Ibanez: August '24 (5)

Rounding up August with these Ibanez Q / QX models which are not new but offered in new colours. Let's see if more models would be offered in ebony fretboard. There are only two such models in the mean time: Q54PE / QX527PE.

Pic: Ibanez

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PS: Thank you, once again, to everyone who had contributed to my well-being this August. Very grateful as 3 month's worth of medication (Sept - Nov) are well taken care of. Something different would take place in October (subject to confirmation) so watch this space. 

Hot Chickens

Seymour Duncan has these pickups supposedly for country guitarists. These are high output units with Alnico V magnets at the helm, not meant for warm, vintage stuff. Also, they are noiseless (stacked humbuckers). The thing with such specialized products is, chances are, if you've tried it in person (especially with your own set up), they might be suitable for something else. The '59 is an easy example. Touted to be a polite, PAF-esque humbucker, it's been proven worthy in the hard rock & metal applications.

Pic: Seymour Duncan

Galder

In the mean time, Galder (aka Tom Orre) had left Dimmu Borgir. His next move - bringing back Old Man's Child to to fore. I only have one favourite DB album - Stormblast, the 2005 version featuring Hellhammer / Tony Laureno on drums. Interesting to see what the new direction Old Man's Child would embark on if there are any such plans to begin with.

Pic: MS

 

Ibanez: August '24 (4)

One of the new Ibanez signature models released this August is the ATZ300. Andy Timmons revisits the days when his signature model features a full sized humbucker in a mahogany body. Back in the day, his signature guitar was modelled after the SA Series. In the mean time, Mr. Timmon's new baby is still rooted in the AZ family. Just a reminder that the bridge in his signatures is the Wilkinson - Gotoh VSVG hybrid & that his volume control is equipped with a high pass filter by default.

Pic: Ibanez

Affinity Junior

Fender's Junior end of things now include the above Squier model; it's an HSS Strat featuring the oversized 70s headstock (yes!). Junior here refers to the scaled down body dimensions (90% of the standard outline) plus a 24" scale length. This isn't something special as the standard sized Jaguar are indeed 24" in scale length. The fretboard is laurel & frets go up to 20 only. 

Pics: Fender Japan

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Thanks for you generous contributions: Brother Juzryn

Post - Rebel

Many of us would have read about the passing of Rebel, Billy Sheehan's beloved cat. This happened last year. 

Just days ago, the Sheehan household welcomed two new family members into the fold - Pistachio & Pepper.

I can totally relate to this episode of bereavement. Many of us are very attached to our pets. I am certainly one of them. Days before I got married, my cat died. It took a good while for me to recover & finally accepted another feline into the greater scheme of things. Having a pet, regardless of what it is, reinforces that sense of commitment & satisfaction that we did not know we need & for some of us, this helps to keep our lucidity in check. To all pet owners out there - salute!

Pics: Billy Sheehan IG

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Thanks, everyone, for your generous contributions. We are now in the final week of August, it's the week where I try not to think of the unemployment ahead & all uncertainties heading my way. Come what may, it's a reality check that I gladly embrace. If you can spare some loose change, I am more than grateful being at the receiving end. 

Destroying Sunday

Sudden urge to hear this one in action. This doesn't get played too often due to how heavy it is. Anyway, the push-pull tone pot stopped working & the volume knob crackled despite repeatedly being blasted by contact spray. That means... 

... it's off to Beez's to get things looked into. 30min worth of servicing & it's all good to go. Beez advised me to get all three pots replaced instead of just the dysfunctional pair. Wise words indeed.

Of course, a quick re-string before action started. 

While travelling with this guitar (using a bag, not that hard case), I could feel the weight of it pushing down my knees. I took time to stop, re-generate of sorts, before moving on. Folks, it's been a few years of my chemo meds & it's affecting me / my body more than I realized. Would not exclude the possibility of needing a walking aid in time to come.

 Wishing you a good week ahead & free from cancer & its side effects.

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PS: Thank you, Lee Eng Kim Muhd Hakim, for your kind contributions.

Certified used

Fender is selling pre-owned instruments. That's right - used guitars & basses. These will be certified by Fender themselves & would definitely list for less than fresh units. Some implications:

• For this to happen, Fender has to buy these instruments from some place. Would be interesting to know where these are from. If the manufacturer buys direct from individuals, we are at the losing end because we are not located in the USA. Heck, we are not even nearby. 
• Fender is indirectly saying, hey... our instruments are getting more unaffordable & pricing many of you out, so here are some used ones as consolation, we aren't gonna make anything more affordable anytime soon
• What does it mean for local distributors - would they be getting these instruments from Fender to be re-sold locally? That would mean, the re-sale ones here are gonna be hit price-wise. People would really consider buying used Fenders from Fender rather than the local re-sellers, yes? 
• Fender is affected by the used instrument market whether they are admitting it or not so the wise thing to do is control the used market. There, problem solved.

Pic: Fender

RR D+

We know MXR has this pedal called the Distortion +; it's that proverbial yellow stomp box that's quite up there with BOSS' DS-1 & DOD's OD 250 with reference to the distortion's chronicled emergence. So this dotted being is the Randy Rhoads version. I've read the literature over at the manufacturer's website & it has no differentiated circuit to make it sound different. Expect a pedal monger to announce to the world that he / she actually hears a difference from this one & a lively debate would entail, spurring rampant purchases of the pedal. Isn't this always the case?

Pic: MXR

Player II: J & J

The relatively new Player II instruments (released by Fender recently) included the Jaguar & Jazzmaster models. Note the simplicity: 1) Both models do not feature the tone circuit at the bass side cutaway 2) Both models also feature simple 3-way selectors. Reality check - these feature are somewhat preferred by many players who do not wish to meddle with switches during play. They like what the Strat & Tele have to offer in this aspect & Fender made it happen with the Player II iteration. Neat.

Lighter Jr

This is interesting. The Fender (Japan) Jr. instruments are already scaled down in terms of body dimensions & scale length. This Summer, the Japanese camp chambered the body so it's now even more pleasant in terms of instrument handling. It's unclear if the rest of the instruments in this series were given a similar treatment. Details from the manufacturer are scant.

Pic: Fender Japan

Virtuoso HT

Jackson now offers the American made Virtuoso in a fixed bridge version as seen above. 

But Jackson is insulting us by offering both the whammy bridge & the fixed bridge versions at the same price. Whatever.

Pics: Jackson

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PS: Thank you, Muhd. Usmani for your generous contributions. Really appreciate it; 2 months worth of meds taken care of. Lost for words. 😢 May you be blessed manyfold for this charity. 

Folks, for the month of August, if you wish to make contributions to my well-being (also in celebration of my blog ranking moving up several notches), you can do so via the following QR code. Thanks in advance for your support, it means a lot to me.

DX @ Davis

These guitars were mentioned here recently (July) & they are now available at Davis GMC (List: $780). 

Pics: ESP

Gibson / Epiphone @ SG

This is a major announcement for us gear geeks here - Gibson & Epiphone guitars will return to Singapore & will be distributed by the above-depicted dealers. This should put a stop to the unreasonable Gibson & Epiphone prices in the after-market. I had delayed this announcement in the hope that the Kramer distributor would be made public as well but there were no such revelations to be had prior to this posting. In any case, it's good to have these brands back here because these are the formidable names in guitar-dom that should not be overlooked. 

Duplantier - ESP

As expected, with reference to the recent Olympics debut, Joe Duplantier is now in the ESP camp. Looks like he is embracing the XJ model which is currently in the LTD range. The initial ESP XJ debuted in the early 2000s as depicted above (right). It had a traditional reversed headstock unlike the current Snapper iteration. Also, looks like he prefers the Evertune bridge in the mean time.

This means, the Charvel versions are bowing out for good, This white one is the SD Style 2 HH ($1,099) is still available at Swee Lee.

The mahogany version ($1,599) - also in stock. Very soon we might see disillusioned claims about these Charvels being of higher value due to the collector's perceived claims about there being 'no more' & 'limited edition'. Whatever the case, it's still about demand & supply, yes? In any case, we are not aware of the larger-than-life following of these guitars as opposed to the Ibanez Petrucci models. 

Ibanez: August '24 (3)

One of the new guitars Ibanez released this August is Paul Gilbert's FRM350. This iteration has that fancy tail end Gibraltar model, something you'd see on an AR model, for a vintage vibe. Pickups are DiMarzio's Air Classics which I like. 

So this time, there's a magnetic platform at the treble cutaway to hold a slide. Do you need one for your guitar? No, you don't but Paul Gilbert does. He's on a slide itch & Ibanez is acceding to the endorser's fancy like they did with his mini humbucker & single coil affiliations not too long ago.

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Thank you for your kind contributions: Ryan Woo

Pics: Ibanez

Re-string Thursday

 

These Augustine strings are above (my) expectations. Went out to look for nylon strings & in the spirit of trying something less glorious in name, went with this one. OK maybe in the classical guitar circle, this brand name might mean something but I'm not from that domain. What I noted: Crispy feel, giving off more clarity, something lacking in other brand names I've tried. Available @ Davis GMC.

On another note, thank you to the following individuals for your kind contributions:

• Yeo Kai Jie
• Fahmi Sharin

Viva olympia

Managed to re-string my colleague's Epiphone acoustic a couple of days ago. Strings of choice: Olympia CTA-1152, corrosion resistant version. These are less than $8 & they sound good. OK, maybe they are fresh strings, devoid of grime & tarnish for optimum performance. My colleague gave his thumbs up; darn good value for money. 

Folks, sometimes the lesser brand names have more in store for us, above expectations so to speak. What's preventing us from buying them? Pride & ego. We tend to judge a product by the brand name. No doubt, some brand names have proven their worth over time; Tupperware & Energizer are easy examples. We also tend to follow the popular choice, not wanting to try something less popular for the fear of not getting the money's worth. 

S/C 8

Was trawling the net for live Meshuggah stuff & came across pics of Marten Hagstrom playing this beast. It seems that some Ibanez interest groups had documented their interest as well. Looks like something is in the works & it's a matter of time when details would be made public.

In the mean time, this is one of the pictures released by parts manufacturer, ABM Guitar Parts (Germany), that is responsible for the bridge & tail piece of this beast. 

 Pics: Fillmore Audi / ABMGP

Thank you: No. 43

Starting the week on a high - my sincere thanks to all blog readers for moving my blog up to No. 43... (10 notches up after 7 years) it means a lot to me. In this digital age, my blog can be deemed as the analog version of gear info. It's geared towards reading & that's downright intentional. I just want people out there to read instead of watching videos all the time. This blog is actually my personal gear diary, if others enjoy reading it then it's a real bonus for me. 

If you like what I'm doing & would like to make a small contribution to keep me afloat in this uncertain times, please scan the QR code above. I'm keeping this active till end of August. Thank you in advance, folks. Here's wishing you a wonderful week ahead.

Shout out to my friend, Steve, for his keen interest in my introversion since the early days & fellow gear blogger bro kucing ijau for keeping things going. 

Heavy zone

I have a love-hate affair with DiMarzio's Tone Zone. In some guitars it sounds downright nasal with a semi-useless bass response. That fuzzed-out sound... I hate it. In others, it can really give a good punch to heavy distortion. Depicted above is the Tone Zone in my Ibanez SEW761. It sounds awful most of the time (in this guitar).

Today, I decided to pair it up with the Digital Metalizer (MZ-2). Outcome:

• the TZ has an excessive bass response so the MZ-2's EQ was set past midway to enhance treble
• overall tone was more usable in chorus modes. It seems that the TZ needs some kind of a top end booster to make the overall tone less nasal / fuzzy
• tone sounds more palatable when the drive was set to about 3/4 way. Implication - the TZ might be better for crunchy stuff rather than all out metal

Verdict: Nothing changes. The TZ is more of a miss than a hit for me. Strangely, I would want to hear it in action every now & then 😅

Mikro goodness

Had some gear time yesterday (because I did not watch the National Day parade) as it was a public holiday. It was bass day. 

I'm still overwhelmed by standard-sized basses so my basses are essentially short-scaled models or a travel version of a popular model. The person who gave me this bass used to sell me his guitar pickups not too long ago. He switched to drums for good so he decided to hand this over to me as a gift. I was obliged to pay him for this but he refused. Before we parted, I gave his son some school pocket money instead which he accepted on his son's behalf.

Folks, a reminder that porous wood dries over time. Here's how a dry & treated (final 2 frets) wood surfaces look like. I will usually let the treated area absorb as much oil as possible & in most cases, it's left overnight. The residue would be wiped away before proceeding to re-string the instrument.

The hardware was thoroughly cleaned but the strap buttons were replaced. One of them was dislodged & it remained inside the bag without the previous owner realizing it. So it dented the body on some areas when the bag was moved around. The other strap button turned green & they both made way for  GOTOH replacements.

Last but not least, a fresh set of strings. Yes, a short scale set was used as indicated on the top right corner of the package but that doesn't look too obvious. Of course, regular bass string sets would work but these strings were made longer to accommodate standard sized basses. The issue would be the tapered length at the string tip; this would occur later on the string length which means you require more winding at the post & that's not a good thing for short scaled basses as the winding would require some overlapping. By the way, this string set was left unopened for more than a year & there's absolutely no tarnish / rust so top marks for D'Addario for doing it right in terms of shelf life preservation. 

Happy 59th

Ah yes, it's that time of the year again when we declare ourselves as one united people. Because we are not blind, there's this disconnect between the ruling politicians & the people here. United people isn't quite it. Are we proud of our country? We most certainly are but we are also deeply disturbed (& markedly affected) by the things happening here; housing becoming more unaffordable, rising food prices & job insecurity (especially the re-employment situation) among others. The country's currency is also weakening lately & the current government is still running things by bogging the people down with dependence - you think those vouchers / cash disbursed are goodwill decisions? Using our money to pacify us. Oh, dear.

Happy 59th birthday to my beloved country. I have no obligations to love whoever's running it, just to be clear.

Thank you: Master Beez for letting me use one of his magnificent photos.

G-Horizon

This Grassroots G-Horizon-FR was released today. Despite being a Grassroots version, it features an alder body & an ebony fretboard. However, pickups are in-house units & the bridge here is a Floyd Rose Special. It's a good looking guitar & is a serious alternative to the Ibanez & Jackson models in the same beginner-esque category.

Pic: ESP Japan

Ibanez: August '24 (2)

The Ibanez John Scofield signature model isn't new but this more affordable version is (JSM10EM, August 2024). We all know a guitar of this nature don't come cheap so this guitar, listing for a whisker off $1K, is worth considering - if you are into this genre of music, that is. Despite being more accessible price-wise, it still features the Super 58 humbuckers. For the record, this is the fastest Ibanez release to reach Swee Lee; announced in August & debuting just days later in the store. Anyway, it's good to stock up John Scofield stuff in view of his guitar clinic come mid-September.

Pic: Ibanez

George's Solar

George Kapa, from the band Six for Nine, is now a Solar endorser. If you don't know who he is, then you're not alone. I checked him out only after seeing this debuted at Solar's web page (GC1.6GK). Be informed that the pickups here are Seymour Duncans (not Duncan Solars): P-Rails (n) / 59 Custom (b). George is Greek, quite obviously, the colour of his national flag is on his guitar. See / hear this guitar in action: 

Pic: Solar guitars

Vox clearance

Folks, there are good discounts to be had from City Music's VOX clearance sale. Please refer to the full listings at City Music's web page. If you're GASing for some tube amps, this is a good opportunity.

Pic: City Music

Reverend @ Swee Lee

Yes folks... Reverend guitars are now available at Swee Lee. At the time of posting, there are more than 10 models in stock. The one you see above is the Charger HB ($1,469). A good number of them are signature models, Greg Koch, Billy Corgan, et al. Please check if these come with a bag because it's not indicated in the listings & the fact that a Reverend bag is available as a separate purchase.

Pic: Reverend Guitars

Silent cats

Seymour Duncan has these for you - the Phat Cat pickups that don't hum. They call these the Phat Cat Silencers. Silencer here refers to the manufacturer's technology of making single coil pickups em, silent. The concept was applied to other pickups before the Phat Cat version came about, namely the P90 Silencer set & the Jared James Nichols version. By the look of things, these are based on the stacked humbucker technology but I've not seen these in person to see if there's indeed an increase in dimensions (depth) to suggest a stacked arrangement. FYI, the Phat Cat is a P90 style pickup that is a direct replacement for guitar cavities housing a humbucker. 

Pic: Seymour Duncan

National Day savings @ Swee Lee

Folks, Swee Lee has some National Day discounts consolation if you missed the Bras Basah outlet closing sale. The specifics are depicted above. Have to give it to Swee Lee for being consistent here; they always have some promos come National Day. 

Pic: Swee Lee SG

Ibanez: August '24

We begin August in the knowledge that Ibanez had decided to perpetuate the Genesis RG550 by adding a couple of new colours to the fold - black & electric blue.

Pic: Ibanez