My Gear.

Sunday, November 26, 2006
I've always wanted to a detailed run down of the gear I use, just for the sake of it or for me to play pretend rock star once in a while. Some folks have expressed interest towards it by saying "WTF YOU NEED ALL THAT SHIT FOR?", so I'll be going through the gear I use in the coming posts. They'll be accompanied by great pictures courtesy of Canon Photo Marathon Winner Valerie Lam.

Be warned if you're not a gear slut, I suggest you leave now.


This is my current pedalboard, I got it from Mr Misse at www.mrmisse.com . He sells two versions one large and one small. Mine is the smaller variant of the two. It's an extremely versatile pedalboard. What you're seeing right now in the picture is the bottom of it, the upper portion it actually a lid. Place the 2 together and the pedalboard boxes together to form a case. The board itself comes with a carpeted bottom, perfect for velcroing your pedals to the bottom of it. I use industrial strength velcro and change my order of effects all the time so the stock carpet has worn off. Right now I'm using some carpet that was left over from shop renovations I did. Does a great job.

The signal chain is as follows:
  • Guitar : Ernie Ball Musicman Luke/Ibanez Jem77FP
  • Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr, tuner out to Boss TU-12
  • RedWitch Standard Moonphase
  • Xotic Effects Robotalk 2
  • Xotic Effects RC Booster
  • Bjfe Dyna Red Distortion
  • Moog Mooger Fooger MuRF
  • Boss DD-20 Delay

Everything in between is wired with Canare Cable and flathead plugs, all done up by www.mrmisse.com .

This is the first group, that shiny chrome looking box is the RedWitch, to the bottom of it is the Robotalk, the white pedal is the RC Booster, and the red one of course is the Dyna Red. I get all my swooshing lush sounds from the RedWitch Moonphase, it's does a really good job at it. Think guitar tone flying on the wings of wind. That's the Moonphase.

Next comes the Robotalk...

As some of you might know, I own a wah wah pedal but I don't use it. As a matter of fact I find it cumbersome to rock my foot back and forth while giving my guitar talking face and playing at the same time. I'm also some what dumbfounded without having an LED/Indicator light to let me know whether the pedal is on or not. Enter the Robotalk, it's the most vocal sounding Autowah I've come across. I got an extremely good deal on this pedal! It acts just like a real true to life wah pedal, but on the dynamics of your picking, pick hard and the WAH sound comes out, softly and the OOH sound comes out. Very nice. It comes with a random arpeggiator which I have not found a use for right now...play a chord and it turns the chord into EEEE DEEE AHHH OOOH WOOO AHHH EEEEH AHHHH OOOOH WAAA AHHH...etc etc.

This is probably the first pedal I bought from Mr Misse. I got it after Chinese New Year this year I believe. It's a clean boost pedal. It's especially great for use in a band situation. Say you've got a great rhythm tone going, but you've got a solo section coming up. The RC can act as a gain boost in pumping up the signal into your amp/distortion pedal...giving you sweet sweet gain you're yearning for. Placing it after your distortion pedals would make the RC act as a volume boost. Taking the original tone and just making it louder. Going straight into a clean amp the RC can give you a sweet subtle overdriven tone as well. Very nice versatile pedal...

Oh yeah...and Scott Henderson swears by it.

My main distortion pedal, the Bjfe Dyna Red. The whole interest towards this pedal stems from my late night conversations with my gear slut buddy Brandon. To him it was the distortion pedal to rule and end all distortion pedals. I was skeptical at first, I mean it's just a pedal right how damn good can something like this sound? But brother Roy got me a great deal on this pedal. The moment I tried it...my room with flooded with drool. They're not easy to come by, so if you do get the opportunity to get one, do it. It does not have that much gain though, but according to Brandon I'm able to coax gain out of it due to me picking so damn hard. So far the only distortion pedals I've found to have really liked are the Dyna Red, MI Audio's Tube Zone and also the Crunch Box.

The latest acquistion of mine is the MuRF, I was able to afford it having sold a whole bunch of old guitar books, CDs and DVDs I placed online for sale. Words alone cannot describe this pedal. The possibilities are really endless with this one. I've always had a strong fascination with Moog stuff. It's like a time based modulation, it can act as a sequencer as well. When you play a note, the MuRF turns the note into musical magic. You can also set the rate/speed and the type of pattern you want the animated notes to take. It's the bomb I tell you, I shit you not. However when I first heard it, I thought of it as noisemaker nonsense, but I've already used it with my band and have written quite a few songs and riffs based on the MuRF's tones. Used with copious amounts of delay and a deranged mine, it can do horror movie tones! Awesome stuff!

The pedal next to it is what I use for delay. Delay is basically something like echo...you play a note, it goes into the delay pedal and the pedal "Delays" the note a certain amount of time, and brings it back. Creating the illusion of "Echo". You can specify the number of repeats via the feedback knob, the amount of time you want the delay to be - The time taken between the played note and the repeated one, and the loudness of the delayed note. The advantage of the DD-20, I get to keep 4 different delay modes in one pedal. And I can switch between them midway into a song, or any time I choose to. The DD-20 itself has much more other stuff going on which I have not even checked out though...

And last but not least is my trusty Boss TU-12 tuner which I have owned since I was probably about 14 years old. Yes 14 years old. I've very much like to get a more accurate responsive tuner like the Peterson Strobostomp...but it ain't cheap. Probably take 3 weeks of ice cream scooping to afford. The Boss one fits in the crowded mass of my board which is good as well. It works fine but well...it ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

This is the amp I got at the Midyear Sweelee sale of 2006. Took me loads of saving to afford working part time and all. But it was worth it, it's everything I would want in an amp. A relatively small wattage, and a great responsive clean sound to die for. I changed the 2 pin power plug it came with to a 3 pin one, it's dead quite now.

Alright folks, that's probably about the end of the gear descriptions. If anyone else has any questions do let me know. I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Christopher.

Big 'ole Vivo

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
I haven't been keeping up with it lately. I'm so totally out of it. Even the other day when I went for a haircut at Pacific Plaza, I went over to Scotts for lunch at the foodcourt. Most of the stalls were gone, I only found out why slightly later when I bumped into a friend working at the way huge Nokia showroom upstairs. Which brings me to my next revelation, since when did they even put a showroom there!?!? What happened to the watch boutique?!?! I feel like a friggin' dinosaur confined to the fossilized boundaries of Bukit Timah. Anyways I decided to visit the latest phenomenon in Singapore shopping - Vivo City. Was a great opportunity for me to spend some time with Val. I needed that so much, especially in view of the events which transpired through the course of the day.

I recently sold away two of my most prized guitar pedals for a handsome sum...300 buckeroos a pop. I've been on some sort of Moog-like frenzy lately. WTF is a Moog? Check it here, www.moogmusic.com . Anyways back to the story yeah. As fellow GAS-heads (Gear acquisition syndrome) will know, one of the unwritten rules of guitar GAS is this. You only sell something to buy something else! Wah lan eh, I had my sights on another Moog related pedal. Or in the bigger scheme of things maybe a nice Mac for the new house. But my dad gave me a nice reality check and told me to go pay for my insurance premium on my own. And it ain't cheap mind you. Not one bit.

Best Buy.

Anyways back to Vivo City.

First impression, the place is bloody hell big man. Seriously fucking big. Large vast floor spaces, endless ceilings, shitloads of people even on a wednesday. If you just stand there and watch it all you'd think you're in some well oiled machine of a factory.
IT'S THAT BIG!

MY STOMACH IS THAT BIG!


Essentially everything is the same though. I did not come across anything worth drooling over during my visit. Everything you can buy there you can probably buy at any other urban shopping mall in Singapore. Loads of people, uncontrollable children, crying babies, the works. However just experiencing the sheer size of it and the marvel of civil engineering it is makes the trip worthwile though. And I'm sure that's what the rest of the folks there thought too. I hardly saw anyone carrying any shopping bags for that matter. There are pretty nice outdoor gardens and stuff, but by the time Val and I got to going there, it was already pitch dark. Well one thing great was this...


Loves it!

Yeah I make it sound like such a tough trip and all. Maybe it's just my inner sense of paranoia thinking out loud. But seriously folks I did enjoy myself. There's a certain sense of therapy one experiences when taking part in the whole consumerism thing. I did see a lot of stuff I wanted but I just couldn't bring myself to spend the cash after paying my mofo insurance premium.

Highlight of my day...

Val's rock god super power fearsome shredder impersonation at toys r us.

Rockin'!

Christopher.

Good blogs have pictures...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Yeah read the title, a good blog would have pictures. As a matter of fact, I believe all good blogs or more rather ones which were perceived good have pictures. And good pictures for that matter. Only with pictures or some other form of stimuli, would I be able to show you the things I've come across in my life.
How I went to school the other day to do my project with Lavinia with my unwaxed hair of floppiness, only to have our room filled with a full load of Indonesian students playing Warcraft provide us with surround sound in bahasa!

How I got rid of my street style hair cut with the help of my uber hairstylist!

Also you'd never be able to see the face shield I had on the last time round to deflect the little stinging beads of hairspray.

And how Val and I had "long love" with a "black jaguar" at cold storage holland village.

The good food Val and I had at Raffles City


The GREAT food they have at Pu Dong, but WTF! menus.



And also how you never know who you're gonna bump into walking around town...


Good Blog.

Christopher.

I'm Buzzed

Monday, November 06, 2006
So yeah we finally got to playing the gig on saturday. We rehearsed and practice loads for it, 2 jamming sessions last week lasting till 12 midnight. I have not got round to loading the pics from the event, I'll post them up once they are done.

Here's some pics from the studio...


Mr Rock Voice! Suffian our frontman and bass player.

Yat my most fave drummer in the whole wide world. Please please don't break those sticks I gave you, not cheap you know, they cost like 4 hours of my ice cream scooping pay!

The gig went pretty well though the turn out made me slightly dismayed. Well I guess I can't expect much, it was 1230 on a hot saturday afternoon, most folks are still sleeping in. But there were loads of people enthusiastic about our music, and that really touched me. We were the first band to play and the next band taking the following slot was the winners of project superstar. And I believe the slots which followed were some winners from singapore idol.


Me getting my weekly high.

The Prince of Borneo and I trading licks.

The time flew by as if it was 5 minutes or something. We managed to fit in 4 songs into our half an hour setlist. I really wanted to do 5 but there was no time. Well the secret song will show itself soon. All that practice paid off, I couldn't believe we sounded so good on stage. And yeah another thing, it was our first official gig, got pay some more! The sound quality was really great, yeah so we didn't get marshall and bogner stack amplifiers but the soundman was great. Bad part was that my end of the stage was surrounded with a sheet of plastic. It felt like a furnace on a saturday afternoon, I sweat like a pig on stage...so friggin hot!

Speaking of hot...


Christopher.

Absence makes the stomach fonder.

Thursday, November 02, 2006
I seriously miss all the girls who went off to UB.

I've been trying to push away the repercussions their absence ever since this new semester started, I've been so caught up with things lately I haven't even had the time to take a breather to think about it. Well it hit me today. I took the bus to campus today. Usually Mara would come up on the bus somewhere around the Hwa Chong JC bus stop. Then Jenetta would get on the bus at the bus stop right before the Mazda showroom/Apple Centre place. Sigh I miss all of you shitloads. Especially Mara! All those times I irritated you, and threatened to squeeze your tits, I wish I could do them again. LOLOLOLZ. I miss Ris squeezing my man boobs. I miss Caryn inserting witty lines every now and then to irritate the hell out of me. I miss Cynthia telling me I'm handsome and also never failing to pointing out to me the latest news of pimples on my face. I miss telling Jer that she looks beautiful everyday. Sigh. I sometimes regret not coming along. I do feel out of place right now in this class, but the people around me have done pretty well making me feel at ease. I also miss you guys making fun of me cuz I can't do that silly face thing where your fingers encircle your eyes upside down thingy. Knn only my girls will understand.

Hence my purpose for this post.

To dedicate this post to every single one of you beatiful ladies right now in Barf-fa-lo eating food at crappy CHINA KING!


I bet CHINA KING no have Benster Chicken Rice!


CHINA KING might also have silly rip offs of various Asian dishes but no one does a killer homecooked nasi lemak than Auntie Veronica!


And I bet you guys miss Island Creamery too.

Seriously when you ladies come back, I'm gonna take all of you to newton/chomp-chomp/geylang supper/changi village nasi lemak/adam road hawker/katong laksa/jln kayu prata/Benster Chicken Rice/etc etc...and then ice cream at Island Creamery. And also don't forget all our sushi excursions! Come back soon ok. And don't waste calories on crappy buffalo food. Save them for when you come back.

Anyways on with today...

Today didn't feel like a school day to me. I felt as if my only purpose for today was to wake up and get through it. Fact is I didn't even want to wake up to begin with. Class went by in the slowest most possible motion. Lunch turned out to be total shite, I had japanese food (if that's even remotely possible...don't say anything Nic!) at the food court, crowded to the max by neighbouring lunch time patrons. GO TO YOUR OWN CANTEEN LAH.

Work went pretty well. In fact it was pretty ok, considering that fact that I went at it alone. Have I ever mentioned that I have the best girlfriend in the world? Well she did this to prove me right once again.

It may not look like much, but there's Herbal Chicken Soup, Salmon in Terriyaki sauce, and realy nice veggies! SHIOKNESS I TELL YOU!

Thanks babe.

Christopher.

IT'S MOOGIN' TIME!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006
I had what I would consider a pretty good day today. Midweek Wednesday for me, no work, just school from 1-5, and I even got to work in a jam session from 9-11 at night. More on that later. I started out my day be meeting Valerie at Holland. She wanted to take me for Japanese. But I had much more simple desires. I had my holland village breakfast noodle craving. It's the stall in the corner at the hawker centre. Fookin' Awesome noodles. The best bits are the things you get to choose along with them, tau kwa, chicken chop, eggs with runny centers, fish cake. Top that all off with killer chilli and nice thick slices of green chilli and you're all set for a fiest! I'm getting all hungry just thinking about it right now. I was so hungry I ate really quick, and in my haste, even before I got to finishing up the chicken chop, while trying to slice it this happened...

THE BREAK DANCE OF THE NO GOOD PLASTIC SPOON.

Lunch was still good though. Even better was having my fave less ice more milk iced cafe mocha at holland starbucks.

Again my haste in drinking it gave me the urge to quell the runs right in the middle of my market reasearch class.

It's been really long since I picked up this guitar. I fixed her all up. And since then left her at Valerie's house for her to play. But I've decided it's time I do something about it. I should bloody play the damn thing. Given to me by my Godparents in Japan, this is the Jem90HAM model. Made to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Ibanez's parent company - Hoshino. Based on the same guitar which Steve Vai uses, it has a really cool textured blue finish whcih kinda sticks to my shirts everytime I'm done playing. Sometimes I get abrasions on my arms too. There are only 300 plus of these guitars in the world today.

ONE OF THEM IS WITH ME!


I still gasp everytime I open the case.

I took her to the studio with me tonight, played the exact same setlist which the band will be playing this coming saturday. The guitar held up extremely well. My bandmates went nuts when they saw her.

The view from the top.

We're pretty much done with all the songs we will be playing on satruday. Just a little few creases here and there which need ironing out. But other than that we're all set to go. I'm so so so excited.

It will be the first time I will be playing this guitar for a gig.

Please be good girl to me and don't break any strings alright.

Christopher.

Charmaine X bum X drifter X hobo X beggar X pauper X...

My sister suprised me with her latest Halloween Costume. It's rather different from the ones worn by the girls at Island Creamery. Needless to say I got the shock of my life when she came in asking for "Alms for the poor". I couldn't stop laughing the moment I saw her, the only costume thus far I have came across which can match up to her's is Zhi Yuan's "Where's Wally" costume. The difference between the 2. Charmaine had no Halloween party to go to, she merely put on the costume, joined a bunch of her friends and took a walk around holland village. LOLWTFBBQ~!

Here's a thousand words...

My love don't cost a thing!

I must say I'm gonna give her an A for effort in terms of replication! Even her legs are covered with god knows what! Barefooted walking around aimlessly. Shirt was tattered, hair was mat, and even had bits of masking tape in it!


I couldn't stop laughing at all. Especially when she decided to go wake my dad from his slumber! WAH LAN EH. BUEY TAHAN I TELLS YOU! Even the bloody taxi driver was afraid to pick her up!


Happy Halloween, I love you Charm!

Christopher.

The Miko!

Took quite a lot of effort for me to make my way down to great world shitty in time for work. Seriously. I spent a half hour taking a bus down to the lower portion of bukit timah, I planned initially to take a bus half of the way and just top up the journey with a cheap low cost cab ride. In the end the cab ride turned out to be about 7 bucks, much thanks to the peak hour charges. Best. That's an hour's worth of pay. I got there only to meet a slightly bored to death Denise, poor girl's been there since 11am. 7 long hours man.

Here we go again...

I'm almost halfway through Zhi Yun's book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I wish I had read this earlier, amazing stuff. Only to be discovered accidentally through a bout of boredom. Honestly I prefer it at great world. It's a much better environment in my opinion, I get paid, I work, interact with people and get time to myself. I love the independance.

I woke up this morning to see my brother, Cecil's cat Miko sleeping on the chair out in the living room. I had to take a picture. Check him out.

At first when we got Miko, he seemed to want to destroy everything. Clawing the furniture, food, household appliances, and even the legs of my friends. Now he's such a baby. I used to be slightly biased towards him and prefered Dylan, but Dylan the dog has turned into a total psycho of late. I love this cat. I come home and he comes and sits next to me while I watch tv.

Miko the Catbit.

I decided to be a good boyfriend today and got Valerie a couple of her fave cds. I swear folks our schedules are so damn packed with work, school and our own commitments that stopping by a cd shop is an affair of rarity. I got these cds at "That CD Shop" at great world. Great service but the selection is a little too mainstream for my liking. That hardest thing for me to do that day - Asking the salesgirl for the latest Justin Timberlake, P Diddy, Pussy Cat Dolls, Corrine May Albums. YUCKS! Try to ignore the 3 for $49 labels...it's the thought that counts.

Loves it.

Christopher.