately. Please avoid buying from Cristofori music as they are selling them for the prices depicted above. You can purchase them from Music Theme / Ranking Sports for $1 less. I do not wish to call out guitar stores out there like this but some stores are much disconnected from the buy/sell climate because they have primary services that assure self-preservation; selling instruments is just a side hustle.

Spending the midweek with my AZ2204. Ibanez did a smart thing by moving away from the shred-esque neck profile with the AZ Series. The AZ necks are nothing like the ones in the RG / S-Series. It's not trying to mimic any competitors' proprietary care either but some are hinting at the Suhr / Fender elements which, in my opinion, are dismissively convenient. Despite this different neck profile, I am still able to do my thing so that speaks a lot about the AZ holding its own in terms of playability appeal.

Would like to thank all my gear for keeping me occupied throughout the uncertain days of unemployment. Nothing beats the anxiety of not knowing where / when your next paycheck comes from. It would mean desperate times for some of us but it comes with consequences.

Charvel Evertune

Looks like Charvel has joined the Evertune camp with this Pro MOD Plus So-Cal Style 1HH Evertune E. As it is, at least for the local players / musicians here, we are doing OK with non-Evertune equipped guitars. Yes, the Evertune systems has some plus points when it comes to tuning stability (especially for pro live performances) but there are some set-up technicalities to deal with before being ready to play. Personally, I don't have a need for my instruments to manifest such tuning stability so there's no desire to own one.

Pic: Charvel

Away

I love spending time in Malacca; the laid back feel, the food & the riverside night-ivities. I've been here countless times but keep coming back for more.

One of the dining places we went to showcased some in-house music & I got a chance to chat with the musicians pertaining to gear & stuff. They were kind enough to let me document their gear. This is the guitar set-up. All songs were played on acoustic guitar, even if the original numbers have distorted electric guitars in them (eg. Bon Jovi / Scorpions).

The bassist had a bare-bones set up; just the bass into the mixer; the reason you only see a D/I box here. By the way, there were no instrument amplifiers used, both of them were hooked into the PA system & they sounded good throughout.

Snaking through

Not too long ago, it's VH (CLICK). Today, it's Whitesnake. Don't see too many people who are keen to  manifest their rock affiliations on their rides.