Inside

What you see here are the innards of a volume pedal which had its base plate removed & tilted sideways. If yours becomes dysfunctional, the chief culprits are labeled above:

• A: Rack gear. This contraption looks like a saw blade, it's attached/ connected to B. The rack gear moves up & down as you rock your treadle. The rack gear might snap under intense use.
• B: Pinion gear: The pinion gear you see here is rather large, in many wah units, the pinion gear is attached to the pot's shaft as standard issue. This contraption might break under intense use as well. The manufacturer usually applies lubricant between these gears to prolong their good lives. We know that moving parts which are in contact with each other wear out over time.
• C: Pot. Over time, the pots in the volume & wah units wear out or they disintegrate internally & you'll hear scratchy responses instead of smooth volume swells/ wah voicings.

SG 50th

Gibson is releasing the 50th Anniversary SG soon & it's only available in everybody's favourite finish: Black, limited to a few units of course. Anything special with this one? Nothing much less the additional 2 frets there. I sincerely hope the 24 frets will become a standard production feature in time to come.

Talmanlele

Ha! The Ibanez Talman is now offered as a ukele but don't get too excited, it's not offered here *bummer*.

Bass screamer

Ibanez did a smart thing this year by releasing the TS9B. I see it as inevitable because countless bassists out there favour the Turbo Tube Screamer to give some real boom to their tone.

However, being less attuned to the bass & more guitar-inclined, guitar dweebs are interested to know if the TS9B can pull of some cream when used with our 7 & 8-string guitars, not to mention our detuned 6-strings. As soon as this pedal debuts here, I'll get on to testing just that. Bassists had been using the guitar Tube Screamer all this time, why don't we experiment with theirs... he, he.

Coming to your senses

This is one of my favourite guitar albums & it's by none other than the Thunder from Down Under humself, Frank Gambale. If you are a Gambale fan like me & grew up listening to his music while he was still toting an Ibanez, you'd know he's a formidable player. This is the type of technicalities that would forgive the player at that time for not being on the rock front. At some point in time, you'd get sick of seeing guitar players in spandex glorifying his instrument & some other phallic outline.

Gambale's arpeggios are the other side of sweep-picking, so to speak. Prior to the Gambale exposure, I was only privy to the Malmsteen staple. So it was quite a revelation that an arpeggiated sweep need not be the obligatory ingredients of a neo-classical number. Coming to Your Senses was unbelievably the first Gambale release I own. His prior efforts were owned by the defunct JVC label & finding any one in the stores was like discovering oil. I recall seeing one in HMV for a cut-throat $44 which was very unreasonable considering the packets of D'Addario strings I could buy with that amount of money. So when Coming to Your Senses debuted in Borders for less than $30, it was a buy-first-think-later situation. Some of the tunes from Coming to Your Senses are still my listening companion. Thumbs up to this release.

Selling: LTD ST-203

Saying goodbye to my LTD ST-203, Strat-style guitar. It comes in a distressed/ relic finish, hence the chips & scratches as seen above. No mods were done on this guitar, everything is original as it is. There are currently 5-springs in the rear cavity to 'deactivate' the whammy function, please tell me if you wish to keep them in tact or restore the original whammy capacity.

• LTD ST-203: $199 (final)
• 6 months old
• Bag included
• No reservations, no trades
• Further queries welcomed, e-mail to confirm deal
• Condition: 9/10
• Self-collect: Details will be disclosed upon confirmation
• All confirmations here will be ignored (being fair to those who made the effort to e-mail)

Thank you for reading.

EDIT: Guitar SOLD! Thanks to all respondents, the successful buyer had been contacted- you know who you are. Apologies to the rest; let's just say this response was overwhelming *yikes*