“Only they who believeth in their guitar quest shall be granted passage”

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  • Direct Input for (much!) better Output

    Have you ever consider using DI box for your live performances, or your recordings? what is EXACTLY a DI Box anyway? does it really a tool for better sound output? all these questions are being asked around here and there, but actually, for me, i can’t hear the differences,at least, not with passive DI box. okay, so what’s the point in this post anyway?well, i tried to read and summarized all sources i can get which brought me to some conclusions. yes… (one of stupid things I’ve done is writing something i don’t actually know, but here it is)DI box is important it regains the lost signal of your guitar sound. it converts high-impedance, line level, unbalanced output guitar signal to a low-impedance microphone level balanced input to mixers. the low impedance allows the signal to be sent over long cable runs with significantly less signal loss.

    …. the lower impedance (around 600 ohms is normal) allows an insignificant load to the input of a mixing console or preamp which is also designed to accept input from low impedance microphones. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DI_unit

    something you might find on stages is, you don’t hear the honest sound from the stage output. it is different from your sound set while you want the output is exactly the same as you hear on stages. A direct input box will help you to get that. by lowering the risk of lost signal, you will get your sound much better.

    which one do i choose? passive or active DI box? that’s a good question. well, honestly, what i’ve done to get the answer is by searching on the internet and find stuff with “built especially for guitar: label.. hahaha, and i got a DI Box, not too cheap, The ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box made by Behringer.

    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box
    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box

    things i got from using this active DI box are great. the cabinet simulator button helps me so much in getting the warm tone at the output sound from the mixer. it’s really helpful for you who uses analog effects with hi gain distortion and overdrive. sometimes our analog effects are just too harsh for the PA speakers, the cabinet simulation button will handle that problem. you can see on the next picture here, the ‘virtual 4×12″ cab’ button, yes, that button helps me in any stage conditions.

    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box
    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box

    this DI Box has a dB cut feature. it cuts -20 dB plus more -20 dB , so you don’t have to worry about damaging your Head-cabinet Amp. you can see the connection examples provided by Behringer in PDF file. the pad button will cut your frequency as you can see on the next picture here:

    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box
    Behringer ULTRA-G GI100 active DI box

    well, this DI box isn’t like the class A DI box, and i haven’t try other DI Box. if you need suggestion, of course i will say that i wanna have a Radial JDV™ Active Super Direct Box on my setup, hahaha.. see you next post.

    Radial JDV™ Active Super Direct Box
    Radial JDV™ Active Super Direct Box

  • Fun In Basics, Minor Chords

    Happy New Year 2014! yes, i congratulate all of guitarists who still fight for their music until today, i hope all of you stand still with me. Well, this post will be the continuation for my post: Fun in basic, Major Chords,  and now is about the minor chords on guitar.FYI: these minor chords follow the natural minor scales, so as you can see the A natural minor scale notes are A(1) – B(2) – C(♭3) – D(4) – E(5) – F(♭6) – G(♭7) – A(higher octave) and its interval is w-h-w-w-h-w (w = wholenote, h = halfnote)Basically Minor chords consist the root, the flat-third and the fifth note. if you have an A minor chord, that would be A as the first note (root),  C as the flat-third note(♭3rd), and E as the fifth note.

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    A  (root),  C(♭3rd), and E (5th)

    so, what you have to do next to get B minor chords is write down the B natural minor scale which is B(1) – C#(2) – D(♭3) – E(4) – F#(5) – G(♭6) – A(♭7) – B, see the bold font, and you’ll get B(1) – D(♭3) – F#(5)as your B natural minor chord

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    B(root),  D(♭3rd), and F#(5th)

    the rest chords are easy as long as you hold the natural minor scale as your guidance

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    C(root),  D#(♭3rd), and G(5th)
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    D(root),  F(♭3rd), and A(5th)
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    E(root),  G(♭3rd), and B(5th)
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    F(root),  G#(♭3rd), and C(5th)
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    G(root),  A#(♭3rd), and D5th)

    easy isn’t it? hahaha
    i hope it helps, happy new year everyone!

  • Is this Frankenstrat bike bothering you?

    just few days ago i posted about EVH’s Frankenstrat and today i found that one of my friend is Eddie’s big fan (he’s not a guitarist, he’s a keyboardist). i never knew that until i saw him with his motorbike today. An EVH frankenstrat theme motorcycle and it’s cute!. here I share its pic:

    Frankenstrat motorcycle

    am I right or what?
    i saw a lot of people have similar ideas about getting inspired by their idols. Actually it’s the best idea so far in learning guitar. get inspired by your favorite guitarists. you can start with almost everything and every element of this “get inspired” idea will help you in finding your guitar playing identity. surely you know what I’m talking about now isn’t about being a copycat, while actually it is fun when we can do our guitar idol licks and show them off 😀

    well, since I’m a guitar learner, and i guess I’m a novice, so there’s nothing more i can talk about this getting inspired idea. all i can do is sharing more love about guitars. I love this Frankenstrat idea, have a good day and keep playing guitar!

    did you know?
    the Eddie Van Halen’s frankenstrat guitar paint and finish was inspired by a  red Schwinn bicycle paint. A quote from Eddie, he said “The Schwinn bicycle paint gives it pop.”

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    related post:

    The Guitar Learner: Still Halloween and even scarier, the Frankenstrat…: while famous frankentele is Steve Morse ‘s, the Frankenstrat is Eddie Van Halen’s creation. The name itself comes from the combina…

  • The standard Guitar tuning, EADGBE tuning

    The standard Guitar tunings assign the string pitches as E, A, D, G, B, and high E to the open strings of guitars. By convention, the notes are ordered from lowest to highest. These particular pitches are used by the majority of guitarists. why? Standard Guitar tuning made our left hand moves easily to play scales and chords with simple fingering logic.is there the best way of tuning your guitar in standard tuning? yes, and probably there are several ways in tuning your guitar. basically EADGBE tuning notes are from low-to-high note order, WHILE the guitar strings order starts from the thinnest string as first string, so we can see them like this:- 1st String is high E note(e), which its Scientific pitch notation is E4 and its frequency is 329.63 Hz
    – 2nd String  is  B note (B), which its Scientific pitch notation is B3 and its frequency is 246.94 Hz
    – 3rd String  is G note (G), which its Scientific pitch notation is G3 and its frequency is 196.00 Hz
    – 4th String  is D note (D), which its Scientific pitch notation is  D3 and its frequency is 146.83 Hz
    – 5th String  is A note (A), which its Scientific pitch notation is  A2 and its frequency is 110.00 Hz
    – 6th String is low E note (E), which its Scientific pitch notation is  E2 and its frequency is 82.41 Hznow you see that you can get chromatic note progression from the low E open string on the 6th string, move forward from first fret to fourth fret in linear order, then it goes to the A note on open 5th string, then move linearly along the frets, to the next strings. you will find on the 3rd string that the fourth fret represent the open 2nd string note and.. bla..(this will be a long one, so..)

    into conclusion!
    tuning your guitar in standard tuning can be achieved by:
    – the open 1st string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 2nd string
    – the open 2nd string note represents the fourth fret’s note on the 3rd string
    – the open 3rd string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 4th string
    – the open 4th string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 5th string
    – the open 5th string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 6th string

    so, all you have to do is getting at least one of the string in the right-tuned note, then you can refine the other strings notes.

    how to get the right note for tuning? first of all, our ears are the main tuning instrument. based on your hearing you can get the note references from almost any audible sources, such as mp3, keyboards, tuning forks, even from your friends’ tuned guitar. we might/may/must(?) need to get used to the notes sound since tuned guitar is the first step of any guitar learning. an online guitar tuner on this blog will be a big and fast help in tuning your guitar with audible notes. go to this page.

    what if there are no decent audible source for the references in tuning guitar? haha, that’s easy question. what works for me is a built-in tuner on my BOSS GT-8 digital effects pedal, and i bought BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3 for my analog pedals chain (i haven’t made any pedalboard yet, still figuring out about the best chain order for my analog pedals).

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    yep, this helps my tuning section before i start my gigs. well i didn’t exactly buy BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3. it was a good deal actually, i exchanged my guitar for some cash plus this BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3. here i share few pics of it.

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    so is there any special things for this boss Chromatic Tuner TU-3? well, let me put it in simple way. for me there are some needs, those are the need for accuracy, durability, and versatility. BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3 has them. you should have one.