Pamparo in Toronto

Gabby’s Prayer

God has answered a prayer that my 3-year old son has been asking for ever-since he has learned to talk and had the notion of going to school. That is to go and study at John Fisher Public School. He was officially registered yesterday after getting picked in a lottery because that school is not his ‘official home school’. Nowadays, when he prays before he sleeps, he wants to be alone. Last night he prayed and gave thanks for his admittance for the coming school year. Just to see and hear him grow with the knowledge of God brings tears to my eyes. It has been a real blessing for us!

Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus

I won this yesterday afternoon on EBay. It’s used and I may have paid more than what it’s really worth. But I am still very happy because …

1. I am saving over $100 by getting this instead of a new one.
2. It’s my first time winning an item on EBay without using the “Buy Now” feature. It’s shipping today.
3. I was trying to sell some of my gears to generate some cash for this purchase and it seems like I don’t have to part with some of them, at least my Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive!
4. I would be able to power my Diamond ML (18V) with it and run my Zendrive/Bi-Chorus at 12V each.

Tax Return Fun

I am trying to do our tax returns before the end of RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) season to see if I need to acquire some more.The trouble is that I have been using Quicktax to do our returns but it only runs on Windows. I had to borrow my cousin’s Macbook with bootcamp. Last night, I spent my time patching the Windows XP. Finally, I managed to install Quicktax, imported my 2007 return and filled-up all the necessary forms. So far so good! With everything claimed (RRSP & Donations), I’m getting a pretty good refund. But I’m the type of guy who would always try to save for a rainy day. I will try to play with how much I can forward for next year and getting some money back as well. Looking at our returns again, I can’t help but recognize how God has been very faithful to us financially. Praise be to God!

My American Std Telecaster vs My Les Paul Studio

They are both priced evenly, stock-pickups, not entry-level guitars and they are both my own guitars. I said that because this is based on my own setup for this guitars and not for any Tele/LP in general. So far I am loving my Tele and been using the LP less frequently. I thought I was being bias because I’ve been using the Tele constantly since I got it. So I used my LP last week during rehearsal and Friday night jam with the real intention of using it on Sunday for worship. My ears just kept looking for that Tele twang and I had to revert back to it. Maybe its because of the type of songs we play or my rig just reacts better with the Tele. Maybe …

Friday Night Jams

I initiated this about a month ago for our church’s worship guitarists. We would come in every Friday to talk about basic theory, gears, techniques and whatever comes to mind like gears (did i say that already). The rest of the night is dedicated to just jamming! So far, it hasn’t fan out like I have envisioned it to be. There are two loyal attendees and that is more than enough encouragement for me to continue on. The plan is to mentor the younger kids and really introduce them to the more seasoned veterans (it doesn’t mean better players) in the worship team. As well as cater to the vets who don’t have a lot of time practicing at home due to some commitments. Also to be able to come in once a week and just let it rip! Let’s see how God will move on this venture. By the way, this is FREE of charge. My reward is being able to plug-in for 2-hours at least once a week!

My Random Thoughts …
Wow! I could have gone on and on about a lot of different things but I am just going to stop now. Next post would be random again … random rhythm guitar techniques and styles that we can use in worship!

We spent the Family Day (February 16) at Deerhurst Resort (Hunstville, Ontario). We had so much fun together and we are thankful to God for our family and all the blessings that we receive from him.

Here are some of the things we did with photos from our trip …

- we all went for a swim at the Indoor Swimming Pool
- we sipped Hot Chocolate at the Lobby Bar after swimming
- me & my wife cuddled by the fire place and had some very good topic of conversation
- had breakfast in bed (well, more of in the couch, thanks to room service)
- we all went Snow Tubing (all first-timers)

After a day in the resort, we kinda wished that we should have stayed longer to indulge in other activities such as skating, skiing, indoor tennis, etc … But that is ok, there is another Family Day next year and lots of long-weekend coming up this year

The Background …
For the past 2-3 years, I have been collecting different gears to complement the style of music/playing that I usually do in a worship team context. However, I realized that since I picked up the guitar so long ago, I never really had any systematic training or methodological practice regiment that I adhere to.

I really didn’t have any Goal and goals …

The Goal …
“The Goal” is to be the best guitar player that I can be. Now I didn’t say, the best guitar player in the world cause that is simply not happening. But I want to be able to push myself higher and higher. Of course, this is a moving target and could take me a lifetime to fulfill. So be it …

The immediate goals …
To achieve “The Goal”, I have start looking more closely to the little things that I am struggling with. You would not believe how the list just kept growing and growing! So, I have decided to break it down and work on immediate goals where I can measure my progress. For now, I want to work on some very important things.

1. Play with strict and precise tempo
2. Improve my legato runs (especially descending)

The baby steps …
I will be taking baby steps in trying to achieve my immediate goals by …

1. Getting a metronome and using it!
I bought a metronome about 2 weeks ago (Boss DB-30) so I can start working on my tempo. So far I have used it twice and let me just say, its not the easiest thing to do! But I have to push myself and not back down from this challenge. I started doing 4-finger chromatic runs across the fingerboard, both ascending and descending, at 65 bpm. I tried quarter, eight notes and triplets. Being the impatient guy that I am, I hastily sped up to 80 bpm. It seems to work, until I noticed the inconsistencies on my tone. So back to 65 bpm for me!

2. Recording and Jamming
Music will boring if we would only play chromatic runs across the fingerboard. To supplement my metronome practice, I also indulge myself with jamming with a backing track (or with other people) and recording some ideas along the way. I am also starting to lay down tracks for songs that I have written previously. So far I have started two songs, 1 is halfway through. Sorry, I won’t be posting publicly until I find someone to sing for me. Ok, maybe a soundbite on the next post

I am having a blast and it really is challenging my creative process …

The Conclusion …
There’s a time that you just have to forget about gear and concentrate on systematic and methodical ways to get better. After all, there’s no point in buying expensive guitars, amps and pedals if you don’t know how to play the guitar properly!

P.S.
A couple of blogs that I follow also touched on some of the topics here recently:
- Stop Reading and Play @ Guitar For Worship
- Practicing with a Metronome @ Guitar Praise

I’ve been getting a lot of different answers as to what the voice knob for the Zendrive is supposed to do. So, to appease myself, I have plugged it in directly into Logic. I was watching the spectrum analyzer as I rotate the knob from left to right & right to left. I did that for a bit and I noticed that it seems to boost/cap the signal between 2Khz-6Khz region just before going into the gain circuit. So it’s then true, that the voice knob would affect the gain and the tone characteristics. The tone on the other hand is doing the same sort of thing but I think it is after the gain circuit.

DISCLAIMER: This is only my non-scientific observations!

What did I learn from all these? Nothing much really, but I did find a great setting for my Zen.

Gain – 2 o’clock
Voice – 2 o’clock
Tone – 11 o’clock
Volume – unity

So after I got bored, I realized that since I am already plugged-in, then I should be able to record! I was going to record the different settings of tone & voice combination but I did this instead:

My Pedals in action updated with AMP/Cab simulation

No post-processing and it’s really sloppy … my playing that is! So I only recorded less than a minute to somehow also lessen my shame

If you manage to survive listening to that, here are the settings for the following tracks …

Rhythm 1: Zendrive, Telecaster (Bridge PU)
Rhythm 2: Sparkle Drive, Empress Tremolo, Telecaster (Bridge PU)
Lead (wannabe): SFX-03 Channel 2, Diamond Delay, Telecaster (Neck PU)
Bass: I didn’t have my bass ready! Doh!
Drums: loop from betamonkey.com