VZB

 Vox, Zoom & Blackstar products are now available at Swee Lee. Yes - Swee Lee.

ZOOMing

Last minute catch from the recent mid-year City Music sale. Planning to capture inspiring sounds around me. Really. 😅 

Loving the machine

You know what makes a good player? Playing in time. But I'm through with the cold, calculated tick-tocks & beeps of a metronome. I have since moved on to a drum machine. Seen here is my Zoom RT123, the most fundamental drum machine Zoom has to offer. A long time ago, I used to jam with friends but it was the era of anti-guitar, otherwise known as grunge (it got me puzzled, those blokes were anti-guitar but they still have guitars in the band- darn). You know what people like to do when they jam? They do covers. I don't. So there we have it, the meeting of direct opposites, the chemistry just wasn't happening. Friends prefer Nirvana & Stone Temple Pilot numbers, they would throw in Black Sabbath & Iron Maiden occasionally but I was heavily into Emperor, Marduk, Mayhem, Satyricon, Darkthrone, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Death & I don't even wanna play like my heroes, I just listen to them for inspiration. I don't like & don't wanna play other people's music, I wanna create my own; it's about learning & application but people don't value learning, they wanna go with the flow so I flowed the other way. I stopped playing with people, I play with machines & I couldn't be happier.

I don't see my RT123 being plugged in too much lately because all the drum stuff are playing in my head, they are there, I don't need to hear its extension through an amp. However, the challenge has always been to vary the tempo & play my stuff in different timing, this is an important ingredient to learning & everyone who is musically inclined should devote time to get acquainted with time. So two days ago, my RT123 was dusted & plugged into a small practice amp just to get my timing thing going once again. We should strive to make every playing experience a learning experience.

The race (to compact oblivion)

Vox has raised the bar (Ok, not too much, though) in the compact pedals realm, the ones you see here are the new StompLab 1 & 2 (with expression pedal) series for guitars (red black) & basses (black red). The rotary knobs provide quick access to editing for sure, not to mention that chicken head livery of vintage amp controls, he he... It means that ZOOM's G3/G3X need to keep up.

But the ZOOM chaps are not fretting in their tech pants because they have moved on to the MS-series, employing the G3's user-friendly interface feature into a smaller manifestation; the typical stomp box dimension so you pedal board dweebs would definitely consider their placement in your line-up.

Selling: ZOOM FP-01

To clear: ZOOM FP-01

This is a ZOOM expression pedal, bought to be used with my ZOOM 505 which had been sold off. I kept the pedal because it is effectively a volume pedal for some swelling effect- I'm such a klutz, I can't quite do such swells with my guitar knobs, he he... So if you have any applicaitons for this pedal, I'm letting it go cheap.

• Condition: 7.5/10
• Self-collect
• Price: $35
• NO trades/ NO reservations
• All queries welcomed

Still available: Sound Drive SG-612R amp head

EDIT: Pedal SOLD, 8th Feb, 10.42PM.

Compact

While the KORG people are busy reducing their Pandora (new 2011: Pandora mini) to a compact unit...

...the ZOOM camp is expanding their G1 series into the G3 unit (also new for 2011).

Regardless of the manifestations, I'm waiting to hear what's in store tone-wise.

Drum the mini

In the absolute case of laziness, I have assigned my X-mini speaker to manifest some drum beats- works very well. My Zoom RT123 is powered by Biyang's noiseless adaptor.

The rhythm companion

The days leading to the new year were dreadful episodes of work preparation. Everything takes a back seat, work commands priority. I was too whacked to even update anything here hence the hiatus. Everybody else believes the new year would be the opportunity to start anew- less me, of course. I don't look forward to be engaged in the line of duty where change is marginal. The Luciferian whispers inside of me provokes a career switch...

Enough whining.

Anyway, I played my RGA121 today with some rhythm backing courtesy of my ZOOM RT123 (discont'd). I've put this away for a while because I misplaced the power adapter for it but today it was unearthed beneath a sheaf of rancid newspaper, so work took a back seat.

I invested in a simple drum machine to spur inspiration; I get motivated to play after hearing an interesting percussion inter-play more so than being intrigued by another guitar player. My rhythm companion here is really a fundamental beat generator but it does its job well. More importantly, it helps me play on.

Zoom: FP01

This is perhaps one of the most unglamorous pedal I own, it's a volume unit, Zoom's FP01 (made in Italy). I bought it 10yrs ago & as evident, it's in pristine condition. I'm recalling it from retirement because my noise reduction unit (Carl Martin) had been put aside since its battery ran out & I prefer cutting off signals to the amp when I pause during play rather than depend on an NR unit to keep things quiet.

Flashback: Zoom 510

The pedal you see here is Zoom's 510 Dual Driver which is a decade old. Back in 1998, the manufacturer released its 5XX series of pedals & these easily became the most affordable multi-FX unit in the market. I first bought the 505 but deemed it unnecessary 6mths later as I do not employ the modulation & time-based effects modules in it & I still don't today- I'm basically a guitar+amp person (because nothing should get in the way of good tone). The 505 was promptly sold away & the 510 made it into my set up as it is truly the unit which complemented my playing style; I'm particular about drive/ distortion more than anything else when it comes to guitar.

The 510 enabled me to activate a pair of drive modules simutaneously, it was the device which triggered my understanding of a cascading drive concept which liberated my playing tremendously because more drive means:

• less effort needed for picking: less lethargy = less mistakes
• harmonics can be triggered easily

However the trade off here is the increase in background noise & single coil pickup hum; which Zoom duly addressed by incorporating a noise reduction feature. So the 510 triggered my interest in noise reduction as well.

However, the 5XX series evolved to become Zoom's G-series today simply because of its waning popularity- players still deem the rotary control ('knob' to the rest of us) a critical pedal feature as this enables immediate authority when it comes to tweaking.