Metal Zone... Modded!

Stock, this noise box would give you a quite wide array of sounds. But no matter how you dial it, there's always that spiky mids that hurts ur ears so much. the sound is too sterile. it's been love and hate relationship between me and this box for a while. Mess with one of the knob ones, i'll get frustrated with it.

So one day while surfing the net, i've discovered something called pedal mod! ofcourse there's those infamous Robert Keeley and analogman, but they don't sell kits and i have to bear the cost of shipping there and back plus the mods! So i look into kits. First discovered pedaldoc.com but then settled with monteallums.com. So, once i got my debit mastercard and set up my paypal, i ordered the 'Tri-gain Sustaniac mod' kit.

With soldering skills of guitar cables, i gave it a go. Took quite a number of hours to do the mod. Changed some of the components to higher quality stuffs (metal polyfilm, metal boxed etc.) and also to other values. Took out the caps that's responsible for those spike mids. and added a switch to switch between two types of clipping; LEDs or germanium diodes, or just lift the clipping section altogether.

The result? a much2 improved distortion with better tones to be dialed to. The germanium diodes is my favourite althought having much lesser volume than 'lift' and LED mode. i didn't like the LED clippings.

So, after discovering diystompbox.com, gathered more info for further mods of MT2. I modded it more to give more fatness and replaced the LEDs with assymetrical clipping of germanium-silicon (1n34a-1n4001) diode combo. Just subtle difference actually comparing to the germanium diode symmetrical clippings.

After almost a year, decided to mod it a bit more. changed a cap value for a wider mid and replaced germanium diodes with JFET (J201). Better tone with noticable change in the mids frequency. However, the sustain with JFET clippings is too short. Great crunch, but lack of sustain.

Still, those assym clippings mode is my fav! Conclusion, i now have a fat and heavy distortion that i loooove so much! what it lack is single note at high notes, the treble kinda spiky there.. hmmm..

The Dark Room..

In this darkness of my room..
alone..
i write this entry..
without any idea of wut to write or wutsoever..
wuteva my fingers will bring..
it'll jump around this keyboard writing words..
making sense or not...
with a slight headache for oversleeping in the day..
and a bit of happiness in me..
for the amazing performance of United's FA Cup game..
thinking...

Of Cake and watches... My Day!

Dated 2nd march of every year, it's my birthday! at about 5.28 am, 2nd March of the year 1987, i was born into this world. and now i'm 22! Mistakes done, repeated and learned. Wut am i now after 22 years in this world? U tell me! hehe..

So, this year for my birthday, the family dinner was at Jakes' Steakhouse near Bangsar. Had a delicious 'Grain-fed' Sirloin steak with blackpaper sauce. My mom gave me a watch which i myself chose it. Timex digital/analog watch, went to 4 shops in OU before found this one! and wut a perfect time, discount everywhere! hehe


Then, went back to semenyih, my gurl treat me with a Moist Chocolate cake that she did it herself in a room! A very chocolaty moist cake! I llllove it!

...and wut do u know, i got another watch for my birthday this year! an Adidas digital watch! Different style than the other one, a much more casual/smart kinda style i might say.. Thanx cyg!!!

Spotlight

Played with Nik, a cover of red hot chilli pepper's under the bridge.. damn, i was quite fast there, unnecessarily.. hmmm..


Me and nik again, with our attemp at yuna's Dan sebenarnya.

My all..

Its 26th february of the year 2009. Two years and 4 months ago, that is 854 days ago, i asked her, Nur Hafizah Umar (or Cheb!) to be mine. A college-mate of mine since foundation year.

To me, a relationship is just the same as other things in life. It takes hardwork for it to work well. This is no Hollywood/Korean drama, its real Life. Nothing is perfect. U want something, u gotta work for it. Atleast that's how i look at life. In relationship, 'love' is how much u're willing to do to make the relationship work. Sacrifice or wuteva. I may not be the 'perfect guy' for her. Hell, i don't believe in such thing in life. But i'll do wuteva i can for this to work. Coz i've decided to settle my life with her. Just can't live without her!

Let me tell you bout my gurl here. She may not be the 'perfect gurl' in the world or wuteva ppl would put it. But i love her just the way she is. The thing i love the most bout her is her love and compassion. Based on how i see her love towards her family especially to her two lil' sisters. That's the one that struck me the most. I may be very slow in really understanding her, but i'm not gonna give up even no matter how many times we'll fight bout it. and her smile... ahh.. just soo captivating. One other important thing is, that she can stand me despite of my blurness and ego. She's like my Marge, and i'm Homer! She's still there despite of all my dumb/stupid things i did before.

People say we look alike. "Muke fotostat" as my sis said. Maybe coz our eyes (mata sepet) and our forehead! haha. U decide!

Me, i'm the kinda guy who has 'Goals and Dream' about the future. My 'ultimate future' is to have a succesful job (engineering) that's not repititive with a happy family to go home to. Well, maybe that's what everybody wants. but the point is, i'm confident that i've found the one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"'Cause I've found what the world is searching for
Here, right here, my dear
I don't have to look no more
And all my days, I hope and I pray
For somemone just like you to make me feel the way you do

Never never gonna give you up
I'm never ever gonna stop
Stop the way I feel about you
Though I just can't live without you
I'm never ever gonna quit
'Cause quittin' just ain't my shit
Gonna stay right here with you
Gonna do all the things you want me to"

On a lazy saturday evening/umah hana..

21st Februay 2009, it's 15 past 5 in the evening and i'm writing this blog. waiting the water to be boiled so i can have my evening cup of tea. ahh.. layannn.. Dunno y, but feeling very lazy today. kinda juz woke up from my weekend nap. Slept in front of tv while watching Stevie Ray Vaughan live in El Mocambo on DVD. Damn i wish i could play like him! Waken up by papa coz he was skype-ing with hana and mama from melbourne, OZ.

anyway, story cut short. searched for hana's new rent house at google maps. it's about 1.4km to the Melbourne University. 25 mins by walk they said.


The house is behind that blue car. There's two houses with orange roof there. both are from the same owner, Ron. Hana's is the left one.

Here's from the top..

Epiphone Valve Junior.... MODDED!

Before..


After...

from left, hi-lo gain switch, gain pot, input, volume pot, master volume pot

So i bought a new amp bout three weeks ago for a price of 1k. A Single Ended Class A Tube amp called Epiphone Valve Junior. It may be just 5 watt, but it's still VERY loud! Anway, when i planned to buy this baby, it was with a great intention of me to mod it myself to get a hold of tube amp cicuitry/technology. I managed to mod my MT-2 and TS9, so why not upgrade my skills to tube amp!

Before anything, in a tube amp circuitry, there are Filter Capacitor that has a very high voltage and without proper safety, the capacitor may discharge itself to YOU with a VERY HIGH VOLTAGE and MAY KILL YOU!

However, in this EVJ, there lies a bleeder resistor where it will bleed out the charge after the amp being turned off. Following some people's advised, its best to unplug the power chord off the back of the head, switch the amp power switch to ON and just leave it be for about 5 minutes or more to let the caps drain..

That being said, sewatt.com was the main forum i used as a guideline for doing the mods. I followed mostly the 'Marshal Silver/Gold' mod, with added gain control and a Master volume. Components are bought from Nik Azam at Ceriatone.

The first mod i did was changing the cathode bypass caps for a better and tighter bass response which is C3, C4 and C5, to 1uf 25v, 1uf 25v and 1000uf 50v respectively. But then, when i switched it on and plug in my guitar... There was NO sound AT ALL!! I tried to be as calm as i can while asking around at sewatt.com and at jamtank.net. Bought a multimeter right away and learned using it to check continuity with the ohmmeter mode coz the damn multimeter doesn't have a 'Beep' feature for continuity checking! The tubes didn't even glow when i turned it on! After bout three days of troubleshooting and listening to advices, i was kinda gave up and decided to send it to a pro, keysorseze from jamtank.net. But then, Cgil from sewatt.com saved me! It was just a simple common problem of EVJ, that is the fuse contact. So i rubbed 'em a bit with a sandpaper, put the fuse back in, plug the power in and switched it on. My face gradually lighten up as i see the filaments of the tube glowing! and when i plugged in my guitar.... Krrrangggg...

Ahhhhh, such a sweet sound...

Then, i proceed with next set of mods. Long story short, these are what i did..

R4= 1ook ohm Carbon Comp
R5 = installed a 500k pot, wired parallel to the stock 220k ohm with the middle lug connected to one foot of R15
R6 = using on-on DPDT to swich it between a wire (jumpered) or a 680k ohm 1 watt (happen to have this around)
R10= 1k 6watt
R15 = 10k 1 watt
c3 = 1uf 25v
c4 = 1uf 25v
c5 = 1000uf 25v

Its been a week since i mod this EVJ. Wanted to give it a week evaluation before i tweak it more. The amp now has a more tighter bass response although too little. It also kinda lack a bit presence i think. I like this master volume pot coz i managed to dial in quite a variety of tone by playing it along with the stock volume control (which is now a preamp volume control). The R6 swicht, which i called high-low gain switch is also a great addition. With R6 jumpered, the gain would be high. This is where i used with my modded MT2 to get crunchy heavy distortion sounds. The low gain (680k), i usually use for clean sounds. Overall, its an upgrade of the stock but still need some tweakings.

Bought some components from jalan pasar to tweak it a little bit more. i'll post about it when its done. And, oh, i'm still using the stock tube which is 12ax7 EHX and Sovtek EL84.

All and all, it's a great learning experience! especially the troubleshooting!



inside!


the schematics..

Changes....

Me, sittin' here.. supposed to be studyin' dis strategy management subject.. suddenly thought bout changes. countless times hav i said at times like this (xm + study weeks), "Next sem nak wat btol2". but at the end of the next sem, same old same old. Regrets...

So, how do u change urself? why can't u change urself? lack of motivation? initiative? or just b'coz deep down inside, THAT change is something undesired. hmm.. questions to ask urself.

Do people even change? how did he/she do that? how's the strategy? is it cost leadership or differentiation? How did he/she achieved competitive advantage? Is he/she that good in configuring the core competencies and resources? or am i juz mumbling away wit strategy management concepts that has little to do with personal life changes? Sun Tzu's Art of War can be adapted to business? can strategy management theory adapted to personal life????

wuteva...

"Ask yourself what's truly yours in life,
Are you in control or someone's slave?"

i:McBart

My current desktop! As usual, the VS is from Deviantart.com. Its Mac OsX inspired by Zeus. Zeus is famous in deviantart.com for his cool OsX inspired VS for vista! the wallpaper... hehe. Nirvana's Nevermind cover album, Simpsonized! hehe.

The 'Art' of Studying for exams

"I just can't understand you people in this country. Why are you guys so obsessed by exam marks?"
- Professor Andy Chan

Well, dat was almost wut he said in a CFD class sometime ago. He's from Hong Kong btw. Anyway, he was talking about people who came study in university should like emphasise more on gaining the knowledge than just about getting 'flying colours'. hahaha. He's quite rite though, if we (or just me) do come to university to really gain the knowledge of wut we came to learn, we won't really be worried much when exam is near. Coz if we really learn the things dat we learn (and wit great interests and determination), meaning we can easily answers the xm paper with the 'knowledge' that we have learned/digest/etc.

BUT, this is not the case here. It's study week. 4 papers for me this exam season. The thing dats been buggin me is, whats the best way in studying/preparing for exams? make notes while we read the notes? well, i tried dat many times but usually stops even before manage to write even half of the paper i tore from my CLEAN notepad. hah! What i usually do is just sit/lie down/walking around and read the notes. Oftenly loudly. But, i hav a really serious problem of concentration. I'm easily distracted by wuteva, even a word in my mind/surroundings/picture in the notes. So, its kinda slow usually reading. and i don't even know if i really remember what i read. hah!

So, wut actually the best method? Nevermind wut i shud had done. Its wut i can do now! Dreaming too much of 'not having to pay back' to MARA coz i would grad in 1st Class! but still struggle to find an efficient method of reaching it...

hmmmm......

p.s. its almost 3 a.m. and i'm off playing my guitar!