Just for the heck of it

I’ve been opting to stay-in whenever I can while the rest of the group go on their respective “excursions.” I guess I’m lucky that so far, all the houses I’ve been to have WiFi (I’m not surprised, but it is a good bonus nonetheless).

I guess I might as well post since I got nothing better to do.

We’re in Los Angeles right now, and we still got 2 days till our concert… that means I’m staying in for two more days. It isn’t really a big deal since I’m used to it. Plus the fact that I pretty much have been to the places worth visiting here from our last tour. I’ve been able to save quite a lot because of it, so I’m not regretting it one bit.

To give you an idea, a safe amount I usually allot for a trip to the states (exclusive of plane fare) is at least 500USD for pure needs (e.g. transportation, food, etc.). That’s your minimum. Put shopping, theme park hopping, etc. in there, and that budget goes up dramatically.

We’re at the 2nd leg of the tour and I’ve only spent about 63 dollars. 34 of which, I could’ve avoided if I hadn’t let people persuade me to gimmick with them on our first night in NY and gotten a cheaper metro card (I got a 7 day unlimited pass… which I only used about 5 times) I’m making sure these things will never happen again.

In any case, that’s quite an accomplishment… and proof of sheer willpower hahahaha.

I’m sure you now think I’m a square – which I really am come to think of it. But the main reason why I’m fine with the lack of social activities is because I already have something to look forward to, which means more to me than the trips.

Technically whenever anyone tells me how much of a scrooge (or killjoy) I am for not wanting to go out and spend… I just ask them how much they’ve already spent, then tell them how much the gear I had ordered costs – that pretty much shuts everyone up. I think there’s only one member close to what I’ve spent… and he got himself a MacBook Pro, still that’s only about 2/3 – so I still win hehehe.

The “stuff” I’ve ordered already arrived at a friend’s house in San Jose… which we will be at on the 26th. He already sent me pictures (to the right) and a sound sample. I’m extremely stoked!

I’ll take another picture with the 20D when I get home (with all the gear). I’m posting the pic anyway – cuz I want to test how Flickr handles static hotlinking. I’m planning to put all my blog pics on Flickr starting now, so it would be easier to point to them – and reuse them for different purposes (e.g. hotlinking on a board). But for the more important photos I have, I’ll still use my own gallery.

The gear is comprised of:

• Black Taylor T5 Custom Spruce Top
• Boss GT-8 multi-effects processor (with bag)
• Planet Waves Instrument Humidifying Kit
• Planet Waves Auto-trim machine head/tuners
• Q-parts straplock system
• Levy Leather guitar strap
• Collapsible electric and acoustic guitar stands
• DiMarzio 10-foot cable

I was able to try the T5 out when I was in NY when I visited one of the guitar shops. It’s extremely light for an electric guitar, hell it’s probably light for a guitar (because I felt it was lighter than my Ovation). The action also was amazingly low… it plays lower than my .10 gauged guitars using .11 gauged strings! The unamplified sound was of course softer, but still very much acoustic – which again, is already a feat considering it is classified as an electric guitar.

Whenever I’m back in our host-family’s home, I usually re-watch the Taylor videos and do some extra research just in case I missed anything. And everytime I’m simply amazed on how Taylors are constructed. I watched every single video in their site (including their Factory Fridays series, where they show how they make their guitars. From selection of wood, to routing, to bending, to binding, to detail and finishing). I’d love to discuss them, but I think I’ll post those details when I’m back home for a dedicated post on the T5.

For now, one detail I’m going to share would be that for the T5 the Spruce tops, while 2nd best in terms of sound (compared to Koas), have the loudest un-amplified tone of all three soundboard choices. So my choosing the Spruce apparently was further validated – because I would rather have a guitar with a good overall loudness… wether or not I choose to amplify it.

The picture above is the partner to my T5, the Boss GT-8 multi-effects processor. Again, a ton of research was done before I came to decide on this. It was head to head with the Digitech GNX3000. Each had it’s own pros and cons:

GNX3000 has XLR inputs and phantom power which was good for recording (since I could use my mics with it) and it was USB ready. However it had a considerable lag when switching patches. However, it had better stock sounds, and better amp simulators, and was cheaper. The GT-8 on the other hand, has no USB (only MIDI), no official software editor, was more expensive, and is a bitch to learn.

Sounds like a brainless choice right? Not quite. Boss had better audio components, hence better overall transparency, and it’s potential and tweak-ability is literally unrivaled. So far, the GT-X series is the only effects processor wherein you can modify the actual order of your effects chain.

Usually, MFXs ¹ Multi FX processors have a pre-set order of effects which you just toggle on and off (and whose parameters you adjust). An example is that an EQ effect is usually at the end of the chain because it’s pointless to put EQ on your raw electric guitar sound before it goes into the other effects (distortion, etc) Likewise, the Compressor is usually at the beginning of the chain. The GT-8, gives you full freedom on the signal chain – which is a bonus in case you’re looking for a specific sound which needs an “unorthodox” order of effects in the chain.

So while the stock sound might not be as good as the GNX3000, I’d just like to chalk that up with the assumption that Digitech probably has sound engineers with better subjective tastes. But as far as potential of the technology goes, that’s where the GT-8 shines. I guess the best analogy I could think of is comparing Cubase (GNX3000) with say Logic Audio (GT-8). The former is better “out of the box,” but is easily inferior to the latter once you get through the learning curve and harness the latter’s full potential.