Charvel discounts @ City Music

We end February on a good note- City Music has some discounts for Charvels. If you are looking for a good, rocking guitar that will break no piggies, check these Desolation series out- recommended :-)

Photo courtesy of City Music.

The jade pick

I'm a fan of thick, hard picks. It's a personal quirk. More importantly, it complements my picking style. Trying this jade pick. It's definitely hard (it should be- it's a rock) but it's not that thick. Best bet it's a 2.5mm because I've placed it side by side with my 3mm stubby & it's a little thinner.

Halo custom

Was messing around with HALO guitars' custom shop design. They offer sensible prices for your options. Best thing is, they have Seymour Duncans as a default option. OK, it's a boring, uneventful, rotten mid-week.

Would wanna

On my to-get list for 2014- PRS S2 Singlecut & the Ibanez tenor guitar. I don't find any 2014 offerings too desirable. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I'm reaching saturation levels, happy with what I have in the mean time, not wanting more especially after knowing that the new stuff are regurgitations. 

The PRS S2 looks promising. I've always wanted a second PRS, preferably a singlecut but the ones offered were just too much money for a simple guitar till the S2 series come along. The Ibanez tenor acoustic, on the other hand, is an interesting avenue for explorations. I'm just darn incompetent when it comes to acoustics so this one would be treated as a tool to trigger ideas. When the mind faces limitations, its survival instinct kicks in. That's when it's at its most potent.

Got black?

The labels on the pedals say it all- these are meant to be brutal. Let's take a step back & think- is there really such a thing- a black metal type of distortion? How intense should it be to qualify as one? What if I am using 2 standard distortion units cascaded into each other to manifest this BM-type brutality, do I qualify? Why/ why not?

As much as we would want to believe what's on offer, there would be dweebs out there who think that these are the end-all reference; anything else is not 'true'. But I'd say we embrace whatever means to the ends as long as they work. More often than not, after trying out any metal-type distortion, I'd walk away feeling pissed. The real brutal distortion comes from amps, pedals come in when there are insufficient implements to get the job done. Peavey's 5150 amps (RIP) were there to black metal all other distortion & continue to be a respectable reference today. So what gives? Nothing, just the gear that serves you. Anything else is someone else's opinion.

Bucking close

At the close of Sunday (the most depressing time of the week as work looms ahead), I just had to hear some humbucking tones so out came the Gibson SGJ. It was a sheer case of the guitar type influencing playing ideas. I do not believe in associating music genre with guitar outlines but I just couldn't dwell on too much pentatonics with this one without going into aggressive territories. I was listening to the early Cathedral releases & that might have something to do with it as well. 

February ends in less than a week & it had been largely non-eventful gear-wise. Musikmesse will happen in March so that's something to look forward to despite NAMM 2014 still fresh in the memories.