Van Halen: A Different Kind of Turn (yes, TURN...)

I've been listening to this for about a week now, we know Van Halen is back. It's David Lee Roth singing  & Wolfgang doing bass. You know that single 'Tattoo' going viral online to showcase the master's return? Well, I deem it rather hype & it's a meek number in contrast with the rest of the songs in this collection. 'Big River' should be the signature VH number; just listen to the guitars in there & the overall infectious grooves. 

Wolfgang did well on the bass, technically, he's very competent & we expect nothing less from him since Dad is there to show him the way. Did David Lee Roth bring back the flash to Van Halen's glory days? When it comes to Van Halen, regardless of who's singing, it's still glorious, just a matter of how much gloss is in there but Mr. Roth's vocal range somehow didn't so justice to the depth of the songs. With Sammy Hagar wailing, I somehow felt that Van Halen's songs were bigger, punchier, more in your face but hearing David Lee Roth blowing wind into the microphone reminds me of an aging band- still lethal but not as venomous. I guess I grew up in the Sammy Hagar era & accepting someone else singing in there (Gary Cherone was nobody to Van Halen) is unacceptable. However, I'm more into the guitars so the bloke singing & strutting his stuff in spandex is much secondary to my interest. This is a turn of sorts for VH, out with the old & in with the... em... older.

Botom line: Van Halen is back. Don't let anyone tell you different.

Turbo!

This is an overdue update but better late than never. These are the 3 knobs of my Jackson DKMG, just regular knobs, yes? 2 tone + 1 volume except that one of the volume knob is out of order; it doesn't work...

But it gets a little suspicious when I discovered one of the tone knobs (or so I thought it was) has a push-pull switching system in tact so Jackson had a coil split feature in there- cool. But it doesn't solve the mystery of the dysfunctional knob; it still doesn't work...

So after a quick peek under the control cavity lid, Jackson has the EMG Turbo Charger pre-amp as default in this guitar. The thing about discontinued models is that we take some of the default features for granted. Why was it dysfunctional? Dead battery; this guitar was in store for at least 3 years so the default battery was beyond dead... the battery you see in the above pic is a fresh replacement (well, it was fresh in January).

Plans for this guitar next week:

1. Replace default pickups- Turbo Charger or not, I don't fancy EMG's HZ humbuckers in this guitar
2. Replace default capacitor

Will book an appointment with Beez.

Ibanez: S970

Yesterday's catch was a Premium S970. Everything's great about this guitar but the action requires a personal tweaking, Ditto the pickup height. More pics soon...

Ibanez: ARZ300

I was at Swee Lee (BB showroom) earlier today to check some stuff out, it's good to see the Ibanez ARZ series in store. This is Ibanez's other singlecut model with a more traditional, rounder neck profile; 2 more frets too. I like everything about this guitar, especially the set neck design- it's one of the most pleasant- but I'm no fan of those LZ humbuckers which lack a healthy bottom end response, they are also not as firm as the EMG in terms of distortion. I find the blank fretboard very elegant (maybe not to the rest of you).

Premium!

Got my Premium :-)

Laney vs Marshall?

I find this disturbing; I just read that someone bought a new Laney amp & said it killed his Marshall. Maybe he doesn't know it but there are others out there who bought a new Marshall amp & that killed their Laney. So amplifier decimation happens every day, eh? That's not the point. If one is of the opinion that a certain product serves him better, he shouldn't say the other is a dud by virtue of one's fresh encounter. It's not an objective comparison. Highly likely, we were swayed to embrace our new amp simply because it has all the plus points to justify another purchase. Our old amp isn't a pariah, we've been sensitized by its repeated performance to such an extent that we feel refreshed if we hear something different, mind you, not something 'better'.