Goreng Sampai Hangit Bersama Bean

Long Overdue Updates

2012-01-28T20:20:00.001-08:00

So, it’s been a very long time since the last time aku update korang. Well, I’ve been busy. Why? Unless korang follow aku kat facebook, you probably wouldn’t know what’s going on.

Let’s see. Last summer, lepas vacation, aku start belajar main softball. Masuk team company.

Pastu company beli meja ping pon plak. So aku pon start main ping pong. :D

Fall semester pulak, aku masuk class piano kat community college. And my instructor thought that I should skip the most beginning level. So dia masukkan aku ke class yang atas sket. So I had to work extra hard to keep up with the syllabus. I did very well in the class.

Here’s me playing part of the Moonlight Sonata. Tapi ni bukan syllabus class la. Saje gatal. This song is way above my level. But not bad kot, baru bape bulan main. :D

Pastu, I got engaged. So, some time in 2012, aku akan balik Malaysia for good to settle down. Because of that aku pon busy shopping. What have I been buying? Let’s see.

That’s Limited Run Gibson Flying V 7-String. I was surprised that it only costs around $1300. Lepas discount dapat dalam $1100. I thought why not? It’s limited production. Pastu feature dia aku blom ada, such as 7-string, EMG pickups, and fixed bridge. Pretty good guitar for the money. I preordered one in July, got it in October kot. Gibson is slow.

After that aku start beli rackmounted gears, like Pod HD Pro, Presonus Studio Channel tube mic preamp etc.

In September I bought a bass, 5-string Spector Legend Classic. I got it for like $500 bucks, and it’s regularly like $750 kot. Not bad for the money.

Late November pulak was Thanksgiving, so the discount would be good. Aku memang plan nak angkut Gibson Les Paul Standard satu. But then aku jadi tamak. So I went for this Gibson Les Paul Supreme.

Couldn’t help it. This baby is gorgeous. AAAA carved flame maple top, and unlike other Les Pauls, the back is also AAAA carved flame maple. The headstock has some nice inlays too. Interestingly, I bought it on a rainy day in November, so November Rain was the first song that I jam with this baby. :D

As if that’s not enough, the week after that I bought two tube amps: Fender Deluxe Reverb and Line6 DT25 to go with my POD HD, along with a couple of Shure SM57 and Behringer FCB1010 midi pedal. Yup, that was a very costly November.

So yeah, in 2012, I bought 4 guitars, one bass, and a whole bunch of gears. And I’m not done yet. This is my chance to get all the toys that I can get. Still planning to get a few more guitars, an electric drum and other gears.

To save money, in December aku pindah ke area ghetto. :( That way I can save about $400 bucks per month. Moving was very time consuming too.

And then a few weeks ago aku start buat rack case, since I couldn’t find what I want in the market. Check out this album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100576789306435.2743752.3407023&type=3&l=616bf76869

Except for the tuner, everything in the rack was bought after July 2011. I still got space for more. :D

Future Plans

So yeah, I’ve been very busy learning many different things, buying the toys that I want. And I’m not done yet with those. I haven’t really been playing guitar to be honest.

Skrg aku amik satu lagi class piano, and it seems even harder than before. So I’ll have to focus on that. Tak lama lagi (maybe even this next week) aku akan dapatkan Electronic Drum set. So I’m gonna be learning that too. Not sure if I’ll take a lesson yet.

And then of course aku kena plan my wedding. Kinda hard since I’m here in the US still. Thankfully I have a very understanding fiancé. And we don’t plan to have a big fancy wedding too. The wedding will actually take place about one month after aku sampai kat Malaysia.

So yeah, other things have to be prioritized. Taun lepas aku released dua video jek. Taun ni, maybe tak kot. Paling banyak pon satu jek, probably not until the end of the year kalau sempat. I’ll try to write a few articles, maybe update some pages of the website. But video and TAB take too much time.

So rasanya 2013 baru aku back to full speed. Hopefully as productive as 2010.

Add me on Facebook if you want. You’ll see what I'm up to better.

Fender

Oh, sebelum lupa. Actually last year aku beli satu buku pasal history Fender Stratocaster. As an engineer, I was impressed with the innovation that Leo did. The Stratocaster has revolutionized electric guitars as we know it. Think about it. Ibanez JEM and many other great guitars are all variants of stratocaster, which is why they’re called “superstrats”.

And I’ve also become more and more interested in blues. When I get the time later, I’ll spend some time studying it. And aku tak pernah ade influence. But now I think I want to be influenced by Eric Clapton.

I’ve become more and more in love with Strats.

Last year kan aku pegi melawat kilang Taylor. I’ve always complained why Fender tak bukak kilang dia untuk public tours. Rumah aku pulak dalam setengah jam jek dari kilang dorang kat Corona.

Guess what? They posted on facebook that they’re opening it for the public. So I took a few hours off from work to go to the first ever Fender factory public tour. Check out this album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100420800394465.2714017.3407023&type=3&l=daab72a3ab

That was so much fun. :D I was so lucky, sikit lagi nak balik Malaysia pastu dorang kasi visit pulak. Cantek.

I’ve been there like 3 times so far. Next week nak gi skali lagi bawak kawan. Maybe a few more times after that sebelum balik Malaysia. :D

Here’s my second visit.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100420800394465.2714017.3407023&type=3&l=daab72a3ab

and yeah, I saw the legendary Abigail Ybarra at Fender Custom Shop. That lady has been with Fender since the 50’s kot. Even Jimi Hendrix owned some of her pickups.

Yup, I own 2 Ibanez, 2 Gibsons, but I’m a Fender fanboy. I still don’t have a Fender guitar though.

Update

2011-08-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

Vacation

So aritu aku cakap aku akan pegi vacation. Almost right after aku released the last video, I went on a 3-week vacation around Southern California. Here are some pictures and video that you might be interested in.

Lawatan ke Kubur Randy Rhoads

Gambar: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100354981965125.2691492.3407023&l=6ac9bb4301&type=1
Video:

Lawatan ke Kilang Taylor Guitars

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100385479672475.2703403.3407023&l=3e65cd43e4&type=1

Kalau Nak Add Aku

Kalau nak add aku dalam FB boleh. But bila add tu, please tulis "GSHBB" dalam comment box. That way I know who you are. Otherwise I may reject the application. See, I have quite a lot of people adding me. So usually sebelum accept aku akan check profile orang tu, tengok ade tak gambar gitar ke, atau under "interests" ade berkaitan dengan gitar. Kalau takde, I might not accept, unless I know the person. I don't indiscriminately add people anymore. So please, tulis something that can help me identify you. I'm trying to avoid from adding people who have no business adding me (even if you're a hot girl). It annoys me that some people just browse through their friend's friends list and randomly add people.

And please, jangan tag aku dalam gambar product yang korang nak jual. And absolutely no tagging me in pictures of money. I know what pyramid scheme is, and I'm not broke.

Lagi satu, I tend to be outspoken. Yeah, I like music. But I like philosophy and critical thinking more. I may comment on current issues and criticize stupidity. You're free to challenge my views, I welcome ideas, even if I don't agree with them as long as they have intellectual values. You may find what I write to be offensive. But I don't just say things blindly. I was the best student in Critical Thinking class for a reason. ;)
So, you've been warned. Add me if you accept the conditions. :D

Next Project

For the past few weeks aku dah buat mental preparation untuk next video. The next video bukan untuk TAB, so aku takkan main lagu. Instead, aku plan untuk buat lesson. The subject I'm guessing most players dah tau. But it's really intended for beginners, who may not know it yet. And I'll try to make it informative enough that even orang yang dah tau teknik tu pon might find it interesting. It's gonna be long, and it's gonna be unlike the lessons on that subject that you can find anywhere else.

And at the same time I'm also trying to learn piano. Honestly, since last video aku tak main pon gitar. I've been playing piano a lot, and recently aku baru masuk class. And class ni pon aku signed up as total beginner. But instructor aku dengar aku main dia persuade aku masuk class level atas sket. I donno if I should, but I'm practicing intensively to see if I should. Right now the video project is on hold. Tak tau la bila nak sambung. :(

Update: TAB – Aku Hanya Serangga (BPR) & Lesson - “Plucking”

2011-06-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

Unless you haven’t noticed yet, aku dah upload video terbaru. That was a lot of work. Sampai pagi tadi right before start keje on Monday baru siap. Well I’ll be on vacation soon. :D

http://www.gshbb.com/GSHBBMaterials/BPR-AkuHanyaSerangga/AkuHanyaSerangga.htm

Update: Tgh buat video baru

2011-06-06T18:52:00.001-07:00

So recording is mostly done… except for vocal melody (on EWI). Dah record sekali, but I’m gonna redo it. Sama la macam bass, dah siap aritu buat balik semula. Well, EWI ngan bass ni bukan primary instrument aku. So I need to do so many takes just to get acceptable performance quality.

Deadline aku ialah weekend ni. I have to get it done by the weekend, no other choice. :( Hmm, not sure how I can get everything done. But most likely part lesson aku akan record in just one session. Maybe friday night or hopefully earlier. And then kena edit video (using Sony Vegas, yang aku tak pernah pakai sebelum ni).

Hmm.. we’ll see if it will be any good. I promise to get it done, but due to time constraint, I suppose I can’t promise a quality work. >_<

Update

2011-05-16T18:56:00.001-07:00

TAB & Video & Lesson Baru

Sorry la kalau aku senyap jek. I’ve been very busy (as always). For one thing, I’m one of the lead engineers for one of the projects for my company. So by the end of the day, aku usually penat, malas nak pikir benda lain. And there’s a lot of pressure too since the economy is still bad, so we have to do the best we can for whatever project we get.

Last month aku released lesson barre chords tu. I’m telling you, each time I do something, it’s a lot of work, because I put a lot of effort in it. And by the time I’m done, I’ll be exhausted. Mesti aku malas nak pikir pasal benda tu for a bit. So yeah, every time aku siapkan satu material, I need to take a break.

Anyway, malam ni plak final exam untuk class yang aku tgh amik. I’ve been practicing on that.

Other than that, TAB baru dah pretty much siap. Tinggal nak polish sket, which I’ll do after releasing the video. I can’t wait to do the video. Pikir-pikir balik, last time aku release full song punya TAB and video was about a year ago. That’s too long.

So besok aku akan start process recording. It’ll take some time, since as always I wanna do it better than before. Aku nak try a few recording and mixing techniques yang aku dah discover or think of.

This time aku nak buat recording approach yang lain sket. First, aku akan record draft dulu. Very rough draft. That way bila aku record any part, I’ll have a more realistic backing track to play with. And then from there aku akan decide on recording order, which instrument should be recorded first.

For each instrument, aku plan nak spend satu malam (after keje and before masak) cari recording setting yang aku suka untuk instrument tu. Practice, and besok baru record. The next day repeat the process for another instrument. And this time aku akan try pakai mic untuk record acoustic guitar gak, not just relying on the pickup. I’ll mix the sound from the pickup and mic.

It’ll take over a week just to record. Pastu aku akan spend a few days mixing the sound.

Lepas tu aku ingat nak record a short lesson jugak, sebagai suppliment untuk video tu. So after the video of me playing the song, I’ll give a short lesson on one aspect of it, tailored for beginners.

And then put everything together and release the video. Pastu baru polish TAB and release it. I hope i’ll get it done in a month or so (since after that aku nak amik vacation).

I’m telling you, I can’t wait. I’ve been listening to this song intensively for the past couple of months. Beribu-ribu kali aku ulang. Bila aku take a break at work untuk isap rokok, mesti aku pasang lagu ni, and think about how the video should be.

Oh, this video will feature two of my new guitars. :P I’m crazy. In April I bought two guitars. And I want more. :(

Pasal Requests

I hate to say this, but aku memang takde masa nak tunaikan requests. As you can see from above, it takes time for me to finish anything. And for your information, since the last time aku released a TAB, aku dah buat TAB for a few songs. But I ended up abandoning the projects, at least for the time being. Tu la, aku selalu camtu. Dah focus betul-betul, sometimes aku ilang minat kat lagu tu. Sometimes it’s just too hard and very tiring, sometimes I just lost interest. So it’s important untuk aku buat apa yang aku betul-betul minat, and aku rasa within kebolehan aku.

Your requests are good, I won’t deny it. But aku rasa for the time being aku patut focus on the songs that are already in my list for a long time.

I may do it some time in the future. But yang paling penting ialah korang belajar something, even from the song that you may not like. And don’t forget to check http://discuss.gshbb.com Baca archive discussion kat situ pasal cammana aku buat TAB.

Untuk Dijual: Taylor 114CE Grand Auditorium (Used)

2011-04-30T01:13:00.001-07:00

Mari-mari tengok iklan gitar aku.

http://www.gshbb.com/About/ForSale/114CE.htm

Harga: RM2,200 (non-negotiable)

Shipping: Free from US to Malaysia, but kena ambil dari PJ sendiri

Tarikh Tutup: 27 June 2011. Email aku di atau kat Facebook. First come first served. But keutamaan diberi kepada yang sanggup bayar cash paling awal dari tarikh gitar ni sampai Malaysia. Aku akan buat wait-list (remember since nothing is final until the prospective buyer is satisfied with the condition and makes payment). Actually tarikh tutup ni hanya untuk aku decide samada nak ship to Malaysia or sell it in the US. You can still buy it if it's already in Malaysia and not sold yet.

Untuk bayaran ansuran: Bawa salinan IC untuk rekod aku, bawa original IC, bayar RM1,200 (masuk bank since ada record), sign agreement untuk bayar baki RM1,000 dalam masa setahun.

Update: Lesson Baru

2011-04-04T07:02:00.001-07:00

Ok, setelah spending a few nights shooting, a whole day of editing, waiting 9 hours for the computer to finish encoding it, waiting another 5 hours to finish uploading it, lesson baru akhirnya dipublished. Video ni almost 50 minutes long. And this time it’s more on practical than theory.

Lesson ni pasal Barre Chords. It’s It’s a really useful thing to master. It’s something unique to the guitar. I don’t think any other instrument can claim that you can use just one shape and play all chords of the same type. So learn it. Penat aku ajar. :P

Lesson ni listed kat ruangan “Lesson” tu.

Lesson Barre Chords.

Update:

2011-03-21T20:32:00.001-07:00

Since last time aku buat short TAB, I’ve been doing several TABs. But satu pon tak siap. As usual, buat separuh jalan, lost interest. Switch to something else. And it goes on and on. And recently, aku decided to do one song, that I really love. Buat lagu yang aku betul-betul suka penting untuk maintain focus.

But buat separuh jalan, gitar RG aku tali putus plak. And I’m taking the opportunity to do some rewiring on it. After that kena hantar ke Guitar Tech untuk setup. Not sure how long that will take. But I prefer to use that guitar to do transcribing work, since stand dia kat sebelah meja aku jek. JS dalam case.

And earlier this month, aku pegi beli satu digital piano. I’ve been wanting to learn the instrument for a long time. Finally decided on one. And this thing is pretty addictive. After spending a total of around 24 hours playing it, I made this short arrangement last week.

And at the same time I’m also trying to study Classical guitar some more. Nasib baik aku drop class Jazz, kalo tak lagi takde masa.

I think I should work on my next basic guitar lesson first. It’s been too long.

Update: ruangan Lesson

2011-02-20T00:55:00.001-08:00

Ok, ruangan lesson aku dah update. Macam aku sebut sebelum ni, aku nak tulis balik artikel-artikel dari blog aku pasal teori. So aku start balik dengan artikel pasal “notes”. Even if you already know a little bit about notes, aku suggest ko baca jugak sekali lalu. You may find something you don’t know before. And it’s very important to understand that before learning other stuff.

And section lesson tu aku bahagikan kepada dua. Satu pasal teori, satu pasal practice. I think I’ll spend more time writing about theory, since I think most people still lack that knowledge, and maybe tak banyak lesson pasal tu dalam BM. And aku akan try tulis dalam BM sebanyak yang boleh.

Lagi satu aku nak share kat sini ialah aku dah start buat open discussion pasal macam mana nak tulis TAB atau backing track sendiri. I get a lot of requests, and I don’t have the time to do them all. But aku rasa lagi berguna kalau aku ajar teknik-teknik buat TAB/backing track aku. Discussion ni open to everyone. Sapa nak menyampuk boleh jek. And tak yah register pon takpe. Discussion tu ade kat sini: http://discuss.gshbb.com.

And for the time being at least aku tak bukak forum tu untuk topic baru. Tak larat aku nak jaga. So for the time being, it’s only for one discussion.

Update: Download section dah siap

2011-02-08T20:15:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I took so much time doing that. But it’s done. Now laju sket nak load page tu, since aku guna method yang baru aku belajar untuk track download statistics. And aku dah siap transfer semua artikel yang aku tulis untuk setiap TAB dari blog aku tu.

The next section that I will work on is the Lesson section. Yang ni aku tak plan on just copy and paste ape yang aku dah tulis sebelum ni. Instead, I’m going to write everything from scratch. The bad thing is that it’ll take time. The good thing is that it’s gonna be more thorough, more complete, and easier to follow untuk orang yang takde langsung background pasal music theory. And aku plan nak divide section Lesson tu into two. Satu pasal theory muzik, satu lagi pasal practical knowledge untuk gitar.

I’m glad that I’m doing it now, instead of later. Aku rasa banyak gak aku dah tulis dalam masa setaun. It’s already getting disorganized. Kalau aku tunggu lagi baru nak buat, I don’t think I’ll ever have the will to do it.

At this time a year ago, seinggat aku aku dah released a few TABs. Yup, skrg dah February, aku tak release apa-apa TAB pon lagi. One of the reasons is that I took a vacation. Pastu I took too much time to decide which song to work on first. And then I got sick a little bit. Pastu nak buat website ni lagi. So many reason, valid reasons.

But this year, I think you shouldn’t expect too many TABs from me. Focus aku taun ni aku rasa aku nak educate more, instead of spoon feeding y’all with the TABs. That won’t make me very popular, since aku rasa kebanyakan orang nak belajar main lagu jek. But that would be such a loss. Sebabnya kalau sekadar belajar lagu jek, you’ll learn the song, but you won’t really learn music. And aku banyak terima request. I appreciate that. In fact, I feel honored. But I’m just one guy, doing this part time. But if you learn music, instead of just songs, you’ll be more equipped to learn any song you want in the future, on your own. That’s a lot more valuable. That’s a better impact that I can make.

So yeah, taun ni aku akan still buat TAB. But aku akan focus lebih sket on educating people, particularly newbies.

Update: Hosting Baru

2011-01-29T19:07:00.001-08:00

Ok, macam yang aku cakap semalam, hosting tu pegi ban traffic from Malaysia. So, takde choice. Aku terpaksa move again. So I just spent $75 for a 3-year hosting plan. >_< it’s all for the sake of public service.

Now, kalo korang pegi http://www.gshbb.com, you’ll see the same home page, it’s just that it’s stored somewhere else. Links dalam page tu blom boleh pakai lagi. But, aku nak mintak tolong sesape kat sini yang tak boleh masuk langsung website tu, tolong comment kat bawah. I need to know, so that I can decide if I should get my money back and move elsewhere.

Hmm, baru sebulan pindah ke website baru dah kena pindah lagi. Well what can I do? So yeah, there’s a lot of work to be done. I have to work on the website, I have to work on a new TAB, I have to study Jazz and Classical music, bla bla bla. I’m extremely busy, and I’m feeling a little sick for the lack of rest. So hopefully korang faham la ye.

Update: Sebab korang tak leh gi website baru aku

2011-01-29T02:48:00.001-08:00

Aku contact support for the hosting. Dia kata

yes, we had to block several IP ranges from Brazil and Malaysia due to severe hacking attempts on users sites and all servers in our network

GREAT!! Menyusahkan aku jek. Them hacker wannabes need to find real jobs and stop fucking with others! Yes I am angry. So yeah, for the time being my website (gshbb.com) is down for you guys in Malaysia.

Update: Download Problem

2011-01-28T19:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry, aku tak perasan yang download link semua broken. I’ll have to fix it. I’ll figure out how, hopefully soon.

Adeh, memacam kena buat.

Update:

2011-01-23T23:14:00.001-08:00

The server seems to be ok now. Aku dah boleh update the site. The work will resume soon.

Lagi satu aku dah start buat TAB baru. It took me a few weeks to decide which one from my list to work on first. But finally aku decided on lagu yang tak technical sangat, partly because aku jarang main gitar lately. But I love the song, and I’m doing it because I’m fascinated by the key modulation yang aku dengar. We’ll see what it is. Hopefully I’ll get it done in a few weeks.

Site Update: Update Tergendala

2011-01-14T23:37:00.001-08:00

Haram tol la. Hosting server down. Aku tak leh nak update ape-ape page. (FYI, post ni ditulis kat blog and automatically reflected by my new home page).

Here’s what the server says:

The VistaPanel is undergoing maintenance for the next 5 - 7 days.
Sorry the the inconvenience.
- Last updated Thursday 13 Jan.

Gile lama. Apparently it’s undergoing an emergency maintenance. >_<

Anyway, I have a new domain name. It’s simply:

GSHBB.com

It’s only $8 per year, so I don’t mind paying for that. But hosting still free punya la, since I’m not making any money out of this, and I don’t want to annoy you with advertisements.

Site Update: Ruang Soal Jawab

2011-01-08T05:26:00.001-08:00

Ruangan Soal Jawab kat site tu dah siap.

Site Baru – GSHBB.COM

I’m back

2011-01-04T22:54:00.001-08:00

Baru last week aku balik dari Las Vegas for a short vacation. Alright, aku ingat nak start buat TAB baru. Tapi pikir-pikir balik there’s one thing that I really have to do: Work on the new website.

Cam aku cakap sebelum ni, I’m sick of relying on blog layout. One of the reasons is that orang selalu tanye aku soklan yang jawapan dia aku dah cover kat sini. I don’t blame them. Pada aku blog layout tends to bury old stuff that are still relevant. Usually aku akan try jawap gak, but I get questions daily so lambat la aku reply. And aku sendiri pon makin susah nak keep track on ape yang aku dah ajar. I really feel like a regular website layout will allow me to list all the lessons, all the answered questions, and everything else properly. Senang untuk aku, senang untuk korang. The most important thing to me is for you guys to learn something. So how I present everything must be helpful. Kalau aku tak buat skrg makin bercelaru la. Baru setaun aku rasa dah berterabur materials aku.

So aku baru a few days try belajar benda-benda ni. Last time I really tried to learn how to create a webpage was over 10 years ago. Back then simple sket dari skrg. Mase tu Dreamweaver pon still under Macromedia, bukan Adobe. Mase tu Microsoft ade program FrontPage. Skrg memacam benda aku kena belajar. RSS la, CSS la and memacam benda yang memeningkan kepala otak, but important.

After working on it for a few days, here’s what I’ve come out with so far.

http://gshbb.com

Buat masa ni baru siap sket front page dengan download page. I still have to reorganize everything I’ve written, and fine tune the formatting. I may have to rewrite certain things to suit website layout. Aku akan arrange lesson sume ikut order yang aku rasa sesuai. That way aku boleh keep track on what to cover later.

So that’s where everything will be. Lepas ni blog ni aku pakai untuk inform pasal update jek. Takde letak artikel pepanjang. Artikel sume letak kat website. This blog will be fed to the home page of that website. So korang tak yah gi blog ni lagi, just use the above address.

Give me a couple of weeks. Makan masa ni. Ye la balik keja baru ade mase nak belajar & buat benda ni. Pastu kol 10 malam baru nak masak. Adeh. It’s ok, anything that keeps my brain working can’t be too bad, especially if I enjoy it.

Busy busy busy…

2010-12-04T23:22:00.001-08:00

Well, kalo korang Facebook friend aku, you’ll probably know why I’m busy right now. Actually, aku dah agak aku akan busy la aku mengelabah buat last video aku tu. That’s gonna be the last one for the year.

So, right now aku busy dengan visitors. Tak penah penah orang kampung datang sebelum ni. I’ll also be busy settlekan ape-ape yang patut sebelum hujung taun (like using dental insurance etc).

Actually aku estimate aku akan busy until January, but then aku tak dapat nak register class gitar yang aku tgh amik ni next semester. The only open class is Jazz Band. Nak masuk class tu kena audition sume. And I don’t know anything about Jazz. So I’ll be busy preparing for that, although I really doubt that I’ll pass the audition.

And kalau pass pon, I’ll have to be working more on learning Jazz, since I’m really not familiar with the intricacies of the style (I just know that it’s really hard and has heavy emphasis on music theory knowledge).

So skrg aku tak tau la bile lagi aku akan realease a new material. We’ll see. But just know that I’ll have to shift my focus on other stuff for a little bit. But I’ll still answer questions if I have the time, and if I know the answer.

And like I’ve been saying, aku nak move from blog tu website. Tah bile-bile la nak siap. But I have to do it. This is getting disorganized.

TAB: Nurnilam Sari (Solo) - Request

2010-11-14T20:02:00.001-08:00

~~TAB dia aku blom upload lagi. I’ll do that tomorrow.~~

Setelah ramai yang mitak, sejak aku first post video aku testing camera ngan sound card aku tu about two years ago, akhirnya aku buat pon solo lagu ni.

Video ni aku letak bonus content sket. Aku kasi a few tips untuk beginners or anybody who’s interested.

Like I said, so many people out there can play better than me. It’s amazing what they can do. But I’m not trying to compete with anybody. Of course it’s always good to learn from great players if you get the chance. But toksah dismiss what I say just because aku tak terer lagi. A lot of the things yang aku cakap dalam video ni, dalam artikel pasal rhythm ni are the things that I really need to work on myself. I may not be good at putting the hours practicing what I preach, but that doesn’t mean what I preach is wrong. But I’m not always right either.

Pasal gambar dalam video ni, tell me if I look orange in it. Tah la, aku tengok pakai dua monitor computer aku, cam ok jek. But bile aku tengok kat plasma tv aku, cam orange gile. Well, I really don’t have much time to examine that.

And video ni actually features the best audio mixing yang aku dah buat so far. Thanks to Ery for his tips on reverb. The guy is really good. He plays well, he composes well, and he sure knows how to mix. Check him out. I still have plenty to learn. Yeah, video ni walaupon pendek, I spent a lot of time mixing, since aku try benda-benda baru.

Pasal TAB ni, there’s not much to discuss dah. Mostly aku dah cakap dalam video tu. One of the reasons aku malas nak buat TAB ni ialah sebab mix original recording ni cam susah sket nak dengar gitar dia. I had to guess a lot of things. Like I said, beginning and ending of this solo memang aku haram tak dengar sangat. So TAB ni memang banyak aku punya personal touch, to fill in the blanks. But it’s a good thing I suppose. It forces me to compose a little, something that I have no talent in.

Since aku letak 4 alternate ending untuk solo ni, kalao korang nak dengar other endings, just mute and unmute appropriate tracks. Yang aku main dalam video ni yang first kind. This one is similar to the third kind of ending. Third kind susah sket, but pattern dia consistent throughout the measure. Both 1st and 3rd ending ni susah sket nak count. Not just because aku letak triplets. It’s also because aku design rhythm pattern tu supaya jadi macam some kind of “polyrhythm”. For the first ending, the pattern repeats 4 times in 3 beats. I won’t go into detail on that.

Actually dalam video ni originally aku suggest gak untuk end the solo on Bb or D notes. But aku tepaksa cut since YouTube limits 15 minutes jek satu video. So yeah, you can do whatever you want on that last two measures. At other places pon, it’s up to you. If it sounds good, it’s good.

And if you look really really closely, ade a few notes yang aku main kat different position dari ape yang aku tulis dalam TAB. I do that sometimes. Yang dalam TAB, kalau aku boleh dengar ape yang dia main, aku akan transcribe based on what I believe the guitarist did. But I may play it at a different position, slightly differently.

For the record, I have no idea what this song really means. But I’ll appreciate getting haunted by a hot ghost. :D I just don’t wanna know how she really looks like. :P

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Lesson: Rentak (Rhythm)

2010-11-13T20:41:00.001-08:00

It’s been a very busy few weeks. Actually aku plan nak take a break for a couple of months, we’ll tell y’all later. And before that aku plan nak teach a bunch of things. Aku plan nak release satu short TAB soon, and a short lesson on it. But before that, kena belajar pasal rhythm dulu.

So, ni aku nak aja sket pasal rhythm kepada sesape yang tak tau lagi. Please read it. I spent so many hours developing it. I had to, I think it’s is really important. Dengan artikel ni aku letak dua video. Salah satu video tu aku tunjuk cammana nak practice dengan metronome.

http://gshbb.xtreemhost.com/TunjukAjar/Rhythm/Rentak.php

Untuk yang tanya pasal asal-usul chords, sorry I haven’t got the time to finish it yet. Baru siap half way jek.

Q’n’A: Advice Pasal Equipment Untuk Beginners (Part 4 of 4)

2010-10-23T17:35:00.001-07:00

The most basic setup yg diperlukan ialah gitar sambung terus ke amp. If you like the sound of your amp, tak yah letak effect in between pon takpe. But aku nak depart from that conventional wisdom sket.

Effects

Most players usually letak something between amp dengan gitar untuk kasi lagi sedap tone dia. There are many kind of effects you can use, in many different shapes.

Jenis Effects

Jenis effect terbahagi kepada beberapa group. Kalo tengok website Boss, ade Distortion/Overdrive, Reverb/Delay, Modulation, EQ/Tonality, Pitch Shift, etc.

I’m not gonna go too deep into that, I’m not an expert in it anyway. But basically, Distortion/Overdrive ni effect yg kasi bunyi tu ganas sket, heavy, berbanding clean tone.

Reverb pulak effect yg kasi dengar macam kat dalam dewan ke, cathedral ke, room ke. Delay pon is closely related to that. Delay ni macam echo la.

Modulation pulak, well, this is modulation sound effect. Bukan key modulation yg aku discuss sebelum ni. Chorus (or ensamble) contohnya effect yang buat macam stereo sket, macam dua orang main the same thing. Flanger buat kasi bunyi macam jet pejuang sket.

Equalization is tone shaping. So ko boleh kuatkan certain frequency, and rendahkan frequency yg lain. Wah ni buat sound macam goreng lagu Enter Sandman tu.

Pitch shifter boleh ubah pitch note yg ko main tu. Harmonist boleh buat sound macam dua orang main benda yg sama, but the other sound is in harmony. Maknanya katakanlah ko main satu lick, the other sound main the same lick, at lower or higher pitch, and stay within the key.

Compressor pulak is like an automatic volume control. Compressor boleh ubah “dynamic range” sound ko.

Package Effects

Memacam rupa bentuk effect ade dipasaran.

Yg jenis ni dipanggil “stompbox” punya pedal. This is a very common form of effects. The good thing pasal effect camni ialah nak mix and match senang sket. Katakan la ko suka distortion brand Boss, delay Behringer, whammy Digitech etc, just connect them to each other. Pretty easy. Nak ubah susunan effect tu pon senang. Lagi satu pedal camni memang kebal gak la. They last forever. Sebejik pedal camni tak berapa mahal sangat. But kalau nak macam-macam effect, this may not be very cost effective lah. Especially kalau ko belum tau banyak pasal effects, buying these may not be the best idea kot. I’m speaking from experience. Dulu aku pakai gak effect camni. Kalau mase aku start dulu aku ade choice macam skrg, aku takkan beli effect camni.

And aku tak sure la kat kedai gitar kat Malaysia ade benda cam gambar kat bawah ni. Kat US ni, kalau aku gi Guitar Center, dia ade station yg letak memacam effect Boss yg dah siap disambung to each other and an amp. Just pick any guitar you like, cucuk cable, and you can learn what each effect does sebelum beli.

Effect camni pulak dipanggil multi-effects. Ade yg kecik, ade yang besar, ade yg murah, ade yg mahal. And you can always check the list of available effects for each unit. GT-10 for example ada memacam effect. You can just google for a list of effects it has. And some units, macam GT-10 ni aku rasa boleh cucuk terus kat USB computer, boleh jadi macam sound card. Boleh pakai headphone jek, boleh cucuk kat amp, atau PA system. Siap ade amplifier modeling skali. Effect camni kalo nak combine dengan pedal lain boleh gak, although it’s not too straightforward. And the bad thing about this thing is that you may not like all effects dia. Although harga dia nampak macam mahal, this is actually more cost effective daripada individual stompboxes. Oh, nak pakai benda ni kena baca manual la.

Ha, kalau loaded, buat camni. Those are rackmount punya effects. Aku memang takde experience pakai rack punya effects. But I’m guessing that each one of those are high quality stuff, stok orang pakai dalam studio or touring rock stars. And setau aku dorang sambung semua effect ke programmable pedal. So if you’re a beginner, this is something to dream of, but don’t get them.

Hmm, actually, aku bercadang nak angkut satu rackmount unit. Camni.

Heh heh, just a Behringer tuner. Just about $60 jek. Actually I wanna have a tuner on my desk, but I don’t wanna spend $200 on this Peterson.

Amps

Pada aku it’s more important to have a good amp daripada effects. Effect best-best tapi last last bunyi kuar kat amp cabok tak guna gak. Amp pon ade memacam jenis. Let’s see how they’re packaged.

Amp camni dipanggil Combo Amp. Combo sebab amplification unit dengan speaker dia combine skali. This particular model ade footswitch, untuk turn on or off some effects. Most amps memang ade overdrive effect, reverb etc.

Yang ni half stack (left), and full stack (right) amps. That’s your ultimate kind of amp. But they’re not cheap. Besar and berat plak tu. Amp camni amplifier unit dia (amp head) yg belah atas tu, and yg bawah tu speakers cabinet dia. If you’re a rock star doing a live show, consider something like this. If you have a studio and you wanna do recording, this isn’t a bad idea too. Kalau beginner main kat rumah jek, toksah la.

Tu common amp configuration. Amplification dia pon ade macam-macam gak. Ade yang tube, ade yang solid state, ade yg modelling. I won’t go into that. Google jek. Read stuff like this or something.

Recommendation Untuk Beginners

Kalau ko masih beginners main sesorang kat dalam bilik, aku tak recommend satu pon produk yg tunjuk kat atas. Because it’s 2010, and pada aku korang ade better option for your money.

Line 6 TonePort UX1 (~RM580)

Kalau ade computer, ni yg aku akan recommend untuk beginners. Yup, just a sound card. Why? It’s relatively cheap, and you’ll get access to a lot of kinds of effects. Aku discover product camni like 2 years ago. At that time aku ade Boss GT-6, and a small Marshall combo. Since aku beli Line6 TonePort UX2 aku, jarang gile aku pakai GT-6 ngan amp tu. And I’ve learned a lot about effects.

Audio Interface ni ade banyak manufacturer dia. Look for something with low latency. Latency ni delay dari time ko petik tali sampai dengar bunyi dia. Masa aku angkut UX2 aku, I was so impressed by the extremely low latency it has. Well, time has changed. Computers are much faster. Gambar kat atas ni UX1. It’s good enough for most applications. Aku pakai UX2 ade dua mic input, ade phantom power kalau nak pakai dengan condenser mic etc. I really have to admit that I absolutely love it. It is by far the best thing about guitars that I’ve purchased. I’ve learned so much since I own it.

Lagi satu kelebihan benda ni nak record pon senang. Ye la, bukan semua orang ade studio, ade amp yg best, ade mic yg mahal utk record sound yg dahsyat. This allows you to connect directly to the computer, and amp modeling ngan effect sume dalam computer.

And since aku tinggal kat apartment, this makes a lot of sense, since aku boleh main sambil dengar pakai headphone. Tak kacau neighbor. And if you’re a beginner, nobody really wanna hear you play anyway. So keep it to yourself for the time being until you get better. :P

Pakai audio interface camni boleh pakai dengan beberapa jenis program untuk model effect ngan amp.

Ni Line6 GearBox. Boleh pakai dengan Line6 punya product jek. It comes free with Line 6 TonePort. Video aku mostly pakai software ni untuk effects.

Yang ni Line 6 Pod Farm. Yg ni aku tak sure kalau sound card lain boleh pakai ke tak. But it comes with TonePort.

Amplitube. Soundcard brand ape-ape pon boleh pakai.

Ni pulak Guitar Rig.

Those are among the most popular la. Benda camni la yg I wish I had mase memula main gitar dulu. You can learn so much, get good sounds without spending a fortune. Zaman skrg ni almost everybody has a computer. Ada electric gutiar, ade good audio interface, pakai pro audio punya headphone ke, you’re good to go.

Audio Interface + Computer ni I’d say it’s good untuk practice sesorang. Well, that’s what I do anyway. But kalau nak main dengan kengkawan, that’s not gonna be enough. You’ll need an actual amp for that.

Don’t be thinking about a full stack amp yet. Remember, as a beginner, you won’t be performing in a big arena yet.

Untuk jamming dengan kengkawan, atau kalau ko tak minat pakai computer punya effects and nak practice dengan actual amp, I’d suggest a combo modeling amp.

Modeling amp ni bukan macam traditional amps. Modeling amp ni kat dalam dia ade digital circuitry yg boleh imititate other amps. See, kalau ko beli satu traditional Marshall amp for instance, you get Marshall sound. But if you buy a modeling amp, you can get Marshall sound, MesaBoogie sound etc. Of course lah, modeling amp ni takde la sehebat orginal amp yg dia tiru. But it’s pretty good. And modeling amp ni biasanya ade banyak effects. So, macam ade multi effects plus multiple amps in one package.

If you’re in the market for a small modeling amp, I’d suggest a Roland Micro Cube. This little amp, is very little. But looks can be deceiving. This little thing is impressive. Aku try kat kedai, I was like, “how the hell did they do that”? Aku rasa harga dia kalau kat Malaysia kurang dari RM400 kot. This thing is pretty loud for the size, and it sounds good. If you have the chance, try it. Nak practice sesorang pon ok. Nak practice dengan kawan pon maybe loud enough kot. It’s small enough bole run pakai battery jek. Boleh letak strap gitar gak. That way kalau nak pegi camping, you can play an electric guitar in front of the campfire. Tak yah pakai gitar kapok. :D

And Roland is not the only one yg buat modeling amp kecik camni. There are other brands too.

Kalau nak yang besar sket and more features, there are a lot to choose from. Yang aku familiar sket Line 6 dengan Fender la. But I’m sure there are a lot more out there.

Macam gambar yg kat atas ni, it comes with LCD display. Ade memacam effects, ade metronome, ade backing tracks lagi. I heard this one siap boleh connect kat computer lagi, jadi audio interface. Boleh cucuk MP3 player, SD card. Kalau tanak buat bising, cucuk jek headphone. I don’t have one yet, I don’t really need it, but I think I wanna have one.

In any case, aku advise korang toksah tamak nak amp besar sangat. I’m not just talking about half and full stacks. Combo amps get big too. Toksah la angkut amp yg besar, yg high wattage. I think amp yg besar ni, kalau tak main cukup kuat, it won’t sound very good. So if your venue is a small room or a garage, get something of appropriate size. Bile aku gi kedai gitar, I saw those big Marshall stack or MesaBoogie Rectifier stack, they look nice. Tapi aku tak teringin pon. I know I’ll never need them.

And recommendation aku ni is mostly for practice. It’s not for live performance. Kalau live performance, you’ll probably need some sort of pedal nak tukar-tukar effects. Good luck.

Q’n’A: Soalan follow up pasal Pickups & Tremolo

2010-10-22T01:15:00.001-07:00

Q: -maksud kau bro, gitar H-S-H atau H-S ni guna system active and passive ke? atau separuh pickups je guna act n pass ni?
-kenapa kena ada 2 humbuckers(bridge ngan neck)? and guitar H-S-H ni biasanya ada 5 way switcher. kalau
position switch aku kat channel 2 atau 4, maknanya kita guna combination antara salah satu humb dgn s coil kan? ni ke yang bro maksudkan dengan active single coil, passive single coil, active humbucker, passive humbucker tu?

A: H ngan S tu short for Humbucker and Single Coil jek. Kalau gitar ko punya system passive, semua pickup passive. Kalau gitar tu pakai system active, sume active. Aku tak penah denga yg campur. Like I said in the Pickup post, output level lain betul. Tak make sense kalo campur.

Pasal switch pulak, katakan la gitar ni ade H-S-H, and 5-way switch. Katakan position 4 ni yg paling dekat dengan bridge. What happens is humbucker kat bridge tu dia guna setengah jek (coil tap), and then combine dengan middle pickup. It’s just to get a different tone.

Tak semestinya kena ade dua humbuckers. Ade gak gitar yg H-S-S. Humbucker kat bridge biasanya.

Q: bridge question.(floyd rose) according to u, bila kita tukar tuning ke alternate tuning, we have to readjust the springs. adakah bermakna kalau kita tak adjust springs kat belakang body guitar, bridge akan jadi tak parallel atau terjongket ke?

Q: gauge tali cmna lak...tol ke flyod rose xleh pkai 0.10...ibanez sy ada prob bila tuka 0.10. ska lri tune. tremolo terangkat

Ha, untuk soalan-soalan ni jawapan dia special sket. I’m guessing that a lot of people new to locking tremolo system tak faham pasal ni. So I spent hours writing the following article, baca sampai abis ye. :D

http://gshbb.xtreemhost.com/SoalJawab/Trem.htm

Q&A: Advice Pasal Equipment Untuk Beginners (Part 3.5 of 4)

2010-10-19T19:39:00.001-07:00

Opps, sorry. Tak abis lagi pasal Floyd Rose (locking tremolo).

Satu lagi problem dengan trem ni berbanding ngan fixed bridge is that kalau bend satu tali, tali lain semua go out of tune sampai ko release bend tu. It’s fine kalo nak main satu note. Kalo nak bend dua tali skali gus, it’s gonna sound bad. Tak pon kalo bend satu tali, main satu note, and nak capai note lain kat tali lain before releasing the bend, it’s not gonna sound perfectly in tune too.

Which is why we have Tremol-No. Aku baru tau actually, just a few minutes ago. :P So untuk soalan pasal EVH D-Tuna tu, if you use it with Tremol-No, it’s probably effective sebab device ni boleh block bridge tu, jadi macam fixed bridge. I haven’t tried any of those products actually. I might try Tremol-No later.

And I may be wrong that non-locking tremolo macam Strat punya tu cuma one-way jek. Some tremolo design boleh tarik sket. Kena tanye orang yg ade Strat la. See, the problem ngan kedai gitar kegemaran aku ni dorang tak pasang tremolo bar kat gitar on display. So aku jarang la try.

Q&A: Advice Pasal Equipment Untuk Beginners (Part 3 of 4)

2010-10-19T18:59:00.001-07:00

Sorry for taking too much time since the last post in this series.

Electric Guitar

Basically ade dua jenis electric guitar: solid body and hollow body.

Solid Body Hollow Body

Well, aku takde experience sangat pasal hollow body ni. Yg aku tau cuma body dia hollow la. Of course la kan. Pastu dia usually ade “f-holes” macam violin. I think this type of guitar is favored by jazz or blues guitarists. Usually aku tengok orang main gitar ni sound dia clean, tak pon crunsh sket. Nothing heavy.

All I can talk about is solid body, since I know a little bit about that. And most of you are probably interested in that anyway.

Bile nak pilih electric guitar ni, ade beberapa benda penting yg kena consider. Antara soklan yg aku selalu terima ialah pasal bridge.

Bridge

Basically ade 3 jenis bridge: fixed, non-locking tremolo and locking tremolo.

Fixed ni yg macam kat Les Paul atau Telecaster. Kalo tak penah tengok, fixed bridge ni usually look very simple. And gitar yg bridge camni takde tremolo bar (but just because tak nampak tremolo bar doesn’t mean it’s fixed, since orang tu mungkin tak pasang tremolo bar dia). So gitar fixed bridge ni tak leh la nak buat effect “dive bomb” ke. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I heard that fixed bridge ni transfer vibration tali tu ke body gitar tu dengan baik, since from the string to the body is completely rigid. And bridge jenis ni tak yah pikir pasal bridge springs, that you have to worry about in other types of bridge.

Fixed Bridge

Non-locking tremolo ni macam kat gambar Strat kat bawah ni. Dia dipanggil non-locking sebab nut dia tu tak dikunci. Bridge camni cuma boleh tekan jek, tak boleh tarik. So it’s one way. Maknanya bile main satu note, boleh tekan tremolo bar tu kasi pitch tu direndahkan and release bar tu kasi return to the original pitch, but tak boleh tarik tremolo bar kasi naik pitch. And since gitar camni nut dia tak dikunci, so kalo pakai tremolo bar tu, tuning akan lari sket sebab tension tali ni dari bridge sampailah ke machine head berubah. But bridge jenis ni offers tremolo capability, and better sound transfer berbanding dengan locking tremolo. Lagi satu spring dia senang sket nak manage, because tension spring tu mesti lebih tinggi dari jumlah tension tali gitar ni.

Non-Locking Tremolo System

Locking tremolo, atau Floyd Rose is something else. Since aku selalu dapat soklan pasal bridge ni, and aku more experienced dengan bridge jenis ni, I’ll talk more about it.

Locking Tremolo System

As you can see, nut dia lepas tuning kena lock pakai allen key. This ensures that bile pakai tremolo tu, tali punya tension hanya akan berubah dari bridge sampai ke nut jek. From the nut to the machine head tak berubah. That way, the tuning will be more consistent. So kalo pakai tremolo tu extreme gile pon the tuning will be ok. This kind of bridge is favored by aggressive players I think.

Bridge dia pulak, as you can see, is more complicated than fixed bridge or non-locking tremolo system. Bridge camni dikira floating, sebab boleh tekan and boleh tarik. So, when you play a note, you can change the pitch up or down by using the tremolo bar. And bridge camni, since contact point dengan body gitar kurang dari jenis bridge yg lain, sound transfer to the body isn’t so good. Sustain dia pon kurang sket since the bridge is not rigid.

But that’s the least of the problem with this kind of bridge. Kalo nak bridge camni, beginners kena amik masa untuk belajar and biasakan dengan complications that comes with it. When all the strings are in tune, bridge ni mesti parallel dengan body guitar ni. That way you have clearance to push and pull it. So, nak kasi bridge ni parallel, spring kat belakang gitar ni mesti diadjust kasi tension dia sama dengan jumlah tension semua tali ni. Because of that, bile ko tukar gauge tali, ataupon nak guna alternate tuning ke, you have to readjust the springs. So gitar camni tak praktikal kalo nak buat main macam-macam tuning. Pick a tuning and string gauge, and stick with it. I don’t find it so hard to adjust the springs because I’ve had this kind of guitar forever. But still, it’s not worth the effort to play drop-D tuning or something. Kalo ade banyak guitar that’s fine. But dulu aku ade satu gitar jek, for like 10 years.

Well, somebody recently brought up pasal device yg membolehkan kita tukar to drop D quickly. The thing about it is that kalo kat floating tremolo ni, first kena block dulu tremolo tu. That way tak boleh tarik, it becomes a one-way tremolo. And then only buleh engage the device to lower the 6th string tension to make it a D instead of E. Kalau tak block dulu tremolo ni, the tension of the springs will be higher than the collective tension of the strings. That’ll mess up the tuning of other strings.

Lagi satu pasal gitar camni ialah bile tukar tali, kalo tak perlu cabut semua tali skali gus, DON’T. Baik cabut satu tali, pasang tali baru, tune it. And then repeat for other strings. Let’s say ko cabut semua tali tu, pastu tukar semua tali, tune the 6th String. Pastu tune the first string, pastu second string etc. By the time keenam-enam tali dah tune, the 6th string will be way too flat. You’ll have to do it so many times until they converge, meaning that the tuning stays the same. Any kind of guitar pon kena buat camtu. But it’s much harder dengan floating bridge ni.

Intonation pon leceh sket. Nak adjust intonation, kena longgarkan dulu satu tali tu, baru boleh access screw untuk tali tu. I don’t wanna go too deep into this. Let’s just say that it’s not as easy as it is on a Strat.

The last thing pasal locking tremolo ni, kalau beli gitar yg murah tapi ade tremolo jenis ni, expect problems. The thing is tremolo camni complicated sket. You can’t expect cheap guitars to be equipped with high quality bridge.

So, takde satu pon jenis bridge that offers everything. Kalo ade dua gitar yg sama, satu non-locking satu lagi locking tremolo, the locking one will cost more, just because it’s more complicated to make. But that doesn’t mean it’s the best for you. Kalo aku nak beli satu lagi gitar, it’s gonna be a fixed bridge, because I wanna have one like that. Actually sebelum aku angkut JS tu aku memang plan nak angkut fixed bridged guitar. But because I love the JS so much I just had to get that one instead.

Pickup

Satu lagi soklan yg orang selalu tanye ialah pasal pickup. Generally ade dua jenis: Single coil dengan humbucking pickups. Single coil ni macam kat Strat dalam gambar kat atas. Humbucker ni macam dalam gambar locking tremolo tu.

Gitar Strat traditionally ade 3 single-coil pickups. Gitar jenis “super Strat” pulak, macam Ibanez RG sometimes ade dua humbucker jek, atau dua humbucker plus one single coil in the middle.

Which one is better? It’s a matter of need and taste. Single coil ni tone dia tend to be brighter and thinner. Kalo main clean or crunch, aku memang suka single coil. Humbucker pulak tone dia fat and heavy. That’s my choice kalo main heavy rhythm or solo. Sometimes aku pakai single coil untuk sound heavy yg “hollow” sket, macam dalam video Seribu Tahun Takkan Mungkin tu. Dalam post aku sebelum ni pasal Pickups ade ade demo sket beza sound dia.

Oh, one thing about single coil is that it tends to be noisier than humbucker. Without going too deep into the physics, humbucker ni kedua-dua row magnet dia menyebabkan hum tu dicancel. That’s actually why dorang invent “fake” single coil macam DiMarzio Area ‘58 aku tu. That way you get the low noise quality of a humbucker, and get the tone of a single coil.

Single coil ngan humbucker ni configuration pickup tu. There are also active and passive pickup systems. So basically, ko boleh dapat passive single coil, passive humbucker, active single coil, active humbucker. Nak tau pasal active and passive pegi tengok post Pickups tu.

So bila beli gitar, ko kena decide nak pickups yg cammana. Maksud aku, nak yg S-S-S ke, H-H ke, H-S-H ke etc. The thing is, lepas beli gitar tu, nak upgrade single-coil to a better single-coil, or upgrade humbucker dengan humbucker yg lain senang gak. But nak tukar single-coil to humbucker, or vice versa is a little more work.

Recommendation

Gitar ape yg aku recommend? Well, macam yg aku sebut kat atas, it depends on your needs lah. Kalau minat main style blues ke, maybe a Strat is a good idea. Strats are versatile enough that main rock pon sesuai. Kalau nak main metal ke, shred ke, it’s probably better to find a guitar that’s designed for that, yg ade humbuckers.

If you’re looking for a Strat, aku suggest cari Squire. Squire is the cheaper version of Fender, owned by Fender. Of course Fender knows how to make good Strats, they invented it.

But kalo nak main rock, I think I’d suggest an Ibanez. Ye la, aku ade 3 Ibanez, I may be biased. But Ibanez is known to give you more value for your money. Ibanez takde legendary status macam Fender or Gibson, but they make quality guitars for reasonable price.

But the best suggestion I can give you is to try them. Survey gitar-gitar yg within your budget, try them. Aku memang pentingkan comfort. You have to feel comfortable playing the guitar. And you want to find something that makes you wanna keep playing. Sebab aku try la aku found out that Gibson Les Paul isn’t for me. Everybody loves that guitar. But bile aku try sendiri, I like something else better. Maybe someday I’ll buy it for the sake of luxury, but it’s not what I need right now. Macam yg aku sebut sebelum ni, it’s not about what other people like. You have to like it. Consider la orang lain punya review, but remember that not every opinion is applicable to you. Selera lain lain.

Bab harga pulak, try spend more than RM1000. Kalau ko absolute beginner, tak reti langsung main, you probably shouldn’t spend that much. But kalo dah reti gak, please spend more than RM1000. It’s really not much. Aku ulang balik ape aku sebut dalam first post in this series. Think about what you spend on other stuff. Ko ade BlackBerry or iPhone or other smartphones? How much are those? In 5 years are you still gonna use the same phone? Confirm tak. Sebulan bape ringgit abis kat bill? And phone mahal-mahal, bill tinggi sume, if you spend a lot of time with your phone, will you be a better, more charismatic speaker? I doubt it. But if you spend a lot of time on a good guitar, it is very likely that you’ll be a better guitarist. Aku bukan nak masuk campur hal kewangan korang. Just pointing out something worth considering.

And aku bukan nak cakap jangan beli iPhone or something. If you like those stuff and you have the money, go ahead. You know your priorities. Nak tau aku pakai phone ape? Bertaun-taun aku pakai Samsung cabok yg dapat free with phone plan. Stok buat baling anjing punya (please don’t abuse animals). Pastu taun lepas baru tukar Nokia 5310, tu pon dapat free gak. Can I afford the latest iPhone? Yes. Can I afford to switch from one cool phone to another every 6 months? Yes. But that’s not my priority. I don’t need to watch a movie on my phone, that’s what my TV is for. I don’t need internet everywhere I go, I’m at home a lot. I’d rather spend my money on good guitars. You don’t have to follow me, follow your priorities. ;)

Bersambung…

Takde Tajuk

2010-10-11T21:27:00.001-07:00

Still got two more stuff to write about:

Asal usul chords
Abiskan advice pasal equipment

Q’n’A: Pickup

2010-10-09T03:41:00.001-07:00

Download link for sample.mp3 fixed

Q: bro, i have a question on pickups. Currently aku pkai gitar yg murah2 aje brand Aria STG.. mmg bgsat punya gitar la tapi aku pkai effect Boss Me 70~ i thought that pickups dont really matter as long as i have a good effect processor. but i guess i am wrong. btw, im using single coil pick ups.
act, aku mencari bunyi yg macam metallica, yg palm mute dier muff giler..but i just cudnt get it with my Boss! I believe humbucker pickups especially brand EMG cud do the trick. what say you? and what does passive and active pickups mean?

A: First off, everything matters. Pada aku pickup is one of the most dominant when it comes to shaping the tone. Pickup la yg first skali convert mechanical movement to electrical signal. So, pickup punya peranan memang penting. If you have a cheap camera, you can’t expect Photoshop kasi gamba yg ko amik jadi lawa gile. You have to start with a good camera.

Lain Pickup, Lain Bunyi

Meh dengar sample ni. Aku record sample ni real quick, virtually no post-processing. Dalam sample ni, effect & amp setting sume sama. (Of course setting effect ko sepatutnya kena la bergantung pada the characteristics of the pickup yg dipakai. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.) Aku pakai kedua-dua electric guitar aku. For each guitar, aku keep the same volume setting, same tone setting. Cuba dengar kelainan bunyi pickup pickup yg berbeza.

0:00 – 0:10 = JS1000 with PAF-PRO (Bridge)

0:13 – 0:22 = JS1000 with Fred (Neck)

0:24 – 0:34 = JS1000 with Fred (coil tap mode)

0:36 – 0:45 = JS1000 with PAF-PRO (coil tap mode)

0:47 – 0:56 = RG390 with Evolution (Bridge)

0:59 – 1:08 = RG390 with Area ‘58 (Middle)

1:09 – 1:18 = RG390 with Breed (Neck)

Sume pickup DiMarzio. Sume Humbucker, kecuali Area ‘58. Coil tap mode ni pickup humbucker tu dipakai sebagai single coil.

See, everything else being (almost) equal, the pickup (and position pickup tu) can make a difference. Like I just said, how you tweak your effects should depend on the pickup you use. But you can only tweak your effects so far. It’s eventually up to what your pickup picks up. The effects can only modify the signal that it receives from the pickup. Kalo pickup tu miss something, effects tak boleh nak enhance something it doesn’t receive.

Active ngan Passive

Beza active ngan passive pickup plak… well, I’m an engineer, I like physics. So let’s go to the very basic. Macam mana pickup kuarkan bunyi? (this only applies to magnetic pickups). Pickup ade magnet kan? So, there’s a magnetic field near the pickup. Bile magnetic field tu diganggu oleh besi yg bergerak (tali gitar), pickup tu akan produce a small electrical signal. Yes, kalo tak connect kat amp pon, your guitar actually produces a very small electrical signal.

Actually mase aku tulis paragraph kat atas ni, I based it entirely on my physics (electromagnetism) knowledge. And it occurred to me that aku tak penah try pon. So I decided to dig some stuff out of my electronics toolbox dari zaman U dulu, and record the following video. :D

So there. Pickup ni actually hasilkan tenaga elektrik sendiri (“electrical potential” to be technically accurate). Even pickup yg power cam DiMarzio Evolution tu pon cuma hasilkan a few hundred millivolts. That signal has to travel through your cable sampai ke amp. And then the amp amplifies it to something you can hear.

Cable ade rintangan (resistance). Lagi panjang atau lagi halus cable tu, lagi tinggi lah rintangan dia, maka lagi lemah signal yg sampai ke amp. So signal akan lost sket.

Well, aku tak penah ade EMG active pickup, so aku takde experience, especially pasal tone dia. But I think, active pickup system ni dekat gitar tu ade preamp system, dia kasi condition sket signal tu, pastu amplify signal tu, baru hantar ke amp melalui cable. That way the output of the guitar is higher, the signal loss is less significant. A lot of people seem to like it, maybe it is good, especially for metal and shredding. Tah la. Well, if you ever get the chance, try gitar yg ade passive humbucker, and compare dengan gitar yg ade active one. I won’t spend that much money before trying it. (I’m not sure, but your amp may need a separate input port for high level input from active pickup).

Whether to use passive single coil, passive “fake” single coil (cam Area ‘58 tu, actually humbucker that imitates a single coil), passive humbucker, or active pickup system, is a matter of taste. Malmsteen main metal pakai single coil kan? (Aku tak sure actually, I’m not really a fan).

But in your case, since ko cakap gitar ko tu “bangsat” punya, it’s probably not worth putting an EMG on it. Bape harga gitar ko? RM700 camtu? Pasang active pickup kena pasang untuk semua pickups, takkan pakai satu pickup active, lain passive. The output level will be way too different (aku punya Evolution ngan Area ‘58 pon quite different already output level dia). How much is set of active EMG? Paling koman pon RM600 kot? Is it worth it? You decide. If you love your guitar so much, maybe it’s ok. Macam RG aku, tukar sume pickup tu cost dia around USD190. It’s a big fraction of the guitar’s original price, but I really love the guitar. It’s a very important part of my life. So I did it.

Lagi satu active pickup ni kena letak battery (9V). Gitar ko kena modify sket utk letak battery compartment. If it doesn’t fit, you may have to cut out some wood out of the body for that. And kalau gitar ko S-S-S configuration, kena cari single coils yg active, camni. Kalo nak yg humbucker punya style, you’ll at least have to modify the pick guard (or beli pick guard lain), if not more.

Or, better yet, save the money, get an ESP LTD or something. I’m sure you can get an ESP LTD with active pickups for under RM2000. Probably even under RM1500 (this guy seems to have pretty low price). If you really like playing guitars, that’s not much. Guitar isn’t just about the pickup. Well made guitars are easier to play.

p/s: Your amp really matters too. Some amps are better for metal than others.

Q’n’A: Gitar Baru

2010-10-05T20:14:00.001-07:00

Q: bro ada tips utk menjaga guitar baru bro utk newbies macam aku bro.? how often to polish ke ape ke?? and apa pendapat bro pasal floating bridge ni

A: First of all, congratulations on the new guitar. :D

Set Up

Unless ko punya guitar tu memang fresh baru keluar dari kilang, you might want to have a pro to take a look at it. Ni yg dipanggil “set-up”. It’s something you do on a new, not so new, or old guitars, to optimize the instrument. And mekanik dia dipanggil luthier, or “guitar tech" (luthier actually buat guitar gak, bukan repair jek).

Set-up ni penting especially kalo ko tak biasa dengan Floyd Rose punya bridge. Floyd Rose ni bukan macam fixed or one-way punya bridge. It’s a little more complicated than that. Bile set up ni, dia akan check action (ketinggian tali dari fret). To me that’s probably the hardest to do, at least for beginners. Kalo ko tak experienced sangat, maybe ko akan ingat action ni just adjust anchor screw kat bridge tu jek. Well, that’s part of the story. Kalo curvature fretboard tak betul, tak guna gak. Nanti tak boleh kasi action tu low without too much buzzing.

Nak adjust fretboard ni kena adjust truss rod dia. For Ibanez RG and most guitars screw dia dekat headstock dia. RG punya hidden dekat bawah plastic plate tu. Adjust truss rod ni kalo tak reti jangan try. Sebab kalo terputar screw dia kuat sangat, rosak. Lebih baik buang jek gitar tu dari repair. You don’t wanna do that on a new guitar.

Lagi satu dia akan adjust spring kat belakang bridge tu mengikut string gauge pilihan ko. That’s very important untuk bridge camni.

And adjusting intonation on a floyd rose tak sesenang macam bridge strat biasa tu. So, it’s good to have somebody show it to you.

Nak pasang tali pon, although it looks relatively easy, kena buat dengan betul. Baru lepas pasang pon kena stretch tali tu sume kasi maintain tuning. Your guitar tech should be able to show you how.

So, I think paying a visit to a guitar tech is a good idea. This is something that I wished I knew mase dulu-dulu. Only bile aku nampak guitar tech corner dekat Guitar Center baru aku tau kepentingan dorang ni. Of course, sooner or later you’ll learn more about your instrument, that you can do most of the maintenance on your own. But if you’re new, the guitar tech may get your instrument to the best playing condition. And that’s a good thing.

Aku beli JS aku aritu, lepas beli 3 hari aku tak main. Tunggu guitar tech balik cuti, kasi buat set up dulu.

Even pros visit their favorite guitar techs. Instructor aku pon, he’s been playing professionally since before I was born. He gets his guitars set up by a tech. And some techs are better than others. I think it’s more art than science.

So, get somebody to take a look at it. Get a quote. Aku tak tau la kalau kat Malaysia bape dorang charge. Kat tempat aku, satu kedai tu dia charge $60 untuk full setup. Aku cakap ngan dia aku just nak dia check action jek, since aku tak berani nak buat sendiri. So dia kasi $12 jek. Lepas dah siap tak sampai hati aku nak baya banyak tu jek. He was having a hard time getting the right adjustment. :P Well, don’t multiply that cost by 3.1 or whatever the exchange rate is. This is almost entirely a service. So, rate dia aku rasa takde la sampai RM50 kot. I donno.

Maintenance

Hmm, bape kerap nak polish, I can’t really answer that. Ha ha, I think from now on I should pay attention to that. But lepas main, memang aku lap pakai kain microfiber la. Well, honestly I only do that on my JS, since masih bersinar-sinar lagi, and it cost a lot more. :P

But I probably don’t have to do it too often anyway. Since aku main dalam rumah jek, main pakai baju, tade daki-daki.

Before main, make sure basuh tangan dulu. Especially kalo kat Malaysia, aku rasa udara sana lembap, so korang senang berpeluh (I sweat so much aritu). So, kasi bersih tangan dulu. It’s good for your strings too.

Aku main gitar seboleh-bolehnye tak pakai baju yg ade butang. I mean not butang sampai bawah la. And aku avoid jeans sebab ade butang metal yg besar (except dalam video la, but still, I keep it away from the body of the guitar). I don’t want to scratch the back of the guitar.

Lepas main, lap tali tu. Make sure lap belah bawah tali tu skali. It’s good for the strings, and I think it’s good for the frets too.

Kalo fret to rosewood, once in a while bile tukar tali bersihkan pakai lemon oil type of cleaner.

Ape lagi. Jangan kasi orang pinjam, as much as you can. Kalo orang nak try, do it in front of you. Kalo member mengade nak strum ganas ganas, slap him/her.

And bile dah lama main, your frets especially akan haus sket sebab bending and stuff. Depending on how much you play, at some point, you’ll have to send it to a guitar tech again. Get him to recondition your guitar. Fret tu nanti dia akan sand kasi rata sket, level them and all. That’s something I won’t do myself yet, at least not on my best guitars.

Oh, before lupa. Kalo main berdiri pakai strap, pakai locking strap. That way tak risau terjatuh.

Q’n’A: Pentatonic Scale

2010-10-05T18:56:00.001-07:00

Well, I have plenty of stuff to write about. But aku jawap dulu soalan-soalan ni real quick.

Q: bro ape beza pentatonic scale ngan major scale??? then mcm mane nak apply kedua-dua scale itu?

A: Aku tak sure sejauh mana ko tau pasal Pentatonic scale. But just in case, let’s start from the basic. I’m not gonna go over the fingering pattern.

Katakan ko ade C Major scale. Tau tak note-note dia apa? Tengok row C Major kat table bawah ni kalau tak tau (you really should know this).

	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
C Major Pentatonic	C	D	E		G	A

C Major Pentatonic scale plak diambil dari 5 notes dalam Major scale. The I, II, III, V, and VI degree of the major scale. So Major Pentatonic ni cuma sebahagian dari Major Scale.

Ape relative minor of C Major? A minor.

	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
A Minor	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
A Minor Pentatonic	A		C	D	E		G

Minor Pentatonic pulak dibuat dari I, III, IV, V and VII degree of the minor scale. So Minor Pentatonic ni pon cuma sebahagian dari Minor Scale. Note-note A minor pentatonic pon sama ngan note-note C Major pentatonic, just like A minor punya note sama ngan note-note dalam C Major scale.

So, bila nak pakai Major/minor scale, bila nak pakai major/minor pentatonic? Honestly, I’ve never really thought about it. Maybe because I don’t compose, or improvise enough. So semalam aku tanye instructor aku.

Dia cakap, there’s no rule saying that kena pakai major kat satu lagu tu, tak boleh pakai pentatonic, or vice versa. That answer didn’t surprise me. Cuba tengok note-note dia dah boleh agak. For example, Major pentatonic note dia bukan lain dari note Major scale. Same notes, cuma pentatonic ni kurang sket note dia jek.

So dia kate it depends on the music. It depends on what kind of feel you want to express. Dia kate usually pentatonic ni dalam music blues or rock n roll. Pada aku pentatonic ni, especially minor pentatonic rasa bluesy. Well, sebab aku amik class blues dulu, pentatonic ngan blues scale yg cikgu aku selalu tekankan(blues scale is just minor pentatonic plus one “blue note”).

And instructor aku cakap, you have to trust your ears. Ape yg aku faham dari situ ialah just try it. If it sounds good, it’s good (provided you have good hearing).

So kalau ko ade chord progression in A minor for example, nak pakai A minor scale pon boleh, nak pakai A minor pentatonic scale pon boleh. Sometimes, depending on context music tu, maybe ko akan rasa lebih sedap kalau focus on the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale daripada pakai the whole minor scale. Maybe ko akan goreng in E minor pentatonic scale, and selitkan here and there note outside pentatonic scale taken from the entire minor scale.

Cuba main Major, Major Pentatonic, Minor, Minor Pentatonic. Cuba dapatkan feel setiap scale tu. Maybe bile nak pakai nanti, you’ll have some idea on which one gives you the “right” feel for the song.

TAB: Seribu Tahun Takkan Mungkin (Intro and Solo) - Request

2010-10-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

~~TAB blom ready. Still blom export to GP5 format. Check back later.~~

Sebelum tanye nape aku tunaikan request ni but not other requests, let me explain myself a little bit. So, usually kalo orang request, aku akan add it to the list, but tah bile-bile la aku nak buat, kalo aku buat pon. And some people in the past requested something that I was already working on, so they got lucky.

This time, aku tgh buat benda lain. The song I was working on is not too guitar oriented, but since aku nak buat the whole song, it’s a lot of work (nama lagu tu is still a secret :P). And somebody requested lagu BPR ni kat facebook. Well, lagu ni ade dalam “secret list” of songs yg aku akan buat, and it’s simple enough. So aku pon buat la lagu yg direquest ni, just as a break from something else I’m working on. It’s not too time consuming.

Lagi satu, if you look at the history of my channel since last December, korang akan nampak yg official music videos aku keep getting longer, more instrumentation, more complete. At least by February aku dah start buat complete songs. Last official music video aku, lagu Intan tu, hampir reached the 10-minute maximum length. It’s a lot of work to produce that one. Macam aku sebut mase awal-awal aku start channel/blog ni, I have a problem of trying to do better every time, and at some point, it’ll get too hard to top the last work that I’d just quit.

So, to prevent that from happening, I’m going back to basics. Just buat Intro & Solo, keep it short and simple. As long as I’m still doing it, I’m ok. Walaupon video ni nampak pendek macam video awal-awal aku dulu, there are things about this video yg aku improve since the last video. I’m still learning. And walaupon material presented in this video is simple, the quality of audio & video is a little better actually.

Videography

Actually aku dah lama notice yg video aku sebelum ni walaupon HD rasa cam kurang sharp sket image dia. Motion pon cam blur sket especially kalo tangan aku gerak laju sket. Kalo tengok video aku test guitar baru tu lagi la, since lagu tu laju. So on this one, I took another approach. Aku set camera aku to prioritize shutter speed. 1/60 seems good enough. It captures the motion well, and lighting is still manageable.

If you know anything about photography, you know that higher shutter speed requires more light. Well, aku bukan photographer pon, I used to be, zaman film dulu. But now since everybody seems to be doing it, I’ve lost interest in it. Anyway, untuk video ni, I needed more light than ever. Kalo korang perasan, video aku sebelum ni desk lamp aku usually ke arah dinding, this time it’s on full brightness, ke arah aku. Pastu tambah floor lamp without the shade kat depan aku. Silau gak. But gambar dalam video ni memang crisp la, kalo tengok in HD especially. Well, it’s been a good learning process. Next time kena spend more time on lighting.

And video ni edited pakai Premiere yg paling baru punya. Ingat tak sebelum ni aku tunjuk mase buat video Intan tu bile nak encode berbelas jam baru siap? This one took less than 30 minutes.

Audio

So, ni first time aku record bass manually. Sebelum ni bass aku just program the computer to play it. This time, it’s a real bass.

Bass ni aku angkut kat kedai pajak gadai. It’s an Ibanez GIO GSR200. Indonesian made. Aku beli seratus dollar jek. That’s as much as I was willing to pay for a bass, since aku tak plan nak jadi bassist pon. It’s in a very good condition, especially since it’s 10 years old. And the guy gave me an old and beat up, but well padded gig bag.

Ok, aku tak reti main bass. I mean, aku tak reti nak buat jadi interesting. Kalo setakat follow root of every chord, hold it for 4 beats each, any monkey can do that. To do more than that is something else. And I don’t know anything about proper finger picking techniques.

Dalam lagu ni, for the most part aku tak dengar pon bass main ape. So kalo tengok TAB ni, most of the bass part is my own arrangement. I tried to get creative, especially mase switch from one bar to the other. Sometimes aku apply chord formula punya knowledge, sometimes I just did what sounds good to me. Having a bass guitar when making the TAB makes a lot of difference.

And recording pakai bass betul is so much better. Senang aku nak kawal sound dia. And it sounds more human too, which is good.

One thing I learn about bass is that kena reti mute. Bile main, pastu move from one string to the other, kalo tak mute tali yang tak dimainkan, the sound is horrible. Kalo tengok video kat 1:52 tu, aku go back and forth between 2nd string and 3rd string. Each time tukar string kena mute the other string. It’s not like a guitar, “Let Ring” on a bass, especially low notes don’t sound too good.

And main bass ni menjahanamkan kuku yg aku susah payah jaga. :(

Part solo ni actually aku salah main satu note. See if you can find it. ;)

Sebenarnya since video ni intended to be a break for me, aku tak plan nak spend banyak masa on recording. In fact, aku record mase baru lepas balik keje. Tak tukar baju pon. So it was recorded on Tuesday, and then aku busy hal lain. Pastu semalam aku edit audio, dah siap aku edit video plak. Video dah dekat nak siap, baru aku perasan satu note tu aku salah main. Well, it’s not a bad sounding note. It just happened to be one semitone lower than what Awang played. In my opinion, both notes work fine. But since philosophy video aku ialah untuk tiru original, I had to fix it, not just on the TAB, but on the video too. Since aku malas nak record skali lagi, aku isolate that note, and buat pitch shifting. Aku tak record balik note tu, just tweaked what I already recorded. It’s cheating, but at least aku mengaku. :D If you have sharp eyes, you may be able to see which note it is.

Lagi satu time tu gak la aku baru perasan yg certain part time solo tu ade harmony sket. So terpaksa la aku gali laundry basket aku cari baju tu, kasi matching sket bile aku record part harmony tu. :P

And I need to practice consistent vibrato. >_<

Memori Silam

So album ni, tajuk dia Bisa. Aku tak ingat sebenarnya memula aku buat TAB ni. Aku analyze lagu ni based on CD compilation dia yg aku beli mase aku balik Malaysia May aritu.

Bile aku search cover album ni, and then tengok senarai lagu dia, baru aku ingat. Mase kecik-kecik, umur aku dalam 7 taun kot aku ade keset album ni. Aku ingat lagi bile part lagu Dajal aku selalu skip, sebab aku seram dengar intro dia. :P

Dulu in the 90’s, dekat Desa Setapak (dekat sebelah station LRT Wangsa Maju), ade satu minimarket, nama dia Moneycome. It was a popular local groceries store. Dekat depan dia ade beberapa penjaja makanan. Satu gerai yg mak aku selalu suruh aku pegi ialah gerai jual Laksa Johor. Penjual dia rambut kerenteng, panjang, tapi tak panjang sangat, and bermisai. He looked so familiar. It turned out that dia drummer BPR ni, Enal. I called him abang Nal. He’s very nice.

Well, I don’t mean to be preachy. But, the next time we download MP3 lagu Melayu illegally, think about these people. Plus, quality most MP3 lagu Melayu online suck anyway. 128kbps sound horrible!!

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Q&A: Advice Pasal Equipment Untuk Beginners (Part 2 of 4)

2010-09-24T22:07:00.001-07:00

Sebelum aku masuk part Acoustic Guitar, aku nak jelaskan sket advice aku sebelum ni. When I say you should be willing to spend a good amount of money on your equipment, I didn’t mean you should overdo it. Toksah la baru start main guitar, dah beli professional quality punya equipment.

Kalo spend banyak sangat, takut nanti you’ll be afraid to use it. And at the early stage, you’ll have plenty to go through until you know what is it about a guitar that you like (fretboard, body, wood etc). Pilihan equipment yg patut dibeli pon dependant on muzik yg kau suka main. For instance, you probably shouldn’t get an Ibanez RG kalo nak jadi jazz guitarist. So kalo spend terlalu banyak awal-awal, it’s too big of a gamble.

Acoustic Guitar

Untuk beginners, maybe korang rasa electric guitar lagi bagus, sebab boleh buat sound ganas (distortion), and boleh main clean gak. Kalo boleh main clean, buat ape nak beli acoustic. I used to think like that way back. Maybe sebab time tu gitar acoustic keliling aku don’t sound very good. Maybe because aku belum develop the hearing that I have today.

Aku bukan nak cakap ko wajib ade gitar acoustic. Just know that you can’t get acoustic guitar sound with an electric guitar. Well, ade effect “Acoustic Simulator” untuk electric guitar, but I don’t believe that it’ll sound nearly as good as the real thing. You don’t get the same feel too obviously.

And beginners mungkin tak sedar yg generally ade dua jenis acoustic guitar. Nylon ngan Steel stringed acoustic.

Nylon Steel

Nylon punya guitar biasanya orang buat main classical music. (Flamenco pon pakai nylon gak. But although they may look similar to classical guitars, they’re not the same). Sound dia usually cam mellow sket. Tengok video ni for an example. In rare cases, ade gak orang yg main nylon guitar untuk lagu rock. Contohnya Rodrigo Y Gabriella. They’re very unique. (And Gabriella is really awesome). Nylon guitar ni biasanya dia punya fretboard lebar sket, and more flat. And usually takde fret marker, yg dots kat 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th fret tu. Maybe kalo ade pon it’s really small, on the edge of the fretboard.

Steel guitar pulak is more common for modern pop/rock music la. You know how it sounds. Dia punya tone brighter than nylon. Fretboard dia narrow sket, curved, macam electric guitar la. Jarak antara tali-tali pon dekat sket.

So bukan tali jek yg beza. Fretboard pon lain. So kalo beli guitar acoustic, don’t plan on switching the strings from nylon to steel. Buruk perangai tu.

Lagi satu, kalo ade gitar acoustic, tolong jangan pakai electric guitar punya tali. Yes, I used to do that, sebab senang sket nak main. But it’s not a good idea. Acoustic punya tali memang lagi keras. But it’s designed to bring the good acoustic guitar tone. In fact, it’s a good way to build your finger strength. Honestly, sekarang aku spend lagi banyak kat tali acoustic aku. Aku pakai Elaxir, each set costs 3 times more than Ernie Ball strings yang aku pakai untuk electric guitar aku. Strings are very important when it comes to acoustic guitar, since you can’t really do anything else to get the best tone.

Sesetengah acoustic guitar ade pickup & preamp. Gitar camni di panggil acoustic/electric. Gitar camni usually mahal sket, for obvious reason. Kenapa beli gitar camni? So that you can perform on stage and connect the guitar to the PA system. That way you don’t have to mic the guitar. Aku plak pakai acoustic/electric sebab aku nak cucuk kat computer, to record. I won’t be able to record the best characteristics of the sound of my acoustic guitar, but at least I won’t have to worry about noise kalau aku pakai mic. And since aku selalu buat transcription, it’s good for me to hear my guitar and the music I’m transcribing on my headphones. You don’t buy this kind of guitar to put distortion and pretend you’re playing an electric guitar. It sounds pretty bad, and you don’t get the same playability. (Well, concert Nirvana unplugged lagu The Man Who Sold the World ade distortion, but it’s a really simple solo).

Well, since aku dah lama tak dok Malaysia, aku punya idea of how much Ringgit is worth kurang sket. But for beginners, I’d say avoid anything lower than RM200. No, make it RM300. And kalo beginner, maybe avoid spending more than RM800. But kalo dah lame main, and you just want a good acoustic guitar, consider spending more than RM1000.

Brand plak (for steel since aku tak familiar ngan nylon), I’d recommend maybe Yamaha atau Takamine. Brand sederhana mahal yg lain cam Jasmine by Takamine, Fender (yes, Fender acoustic takde reputation cam electric dia), Applause by Ovation, Ibanez, Parkwood, Epiphone pon ok gak. In fact, consider a Baby Taylor too. It sounds really good for something small.

If you’re looking for a high-end stuff, consider Martin & Co, Breedlove, Taylor, high-end models Takamine, Ovation, etc (not Gibson, because if you have the money for it, you probably won’t be reading this :P). But, even if brand-brand ni luar budget ko, maybe if you have the chance, try them. See what you like about them. And find something cheaper that has the characteristics of what you like.

In any case, unless ko memang perlu built-in pickup system, avoid it. Buat ape buang duit kat situ. Yeah it looks fancier, but if you don’t need it, might as well get something that plays and built better. Penting beli gitar acoustic yang bagus. Sebab gitar acoustic ni bukan cam electric. Electric, kalo intonation ko off sket, senang nak adjust. And again, on an acoustic guitar, you can’t really change the sound other than getting good strings and change your picking techniques. Aku punya guitar acoustic pon dua kali lagi mahal dari gitar electric aku, only until recently.

Bersambung…

Lesson: Modulation

2010-09-20T00:54:00.001-07:00

Alright, aku baru posted video pasal modulation. Sebelum ni video lesson aku pasal satu key jek. Meaning that chord progression tu dalam satu key jek. Dalam lesson ni aku introduce concept Modulation. Pegi tengok video ni dulu, pastu sambung baca.

First off, effect macam Chorus or Flanger dikategorikan sebagai modulation jugak. But that’s audio modulation, some sort of sound effect. That’s a different animal. This is about music theory.

Sebelum ni mase aku release TAB lagu Belaian Jiwa, aku tak explain lagi theory muzik lagu ni. I just thought at the time I should wait until I release the program to explain it easier. That way the graphical nature of my program can help you see it better.

So dalam contoh lagu ni, First bar dia in G Major key. Second bar plak modulate to A minor key. Third bar plak in between, sebab pivot chord Am7 tu belong to both G Major and A minor key. Pivot chord ni digunakan untuk make the transition from one key to the other smoother. Last bar dalam progression ni pulak G Major key, walaupon chord D7sus4 is found in both keys. My reason for concluding that the last bar is in G Major is the vocal. Vocal dia ade nyanyi note F#, which is a G Major note.

So, kalau rasa nak goreng, try pakai G Major dalam first bar. Pastu switch to A minor scale bila chord dia Dm tu. Pastu bila chord dia tukar jadi E pulak, try A melodic minor scale. And then bile masuk third bar plak, goreng jek dalam G Major atau A minor, but try to avoid note F# (that will make both scales identical). Bile last bar plak try G Major scale balik.

Technically, mase memula switch from G Major to A minor key tu, kat second bar tu dipanggil Direct Modulation. Modulation dia serta-merta, abrupt. But bile tukar balik ke G Major key, it’s more gradual, because we have the pivot chord in the third bar (or measure) to make the transition smoother.

Kalo dalam progression yg dalam satu key jek, certain chords are not very stable. Certain chord create some sort of tension, that needs resolution. Dalam lagu ni pon lebih kurang jugak. Dalam lagu ni, kita keluar dari key tu untuk create a tension. But at the end of the progression, we resolve back to the original key.

Kalo tengok Circle of 5th utk key lagu ni and key lagu Luhur, korang akan nampak key dia switch to key yg bersebelahan. I think this is what we call Common Chord Modulation. Sebabnya key-key yang bersebelahan ade share a few chords.

There are many kinds of modulation out there of course. Like I said, you can switch from a major key to its parallel key. Contohnya, start start dalam key C Major, but then modulate to C minor key. That’s called Modal Interchange. Sebabnya tonal center sama, note C. But mode dia tukar dari Ionian (Major) to Aeolian (minor) mode.

You can probably do some sort of relative modulation. Contohnya start in C Major, and switch to A minor (the relative minor of C Major). The notes remain the same, the key signature remains the same, but the Tonal Center moves from C to A.

And some modulation requires Pitch Axis to understand. I think Joe Satriani likes to use it.

Baca article ni untuk jenis-jenis modulation yg lain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation_%28music%29

So, next time kalo korang nak try faham certain progression, kalo tak semua chord dia masuk dalam satu key, think about modulation. And kalo nak tulis lagu sendiri pon, this is something to think about. You can definitely write many good songs dalam satu key jek, but try modulating to create interest. Tapi jangan la main belasah jek chord dari macam-macam key. You have to try and see what sounds good what doesn’t. As opposed to writing something in just one key, modulating opens a lot more possibilities.

This is something that I wish I understood many years ago but I didn’t. Hopefully by reading this you’ll get some new insight. I’m still learning this, and I find this very interesting thing to learn. You know, I’m always looking for ways to explain how things work.

Oh lagi satu sebelum lupa. You know that people say Major is a happy key, minor is a dark, sad key. Well, lagu Belaian Jiwa ni is in a G Major key (although it does modulate to a minor key). Tak wajib lagu sedih dalam minor key, just so you know. Lagi satu, lagu ni aku consider as G Major, bukan E minor. Sebabnye bukan sekadar dia start with G Major chord, but kalo tengok last bar pon, dia resolve to G Major. You can feel that the last bar sounds like the song comes to a rest. So that’s “home”.

And one last thing (I promise), kalo tengok tab lagu Belaian Jiwa dalam versi GP5, aku tulis chord dia dua tingkat. For example, dalam first bar, kat atas aku tulis G, bawah dia F. G Major is the key that you think you’re playing. In reality, you’re actually playing in F Major, because you tune down your guitar one whole step. I just don’t do it on GP6 version because it looks messy.

Q&A: Advice Pasal Equipment Untuk Beginners (Part 1 of 4)

2010-09-14T19:40:00.001-07:00

Soalan yg ditanya kat shout box recently was quite specific, but aku rasa baik aku kasi advice yg general sket, since I feel very strongly about this. First skali aku nak motivate sket pasal kesanggupan keluar duit untuk beli equipment. And then aku nak discuss sket pasal Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, and Amps & Effects. This is gonna be a 4-part response.

Before that, aku ni bukanlah expert ataupon professional. I’m just an average player, still trying to be better.So think of me as a peer. Ramai lagi orang yg boleh kasi better advice on a number of things I’m gonna mention here. But that’s how it is. You get all kinds of advice you can get, and you judge for yourself what to actually follow, what to keep in mind, and what to leave behind.

Some motivation

First, you have to ask yourself: do you want to be as good as you can be, or nak main sesaje jek? If you’re not too serious about playing, or you don’t have that much passion for it, then you can skip the rest of this article series, and just pegi beli gitar murah-murah.

Tapi kalau ade minat yg mendalam, kau kena sanggup spend lebih sket. Like most things in this world, when it comes to musical instruments, you usually get what you pay for.

Prinsip aku ialah beli equipment yg bagus, yg melebihi tahap skill aku. I’m sure many people who know me would agree to that. Why? For one thing, it shows you’re making a commitment to your passion. Bile kau punya equipment kau rasa lebih dari kelayakan kau, kau akan bekerja keras untuk tingkatkan skill and knowledge, to show that you deserve it. When you’ve spent a lot of money on your equipment, you’re less likely to waste it by not using it, by not practicing. You’ll also take a better care for it, keeping it in good condition, which will help you be a better player. (Gitar pon kena buat maintenance). And bile kau beginner, your learning curve is gonna be very steep. You’ll learn so much so fast, that kalo kau beli equipment yg murah or a little bit above murah, sekejap jek kau akan nak equipment yg lagi bagus.

I’m speaking from experience. Mase aku mula main gitar karen dulu, aku beli Epiphone strat aku tu. Aku rasa lepas setaun jek aku nak gitar yg lagi bagus. That Epiphone is not the cheapest guitar in the store. Aku memang usually skip the cheap stuff. After that I got my Ibanez RG. Loved it. It’s been my primary guitar for 12 years now. Mase aku beli Ibanez tu, I realized that it’s over my skill level. But I knew that’s what I wanted.

Same goes with main pool. Mase aku kat U dulu, apartment complex aku ade pool table. So aku pon beli cue brand Cuetec. Spent like $150 on it. Soon enough aku beli cue Predator, highest end model punya, with their top of the line shaft. Spent like $700 on it. I practiced a lot, almost daily. Tak campur baca buku lagi, tengok match videos sume. I think most people kat complex tu recognized me as the guy who plays pool by himself most of the time. Some of my friends made fun of me for spending that much on a cue. I don’t care, I like what I do. And I was good at what I do, they can’t argue with that.

And gitar baru aku pon is definitely a professional grade one, above my level obviously. And I intend to work to be a much better player. I expect to be happy with it for many years to come.

So, be willing to spend a good amount of money on what you like. And most musical instruments (even pool cues) are not like electronics or clothes. They don’t become obsolete or out of style quickly. Ask yourself. How much are you willing to spend on a computer? RM2000? RM3000? How long do you think you have until it becomes obsolete? Jauh lagi cepat dari alat muzik. Bape banyak kau sanggup spend kat phone, and berapa kerap kau tukar phone? Think about it. Guitar memang nampak mahal. But if you think about how much you spend on other stuff, it may not seem that bad. So, skip starter packs, and skip the cheap stuff. Save that for anak bawah 12 taun yg blom reti lagi nak jaga equipment.

Aku setuju ngan Karl Cromok mase sesi soal jawab dalam DVD Inspiring Moment dia. Dia kate kalau nak jadi tukang kayu, mesti nak pahat yg tajam. He also talks about putting your priorities right. You have to be willing to spend on your passion.

Bersambung…

:(

2010-09-05T00:19:00.001-07:00

Hmm, tadi aku gi nearby Guitar Center nak cari foot stool. Foot stool ni cam yg classical guitarist pakai tu untuk naikkan kaki kiri. I recently change my posture bile main acoustic. Classical punya style pada aku lebih sturdy. Anyway, skali aku buat benda bangang. Aku gi try skali lagi Ibanez JS1000. This time cucuk kat amp. :(
NAKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!! >_<
Aku selalu gi kedai tu, and I’ve tried many guitars. Aku dah try Gibson Les Paul, Fender US Strat, Ibanez JEM7V, to name a few. Les Paul and strat needs no introduction. Those are legendary. JEM7V plak guitar Vai yg aku suka sejak kecik lagi. But when I tried them, they don’t feel right to me.
This JS1000 is different. It feels right the first time aku try. It feels almost as if it’s made for me, for my hands. It’s incredibly smooth.
Manager kedai tu plak cakap dia leh kasi aku 15% off. >_< Tempting gile!!!

Hmm, I have an acoustic guitar that I’m very happy with. I have an electric guitar that I love. Sebelum ni aku try gitar-gitar kat kedai tu, harga ribu-raban cammana pon, I still like my old Japanese RG. But this one is something else. It’s like finding a soul mate. I’ve found what I want. Or maybe I didn’t know what I really want until I tried this.
I like how it plays, and it looks simple but sexy too. Cam pearl gray color dia. Light weight, very comfortable. I want it. :(

I’m not telling you that you should all like this guitar. No, find something that’s right for you. Yes, what’s right for you. Not what’s right for me, not what’s right for Slash, not what’s right for Malmsteen. You!! Bile aku try Les Paul, or Strat contohnya, I don’t like the fretboard. Cam bulky sket. And aku tak suka finish belakang fretboard dia. It’s glossy. Beautiful, but cam stiky pada aku. Those are great guitars, no question about it. Just not right for me.
Ok, enough bit**ing. :P

Additional Info Pasal App Tu

2010-08-29T18:28:00.001-07:00

Well, walaupon perisian ni ajaib, it’s not that ajaib yet. :P

I forgot to mention that this program may not help you understand all kinds of music out there. For the time being, aku baru buat list of chords based on Major/Natural Minor scale, harmonic and melodic minor scales. This program gives you a lot of chords based on those scales (and associated modes actually)

In reality, there are many scales not covered here. For example, Blues Scale. Pretty common in blues. Or Whole Tone scale ke, or any exotic scales.

But, Major, minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor are the most basic ones you should know. They are probably the most common scales out there. Kalo korang blaja theory, those are the first scales you’ll learn. And lagi satu, lagu-lagu melayu 80/90’s memang banyak rely on these scales. In fact, semua yang aku transcribed so far follow these scales strictly. See, you can still make good music out of relatively common scales.

So, try to understand this first before you try to learn something exotic. And, sometimes orang yang baru belajar, they want to learn exotic stuff, to make them sound different than others. Well, it’s a good drive to have. But, don’t get ahead of yourself. You gotta know the basic first. (I’ve taken 4 basic guitar classes, just to make sure I get a good grip of the basics. We’ll talk about it later).

Software: Perisian Musik Ajaib Ayah Bean

2010-08-29T05:42:00.001-07:00

Well, if you don’t love me yet, YOU SHOULD BY NOW!! :P

Okeh, aku dah siapkan app yg aku janjikan. Aku namakan app ~~ajaran sesat~~ ni “Perisian Musik Ajaib Ayah Bean”. Here’s the tutorial video. You should watch both parts, and listen carefully.

p/s: Actually mase buat video ni aku record skali video aku “bersyarah”. Konon nak buat Picture-in-Picture la. But I can’t figure out how to merge the screen shot and video tu fast enough. It’s not worth the wait.

Gi download software ni kat sini.

Minimum Requirements

Windows PC (XP or above)

Microsoft .NET Framework (3.5 or above). Just download program aku ni, pastu try run. Kalo ade error message pasal .NET Framework, just google “.Net Framework download”, the first search result should be the installation link. Install the framework (can be time consuming, but it’s worth it). Current .Net version is 4.

Software Info

Again, as mentioned in the video, this program will not make you the fastest shredder. It will not suddenly turn you into a music expert. But it teaches you the basic of something helpful: keys and chords harmonization.

Basically, pilih key, and you’ll get a bunch of chords that belong to the key.

Since aku ni Excel freak, memula skali aku research on chord formula, pastu letak dalam Excel spreadsheet. If you’re interested and you want to double check me, download it here (Excel 2007 or above).

After dah siap sotware ni, I did a quick check with my instructor to make sure the theory is sound. He approved. :D

So, learn what the software tells you. Tak yah memorize pon takpe. Just use it as a reference.

Oh, make sure korang faham beza Key, Chord ngan Note. Key ni macam a collection of 7 notes. It tells you what notes should be sharp, flat or natural. Contohnya, C Major KEY, note dia C, D, E, F, G, A, B (note-note yg sama ngan major scale of the same name).

Chord pulak, well u know what it is right? Contohnya, C Major CHORD diperbuat dari notes C, E, G.

But, why?

I did this for many reasons.

Satu sebab dia ialah cam aku cakap sebelum ni, walaupon gitar ni popular, a lot of guitar players don’t know or care to learn about music theory. So aku design software ni to be user friendly (hopefully). And aku present the material ni dengan cara yg tak nampak terlalu technical. Well, a lot of people might be intimidated to learn if they see too many symbols they don’t recognize right? Oh, the theory covered by this software is not just for guitars. It’s universal.

The other reason is, I like my book, but I want a better reference.

I also love teaching. Like I said before, I taught an engineering course back in U, and fell in love with teaching right away. So, the love for teaching, music, and programming make this a perfect project for me.

With the amount of effort involved in developing this (the books I’ve read in the past, the classes I’ve taken, and my precious time), I think I deserve to charge at least RM5 per user, right? :D But no, thanks. I just want you to learn something. Plus, more than RM750,000 of your tax ringgit was spent on funding my Mechanical Engineering education in the US. And due to contractual reasons, government tak suruh aku baya seringgit pon or balik keje ngan government. So, this is the least I can do for my people. :D

New Download Page

FYI, aku dah pindahkan download page aku. It’s no longer located at http://gshbbtabs.blogspot.com. Tak kuasa aku nak pakai blog lagi. Actually I am thinking of moving this whole blog to a standard website. But that won’t happen anytime soon. Well at least the download page is its own website for now.

The new download page is located at http://gshbb.xtreemhost.com/Download.php

Update

2010-08-22T01:56:00.001-07:00

Software is done. Now aku tgh buat script untuk video “lecture” untuk korang.

Well, the software is easy to use. But it’s only useful if you understand what it’s telling you. That’s why video lecture ni penting.

Program Sneak Peek

2010-08-17T20:43:00.001-07:00

Aku still tgh coding and finishing the research on theory. Here’s a low-resolution view of the program.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks aku akan release program ni, and kasi video tutorial sket. I promise that if you have very little knowledge of music theory, this will help.

TAB: Intan, Ku Kesepian for GP5

2010-08-14T18:49:00.001-07:00

Aku baru uplaod GP5 version of that TAB. Actually GP6 recently baru ade feature to export GP6 TAB as GP5. But dah export pon kena spend a few hours to clean up gak lah.

So, sape yg takde GP6 lagi leh pakai GP5 punya file. It just won’t sound as good.

INGAT: Kalo korang ade GP6, jangan skali-kali bukak TAB GP5 pakai GP6. It will sound horrible, unless you plan to do a lot of work to fix it.

See, GP6 ni is something else. GP3, 4 and 5 are similar. GP6 is completely new. They might have programmed it from scratch. So the files from previous GPs aren’t compatible enough with GP6.

TAB: Innuendo – Belaian Jiwa (FINAL)

2010-08-06T18:50:00.001-07:00

Done… finally.

Ok first of all, aku still blom buat video aku main lagu ni. Well, some of my viewers are not guitar playing people. So they wanna see me playing. To those people I apologize. But for guitar playing people, this will do for the time being…. right? :P

Interesting fact. First time aku try buat lagu ni was 11/19/2002. Ha ha, almost 8 years ago. Tapi tak siap la. Just buat intro jek. Hmm, that’s one month before aku fly gi US actually.

Hmm, pada aku, ni lagu paling susah aku penah buat. It doesn’t sound difficult, but try it. Yg buat susah is main kasi sume tali ringing properly, and switch chords smoothly. It takes some practice to do it right.

Oh actually aku buat tab ni pakai GP5 for some reasons. Dah siap baru aku export jadi GP6. But the problem with GP5 is that bile time tukar tempo, the first beat tu cam lembap sket. So kalo korang bukak pakai GP5, part ending tu tempo dia cam pelik sket. Try GP6. Well you can hear it in the above video. The tabs can be found here.

The Innuendo’s Version

As you all know (if you don’t you should), lagu ni first skali dirakam kumpulan Carefree, mase 1979 dulu kot. And, since a lot of people don’t get it right, dalam Carefree punya version, bukan Jay Jay yang nyanyi. If I’m not mistaken it was Simon Justin Leo yg nyanyi.

So in the 90’s, Innuendo remade this song. It’s a wonderful remake. The vocals are awesome, I love it……. except for one thing.

For all the good things Innuendo did on this song, in my opinion they screwed up right at the beginning. Let’s see.

Seindah, tiada lagi kau ku ingatkan, sayang kau hilang….

So, kekasih dia hilang, dia dah tak ingatkan kekasih dia tu lagi, right? Tiada lagi KAU ku ingatkan. That begs the question: if you’re not thinking about her anymore, why the hell do sing about her? The rest of the song is dedicated to her, which contradicts the beginning. It doesn’t make a goddamn sense.

Well, it turned out that I was right, and the original got it right.

Seindah, tiada lagi YANG ku ingatkan, sayang kau hilang…

That makes perfect sense. :D And check this out. Dalam video live ni mamat Innuendo ni sebut “yang”. GOOD!!

Sorry. Well, you know me. It just has to make sense. :D

Chord Progression

So, macam biasa, tak sah release tab tapi tak discuss theory sket.

Hmm…. but this work is kinda different. Sebelum ni aku tak kasi tau ape yg aku tgh buat sampai time aku release. This time is different. Sebelum ni aku akan release the tab with the video of me playing it. Not this time.

Beza pasal theory discussion kali ni bukannya aku takkan buat. I’ll do it, but not now. Sebabnye cam susah sket nak explain without proper tool. So, to assist me in explaining this song, I’m gonna write a computer program for you. I promise that it would be a helpful program for songwriters and transcribers. It’s gonna be based on a little handbook that I’ve used a lot, and my own research. Check back later.

And this song does something that I haven’t discussed before. So there’s something new to learn.

TAB: Innuendo – Belaian Jiwa (PREVIEW)

2010-08-01T17:20:00.001-07:00

~~Ok, I’m sorry, but I’m not done with this yet. Last week busy sket.~~ ~~But here’s the preview.~~

All the notes should be there. Aku dah review sume notes from the start sekali lalu. But chord names tak tulis sume lagi. And baru ade tab guitar jek. Lagi satu tempo tak fixed lagi, part yg ending tu banyak ritardando which are not yet reflected in the tab. And aku tak completekan a few bars lagi (which is why they’re red).

~~Maybe I’ll get the tab done in a week or so. But the video, well that has to wait. :P Susah tu lagu ni. And I’m not in the mood to do it yet.~~

~~Again, this is just a preview.~~

Perkembangan Terbaharu :P

2010-07-12T21:39:00.001-07:00

Hmm, not sure if anybody’s waiting for the new song or not, well, at least I know one person is.

Anyway, aku baru jek siap the very rough draft of Belaian Jiwa (innuendo version). I still have to do a couple rounds of intense listening to polish it.

Now, the thing yg buat lambat sket lagu ni, among others, is the fact that lagu ni although gitar instrument yg paling penting, it’s not that dominant. And it’s very dynamic: sometimes you hear every note loud and clear, sometimes you don’t. Lagu ni vocals are very dominant, especially part chorus. It’s understandable, since Innuendo ni vocals group.

So kalo tak denga ape nak buat? Well, fill in the blanks. So aku letak arrangement aku sendiri here and there, and making sure that it blends well with the rest of the song, that it sounds as if it’s the real thing. And that’s not particularly easy, at least not to me.

Lagi satu, pada pendapat aku, lagu ni dia tak record pakai satu layer guitar. There has to be at least two. Some parts are just impossible to be done with one guitar. But the thing is, aku tak bercadang nak arrange for two guitars, since like I said, the guitars are not that dominant. Aku nak arrange kasi boleh main satu orang.

So, aku kena balance ape yg aku boleh tangkap, and ape yg boleh dimainkan sorang.

And what’s possible and what’s impossible to play is another thing. Maybe bagi aku certain part susah gile sampai aku rasa impossible, maybe bagi orang lain tak susah sangat pon. It’s not ok for me to limit my transcription by my own playing skills. So while doing this, I have to try it myself, and push myself to do things I’m not used to. Ni example.

At 65bpm, it’s not that easy to play that, while making sure that each string rings well, until the next chords. So mase transcribe bar ni, aku kena try different positions, to see which one makes the most sense.

Lagi satu challenge lagu ni is that they use a lot of “color” chords, not just your plain major or minor triads.

And bile dah siap TAB pon, ha ha, tak tau la bile boleh release. Kena practice guitar dulu. This song is not gonna be easy to play, I promise you that. Even your plain C major chord kena main lain sket dari fingering yg biasa. But when it’s done, there’ll be plenty to talk about. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.

And then kena practice other instrument, to make sure I can produce what I have in my head. And there’ll be some singing too. :P But don’t worry, I’ll do everything to make it sound decent. And, to do this right, the mood has to be right for the song.

There are new things that I wanna try in this video. In fact, that’s the case for every video. I’ve always tried something new, I’ve always tried to make it better than the previous one, even things that not too many people would notice. There’s always room for improvement, there’re always new things to learn.

Q&A: Goreng & chord progression

2010-07-02T00:24:00.001-07:00

Q: Chords lagu ni (not in any particular order): B5, C5, D5, G5, A5 (x5 tu maknanya power chord). So, cammana nak goreng? Scale ape nak pakai?

A: So, tu soklan yg youtube buddy aku tanye (aku rephrase). Well, the thing is, aku bukan pakar buat goreng sendiri pon. In fact, kalo tengok video aku, sume designed to copy the original as close as possible. Lagu Intan, Ku Kesepian tu jek yg ade aku goreng sendiri punya, tu pon sket gile. I’m very shy about letting people hear my own solo. Not confident enough yet.

But I’ll tell you what I know. Ok, this is gonna be really long by the way.

Key Apa Chord Progression Tu

First of all, based on the chords, ape key lagu ni?

So, before answering the question, kena tau key-key dalam music. Maybe I’ve covered this before, but table kat bawah ni note2 (bukan chords) dalam every key.

Key	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
C Major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B

G Major	G	A	B	C	D	E	F#
D Major	D	E	F#	G	A	B	C#
A Major	A	B	C#	D	E	F#	G#
E Major	E	F#	G#	A	B	C#	D#
B Major	B	C#	D#	E	F#	G#	A#
F# Major	F#	G#	A#	B	C#	D#	E#
C# Major	C#	D#	E#	F#	G#	A#	B#

F Major	F	G	A	Bb	C	D	E
Bb Major	Bb	C	D	Eb	F	G	A
Eb Major	Eb	F	G	Ab	Bb	C	D
Ab Major	Ab	Bb	C	Db	Eb	F	G
Db Major	Db	Eb	F	Gb	Ab	Bb	C
Gb Major	Gb	Ab	Bb	Cb	Db	Eb	F
Cb Major	Cb	Db	Eb	Fb	Gb	Ab	Bb

So, tu sume available keys. OK, don’t worry about memorizing it yet. Just use it as a handy reference. Lame-lama hafal la kot. Mase aku kat class theory last semester, I was the fastest to fill up the circle of 5^th (less than a minute), and I can identify key signatures so fast. But kalo kasi aku key signature, lambat sket la aku nak spell out all the notes off the top of my head. :P

So, dalam table kat atas, C Major takde sharp (#) or flat (b) (takde accidental). G Major ade satu sharp, D Major ade dua and so on. F Major ade satu flat, Bb Major ade dua and so on.

B Major ngan Cb Major are enharmonic, maknanya bunyi dia sama, walaupon nama lain. F# and Gb Majors are enharmonic. So are C# and Db Majors.

So, balik kat soklan kat atas.

Chords: B5, C5, D5, G5, A5

Ape key lagu ni? Does it look like C Major? If so, you might have a good reason for that, since sume ROOT chords tu ade dalam C Major (root of B5 is B, etc.). In fact, sume roots tu ade dalam G Major gak.

So, between C Major and G Major.

Ingat tak dulu aku ade share table basic triads? Ni kalo tak ingat. Dalam article tu, under Triads. And aku ade post a link to a table, yg cam ni:

Key	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
C Major	C	Dm	Em	F	G	Am	Bdim

G Major	G	Am	Bm	C	D	Em	F#dim
D Major	D	Em	F#m	G	A	Bm	C#dim
A Major	A	Bm	C#m	D	E	F#m	G#dim
E Major	E	F#m	G#m	A	B	C#m	D#dim
B Major	B	C#m	D#m	E	F#	G#m	A#dim
F# Major	F#	G#m	A#m	B	C#	D#m	E#dim
C# Major	C#	D#m	E#m	F#	G#	A#m	B#dim

F Major	F	Gm	Am	Bb	C	Dm	Edim
Bb Major	Bb	Cm	Dm	Eb	F	Gm	Adim
Eb Major	Eb	Fm	Gm	Ab	Bb	Cm	Ddim
Ab Major	Ab	Bbm	Cm	Db	Eb	Fm	Gdim
Db Major	Db	Ebm	Fm	Gb	Ab	Bbm	Cdim
Gb Major	Gb	Abm	Bbm	Cb	Db	Ebm	Fdim
Cb Major	Cb	Dbm	Ebm	Fb	Gb	Abm	Bbdim

(make sure korang paham beza table ni ngan table first kat atas. table ni table chords, table kat atas notes)

Well, this table doesn’t really apply in this case. Kenape? Sebabnya power chords ni bukan triads. In fact, some people are really strict that they don’t consider power chords to be chords, sebab pendapat dorang kena ade 3 note or lebih baru boleh kira sebagai chords. But for the sake of the discussion, let’s just count power chords as chords.

So, ape power chord tu sebenarnya? Try main power chord G (G5 chord) kat first position. Try pakai ketiga-tiga tali paling atas (4^th to 6^th string). Bape banyak unique notes korang main? Tiga? No. Actually, dua jek.

Note yg korang main dalam G5 adalah G, D & G. Kalo tak tau note kat fretboard, gi tengok tool ni.

(Tip: Lepas select G and 5, kalo tak nampak pattern cam aku tunjuk ni, click Inversions, and cari pattern camni).

So, kalo repeat the steps for all chord yg dalam soklan ni, ape dapat?

C5 = C, G

D5 = D, A

G5 = G, D

A5 = A, E

B5 = B, F#

So, sume chords kat atas masuk dalam key C and G Major (refer to table pertama kat atas), kecuali chord B5, yg masuk dalam key G Major jek. Katakan la mamat ni kasi aku the first 4 chords jek. Then dia boleh pilih nak goreng either in G major or C Major only.

But since ade B5 ni, dia boleh:

1) goreng in G Major exclusively,

OR,

2) boleh gak buat kasi lagu ni modulate between the two keys. It’s just that bile rhythm tengah main chord B5, he should avoid playing F note, instead, main note F# or something else in the scale.

Of course la nak goreng kena planning sket. Jangan main rembat jek random note dalam scale selaju yg mungkin. Pada aku solo yg best bukan solo yg paling laju dalam dunia, but solo yg sedap didengar.

So, cammana nak buat solo yg sedap? Well, part tu aku tak pakar lagi. So, experiment with it. The scale is a good place to start, and go from there.

But one common advice is to emphasize the notes of the chord, especially the root. Maknanya, bile rhythm tengah main C5, emphase note C. Nak emphasize note G pon ok. But bukan semestinya kena main dua note tu jek bile rhythm tgh main chord tu. Again, do experiment. Nak main C Major arpeggio time chord tgh main C5 pon ok. And it doesn’t matter what octave you’re playing in (as long as your guitar is tuned properly, and intonation is adjusted correctly).

Lagi Pasal Power Chords

So, macam yg korang nampak kat atas, power chord ni ade dua note jek: first (root) and 5^th. Tu pasal lah ade 5 dalam nama dia (technically it’s the Perfect 5^th above the root).

Disebabkan power chord ade dua note jek, the chord is neither major nor minor.

C Major contohnya ade 3 note. Root, major 3^rd, perfect 5^th.

C Major = C, E, G

C minor pon ade 3 note. Root, minor 3^rd, perfect 5^th.

C minor = C, Eb, G

So, power chord ni ambiguous sound dia, bukan major, bukan minor. It’s also hollow sounding, sebab 3^rd dia missing. Note 3^rd la yg determine whether the chord tu bunyi dia major atau minor.

But pada aku, kalo main ngan heavy distortion, bagus pakai power chord ni sebab tak banyak note. So bile strum power chord, bunyi dia tight, tak muddy. Try playing an open C Major chord, compare ngan C5 chord, pakai lots of distortion for both chords. You’ll see what I’m talking about.

Kalo kawan aku ni kasi aku senarai chord dia C Major, D Major, G Major, A minor and B Major, tak yah tengok sume chord dah boleh tau key dia G Major, not C Major (at least not exclusively C Major). Tengok first two chords from the list dah tau. Sebab D Major ade F#, bukan F macam calam D minor. Kalo tak tau boleh gi tengok basic triads table tu (second table).

Katakan la lagu yg dia tulis ni, it turned out that vocal dia nyanyi strictly in G Major scale, gitar pon main in G Major scale (maknanya, dia tak main/nyanyi note F, but F# instead). In that case, the song is exclusively in G Major key, NOT a modulation between G and C Major keys. So, walaupon chords dia sume main in power chord, it’s safe to assume bile dia main C5, it’s acting like a C Major. Bile dia main A5, it’s acting like an A minor. Because those are the chords in G Major key. Our brain is so used to the system that walaupon tak main the 3^rd of each chord, we can ‘hear’ it. It is suggested, or implied, but not actually played.

(I’ll discuss key modulation next time. We’ll see a good example of it in Belaian Jiwa).

Tonal Center (not Centre, I prefer American spelling :P)

Kawan aku ni ade tanye gak, that dia assume the key to be the first chord. Well, that’s the rule of thumb especially kalo nak cari lagu. But it’s not always the case. In fact, kalo tanye cikgu theory aku, dia prefer that to be the last chord of the song.

Katakan chords yg diberi tu disusun camni:

B5 – C5 – D5 – C5- B5 – G5 – A5- B5

That does not make the key B Major. See, B Major ade C#, D#, F#, G# and A#. Bukan B minor gak, since B minor ade F# and C# (B minor is the relative minor of D Major key). In both cases, B Major or B minor, F# takde hal, since macam kite tengok tadi, chord B5 ade note F#. But note-note sharp lain tak masuk, in fact, contradict the roots of a few chords.

KEY satu lagu tu tak bergantung pada chord yg first dimainkan. Key bergantung pada note-note yg dimaikan throughout the song (or at least a section of the song).

So, dalam progression kat atas, most (in fact all) of the notes fall nicely under G Major. That’s the key!

But, progression ni, dia macam emphasize B. Chord B5 tu macam home base. Most importantly, chord ni la where the song resolves. Rasa complete bile dengar chord ni. It feels like the destination. If that’s the case, then B is the tonal center of the song (or the section of the song), even if the key is technically G Major.

And when that happens, tu la yg dipanggil “mode”. (It took me many years to grasp the concept honestly). In this case, it’s B Phrygian. Pada aku, tau key dia lagi penting dari tau mode dia, sebab mode comes from the major scale gak.

So basically, kalo lagu tu pakai modal chord progression (other than Ionian or Aeolian modes), chances are the first or the last chord does not tell you the key (how many sharps or flats) of the song, but it may only suggest the tonal center.

Anyway, kalo tak familiar ngan theory music, don’t expect to be able to read the whole thing sekali lalu and faham terus. You might have to read certain parts a few times, and think. It’s ok, some of the things yg aku tulis took me years to fully understand, and I’m still learning.

Dah Balik (ke Amerika Syarikat)

2010-06-26T04:00:00.001-07:00

Ok, aku dah balik. Actually dah kat dua minggu aku balik. A few things aku nak share.

Kaum Kerabat

First skali, aritu aku add a very talented guitarist, Azilah on my FB. Found her on YouTube gak. And interestingly, makcik aku nampak dia add aku, but makcik aku tu takde dalam list aku. And then only I found out that my auntie and I have a few mutual friends on FB. And more interestingly, I only found out that she’s a rocker. Ha ha, I didn’t know that about her, didn’t expect it either. Not only is she a rock fan, her husband and her has a band, called Rawkatooa. Check them out. Haha, usha-usha album dia, ade gamba dia ngan Karl Cromok. Apparently she’s jammed with him.

On my last day there I got to catch up with her. That was nice.

:D

So, one local guitar legend recently expressed his interest in working with me on TABs for his music. Since nothing is confirmed yet, I won’t name the person. And I guess it’s unlikely for it to happen, since aku dok US. Due to the complexity of his music, it might make more sense that I be right in front of him, watch his demonstrations, and take notes to produce the most accurate transcription.

Whether it will actually happen or not, I feel honored already that someone of his status takes an interest in what I do. Whoever ends up working with him on the project I hope will do justice to his music. I’m excited about the possibility that there will be professionally produced TABs of local music in the market. Like I mentioned before, we lack quality TABs like the ones Hal Leonard produces for western artists. And that is why I do what I do here, so you guys can have a decent reference, like I had when learning Metallica songs from official songbooks back then.

Tajuk Lagu

Aku pon sempat la singgah kedai CD, cari CD-CD lagu melayu. And terfikir pasal lagu Intan tu. Cari album Belenggu Irama takde plak. But ade satu album compilation tulis tajuk dia like the following.

So that’s the 4th way of writing it. Well, it makes sense too.

And aku beli CD compilation Search. Balik rumah baru perasan. Check this out.

Lailamu Nama Teratas? WHAT THE #$%@? I mean, come on. That doesn’t make any sense. The only way to interpret it is that Lailamu itself is a name, not just Laila. That means, somebody named their daughter Lailamu binti ….. What the hell? And it’s not just a one-time typo. Kalo bukak booklet dia pon tulis camtu. Gee, pay attention to detail for God’s sake!! Konon “Tulen”, “Original”. Come on!!! I’m not a pejuang bahasa. I just want things to make sense.

Gitarku

Sebelum ni aku cakap aku ade satu jek Electric Guitar, well, I lied… partially. :P Actually aku ade satu lagi EG, but kat Malaysia la. It’s a Korean Epiphone Strat. Color silver metallic lagi. Ha ha, so 60’s. :P Here’s me opening the case for the first time in over 8 years.

I would think that tali ade yg dah putus, considering how the humidity in Malaysia would rust and weaken the string structurally pretty quickly. But no, they’re all intact, walaupon dah loose gile. But knobs sume dah keras. Sure karat gile kat dalam. Pickup switch pon tak berfungsi ngan betul.
Hmm, someday I’ll change all the pickups and hardware and restore this guitar.

Oh, satu lagi. Aku sempat singgah Bentley Music kat Bukit Bintang. Well, this time at least nobody from the store followed me everywhere and watched my every move. But maybe tu sebab aku tak pegang gitar dorang la kan.
Aku usha gitar Taylor kat sane. A Taylor 110CE is around RM3700. Maknanya gitar acoustic aku (114CE) mau RM4000 kat Malaysia. Pergh!

Lagu Baru

So I’m working on a new song. Well, this time it’s not a secret. I’m working on Belaian Jiwa. Yeah, lagu ni bukan gitar intensive. But it’s a nice song indeed. And chord progression dia quite interesting. There’s plenty to talk about when I’m done with it.

And I’m gonna try something different on this one. We’ll see.

Vakasi :D

2010-05-20T20:32:00.001-07:00

I’m gonna be on a 24-day vacation starting tomorrow. So most likely aku takkan post anything new (meaning no new TABs or videos) untill at least a month after aku balik kot. That’s gonna be July.

Meh denga official song aku time nak balik kampung. :D

TAB: Wings - Intan, Ku Kesepian

2010-05-10T19:43:00.001-07:00

Warning: If you download the GP6 TAB (*.gpx), and you don’t have the full version of GP6, you may not be able to hear the intended sound for each instrument. GP6 trial version has limited sounds. I donno, I haven’t tried using the trial version myself.

Eer, actually kat ofis tadi aku ade tulis like a 4-page article to accompany this. Tapi lupa nak bawak balik. :P So, you’re gonna have to wait till tomorrow for the article and the link to the TAB. Sorry!!

For the time being, take this.

So ni la yang aku buat for the past ~2 months. I pretty much did this for the solo, because I like it a lot. I figured out the notes for the solo pretty much the first night I worked on this. But as usual, developing the sheet music takes much longer than that.

Sikit Pasal Lagu Ni

First off, aku tak sure actually tajuk lagu ni. Some say “Intan, Ku Kesepian”. Dalam CD compilation rock 80’s/90’s aku dia tulis “Intan Ku Kesepian”. And some people say “Intanku Kesepian”. I have no idea which one is right, since aku takde album Wings yang ade lagu ni. Well, they don’t sell it in the US.

Tapi pada aku, the first one, “Intan, Ku Kesepian” makes the most sense. The second one isn’t that different, but the third one doesn’t make sense to me. “Intanku Kesepian” pada aku maksud dia Intan yang sepi, walhal lagu ni narrates kesepian penyanyi tu, setelah kehilangan si Intan tu. My BM isn’t that good, but I think I’m right on this. Maybe it doesn’t matter to most people, but to me it just has to make sense. (Revision: There is a possibility that tatabahasa time tu lain sket. I mean DBP kan suke tuka rules tatabahasa).

Lagi satu, mungkin korang tau, mungkin tak. Lagu ni sebenarnya ade dua official studio versions. In 1987, lagu ni ade dalam album Belenggu Irama. Mase tu guitarist dia Sham. In 1992 pulak, dorang record skali lagi kot lagu ni, untuk album Best of Wings. Mase tu guitarist dia dah Joe.

There are a few notable differences between the two versions. ’92 punya version, drum dia masuk awal, right after the anacrusis measure. Part intro acoustic guitar pon lain sket. Vocal plak yang ’87 nye version dia ade doubling sket (e.g. part “Menanti hadirnya…” tu). Part solo generally the same, but ’92 punya version aku rasa lebih feel sket. It makes sense, if you wanna remake it, you wanna make it better. But I guess credits should be given to Sham too, since most likely he’s the one responsible for writing the basic structure of the solo.

TAB

So ni first tab aku yg dibuat pakai GP6. Actually memula dulu aku buat pakai GP5. But lepas aku try sket GP6, I cannot look back. And currently, GP6 still blom support export to GP5 format. But knowing GP, biasanya boleh save as the previous version punya format. And according to Arobas, they are working on that. So for the time being, you have to live with PDF tabs. But aku included a few MP3 files for reference. Ade file yang aku mute certain part guitar, so boleh play along.
Go get them here.

As soon as GP6 boleh export as GP5 format, aku akan post the tab. But I sure hope you guys get access to GP6 (full version) soon. It’s really good.

And untuk acoustic guitar ngan solo, aku transcribe both ’87 ngan ’92 punya version. By default aku mute ’87 punya version. But when you play it back, you can pick if you want to hear ’87 or ’92 punya version by muting and un-muting the appropriate tracks.

Oh, again, aku tak tulis ending solo dia dalam TAB tu. So, do it yourself. I used D minor exclusively in it, except bile nak abis tu, aku ade main note C#; a D harmonic minor note.

It’s actually quite challenging to transcribe 1992 punya version. Sebabnya CD aku sound utk lagu tu cam cilake. Macam dibuat pakai mp3 96kbps. Haram tol, padahal aku beli yang so-called “tulen”. Konon “digitally remastered” lagi. And aku cari online pon tak jumpe yang good quality. Menurut kawan aku, Mus (speedrider), album Best of Wings (1992) ni rare gile.

This Video

Untuk video ni, part guitar aku main style Joe (1992 version). But drum dia aku keep as 1987 punya version. Since I like the solo so much, I added my own touch sket. Sorry, can’t help it. Aku pakai tremolo bar lebih sket, exaggerate vibrato here and there, and hujung solo tengah tu aku main style aku seniri.

The other thing is the ending solo. While it is still loosely based on the original recordings, I took the liberty to add my own touch sket. Especially mase memula. And ending dia, kalo dengar both original recordings, dorang fade out. I decided to do something else.

Mase aku tunjuk dia draft track untuk video Luhur, my ol’buddy Kamal cakap aku main kurang original untuk lagu tu. He’s right on that. For the most part, my videos are the representations for my TABs. They are the means of promoting my work, my TABs. So as much as I can, I wanna play it as close as possible to the original recording. So when people hear it, right away they can tell that it’s pretty damn close to the original. They know the TAB is good.

But for this video, I guess it won’t be a bad idea if I put a bit more of my own touch in it where I can, while still giving the impression of a good copy of the original work.

Lagi satu video kali ni aku feature lebih sket aku main EWI tu. It’s just that aku tengok video Luhur tu, cam bosan sket la part guitar banyak sangat. Even tuka angle pon aku rasa bosan sket. So I hope this one is less boring. Plus, maybe girls would appreciate that better too. :P

And for your info, kalo tak familiar ngan saxophone, basically there are 4 most popular kinds. Arranged by the range from high to low: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone. Untuk video ni aku pakai sound Tenor. There are more types of sax of course, like Sopranino, Bass and some experimental ones.

Oh, since I really really hate youtube punya audio compression, if you’re interested, here’s the high quality mp3 audio for that video. Tah ape ape tah youtube ni. Video high quality, but audio cam celake.

p/s: Nak tau kenapa aku really recommend tengok in HD? Check this out. Yup, 14 hours just to encode it, pakai computer laju. :(

Recording

Some of u may know that mase record video ni, aku ter’OCD’ sket. Like I mentioned before, I think I have much better ears than hands. I can’t play that well, but I can hear what’s wrong with something. And when it comes to my work, actually the best quality of my work is the sheet music, the TABs, not the video. Because making the sheet music is highly dependent on your hearing skills, and I’m much better at that than playing the guitar. And if you’ve seen the videos that I released before, if you have very sensitive ears, you’d notice some notes yang a bit flat, some phrases yang tempo tak tight. And I let it go, sebab tanak obsessed sangat.

Aku record video ni during May 1st punya weekend. It’s not perfect, but I let it go. Almost everthing siap record weekend tu, except for the solo. I must have recorded the solo hundreds of times. Every time, something just wasn’t right to my ears. And it’s hard to do it right, EXACTLY as I want it. Because not only do I have to play correct notes, maintain tight rhythm, it has to be done expressively too. That takes a lot of energy if u keep doing it. Seminggu gak aku try. Until last Saturday, I was finally ok with what I did. It’s still not perfect, but I can live with it.

It turned out that one of the problems was Guitar Rig 4 as a VST, meaning that aku pakai Guitar Rig 4 as an effect in Sonar, instead of standalone application. It’s hard to keep the rhythm tight that way. In fact, part aku main clean awal-awal tu, you can blame the less-than-perfect rhythm control on GR VST. So, note to self: next time use Guitar Rig only for post-processing. Use GearBox while recording, but record clean tone.

Some Theory

Tak sah kalo aku tak discuss sket pasal theory. :P

So, this song is written in D minor. Let’s take a look at D minor (F Major) punya basic triads.

F Major, G minor, A minor, Bb Major, C Major, D minor, E diminished

Again, those triads memang belong to this key, diatonic to this key. Meaning that chords tu dibuat pakai note note yang ade dalam scale D minor jek, takde accidentals.

But lagu ni, instead of A minor, dia pakai A Major. Why?

First, tengok note-note yang diguna untuk buat chord A minor – A, C, E.

Chord A major plak – A, C#, E.

Now, what’s D harmonic minor scale?

D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#, D. (Remember, C#, not Db. The 7th note in a harmonic minor scale can never be a flat note. It’s either a neutral or a sharp).

You’ve guessed it. A Major chord works in this progression because of the harmonic minor note, the C#. It’s pretty common for a minor chord progression to have a Major in the 5th degree, instead of a minor chord. In fact, lagu Sejati pon wat benda yang sama.

Next, listen to part solo. Of course mase awal solo tu, takde chord. Just bass guitar and lead main solo. Katekanlah takde bass guitar, and u want to accompany the solo with a triad chords, what is the very second chord in the solo? The first chord, since bass main note D, is most likely D minor. But in the 3rd measure of the solo, bass main note C#.

Could it be a C# Major chord? Let’s see. C# Major punya notes – C#, E#, G#. Note E# tu ok lagi, since it’s enharmonic with F (enharmonic = same sound, different name), you can say that it still belongs to this key. But G# tak masuk sangat la. (Try it).

How about C# minor chord? C# Minor punya notes – C#, E, G#. Still, E ok, but again, G# tak masuk. (Try it).

C# power chord (C#5) won’t work too, sebab note dia C# and G#. (Plus a power chord isn’t a triad. I’m looking for a triad).

Let’s take a look at the lead line. Kalo tengok dua bar ni, nampak macam note E is emphasized. So I think it would be a good guess that this chord has a C#, and E.

Tengok balik chord A major – A, C#, E. So ade note C#, ade note E. But note C# bukan bass note dia, note A yang bass note untuk chord A.

This is where the knowledge of theory helps in figuring out the chord progression. It turned out that the best chord for this two measures is A/C#. This is what we call the 1st inversion of A major triad. Inversion ni, note-note dia sama ngan major triad tu, but the bass note is not the root. The root note for A major chord is A. Kalo main note-note yang sama, tapi tukar bass note to a C#, that becomes the first inversion of A major (C#, E, A). When the bass note is E, that’s the second inversion of A major (E, A, C#).

Kat gamba kat bawah ni, the first one is the basic A Major chord. Kat tengah tu first inversion dia, and then the second inversion. That’s the basic idea behind an inversion.

Bawah ni plak typical A Major inversions on the guitar.

Ok, that’s enough for now. :D

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Preview

2010-04-20T23:07:00.001-07:00

Ha ha I have no idea when I’ll finish this project. Ikutkan aku nak siapkan in 2 weeks, but it doesn’t seem possible. Minggu ni satu test, minggu depan paper due (tak start pon lagi), and of course some other personal stuff that I have to take care of. heh heh.

Well, since aku dah kasi tau lagu ape aku tgh wat, here’s a preview.

And that’s the RSE sound of GP6. I’ll never go back to basic midi sound again.

Tak siap lagi pon. for one thing, part vocal line tu baru buat sket. GP6 is still buggy i’d say. Somehow sound piano note Bb (above middle C) and above tetiba volume rendah gile. Oh lagi satu preview ni part intro acoustic ngan goreng electric Sham punya version. The tab actually has both Sham and Joe punya version, so the user can select.

And aku blom buat part fill-in ending lagi. Not sure if I will, maybe.

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I like programming a lot. I’m a mechanical engineer, but I’ve done some programming work. I love writing VBA programs for work. I’ve even won an award back in college for a project which involved programming microchips and designing my own digital circuit. Heh heh, bangga la tu. Not bad though for a mechanical engineer, not computer or electrical engineer. :D

Pabila Bean berasa bosan kat ofis, Bean buat program (yes, takde projek skrg, takde keje kat ofis). That’s the thing about me. I have to keep my brain working. I have to learn new stuff, create stuff, or engage in good conversations. I can’t just sit and do nothing.

So aku dapat idea. Bile record video, I’ll record so many takes. Bile nak edit video, it’s boring to find the correct video file that matches the processed audio. So I thought why not write a program that functions like the slates people use in making films, that thing yang sebelum director jerit “Action” tu. That way senang sket nak identify the correct clip. And since video aku selalu termasuk monitor aku, might as well use it for that purpose.

What it does is bile aku start record, it will show the clip number for a few seconds which will be recorded by the camera and edited out later.

The next improvement would be to figure out how to write a program that reads MIDI command. That way, bile aku tekan button record kat MIDI keyboard aku, SONAR akan record and the slate program automatically show the correct clip number. Better yet, hantar signal to the camera to record too. Ok that’s too ambitious…. or is it?

This is my first standalone windows program by the way.

Update lagi

2010-04-11T02:51:00.001-07:00

So aku decided to work on the new tab exclusively in GP6. It’s just too much work to do both GP5 and 6 simultaneously.

But orang Guitar Pro cakap dorang akan siapkan feature untuk export to GP5 soon. I hope it will work well.

GP6 still has some bugs and could use some improvements here and there. Tetiap ari aku dok suggest kat facebook page dorang. Hopefully they’ll pick up some of my suggestions.

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Aku dah add link to facebook aku on the left. But I have to warn you, add me at your own risk. Ha ha. Although I’ve toned it down lately, I would occasionally share my discontent for current social and political issues on facebook. And I’m sorry but I’m not always “politically correct”. I don’t necessarily share popular point of views. I work very hard to be a critical thinker, I make my own mind about everything.

But that’s only on facebook and other places. Over here, I’m acting neutral. I’m just gonna talk music.

And lately aku busy sket actually. Well, Bean needs to talk to girls too. :P

GP6: Review Tergesa-gesa

2010-04-06T23:29:00.001-07:00

Ok aku baru usha GP6, after updating the whole thing. Yeah, after activating it, it took many hours to update the program.

So far, my verdict is: I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!!

Look, sebelum ni aku punya tab aku tak buat pakai Realistic Sound Engine (RSE). In fact aku tak recommend pon korang playback pakai RSE, because it sucked. And another reason is, kalo korang tak reti configure, nanti pure midi track and RSE tracks tak synchronized.

GP6 punya RSE memang masyuk. Siap ade effect rack sume. Gile ganas la. In fact effect collection untuk RSE ni aku rasa lagi banyak dari effect yang aku pakai untuk gitar betul aku (aku pakai Line6 GearBox). It just sounds so much better. Kalo korang gi website Guitar Pro, cuba dengar demo dia. Sound real gile. And I think in this version, they no longer allow RSE and pure midi to be played simultaneously. You have to pick one. But the thing is RSE baru ni banyak gile instrument ade. So most likely you’ll not need to use your basic midi (Microsoft Wavetable).

Ni aku buat quick one. Try dengar intro Luhur in GP6 punya RSE. Is it awesome or what? That’s what you’ll hear when you playback the tab. Before this kalo aku nak dapat sound synth yang bagus camtu aku kena export to Cakewalk Sonar, and do a few things baru ok.

But because RSE baru ni complex sket, I’m guessing that for my future tabs I’ll have to spend some time tweaking all settings to make it come out just right for each job. But at least the TAB can now resemble the real thing even closer. Lagi satu tak yah aku nak buat backing track mp3 lagi, when you all have GP6 later.

And one problem with this version is that kalo bukak tabs pre-GP6, sound cam cibai. Kena adjust banyak gak la.

And if you spend a lot of time writing tabs like me, you’ll appreciate the new capabilities. Here’s one example.

Note yang aku letak arrow tu, before this that wasn’t possible (as far as I know). Note yang kat bawah tu is a second layer. Pakai GP6 satu track boleh tulis 4 layer.

And there are a lot of other things. Last time aku sebut GP5 tak leh tulis note B# for example. Now not only that, double sharp and double flat pon boleh tulis.

Nak marking chord dulu kena buat satu satu unless ko copy paste the whole bar. Now, add the chords to the project library, and click on the bar, click on the particular chord button. So easy.

They also improve the undo/redo history. Sebelum ni dalam 4 actions jek dia record. Now I have no idea, but seems pretty long.

So far, baru sejam lebih aku usha program ni, I like it a lot. I like that I can make the sheet music look more professional. I like to be able to make my work look as professional as I can, in many things I do. I like that they put so much more, pretty much redesigned the whole thing, and still sell it for the same price. They deserve every penny I paid. I’m glad to be among the first few thousand people from all over the world to buy it.

So definitely, tab aku lepas ni suma akan released in GP6 (unless aku jumpe bug yang tak leh diterima la kan). I’m not sure if you guys will have access to GP6 yet, but I’ll try to accomodate as much as I can. Aku rasa once dah tulis pakai GP6, it shouldn’t take too long to duplicate to GP5. We’ll see.

Kalo korang nak try GP6 gi website dia, download trial version. Trial version ni dia limit soundbanks dia (that’s why after updating kena download besar gile file). And aku suggest just dengar demo tabs dia since those tabs are configured to be used with GP6.

Goreng Sampai Hangit

2010-04-06T19:34:00.001-07:00

Ciss, hangus jari aku goreng lagu baru aku tgh buat ni. That’s one reason why it takes quite long to finish a tab. Siap bass line ngan drums jek, play along. Siap satu bar, main lagi. Beratus ratus kali aku main goreng lagu ni. I really like the solo though.

Erm, maybe it’s time to change the strings.

Update

2010-04-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to update this sooner, but busy la.
__________________________________________________________

Well, video Luhur tu aku actually suke gak sound dia. The mix is better than my previous releases, because of more experience of course. And aku spend a lot of time mixing it too. But bile upload kat Youtube, the sound is disappointing. Youtube re-encode the whole thing. Video encoding dia ok gak, the picture is pretty good. But sound dia even kalo main HD pon is still lacking. Tak tau la nape dorang wat camtu. Maybe because of piracy.

In case nak dengar a better version of the same thing, here's the mp3.
File dia besar sket. Aku encode at 256kbps. Cuba compare ngan Youtube HD punya audio. You'll see what I'm talking about.
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Skrg aku tengah buat dua lagu actually at the same time. I just can't decide which one to do first. In fact there's a 3rd song. But the 3rd song aku plan nak buat arrangement sendiri, instead of faithful transcription. So the 3rd song len kali la.

But these two songs aku plan nak buat full transcription. I'm just in the mood of doing that. The problem bile buat full transcription ni, well, some parts of the song are not too interesting to transcribe. So it's time consuming since not all parts of the transcribing process is exciting enough to motivate long hours working in front of the computer.

Hopefully I'll release something in 3 weeks or so. I'm a little busy right now. Term paper pon tak tulis lagi. :(
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Windows 7 is awesome!! It's what Vista should have been. For one thing, main EWI pakai Win7 takde glitch. Nice. Mase pakai Vista aritu kejap-kejap glitch. Sakit ati tol. I thought that's how it is with EWI. Apparently it's the Vista that messed it up.

And since aku baru install Win7, aku pon install la Sonar latest punya, 64 bit punya. Ciss, plug in aku banyak tak leh pakai. Haram tol la. And they also replace some features with new ones, tak reti nak guna. :(
_________________________________________________

OMG I just found out that Guitar Pro 6 is out!! :D
Check this out.

Pretty nice huh? Dorang baru released semalam.

Kalo korang masih ingat GP3, and GP4, interface dia takde la beza sangat ngan GP5, although notation and playback capability improved in each version. GP6 lain gak interface dia. This time aku tak sure la whether all the limitations yang aku tak suka sebelum ni dah diimprovekan dalam GP6.

Tapi aku rasa kali ni aku akan beli program ni. Walaupon aku orang Asia, yang memang dalam DNA aku tanak baya untuk software, I think I’ll do it for this. So GP6 will join hanya beberapa software yang aku penah baya. :P Well, GP is playing a central role in what I do. It’s an important medium for me in sharing my work with you guys. And GP people are nice enough not to come out with a major version every year. Think about it, GP5 came out in 2005. Only 5 years later baru kuar GP6. So it’s worth the money. Skali baya 5 taun tak yah beli lagi. Minor upgrades are free.

Now the question is, utk tab baru ni nak buat pakai GP5 ke or GP6. Kalo buat pakai GP6, sape takde GP6 tak leh la bukak. But I’ll share PDF version of the tab anyway. Well I’ll see how much more I like GP6. And since aku rasa playback GP6 ni kalo bukak GP5 punya file, kena tweak sket baru sound sedap. So I’ll have to upgrade all the tabs yang aku dah released to GP6 too later. We’ll see.

TAB: Luhur – Kamikaze

2010-03-20T18:21:00.001-07:00

Gi download tab kat sini, the usual location.

Behold: yet another excessively loooong article.

Ok, macam yang aku sebut sebelum ni, lagu ni takde la complex sangat. It’s relatively simple. But again, a good song doesn’t have to be too complex, it doesn’t have to be extremely hard to play. It just has to move you. And this song is moving in my opinion.

It took me a few weeks to finish this. I could have done it faster, but I decided to take my time. Aku just buat a few bars a day. Bile dah siap pon aku still double checked it. This I think is as close as it gets to the original. I should get paid for this. :P

Aku tengok most people main straight up F# minor untuk part intro. It’s totally fine. In fact, dulu aku try transcribe lagu ni pon aku main camni (@116 bpm):

But now with better ear and equipment, aku dengar betul-betul, aku rasa dia main cam yang aku tulis dalam tab tu (@58 bpm).

Technically, it’s an F#m9. But bile aku tulis chords kat atas tab tu, for the most part aku just tulis the most basic form. You can add color to it as you like.

Kenape Pakai Capo?

Part intro tu I admit is kinda hard to play. Kena stretch sket tangan tu. Every time aku main lagu ni, well, every time aku main anything aku akan stretch jari-jari tangan kiri aku. But that’s not enough for me for this song punya intro. Tangan aku tak cukup besar. It’s hard to play note G# kat 4^th string 6^th fret tu, and keep a firm barre on the second fret at the same time.

Memule aku try buat alternate tuning. Kalo tune 6^th string to one whole step down, to D, bile memula jadi senang, pastu bile the 3^rd beat of the first bar tu jadi susah balik.

Ok, pastu with that tuning (DADGBE), letak capo on the second fret. The first bar becomes easy, but then chord lain yang supposed to be familiar jadi pening sket.

Pastu aku dapat idea. Why not tune everything one whole step down (DGCFAD), letak capo on the second fret, and play as usual. Walla!! Now the stretch is reduced by just a few mm, good enough. Lagi satu, since jarak antara bridge to the capo is shorter, tension tali tu pon jadi rendah sket. It helps, not much, but enough to reduce the fatigue (although it’s still painful to play it so many times).

I’m sure a lot of you can play it better than me, even without the capo. And kalo rasa tanak main camni, and skip the G# note (4^th string 6^th fret), and just play a straight up F# minor chord, do it. Some people aku tengok kat YouTube do it that way. Totally fine. Like I said, when it comes to writing the tab, I prefer to make it as close as possible to the original.

Korang mungkin rasa cam pelik sket chord ni. Bunyi dia cam ngeng-ngeng sket. Well that’s just the characteristic of this minor 9 chord. Sebabnya ialah dalam chord ni ade minor 2^nd interval, antara note G# ngan note A. It’s the most dissonant interval, macam out of tune. Not too stable in my opinion, not something you want to use at the end of the piece, where the song should resolve. But aku memang convinced camni la yang dimain dalam original recording, for two reasons. First, kalo dengar bebetul, those are the notes that he played. Second, kalo dengar the second time dia main F#m tu (bar 4 dalam tab tu), you’ll hear that it’s not exactly perfect. Note C# dia cam kantoi sket, not ringing perfectly, which suggests that this is not very easy, as I have experienced myself.

Lagi satu, kalo tengok video tu kekadang aku main chord A aku just barre the second fret, sometimes aku letak satu jari satu tali. The first way is easy, but then aku rasa transition back to B minor is not too smooth. I did both ways in this song.

More Theory

Based on analysis aku, lagu ni ade 3 key. But one interesting thing about it is that the key change is not too obvious, berbanding contoh yang aku kasi sebelum ni. Intro lagu ni is in F# minor, most of the solo is in C# minor, and the rest is in B minor. Kalo tengok circle of fifths (inner circle, in green), these keys are very close to each other.

It’s not uncommon for a song to have more than one keys. Sometimes, the same verse or chorus can have more than one keys. But usually when that happens, it’s so quick that aku tak tuka pon key signature kat tab tu. Sometimes the composer just decided to deviate out of the key for a moment (contohnya lagu Sejati, A major chord doesn’t belong to D minor key). But in this song, aku tuka key signature dia. Sebabnya, the F# minor is exclusively for the intro, the C# minor is exclusively for the solo.

And lagi satu, see how the key change happens in the end of the solo. Kalo tengok bar 47, the last two notes (G & A) belong to B minor key, although the key is still in C# minor. It’s actually leading you to B minor key before the change officially happens.

Dalam lagu-lagu in minor key, aku perati memang common to see harmonic minor notes. Harmonic minor scale ni sama macam natural minor, except the 7^th note is increased by a half step (sharp). For example, in A minor scale, the notes are

A B C D E F G A

Harmonic minor plak

A B C D E F G# A.

So dalam lagu ni, part nyanyi dia pakai B minor: B C# D E F# G A B. So the harmonic minor is B C# D E F# G A# B.

Part solo plak C# minor: C# D# E F# G# A B C#. So what’s the harmonic minor? C# D# E F# G# A C C#? Wrong!! The correct answer is C# D# E F# G# A B# C#?

Let’s go back to the piano keys macam yang aku tunjuk sebelum ni.

Between E and F, and between B and C takde black key right? Does that mean there’s no such thing as B#, Cb, E#, Fb? No. B# is simply the enharmonic equivalent of C. Note yang sama, name jek lain. And yes, you’ve guessed it: Cb=B, E#=F, Fb=E. But that doesn’t mean you can just use them to be fancy in any key. You only use it when you need to.

Dalam kes ni, remember that dalam diatonic scale, setiap huruf diguna skali jek per octave. So do dalam C# harmonic minor, since dah ade C#, we can’t use C anymore. It has to be a B#. It sounds exactly the same whether we call it B# or C. But in writing, they should be distinguished. Unfortunately GuitarPro tak recognize B#, Cb, E# and Fb (in fact dalam Guitar Pro setau aku takde option for double sharp or double flat pon). Maybe because most guitar players don’t care about it, but I do dammit. :P

(In the key of A# minor, the harmonic minor is A# B# C# D# E# F# Gx A# (see, ade B#, E#, pastu ade G double sharp lagi).

The Vocal Line/The “Surprise”

First of all, if my performance to substitute the vocal line isn’t good enough and doesn’t give you the idea of “crying”, just know that that’s was actually the emotion that I was trying to convey. Mase record tu aku takde la menangis, but that’s the effect that I’m trying to bring. Dalam kepala aku aku bayangkan the legendary Itzhak Perlman maen theme from Schindler’s List, and how expressive, how sad he made it sound, with his ~$2 million-dollar (or maybe even $7M) Soil Stradivarius violin.

The “surprise” yang aku sebut sebelum ni is just the instrument. So, if it disappoints you, I apologize. :P

I guess many people know me as a guitar player. Biasanya if a guitar player has a second instrument, maybe it’s the piano/keyboard. Some may play drums. Typical instruments for pop rock music.

But my root is actually orchestral music. Dulu mase skola aku main trombone. Kalo tak tau ape tu trombone, it’s the instrument that looks like a paper clip (in fact paper clip is trombone in French).

Tapi mase aku main trombone kat skola dulu, I have to admit I got a little bored. Most of the time, we were responsible for playing chords. Kekadang jek ade melody sket. I’m not sure if that’s typical for trombones.

But aku amik kesempatan try main instrument lain gak. Aku particularly interested in woodwind instruments: clarinet, saxophone etc. Boleh la main sax and clarinet for a few simple piece dulu.

Maybe around 8 years ago, aku beli satu soprano saxophone. It’s just a cheap one. Here it is.

But susah sket nak practice, because it’s pretty loud, mampus neighbor aku mengamok. The problem with woodwind instruments is that the sound can come out from many openings. Tak macam brass instrument (like trombone, trumpet etc) yang bunyi kuar ikut bell dia jek. You can easily mute a brass instrument, by plugging a mute at the bell. Contohnya cam trumpet ni.

Untuk brass instrument, the some mutes are designed to change the timbre of the sound. Some mutes, cam gamba kat atas, are designed to silent the instrument, so boleh main dengan senyap and dengar pakai headphone. You don’t get that for woodwinds.

The only solution is pretty much to cover the whole instrument, camni.

Funny huh? Macam mumia pulak. Mahal plak tu.

So, the logical solution for me is Akai Electronic Wind Instrument.

It’s a wonderful instrument. Like any MIDI controller, dia takde sound sendiri. It only tells your computer what note to play, and how it is played. Kat computer boleh decide what kind of synthesized sound you want. So for this video, aku main sound violin. In fact, the first time aku main instrument ni, aku try main a few lines from the theme from Schindler’s List. I fell in love with this instrument right away.

Actually aku memule plan nak main keyboard, with piano sound for the vocal line and save the EWI for my next project. Dah siap record sket pakai keyboard. But aku tertest main pakai EWI, I simply cannot look back. I can be much more expressive. Kalo keyboard, you press the key, that’s it. Kalo EWI, you play a note, while still holding the note, you can vary the volume and do all kinds of stuff by breath control.

I still have to get used to this instrument though. Aku record tu actually baru sehari lepas aku dapat instrument ni. Like any breath controlled instrument, you have to build up the muscle strength of your cheek, and breathing endurance. And walaupon it’s easier to produce a sound with EWI compared to real wind instrument, I find it challenging to play it without causing any software glitch. If you play a wind instrument live, if you mess up a note, it’s just a note. If you mess up a note on an EWI, as far as I know, you’re pretty much totally screwed.

Another thing with MIDI instrument is that, you can program your sequencer to record and automatically fix your tempo. Benda ni dipanggil Input Quantization. Recording tu boleh ikut tempo tight gile, macam metronome. But for this part aku tak quantized the EWI input, so that it’s more human, more liberated. Well, it’s a sad song, when you’re sad you just want to pour your heart out and you don’t give a damn about tempo. :D

I look forward to spending more sweet time with my EWI. :D It’s actually my lifelong dream to be a part of a hundred-piece professional symphony orchestra. But that’s not gonna happen. At least I can now pretend to be a principal oboist or solo violinist or anything I want, playing along with a synth orchestra. :P

The Warrior

Ha, consistent with my last two videos, part intro kena ade something to set the mood for the song. Since lagu ni pasal pahlawan yang gugur, aku pon dapat idea untuk letak video kawan aku, Shaiful Hakim bersilat.

I met this guy mase kat PPP (now INTEC), sebelum gi US dulu. Actually kitorang memang scheduled to fly to the US. Tapi after 9/11, budak laki tak dapat visa on time. JPA asked if we wanted to switch to UK or France. So kawan aku ni decided to go to France.

I like this guy. He’s very religious, and, well, I’m not so much. But he treated me with respect. He has a very inviting personality and charisma. Dulu kalo aku nampak dia duduk dengan kawan-kawan dia bercerita pasal agama, I’d sit down and join in.

Apparently he became guru silat gayong kat France. Impressive.

The Acoustic Guitar Sound

Kali ni aku record pakai built-in piezoelectric pickup. After spending some time tweaking the EQ and preamp and input channel, I think I’ve found an acceptable sound. At least tak yah deal ngan noise.

Alright, Bean out. Thanks for reading. I hope you learned a thing or two.

Oh wait. I have one more thing to bitch about. Gi tengok article pasal Rex Kamikaze kat Wikipedia Melayu.

Beliau ialah seorang yang kelakar, tetapi serius bila bekerja.

Well I sure am glad to hear that he’s not a ferocious prehistoric beast.

Di masa lapang, T-rex gemar bermain games, seperti play station di rumahnya. Beliau juga seorang internet surfer di masa lapangnya. Beliau bercita-cita untuk membeli kapal selam sendiri, buatan Rusia suatu hari nanti. Ini adalah kerana menurut kata beliau, tidak perlu membayar road tax, insurans, tol dan petrol. Beliau mahu memiliki kapal selam berkuasa nuklear supaya senang untuk beliau pergi membuat show di USA atau di Rusia.Sama-sama kita tunggu apakah impiannya akan tercapai atau tidak.

The first two sentences are completely unnecessary. The rest is sadly funny. Please, somebody fix that.

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Cannot Wait >_<

2010-03-13T21:29:00.001-08:00

Aku plan nak buat “surprise” sket for the video after the incoming one. But I simply cannot wait that long. It is just too perfect for the mood of this video. So for this video, the little “surprise” will be at the chorus.

Lagi satu ni first time aku akan pakai Adobe Premiere instead of Pinnacle Studio untuk edit video. Not sure yet if I know how to use it.

Tab baru!!

2010-03-06T18:40:00.001-08:00

Yay, tab baru dah siap. This is a complete tab, from start to finish. The song sounds quite simple actually, but as usual, I’m not too happy with what I found online, so buat sendiri. I’ll discuss more about this later. Actually tab lagu ni aku buat first time on July 22 2003. Aku buat intro and a few bars more, pastu stop. Malas punya pasal. :D

Now it’s time to actually try playing it and prepare to come out with a video for it. Ramai dah orang buat video main lagu ni. Well I’m not trying to compete with anybody. My purpose is simply to promote the tab. Bile main lagu ni or any song for that matter, there’s no need to copy the original note by note. But bile buat tab, I strive to make it so close to the original as I possibly can. When you use the tab, you can build your own touch from it. So in my video, I pretty much have to try to copy the original the best I can, so that people would immediately know that I’m playing based on (what I hope to be) the best tab available for the song.

Hmm, aku try gak nyanyi. :P But no way, it’s beyond my vocal range, even kalo transpose pon. In fact aku tak suke transpose, since aku nak buat kasi macam original. So I’ll have to figure something out.

The question now is, should I practice until I can play the whole thing perfectly in one shot, or shoot it section by section?

Shooting the whole thing in one shot of course takes more practice, since aku ni cerewet sket, and I’m not that good to begin with (I have much much better ears than hands). But kalo nak tunjuk skil, yeah, do it in one uninterrupted shot. But it’s not my intention. I am a transcriber first, a guitarist second. And since aku ade satu jek camera, with no cameraman, it would be quite boring since the frame will be static for minutes. So aku rasa aku akan record in parts, by section, and switch the camera angle too.

And since takde vocal, aku akan cut a few repeated sections, like, instead of 4 verses, cut it to two. From two bridges, cut into one. I donno yet, we’ll see. Give me a couple of weeks.

Pick Gitar

2010-03-01T01:49:00.001-08:00

Let’s talk pick. Before I begin, let me just say that I am not really recommending any pick. Your right guitar pick is highly dependant on how you play, so it’s a personal choice. This is simply my personal experience.

Sejak memula main gitar lagi, I guess I’ve always been in search for the ultimate guitar pick. Memacam rupa and brand pick aku penah try.

Dulu mase skola siap try pick besi lagi, konon ganas la. Well, I’d say don’t try metal picks, especially kalo main electric guitar. It’s so dirty. The pick dust would accumulate on your pickup magnets. I don’t know why you would want to ruin your guitar like that. Well, maybe these days there are better metallic picks yang tak mudah terhakis bile main, but I’m still gonna be skeptical.

And since zaman sekola, aku prefer Dunlop Gator Grip 2.0mm. Bertaun-taun aku pakai pick tu. I liked it because it’s very stiff. Stiff picks are generally good for speed, since it maintains its shape while you’re picking. Lagi satu aku suke Gator Grip ni sebab dia tak licin. Actually before that aku pakai Dunlop Delrin dulu, but licin so aku tuka. Same shape, different material.

Aku pakai pick tu until aku start main gitar balik a couple of years ago. As much as I liked that Gator Grip, aku rasa cam tebal sangat. It’s not comfortable, not because of the stiffness, but the thickness itself. So aku pon beli la 3 peket lagi, 1.5mm, 1.14mm, 0.96mm. After playing with all of them, I decided that I liked 1.5mm better. It’s stiff enough, but not too thick. Just right.

Lagi satu aku suke Gator Grip 1.5mm ni sebab somehow aku rasa senang sket nak buat pinch harmonics. Sometimes for expressive reasons I like to use a lot of harmonics, not necessarily full pinch harmonics, just semi harmonics.

But there’s one problem with that pick, it’s so tumpul, so it’s not precise enough. So aku pon try la Tortex Pitch Black, and Big Stubby tu. I like them, because they’re sharp, better for fast picking. But the problem with Tortex Pitch Black is that aku rasa cam grip dia tak best. But I really like Big Stubby tu. It has better grip, and the material makes it feel like it’s faster, due to lack of friction at the edge of the pick. I could really tell the difference in speed and precision ngan Big Stubby tu.

But there’s a problem with that one. Cuba tengok gamba ni. Big Stubby ni is not really flat, it has a dimple. The dimple is too high for my taste. The dimple tends to make my fingers grip the pick at that spot. Masalahnya, you should hold your pick as close as possible to the bottom. It’s more precise that way, and it’s easier to get good pinch harmonics. Dalam video Srikandi Cintaku tu, actually solo part tengah tu aku pakai Big Stubby, since aku prefer pakai pick ni for fast picking. But solo part ending tu actually aku pakai Gator Grip 1.5mm, since it’s more reliable to get the pinch harmonics.

And then tak puas hati, aku gi cari pick lagi. Aku try Tortex Sharp plak, since pick ni takde dimple. Bad idea, it’s way too sharp, it’s uncomfortable to me.

Cari lagi, aku jumpe Jazz III plak. I like it a lot. It has what I need. Pretty much the same shape as Tortex Pitch Black, but with better grip. So this is right now my primary pick. Sharp but not too sharp, stiff, good grip, flat, just how I like it. Video Another You part electric guitar tu first video yang aku pakai Jazz III. It helps keeping it clean and fast.

Gamba kat bawah ni pick yang aku ade skrg, not everything I’ve ever tried. That would be way too many.

Bile main acoustic guitar plak, aku try gak pakai thumb pick. Dua jenis aku beli. It didn’t take too long for me to be comfortable with it. But I don’t think I like the sound too much. It makes the bass too bright. Taylor guitar aku sounds bright enough as it is. Although dalam video Another You tu aku pakai gak for the 2nd guitar part. I didn’t use it for the bass though, just for the fast phrase. But for the songs yang aku suka main, generally I won’t use thumb pick. Nak tengok good example of thumb pick usage, see Maneli Jamal. That guy is freaking amazing!!

And lagi satu aku pakai Dunlop Nylon Standard 0.46mm for acoustic guitar, mostly for strumming chords. It’s really soft, I like to use a soft pick to strum chords. To me it makes the sound of each string blend together much better. Pick keras makes it, again, a little too bright.

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I’m pretty happy with the Jazz III (I bought cap Eric Johnson sebab color dia merah, since aku dah banyak pick hitam. The regular black Jazz III should perform the same way). But in the future maybe aku akan try Jazz III XL plak. XL ni yang size besar punya.

Well, kat Amerika Syarikat ni pick murah, so biasanya dia jual sepeket 10 or something like that, which is a good thing if you already know what you want. But not so much if you want to try many different picks. Seinggat aku kat Malaysia boleh beli pick satu-satu. So take advantage of that. Try as many as you can and to find the best one for your taste.

And aku still pakai pick-pick lain yang aku ade when I want the subtle tone quality that the pick offers. In fact for my next video, aku probably takkan pakai Jazz III. The solo is not fast, so not too demanding when it comes to precision. I’ll have the freedom to choose what I want to use for the tone and dynamic control.

TAB: Another You – Cromok (Tab Revision 2 - Latest)

2010-02-15T22:56:00.001-08:00

(updated)

The final version of the tab is ~~not~~ ~~yet~~ now ready.

~~I’ll post it here when it’s ready. Tak cukup mase nak buat sume in two weeks.~~

It’s 11:48 pm Pacific Time – I met my own deadline. :D
So ni la yang aku buat since dua minggu lepas. ~~I will write lengthy comments regarding this video and the new revision of the tab. You may find some information useful. Check back later.~~
_________________________________________________________________________
So here’s the write-up. Some are educational that you may find useful, some are reminders for my future stuff, and some are simply for my personal kenang-kenangan.
This is gonna be looooooooong. Aku letak pasal tab dulu, so takyah scroll down if you’re not interested in everything else.

New Tab Version

Get the tab here

Electric Guitar Solos

For this version, aku tab the intro all over again from scratch. The reason is first of all, kalo playback the tab, the intro is not as close as I want compared to the original recording. It doesn’t matter much to me. Timing bagi aku tak penting untuk intro, as long as the notes are accurate. But since some people may use that to judge my tab without knowing what it involves, and since I can make it better, I did it. (I’m obsessed about detail, remember?) Lagi satu sebabnya is that now that I have better equipment (better headphones at least), and better ear and knowledge, I thought I should give it another close look and fix some notes. Also, sebelum ni aku tak amik berat sangat pasal intro, aku focused more on the acoustic parts. This time I thought I should give it more attention.

In previous versions, intro dia punya tempo aku fixed at 70bpm. Well, since part ni takde tempo, the playback wouldn’t be close enough to the original. But rhythm-wise, it’s clearer that way. Long notes appear long in writing.

For this version, aku buat some thorough analysis of the timing, and aku ended up pakai variable tempo (in fact some measure has two or more tempo). That way the playback is closer to the original, while keeping the score neat. But if you know how to read music (at least rhythm notation), it may be slightly confusing, since one note in a measure isn’t as long as the same note value in another measure. GP5 is also better at handling tempo changes compared to GP4 or GP3, so I can do this now.

The notes in previous versions were more like how I used to play it rather than the original. But in this version, aku memang tulis ape yang aku dapat tangkap. Aku still main some phrases differently, just because I’m more comfortable with it. But when it comes to writing it down, it’s my best guess of how Karl played it. For example, katakanla la aku dengar 3 notes sound cam legato together, it implies that he may have played it on the same string. So even though aku prefer tuka tali to play one of the notes, I’d still write it down as one string, in the spirit of being faithful to the original. Here’s an example:

Acoustic Guitar parts

Sebelum ni aku tak penah try main lagu ni entirely. Mase aku buat tab ni dulu, the purpose was to give people a good reference. Since aku takde acoustic guitar, I didn’t see a point of spending time learning it myself. I just tabbed what I heard.

But after some time, lepas main lagu ni based on what I wrote, I thought that some things should be changed to make it a little easier. Well, the song is not that easy, but a few things would help making it more manageable.

The changes on acoustic guitar parts are very minor. Kalo tak compare side susah nak nampak beza dia. Aku tak try pon checking every note with the recording again. I trust my old work, plus, it’s very time consuming.

Oh since GP5 has improved a little bit, aku fixed the grace notes. Otherwise they got played “before the beat”, I want it “on the beat”.

Video

First off, it wasn’t raining when I recorded. In fact, for lighting purposes, aku record time malam. But I thought the rain the week before was appropriate for the song mood. And bile aku mix part intro tu, it just occurred to me that some lightning noise in the background is cool (probably because of the noise my neighbor was making mase aku playback the intro). So I put the subtle lightning sound effects (kat region ni jarang guruh/petir actually). Pikir-pikir balik terasa cam intro lagu Taman Rashidah Utama plak. (Maybe I should do that song later).

The lighting was low in the video. Memang aku plan to make it that way. It’s a sad song, the video should project the mood. Tapi problem aku is that bile aku punya light low, it’s hard to get the right color balance (in fact video lain pon had that problem even with a lot of light). My skin looked a little too pale and lifeless.

Aku actually nak video tu to be a little more yellow and brown, like this picture that I took many years ago out of boredom. (Note to self: Make use of video color adjustment plug-ins in the future). But I couldn’t do it, not enough time.

(Note to self: next time when colors matter, cover the blinking blue light of the desktop tower when taping. It’s harder to do it when editing.)

Personal Stuff

This video is very personal to me. The choice of release date has a personal significance (no, not the Valentine’s Day, well, at least it has very little to do with it).

Many things in the video, in the background and foreground have their significance. Even minyak wangi yang aku pakai pon ade significance nye. I will not discuss what and why of everything any further here.

The only thing I would discuss here is the shirt yang aku pakai time main part acoustic tu. A few of you may have seen it before. Remember it? Here.

That’s from the video of me demonstrating how certain part of the 2nd acoustic guitar should be played. Aku post video tu around the time aku released the 1st revision, in 2003. It’s available in the GSHBB Materials page (but don’t watch it, I spoke bad English at the time). :P

Tu baju abah aku actually. He died when I was in Form 5, around this time 10 years ago. At the time we didn’t have much money, and since aku punya baju pon tak banyak yang muat lagi, I ended up inheriting some of his clothes. This was my favorite one, it’s comfy.

Performance

Kalo compare ngan original recording, it’s obvious that I was playing this song at a slower tempo, especially part acoustic tu. For the record, I have no problem with the tempo in the original recording. It’s a good recording. But bile main lagu ni, I tend to prefer a slightly slower tempo. I personally think that I could be more expressive at slower tempo, so every note has more say. This is a very emotional song, and I wanted to do this the way I feel.

For previous videos, aku buat backing track pakai computer dulu. The tempo is usually fixed, and I just played along for the whole thing. But for this one, aku record part 1st Acoustic Guitar dulu, which dictates the tempo of the whole recording (that’s why aku tak pakai headphone mase main part ni). Naturally, the tempo varies slightly throughout the song.

Lepas record part tu, aku pakai Cakewalk punya transient view and manually set the tempo of each measure. That way bile aku masukkan background chords (synth track), every chord will be on time. So katakanla la for two bars (measures) aku main laju sket, the synth chords will follow it accurately. Here’s the tempo map. See, it fluctuates almost every bar.

For 2nd acoustic guitar part aku pakai thumb pick (that yellow one). That makes it easier to play the fast phrases.

Electric guitar sound plak is still pretty much the same sound, except aku tweak sket compressor to make it cleaner, better for fast phrases. The problem is it kills sustain too. I’m not sure yet how to keep the sound clean and still maintain the sustain.

Part last tu, lepas solo tu aku hembus nafas kat mic mase record background track. Ala-ala Sudirman dalam lagu Merisik Khabar la kononnya. :P

Audio Recording and Processing

Ni first time aku record gitar acoustic, and the first video with my new guitar. :D
Wow, it’s so much harder than I thought. Just to give you the idea, ni schedule aku. In pencil is the original plan, and in red pen is what it ended up to be. Yes, aku siap buat schedule lagi. I knew this was gonna take a lot of effort, and time was very limited, and I really wanted to meet my deadline.

Memula aku plan to spend just one day (Feb 5th) figuring out the best setup for recording. Haram tak siap. I know that using the guitar’s built-in pickup isn’t the best option for recording, but that was the only option I had.

So I was hoping to get a decent sound out of the pickup. Aku try tweaking GearBox (Line6 bundled amp and effects modeling that I’ve been using all this time), aku try pakai GuitarRig, and Amplitube. Well, I couldn’t get the sound I wanted. Gitar Taylor 114CE aku ni equipped with ES-T pickup system, which is a single under-saddle Piezoelectric type pickup system. It’s not that great I think, the sound is, well, not real enough. The guitar sounds so much better in reality than what the pickup can capture. I guess Taylor Expression System, which comes with more expensive models are probably much better. It’s a more complex system.

So yeah, that pickup doesn’t reproduce the high frequencies well enough for my taste, the “boominess” of the guitar is lost, and I also found it hard to control the dynamics. Aku memang tak leh nak figure out cammana nak dapat sound yang aku boleh terima pakai pickup jek. Aku try gak combine ngan sound dari dynamic mic aku (yang color hitam yang aku pakai untuk nyanyi in previous video). It sounded better actually. So menjelang Tuesday Feb 9th, aku gave up. Aku decided kena pakai condenser mic jugak. So aku gi kedai music nearby and bought a cheap condenser mic. The thing about mics is that if you don’t like it, you’ll have to live with it. You can’t return it (in the US, you can return most things for a full refund). Mic yang aku berkenan takde jual kat kedua-dua kedai kat umah aku. Since I didn’t have time to buy online, I had to get what I can get. :(

The sound is sooo much better with a condenser, although it’s a cheap one (high-end condenser mics can be tens of thousands USD each). What you hear in the video is still not how the guitar really sounds like, but it’s ok. But problem nye dengan condenser ni is that it’s so sensitive, it picks up a lot of ambient noise. You can hear the hiss in the video. I could clean it up by playing with parametric EQ, but that would end up getting rid of some frequency of the guitar sound that I wanna keep. So I decided not to do any noise reduction.

And since aku nak reduce sket background noise, aku terpaksa turned off heater rumah aku and use my laptop, sebab kipas desktop aku is loud enough for the mic.

Lagi satu challenge recording acoustic guitar ni is the dynamic (we’re talking about range of loudness here). Acoustic guitar is a very dynamic instrument. Main lagu ni dynamics kena bagus. Kalo every single note punye volume sama jek, it would sound lifeless, boring as hell. When recording acoustic guitar (or any instrument for that matter), you wanna make sure that the loudest note you play is as close as possible to the 0db mark, that way you don’t have to do so much to increase the volume later, otherwise you’ll end up increasing the volume of the noise too much as well. (Note to self: Don’t play soft notes too soft next time).

But I was still having problems with dynamics. I played some notes a little too soft to be heard. When doing the final mixing, I tried increasing the volume (using compressor and limiter) as high as possible without touching the 0db. But dalam video tu, especially part ending solo, you can still hear slight clipping noise (clipping noise ni macam bunyi pecah). I was actually tweaking this until the hour before the video was uploaded. Somehow after exporting the video (which still took about 20 minutes each time with a fast machine), the clipping noise became more apparent.

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Ok, this is getting too long, I should stop here. If you’ve read the whole thing, give yourself a pat on the back. I used to hate writing, but now I have a problem of going on and on and on. But in my defense, this one took a lot of effort, a lot of sleep loss, a week of eating the same thing for lunch and dinner. So it deserves more comments than usual. :D

After working so hard on this and the last video, I’m taking a break and work on something new. Don’t expect any new tab or video for another month at least.

Cromok

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

TAB: Another You – Cromok (Tab Revision 2 - Latest)

2010-02-14T23:48:00.001-08:00

see the above post.

Ermm..

2010-02-07T19:16:00.001-08:00

(yet another update)
Finally got the sound that is acceptable. Not great, but acceptable. Now it's time to record. >_< I'm 1 week behind schedule, and only have a couple more days to finish everything.

The past couple of weeks have been.... well... emotionally "interesting". I guess it's an appropriate mood for this new video.
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(update)

>_< currently stressing out on something. I don't know what the hell I'm doing or if I can even pull it off in time.
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…currenly very busy trying to prepare some stuff to be released next weekend. Limited time, limited equipment… this is gonna be tough. >_<
And this song also requires me to be in the right mood.

TAB: Akan Ku Tunggu - Candy

2010-01-31T18:22:00.001-08:00

Kepada sesiapa yang telah menunggu, I hope this doesn’t disappoint you. :P I don’t care if you like this song or not, I like it. :D

It’s a fun song, written in the key of E Major. Major key, the fun key.

Aku buat tab ni about a year ago. Aku memang nak buat video ni, but I never finished it. I did record like 3/4 of it, only to abandon it. Sebabnya the sound didn’t come out as I like it. And I was also too busy with work.

And this was inspired by Kyoji Yamamoto’s instrumental version of Ella’s song, Itulah Saya. Aku first dengar lagu tu dalam CD Mentera Metal, many years ago. Check this out:

(don’t ask me where to find the complete mp3. Just google it.)

The first half is Ella singing the vocal. The second half is Kyoji soloing on the vocal part.

Isn’t it awesome? So expressive, so fun to listen to. And the cool thing is that the instrumental version doesn’t follow the original vocal too strictly. That’s what my problem is. I’ve listen to the Candy recording too much, I can’t help but to end up following it a little too much. But I did try to spice it up a little. But it’s by no means as good as Kyoji’s.

About the mix, aku tak tau la sound dia ok ke tak bile korang dengar. Aku dengar pakai flat response headphone aku ok gak. But kalo pakai earphone cam celake sket. I donno, I don’t care. Like I said, I’m not gonna be too obsessed about it. Otherwise I won’t release anything, just like what happened before.
The materials (tab, backing track etc) are posted here:

Oh by the way, dalam video ni ade acting sket. Just a little, for fun. :P This was actually recorded backward. Aku record part last skali dulu, because rambut aku masih panjang, and ade misai ngan janggut sket (it’s not very clear in the video, I thought it was gonna be clearer). And then part solo takde jangut. And so on until the beginning. Konon tunggu sampai berjanggut la kan. :P
And part beginning tu konon-konon termenung menunggu pacar yang tiada di rumah (like I have one). :P Works for both songs (Akan Ku Tunggu and Yang Penting Happy). :D

Forgot to mention. Part intro tu aku main lain sket dari yang dalam tab. The reason is only during mixing process aku perasan original recording main lain dari yang aku main. Eh it still works.
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Mase SUKOM ‘98 aku form 3. Mase tu along with other Sekolah Alam Shah band members were part of SUKOM marching band (aku main Trombone). It was such an awesome experience. Yeah the band sucked. I mean having like 300 players from like 5 school and giving them one year to practice together didn’t make a goddamn sense. But it’s cool not having to go to school for a week every two months or so, and hung out in Paroi (for practice) and then at Bukit Jalil during the game.

Mase kat Bukit Jalil, aku gi gak funfair dekat situ. One night I think it was OAG who performed. They sucked, at least at that time. Buang karen jek gi funfair tengok dorang. The next night, aku tengah lepak isap rokok ngan kawan aku, and we decided not to go to the funfair, but listened from outside. And it happened that Candy was performing.
One of the songs they performed was a Metallica’s song, Sad But True. My God Candy can play live, and heavy. I had a lot of respect for them from then on.
I still not sure why they call themselves Candy.

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Cool stuff

2010-01-27T17:21:00.001-08:00

Like I said, I’ve finished recording for my new video (for the most part). And skrg tengah sibuk editing and mixing. And since lagu ni a little bit more “metal” than yang aku buat sebelum ni, I find it a little challenging to make the sound of the mix acceptable enough.

And in my attempt to learn how to position the tracks properly, I came across this website. Apparently he’s a professional audio technician (sorry, I don’t just call anybody “engineer”). He has a bunch of interesting articles, for newbies like me. And it’s presented in easy to understand language, in casual manner. I like it. So kalo korang nak blaja basics pasal sound editing, check out that website.

Aku dah guna Cakewalk dari zaman Cakewalk ProAudio lagi, but I never cared to learn about how to mix music, how to fill the frequency spectrum properly, how to use parametric EQ correctly, and all kinds of cool stuff that we don’t know about or take for granted when listening to popular music. There’s no way I can learn them all by this weekend and come out with an expertly tweaked mix. But to prevent from being overly obsessed about it and end up not releasing anything (like I tend to be in the past), I’ll just impose my own deadline.

Oh by the way, don’t be scared by the pictures of his gears. You should be able to produce a good mix by relying on the DAW alone, without having to spend thousands on mixers and control boards and stuff, thanks to modern computing technology.

Mari Merapu Bersama Bean

2010-01-19T18:25:00.001-08:00

I'm so happy. I keep playing G major chord, just to hear how beautiful each string sound together. Taylor + Elixir strings = tone heaven. me so happy!! :D
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~~>_< aargh!!!!!! Aku sungguh tensi!!!~~
~~No, nothing happened. Aku tengah tunggu Taylor aku. It’s taking forever!!!~~ Taylor is made in California, less than 2 hours from where I live actually. Tapi disebabkan aku beli dari orang Ohio, it has too travel a few thousand miles before it gets to me. :(
Once I get it, the first song yang aku akan main is If I Laugh, by Cat Stevens. Not his most famous song, maybe not famous at all. But I love the lyrics. And I have a personal reason to play the song.
The song is from one of his best albums, Teaser and the Firecat. It is a freaking AMAZING album.

This is the album that contains 4 of his most famous classics: The Wind, Morning Has Broken, Moonshadow and Peace Train. Well this is an album in which pretty much all songs are really good. But my personal favorite is actually How Can I Tell You. It really feels like it comes from the heart. Good music doesn’t necessarily have to have fast licks, crazy solos, a billion notes per second. Good music to me is something that touches you, that moves you, no matter how simple it may appear.
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Aku still tak sure cammana nak record my next video. Backing track dia aku tak leh rely on synth chords, it won’t work for this song. So background kena pakai gitar gak, and the challenge here is cammana nak mix sound tu kasi tak denga cam tak full, macam tak fat. I guess I have to play with parametric EQ.
But I’ve thought about the concept. Yes, there is a concept. The video is intended to be like a music video a little bit. The guitar will be recorded live. But there may be some “acting” involved, to make it a little interesting. :P Yes, I am gonna make a fool out of myself in this one.

Mari Belajar Teori

2010-01-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Note: Actually aku plan nak post ni dulu before aku discuss pasal key. I wrote this at work but forgot to bring it home during the weekend.

Aku rasa ramai antara kita yang tak tau langsung pasal teori muzik. Memang common orang main gitar tapi tak tau teori. Maybe because a lot of people just want to learn how to play a song, not the things that make the song work.

Some people think that learning theory hurts their creativity. Aku ingat lagi a few years back aku baca pasal guitarist in ROTTW, nama dia Aru kot, from the band Koffin Cancer. Dia kate dia tak tau langsung pasal theory, because dia tanak terikat dengan theory in his work. He’s most likely a better guitarist than I am, but I think he’s wrong.

Learning theory doesn’t hurt your creativity, unless you use it incorrectly. Music theory is pretty much the study of what normally works, ape yang manusia usually suke dengar. It’s not intended to set the limit of what you should and shouldn’t do in your composition. If you want to solo in F# Major scale when the key of your chords is in C Major, do it. It’s your composition, it’s your right to do whatever you want to do. It may not sound good, but it’s your call. Your notes will sound out of place, but if that’s what you intend, who’s to say you’re wrong? But music theory would tell you that soloing in C major scale over C major key would make your solo feel like it belongs to the key, that it’s not out of place.

There are many legendary guitarists and other musicians that don’t know jack about theory. Hendrix for example. Would it make him less great if he knew theory? I doubt it, unless he devoted all his time learning theory instead of developing his creativity. And you can be a wonderful singer without knowing how to read music. But would it make you less of a singer if you know? No.

Point aku ialah jangan takut dengan theory. It’s knowledge, not law. Knowing more doesn’t hurt. It won’t automatically make you a great guitarist, but it will make you’re a more complete musician. Take your time learning it. I’ve been learning it for many years and I’m still learning it. I’ll do what I can to share what I know, and maybe learn from you too in the process.

Ape aku tengah buat

2010-01-10T18:43:00.001-08:00

I have a tab that I completed almost a year ago, but tak penah release. It’s a complete tab, not just the solo. I like the song, it’s fun. Well the lyrics may be cheesy, but it’s a fun song. :D Aku rediscover lagu ni mase pegi roadtrip ngan kengkawan menjelajah US west coast. I got hooked ever since.

But the question is how I should present it in such a way that makes you like the song too, if you don’t already like it. We’ll see.

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I’m also hunting for an acoustic guitar, cap Taylor. Probably not a 214CE. It’s too expensive. I’m going for 114CE. It’s a bit cheaper, but aku try kat kedai, the sound is good enough for my taste. And aku suke low-end Taylor sebab finish dia simple. Somehow I like an acoustic guitar that doesn’t look too fancy. I don’t like a shiny acoustic guitar, for some reasons.

So a 114CE ni list price dia without a hardcase is $1,178 (~RM3900). Kalau kat Guitar Center dekat umah aku, $900 (~RM3000). Still more than what I’m willing to pay. Don’t get me wrong. The guitar in my opinion is really worth the price. But aku kedekut sket. :P So I’m gonna be hunting for a bargain on this guitar.

__________________________________

Next week I’ll be going back to school. Just part time, for fun. Aku plan nak amik class Philosophy ngan Music at a nearby community college.

Why Philosophy? Because I like thinking. Because it’s helpful for my intellect. So first class yang aku akan amik is Critical Thinking. It’s my favorite subject, I’ve been reading about it quite a bit. Now I just want to have a formal education on the subject. It’s a fascinating subject. I think everyone should learn it. In it you’ll learn what makes sense what don’t. It teaches you how to think clearly, how to detect nonsense in what people say, how to form sound arguments. The world is full of bullshit, and politicians especially love to bullshit, and a lot of people buy it. Well, I guess we are not naturally logical beings, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

I like Socrates, but not as much as I like my fictional heroes, Lt. Cmdr. Data and Captain Jean Luc Picard. :D I don’t watch Star Trek for cool special effects or fight scenes, I watch it for its philosophical values, for the thought provoking issues the crews deal with.

Music class pulak aku just amik fundamental of music. I’m just using this opportunity to have a formal education on music, and see if I missed anything from my own reading about the subject.

None of these would make me more money. Instead of doing this, I could be doing my masters in engineering, or get my Professional Engineer license. But I do it because I believe it will make me a more complete human being. I just want to learn for the sake of learning the subjects, diversify my knowledge, to be good in many tihngs. And this time takde pressure macam mase aku amik degree dulu.

Teori: Kekunci (Key)

2010-01-09T19:59:00.001-08:00

Ok, cam yang aku sebut sebelum ni, cari key satu lagu tu adalah step paling awal aku buat. Knowledge of the key is extremely important and useful. So here’s a short lesson about Key, untuk sape yang tak tau. But don’t expect to learn everything there is to know about key from this article.

So ape itu Key? There’s a lot of ways to describe it. But to me, key ni cam background lagu tu. It’s something that unites the notes in the song. It’s like a home to it.

Satu lagu tak semestinya ade satu key jek. But usually, when the key changes, you can feel it. Here’s an example, lagu C.I.N.T.A dari XPDC album Darjah Satu (yes, I had that album :P). Mase lagu tu start, key dia E minor (G Major), pastu bile kat 0:23, key dia tukar jadi F# minor (A Major). Pastu kat 0:45 tuka jadi G minor (B♭ Major) pulak. Each time tuka key tu, you can feel like you’re entering a different room, different environment.

Another example that I like to use is Carole Kings' Tapestry (probably not what you guys listen to, but she’s an amazing songwriter). Key dia ditukar at 1:18 and 1:32 (and maybe other places too).

So, meh blaja sket pasal key.

Chromatic Scale

Dalam popular western music punya theory, ade satu scale yang paling basic, yang dipanggil Chromatic Scale. Chromatic scale ni adalah scale yang mengandungi semua note. Amik gitar ko, and petik open A string (5th string). Now main 1st fret of that string plak. That’s A#/Bb. And then main 2nd fret of the string. That’s B. Do it until you reach the 11th fret, which is a G#/Ab. You have played one octave of chromatic scale. Kalo ko main fret ke 12 pulak, that’s gonna be A again, one octave higher than open string A, not note H.

Note-note dalam chromatic scale ni distance dia ialah one semitone (or half tone) from the next note. Jarak dia dalam gitar ialah satu fret.

Kalo ko peratikan, between B & C, and between E & F, takde # (sharp) or ♭ (flat) (note: only in a few keys jek ade C♭, F♭ and E#). That’s just how it is. Dalam gitar tak jelas sangat. Kat piano/keyboard jelas sket. See the following.

Major Scale

Ok, after chromatic scale, the next scale you need to know is the Major scale. Major scale ni formula dia W-W-H-W-W-W-H. W tu maksud dia whole, one whole tone (2 fret), and H plak half.

So, ikut formula tu, try buat C Major scale. Start on the 3rd fret of the 5th string. Jawapannya di bawah kalo malas (jangan malas!!).

It turned out that C Major scale ni takde note dia yang sharp or flat. And Major scale ni, whatever Major scale it is, sounds like the familiar Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do melody. And kalo bace C Major scale ni dari note kedua jadi nama kumpulan Def-Gab-C (you don’t need to remember that).

Now try buat G Major scale plak (start dari fret ke 3 on the 6th string).

Ape note dia?

G-A-B-C-D-E-F#. Kenapa F#, bukan Gb?

Walaupon F# ngan Gb ni benda yang sama, satu huruf tu boleh sebut skali jek dalam scale tu. So kalau dah ade G, tak leh ade Gb. And since takde F lagi, we use F#.

How about F major scale plak.

F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E.

Kenapa Bb, tak A#? You know the answer.

Minor Scale

Minor scale ni, or relative minor ni ialah note ke 6 dalam Major scale tu. So kalau C Major scale, note ke 6 dia adalah note A. So C Major scale ngan A minor scale have the same notes.

The relative minor of G Major scale plak ialah E minor scale. And so on.

Key

So kalau lagu tu note dia mostly in a specific major/minor scale, we can assume yang key dia adalah scale tu. Contohnya cam lagu Srikandi Cintaku tu.

“Dingin malam tirai kenangan ku”

Note yang dia nyanyikan ialah B, low G, B, high G, high G, F#, E, D, C, B.

Part “dingin malam” tu note dia B, G, B, G. It can be C Major scale, G Major scale, or D Major scale.

But masuk part “tirai kenangan ku” tu ade note G, F#, E, D, C. Most probably not C Major sebab ade F#, and most probably not D Major sebab ade C. So it’s most likely a G Major (E minor) key.

Triads

Setiap key ade chords yang semua note dia belongs to the key. Contohnya C Major key.

Semua note dalam C Major, D minor, E minor, F Major, G Major, A minor and B diminished chords ade dalam key C Major. Those are the basic triads, basic chords dalam key tu. Gi tengok table ni.

Now berbalik kepada lagu Srikandi Cintaku tu. Cam dalam video tu, aku cakap key dia G Major/E minor. And aku cakap chords yang possible dalam lagu ni ialah G Major, A minor, B minor, C Major, D Major, E minor. Yang aku tak sebut ialah F# diminished. Sebabnye chord ni jarang dipakai. So, kalo korang tengok table tu tadi, you’ll see chords yang aku sebutkan under G Major key or E minor key.

And kalo tengok balik kat chords lagu tu yang aku post, you’ll see that most of the chords belong to G Major/E minor key.

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So that’s the basic of keys, particularly untuk belajar lagu by ear. If you wanna learn more about keys (you should), google it.

Tip: Aku rasa kebanyakan lagu-lagu rock Melayu zaman 80-90an ni ditulis dalam key C Major (A minor), G Major (E minor), atau F Major (D minor).

TAB: Srikandi Cintaku – Bloodshed

2010-01-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

Another masterpiece by M. Nasir. To me this song is beautifully written. It has good melody, and very artistic lyrics. The man deserves datukship for his body of work in my opinion.

Like I said, this is much faster than I anticipated. Next time it’s not gonna be this fast. Maybe at least a month after now baru aku come out with something new.
So ni tab dia untuk part middle solo ngan ending solo.

Part yang aku paling suke dalam tab ni is actually the Pizzicato Violins. :D It’s… well… cute. :P Pizzicato ni maksud dia “plucked”. So kalau pemain violin, viola, cello or double bass bace score dia ade tulis pizzicato, dia akan petik tali tu instead of using the bow.
And here’s the synthesized backing track. And as a bonus, backing track ni takde nyanyian aku cam dalam video tu. :P

Just so you know, GP tab tu tempo dia aku tulis 73bpm. But backing track ni 72.5bpm, close to the original recording. Not that different, but I thought you should know.
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So, mase aku first cari chords lagu ni, aku try la cari part verse dia. And then baru teringat, I haven’t checked what other people share online. Aku usha-usha, satu jek yang aku jumpe yang pada aku boleh diterima. It’s done by syukur_007. So rather than reinvent the wheel, might as well use that one. So I give it my seal of approval. But since aku tak setuju 100% with the chords yang dia share, I made some changes. That’s what you should do too, decide for yourself what works. Here’s my revision.

Please note that kalo M. Nasir, the man himself in his own recording did it in A minor key. So kalau play along ngan M. Nasir punya version, transpose everything to A minor key.
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And if you ever wonder why it’s taking me so much time to come out with a short tab and other materials, and the fact that I don’t produce full tabs/backing tracks, here’s why.

As usual, left channel is the original recording, right channel is my synth version. Lagi bagus kalo dengar pakai headphones.
As you can hear for yourself, it’s pretty damn close to the original recording. There’s no software that can automatically convert the original recording to the materials (tabs, backing tracks etc) that I produce. Everything had to be rewritten manually. And aku ni obsessed sket pasal making it as close as possible to the original. That’s why part middle solo tu aku siap tulis balik the pizzicato violins.
And normally bile aku buat tab, there are at least two things yang aku memang akan try copy the original note by note: Guitar and Drums, since they are among the easiest instruments to hear. But for this particular work, I gave the bass guitar a little more than I’d normally do.
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Video bawah ni aku share tip yang aku rasa paling penting untuk cari lagu. Maybe later aku akan tulis sket pasal basic berkenaan dengan key untuk sesape yang tak tau.

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

What is GSHBB all about?

2010-01-03T04:19:00.001-08:00

Honestly, I didn’t have a clear purpose for GSHBB when I launched it a couple of weeks ago, and I still don’t. Entahlah, maybe sebab aku tanak kena confined by anything. But here are some of the reasons why I’m doing this. The list may grow or shrink in the future.

An outlet for my tabs/transcriptions/arrangements – until aku ade buat beberapa tab yang aku tak pernah release. And it would be a waste if I don’t share it with anyone else.
Help improve the quality of Malay tabs/transcriptions – tab lagu-lagu Melayu ni susah nak jumpe yang berquality. By quality I mean that it’s as faithful as humanly possible to the original recording, and written in musically correct notations.
Tribute to the 80’s/90’s Malaysian rock scene – it’s true that most of those “rockers” have excessively flamboyant sense of fashion that don’t actually reflect their music. It’s true that their band sometimes have silly names. It’s true that most of them don’t compose their own music. It’s true that some of them secretly hire session guitarists for their recording. But it is part of my childhood, I grew up with it. So I embrace it, and I’m sure many people still do. Nama GSHBB yang poyo gile ni pon is inspired by this genre of music. :P
Share my knowledge – on the scale of 1 to 10 (10 being guitar grand master), I’d give myself maybe a 2, or 3 the most. I don’t consider myself a good player yet. I still have a lot to learn. But sejak professor engineering aku mase U dulu kasi aku ajar student dia for a semester, I knew that I love teaching. So aku nak share ape yang aku tau to other newbies. I’ve been playing for over 13 years now, but I’m not as good as I should be. Tapi aku akan share ape yang aku harap aku tau mase aku memula start dulu. And I’ll share some tips for learning songs by ear too. Hopefully that in some ways will contribute to properly transcribed tabs for Malay songs. I cannot make you a great guitarist. This is not intended to be your only source of learning guitar. But maybe it can be one of your many sources of knowledge.
I love guitar solos – aku ni sejak dulu lagi memang mostly bedroom guitarist jek. Guitar solo is a section of a song where a guitarist showcases his skills. Aku suke main gitar solo lagu-lagu kegemaran aku, pretending I’m a guitar hero in front of imaginary audience (by playing a real guitar, not the 5-button game controller). And transcribing other people’s solos is one way for me to learn what make their solos work from theoretical standpoint, so that it may help me improve my skills and knowledge in improvising.

Upcoming Work: TBA

2010-01-01T02:45:00.001-08:00

Hopefully by Monday aku akan release another partial tab, chords, backing tracks and video just like last time. Tah cammana tah tetiba kali ni aku siapkan tab tu ngan cepat la plak. Usually I’d prefer to take my sweet time doing it.

Again, I’m just gonna tab the solo, and give you the chords to mess around with. But I like this solo. It’s relatively simple, long, (total of about 2 minutes kot), and I think the song is pretty memorable too. Lagi satu mase aku memula belajar lagu ni aritu, aku ade record short video of the first step to do when learning the song by ear. Maybe you’ll find that useful too.

Q&A: Strings

2010-01-01T02:44:00.001-08:00

Q: brader! need ur advice on strings..

A: The short answer would be whatever works for you.

Sejak aku memula main gitar dulu, memacam jenis tali aku dah try. Gibson, Fender, Dean Markley, GHS, D’Addario, Ernie Ball dan macam-macam cap tali aku try.

And seinggat aku, dulu-dulu aku suke pakai tali yang high E dia 0.08 punya. Now I prefer 0.09.

Until now, I personally like this particular one.

Ernie Ball Super Slinky. Yang ni tali dia yang kedua paling halus. Yang paling halus (0.08) is called Extra Slinky. Aku ade gak beli Hybrid Slinky, tapi tak try lagi. Hybrid Slinky first three strings dia sama ngan super slinky, but the other 3 tebal sket. They have many different combinations.

So, my advice would be, try as many strings as you can. Find what works best for you. Tali yang aku pakai ni maybe is not the one that gives me the best tone. But I’m comfortable with it. Tangan aku bukan kuat pon.

And kalo ko dok kat Malaysia, aku tak sure tali ape yang bagus, yang durable. The thing is humidity hurts your strings. Mase aku kat Malaysia dulu kalo tak main beberapa hari jek dah karat. Here in California, I can keep the same set of strings for a long time sebab udara sini kering. Kalau tak main bertaun-taun pon tahan. Many times aku tuka sebab dah tak sedap, not because they break. So, you may want to consider durability gak. In fact, for you guys tali gitar ni quite expensive I think. So you don’t want something that doesn’t last very long. And aku rasa because of the humidity, you have to clean the strings often with rubbing alcohol once in a while.

Lagi satu yang berkaitan ngan string yang aku nak sentuh is kalo gitar tu punya bridge jenis Floyd Rose, kalo ko tukar guage tali tu, you have to readjust the springs at the back of the guitar. Because the tension of the strings will be different, so the springs have to be adjusted to balance it to keep it floating properly. Even kalau temolo biasa pon, you may need to adjust the spring to keep it seating. But kalo Floyd Rose, you definitely have to do it.

And one last thing, bile baru lepas tukar tali, make sure you stretch the strings. Stretch bukan setakat main cam biasa jek. You have to really stretch it, tapi jangan sampai putus la kan. The reason is tali baru memang tak boleh maintain tuning. That’s why bile aku sebut pasal string last time aku cakap aku nak give it a few days before aku sure yang strings aku boleh maintain tuning. Even dah stretch pon it will still take some time for it to maintain the tuning well enough for me to be confident in it.

Cara nak stretch tali tu, first, tune to the correct tuning. Pastu stretch tali tu. Pastu check tuning balik. You’ll see the the tuning will be way off. Retune it. Stretch again, check the tuning again. It will still be off, but most likely not as bad as before. Keep doing it until the tuning converge.

Oh, sorry, that’s not the last thing. Satu lagi, kalau ko punya gitar Floyd Rose bridge, tengok video ni cammana nak tune Floyd Rose dengan mudah. I’m telling you, I’ve had my Floyd Rose bridge for a long time. And I’m a mechanical engineer, I can explain many things about guitar from physics point of view. But I didn’t know about that method until recently. And IT WORKS, I’m not sure how, but it works.

TAB: Sejati - Wings

2009-12-25T05:19:00.001-08:00

After a year of procrastination, here it is, my new video and tab. :D
The video is not perfect. But whatever. Malas aku nak obsessed sangat pasal quality. And hopefully I'll produce something on a monthly basis after this.

Anyway, tab & chords dia korang boleh dapatkan di sini.

Macam yang aku sebut sebelum ni, chord yang aku cari tak sama ngan yang orang lain share online. Chords part Bridge aku nye lain sket. And aku also include intro and solo punya chords.
Kalo tengok chords ngan tab tu, aku tulis dalam key of D minor (F Major). But, aku letak chords G Major, A Major and EbMaj7. Ketiga-tiga chords ni bukan diatonic dalam key ni. G Major is considered as V of V, and A Major is the V of vi. EbMaj7 pulak is borrowed from the adjacent key, the key of G minor (Bb Major). I think this song modulates between the two keys. In fact, kalo tengok solo tu, bar 24, first bend is to the note D. The second bend is to the note Eb, which belongs to the key of G minor.
Anyway, enough with theory. Aku buat tab ni aku tak try dengar pakai RSE. So turn off RSE. RSE sucks.

Here are the backing tracks yang dibuat pakai synth (sounds better than midi). The first one start dari bar 1. The second backing track aku include “caklempong” (caklempong is not a standard tuned percussion, so it’s not easy to copy the sound with synth). The third one aku include original recording sket, but aku buat kasi tak kuat part tu so you can practice your timing. Backing tracks bole dapatkan kat download page tu.

And as mentioned dalam tab tu, kalo nak blaja part awal tu gi tengok video aku. Here are the videos (jangan kedekut 5 bintang!! :D )

I hope you like my work. And as usual, if you learn from it, please credit me in your videos or whatever. :)

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing tracks that I make are for educational purposes only.

Upcoming Work: Sejati (Updated)

2009-12-18T23:23:00.001-08:00

(Update)

Ciss. Aku ingat nak record video weekend ni. Skali tangan sakit la plak. The reason is Isnin lepas aku tuka tali gitar to d'Addario yang tebal sket. Since tak biasa lagi, jadi sakit gile plak tangan aku. So arini aku switch back to Ernie Ball Super Slinky. I guess kena tunggu Christmas break baru bleh record. Just wanna give it a few days until I'm sure the strings can stay in tune.

So for the time being, aku release chords dulu.

This is not exactly the same as the one you find online made by Mr. Syazwan. The first difference is that version aku chords untuk intro and solo are included. Intro and solo are the only places where you see the EbMaj7 chord. Chords part bridge pon aku pakai chord lain.

Another difference is that even though Bb and A# refer to the same thing, there's no such thing as A# in the key of F major/D minor.

D minor = D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C,

not D, E, F, G, A, A#, C.

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Guitar Pro tab Wings lagu Sejati dah siap. For GP tab, aku buat intro ngan goreng jek. Chords for the whole song pon dah cari.

Hopefully in a week aku siapkan video aku main lagu tu plak. Lepas dah release video baru aku akan post the GP tab, chords, mp3 backing track, etc. I’ll post the update later.

For the time being korang boleh usha demo track aku buat.

Dalam track ni korang boleh dengar comparison part intro yang aku buat ngan original recording. Kalo ko pakai headphone lagi bagus. Left channel original recording. Right channel track yang aku buat. Part guitar tu bukan aku yang main, tu computer synth, based on the GP tab.

By the way in the middle korang boleh dengar kedua-dua channel to off sync sket. Well, the original recording was played by human beings.

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Q&A: Gitar-gitar Aku

2009-12-18T21:35:00.001-08:00

Q: bro tu gitar ibanez RG tremolo series kan..

A: No. It’s technically not an RG Tremolo series.

Make:	Ibanez
Model:	Ibanez RG390GXPL
Year:	1998
Origin:	Japan
Finish:	Pearl White
Body Material:	Reasoncast
Neck Joint:	AANJ
Bridge:	TRS101 Tremolo
Pickguard:	White Pearloid
Neck Material:	1-Piece Maple
Neck Type:	Wizard
Fingerboard:	Rosewood
Inlays:	Dots
Frets:	24/Jumbo
Pickup Config.:	HSH
Neck Pickup:	IBZ V7 (stock), DiMarzio Breed (current)
Middle Pickup:	IBZ S1 (stock), DiMarzio Area ‘58 (current)
Bridge Pickup:	IBZ V8 (stock), DiMarzio Evolution (current)

Ibanez 1998 Asia Catalog

This is ~~currently~~ my ~~only~~ guitar. Kalo tak silap aku beli taun 1999 kot. First time aku nampak kat Bentley Music, kat Bukit Bintang. Menyampah gak aku ngan kedai tu. Bile nak try jek mamat kedai tu perati jek. I have to admit, mase aku usha dulu, I just love how it looked. It looked kinda like Steve Vai’s JEM7V, but cheaper.

Since aku menyampah ngan Bentley Music, aku pon gi la ke kedai piano kat Jalan Genting Klang. Aku mintak uncle kedai tu ushakan kat supplier dia bape inggit harga gitar ni. At the end, dia jual ngan aku like RM300 less than Bentley punye harga. I can’t remember how much I paid for it, but it’s over RM1500 kot.

Zaman tu takde lagi Indonesian, Chinese or Korean punya Ibanez. And mase tu takde category RG Prestige, Tremolo, Fixed etc. So aku punya ni made in Japan la. Sekarang kalo nak Japan made punya kena angkut Prestige la. So to answer the question, my guitar does not fall into any of the current RG categories.

One thing that I found about this guitar recently is that it’s quite rare. That’s what a lot of people online said. Of course it’s not “expensive” kinda rare.

Now, since aku dok kat US, dah jadi engineer, I can totally afford a better guitar. But I don’t want a new and better electric guitar yet. I love this RG, it has served me well all these years. In 2008 aku tukar sume pickup gitar ni. The cost was almost half the original cost of the guitar. But it’s worth it.

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~~So far aku takde acoustic guitar lagi. :(~~

Tapi kalo aku nak angkut acoustic guitar, there’s only one brand that I would consider buying: Taylor. I don’t want an Ibanez, Martin & Co., Fender, Ovation, Takamine or whatever. It has to be a Taylor.

~~This is the one I want. Taylor 214CE electro-acoustic guitar. Kat kedai dalam US$800 kot. Well, since economy tak best skrg ni, I don’t feel like spending that much on a guitar yet. Maybe later.~~

But yeah, it has to be a Taylor. No other brand does it for me. The sound is just perfect for my taste. First time aku denga brand ni mase kat university dulu. Mase tu aku amik class Beginning Guitar. Saje nak score A. :P Classmate aku sorang tu annoying gile. Main tak reti, tapi poyo gile. He had a Baby Taylor guitar. Although he sucked, the tone of the guitar itself was just beautiful.

Taylor is not cheap. Their lowest end, the Baby Taylor is US$250. But even their low end model sounds great.

____________________________________________________________________________

(UPDATE)

After more than 10 years without one, I finally have an acoustic guitar. I decided not to buy a 214CE because it would end up being too expensive. So I bought a slightly-used 114CE, with a hardshell case, for the amount I won’t disclose for the time being. I love it. :D

TAB – Nurnilam Sari (Intro)

2009-12-18T20:31:00.001-08:00

Since ramai dah mintak and aku tak kasi-kasi lagi, here’s the tab that I used to make the YouTube video.

Please note that since I did not spend a lot of time on it, I do not consider it as the final version.

Lagi satu, kalo korang blaja main dari tab ni, please credit me. :) Show your support for my work, and I’ll continue doing this, for free. :D

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Q&A: Video Recording Setup (Updated)

2009-12-18T18:41:00.001-08:00

Q: aku nk mitak ko ajar seting camera n sound

A: Ok, ni steps and settings aku mase aku record video Nurnilam Sari tu. And most likely, future videos won’t be that much different. And since aku tak sure how much you know about this process, I’ll explain the entire process, but not in too much detail.

(click image to view full size)

Pre-Recording Process

Sebelum start record, aku prepare backing track dulu. The first step for that is Guitar Pro. Aku tulis drums, bass, keyboard, guitar etc. Part guitar boleh skip gak since aku nak record and replace it anyway. Bile dah siap GP tab tu, aku export as midi.

Dari midi tu aku bukak pakai DAW, in my case, Cakewalk Sonar 7. Some people recommend Steinberg Cubase, maybe it’s better. But since aku dah pakai Cakewalk dari dulu lagi aku stick to that. Kalo tengok diagram kat atas, aku letak a few arrows to represent different tracks in a midi file. Midi file is not necessarily just one track. Dalam midi file ni boleh ade beberapa tracks, depending on the number of tracks aku buat dalam Guitar Pro tu. So bass ade track sendiri, drum ade track sendiri etc. Bile bukak pakai DAW, you’ll see each track having its own line. So ko boleh turn off mane mane track yang ko nak, edit them separately etc.

Now step Guitar Pro tu boleh dibuat pakai Sonar gak. But the problem is Sonar is not optimized for guitar tab writing. So kalo aku nak share tab ngan orang lain better start with Guitar Pro. And kalau pakai Sonar untuk compose backing track from scratch, it’s better to use a keyboard (not computer keyboard, musical keyboard) to input the notes. But for this video aku tak buat camtu. Aku just guna midi yang diexport dari Guitar Pro.

Dalam DAW ni, sound midi (which sucks), can be turned into synthesizer sounds. So sound instrument tu bole jadi cam real sket la. Cam sound drum tu, it came from midi, converted into synth, tu sound cam pakai drum betul. Same goes with bass and other instruments. So first aku setup multiple synths to read each midi line and play back as synth sound.

Bile backing tracks rasa cam sedap sket, baru move on to recording. Now the backing tracks don’t have to be perfect yet, it can be edited later. As long as the beats are correct, and it’s easy enough to play along with, you can proceed to recording the guitar.

Recording Process

Mase aku record tu, basically ade 3 stream yang dirakam serentak:

Guitar sound – sound yang ditransfer melalui cable guitar tu
Ambient sound – sound yang dirakam camera video melalui built-in mic dia
Video – dirakam pakai camera video yang sama

Video and Ambient Sound Recording

Camera video aku pakai Canon Vixia HG20. Ni camera video High Definition. If you want to make an HD video, you have to use an HD capable camera.

Since ni standalone camera, video and ambient sound dirakam ke dalam hard disk camera tu. So tak kacau computer lagi. Kalo ko rang pakai webcam, then most likely your computer will do the video recording. Kalo computer ko laju gile takde hal la kot pakai webcam. Kalo tak, tak larat la computer ko nak record video, record guitar sound (explained below), playback backing track (explained below) and other stuff. The DAW needs a lot of memory.

Guitar Sound Recording

For the guitar sound, aku buat direct recording, instead of micing. Direct recording ni maknanya connect guitar terus ke soundcard. Micing plak connect guitar ke amplifier, pastu letak mic depan speaker amp tu and connect the amp to the soundcard.

I don’t really have any experience in micing. But aku tak buat micing ni sebab amp aku bukan best pon. Just a really small Marshall. Lagi satu kalo micing ni kena setup kasi takde ambient noise. Since aku takde studio, baik takyah. It’s not easy to keep the ambient noise down. Contohnya mase awal video tu, ade bunyi pintu berdentum. That’s my neighbor. In fact, kalo aku mic amp aku, sure bising. Neighbors won’t appreciate that. But the good thing about micing I guess is that you can get the sound that you get out of your amp. But of course you have to have good microphone for that, and that can be expensive too.

So aku connect guitar aku directly to external sound card aku (orange arrow). For the sound card aku pakai Line6 TonePort UX2. It’s not a good idea to use your regular computer sound card for this purpose. Use a good, low-latency sound card designed for recording. Low latency ni penting. Kalo tak nanti ko record walaupon ikut beat dengan betul, ko akan dengar output dia lambat sket. It’s really annoying and hard to record properly. And the sound quality of typical computer sound card won’t be as good too. My TonePort has got to be one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Dari TonePort tu, masuk ke computer (orange arrow). Untuk video ni, aku tak pakai external effect. Aku pakai Line6 GearBox, which is a computer guitar effect. Lebih kurang cam AmpliTube or Guitar Rig software la. But GearBox ni hanya boleh pakai ngan Line6 punya sound card jek. So dalam GearBox ni aku letak compressor, distortion, noise gate, etc. Yang paling penting skali ialah amp model dia. Amp model ni dia simulate the sound quality of amp micing technique. So bleh adjust distance of the virtual microphone, type of microphone, amp settings like gain etc. Walaupon tak pakai amp, kira aku boleh buat as if aku record pakai amp la. So boleh try tukar-tukar preamp and speakers of the virtual amplifier. Of course it won’t sound as good as using an expensive microphone to mic an expensive amplifier in a studio with good acoustic. But it’s a cheaper option.

Dari software GearBox aku boleh denga bunyi guitar yang dah tambah effects (purple arrow). For monitoring, aku pakai headphones Audio-Technica ATH-M40fs. It’s an affordable studio monitoring (flat-response) headphone. And GearBox at the same time hantar sound tu masuk ke DAW (light blue arrow). DAW is responsible of recording the sound. So dari guitar->TonePort->GearBox-DAW, semuanya berlaku live, in real-time. Bile aku click record kat DAW ni, dia akan playback backing track skali. So aku bleh dengar backing track tu sambil aku main (red arrow). Sound guitar aku in the DAW will appear as its own track.

Kalo aku nak tambah layer pon boleh. Contohnya aku nak main harmony ke, aku leh record first guitar and second guitar separately.

Post Recording

Sound Editing

Bile dah siap record, boleh start process sound guitar. Nak adjust volume ke, nak tambah reverb ke, nak pan ke. This part of the work can be confusing. It really depends on how much you know about your DAW. Cakewalk Sonar, from my experience, can be complicated. So, choose the DAW you’re comfortable with.

Bile dah puas hati ngan sume sound tracks, aku boleh mix kasi jadi one wav and/or mp3 file. For this one tak silap aku aku export as wav jek.

Video and Ambient Sound Editing

For video editing, aku pakai Pinnacle Studio 12. Well, aku tak experienced sangat pasal video editing ni. Aku main try jek a few software. Aku rasa cam Pinnacle Studio ni simple enough, so aku pakai la.

Video dari camera yang aku record tu, now boleh transfer masuk dalam computer. Camera aku ni dia export video as AVCHD format.

Bile load raw video file tu dalam Pinnacle Studio (dashed red arrow), ko boleh nampak dua track. Video, and audio track yang camera tu record. Audio track tu la yang aku refer as Ambient Sound.

Mase aku buat video ni, aku saje jek keep the ambient sound from 0:00 to 0:09. Pastu bile start main, aku senyapkan ambient sound tu, and replace with the wav file yang ade sound guitar aku yang aku export dari DAW tadi (black arrow). But the key is to synchronize the audio and the video properly.

Cuba tengok gambar ni. Ni screenshot Pinnacle Studio mase aku buat video ni. Kalo ko tengok, kat Ambient Sound Track tu ade garis orange. Tu volume control untuk track tu. Aku kasi slowly fade out sampai ke 0:09. Starting 0:09 Audio Sound Track plak start.

(click image to view full size)

Export Video and Upload

Bile dah siap aku export video tu as avi seinggat aku. Kalo tak silap aku export as DivX avi, and then upload ke YouTube. Mase aku upload video ni, YouTube tak officially support HD lagi, although boleh upload HD video. So sekarang the process/settings for optimum video may be a bit different.

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(Update)

Untuk video Sejati tu, untuk Wah aku pakai Boss GT-6 lame aku, just for the Wah. And then only connect to TonePort.

And video tu aku buat pakai Pinnacle Studio 14.

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(Upadate)

The ambient sound recorded by the video camera is very useful in video editing. Now when I record a video I’ll make sure that the mic level setting of the camera is very high. Because the sound of the guitar is recorded and processed separately, when it comes to combining it with the video, it’s easier to match that audio with the ambient sound to get a good synchronization.

TAB - Another You – Karl Cromok

2009-12-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

The History

As mentioned in my previous post, in 2002, as soon as I was introduced to Guitar Pro 3, I went online to the then go-to portal for GP tabs, mysongbook.com searching for some tabs. I came across existing tabs for Karl Cromok song called Another You and I thought I should check them out. I was not too happy with the quality of those tabs. There are completely wrong notes here and there, and most of them were not written correctly, musically speaking. And I cannot stand GP tabs that don’t sound good when you let the computer play it. (However, I do praise DiN’KaPoK and cimakan for their effort. It’s not that easy to make tabs, people! And cimakan was a prolific Malay songs tabber in mysongbook).

So I decided to make my own. In 2002 I released my first version (GP3) to mysongbook.com, followed by a revision (GP4) some time in Summer of 2003 (my first year in America) under the nickname BeanKanan.

Original Upload

Since mysongbook got into legal trouble, they blocked the download of the tabs of many artists. Since then my tab got scattered around the web by others.

The download count quickly surpassed other versions of the tab. It was quite a hit. I’ve received many emails from people telling me how much they loved it to this day.

I wasn’t too surprised. It was, and maybe still is the best tab of the song you could find out there (despite GuitarPro limitations). I’m very proud of my work on it. It’s my Magnum Opus if you will. I know that many people on the website just copied the tabs of popular songs from Metallica and others from Hal Leonard songbooks, but I did not have such luxury. I had to listen to every single note and transcribed it.

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The Tab Itself

General note

The song was written in the key of E minor as apparently shown by the first chord of the acoustic guitar part (but remember, the first chord usually but not always the key of a song). And starting the first bar of the acoustic guitar part until the end, the average speed is around 105 bpm.

The Introduction Solo

Prior to releasing the tab, I had been playing this solo for a while. Again, the scale is simply E minor. My tab may not be exactly as how Karl played it, but I think it’s pretty close. I wrote down this part the same what I played it. I use a lot of legato, since it makes it simpler for me to play it. But the tough part of transcribing this part is that it has no specific beat. There’s no drum or any other instrument in the background of the recording, so there’s no beat. There was plenty of trial and error to tab it such that it’s simple to read (not messy), and still plays back correctly. That’s why I had to reduce the tempo for that section to around 70bpm. It made it slightly easier to write it.

I added a keyboard line throughout the solo intro, playing E minor chord continuously. My only problem with it is that since the notes of the chord are tied all the way to bar 18, if you stop the playback and play it again starting from somewhere between bar 1 and 18, you won’t hear the chord. That’s another GP limitation. You can’t really add layers to any given track. You have to create a separate track for that. I chose not to add 18 tracks just for that part. That would be just silly.

Use the tab for the intro as a guide only. I don’t suggest you to copy it note-by-note. Express yourself a little. Take your own time. When I play it, I did not play along with the GP tab. I want the freedom of the no-beat section to allow myself to convey my “feeling” freely.

The Acoustic Guitars Section

If you listen to the original recording closely, you will find that it’s virtually impossible to play the acoustic parts on one guitar. So I had to split it into two. There’s a lot that went into deciding what to put as the first and the second guitars. But my plan was to let the First Acoustic Guitar be featured for the most part, while the Second Acoustic Guitar plays the fills.

If you look carefully at the tab, you will notice that I manually adjusted the dynamic (mp, mf, f, ff etc) of every note for better playback. And every section of the song may repeat, but they are not always exactly the same. Everything that I could catch with my ears I transcribed.

Despite releasing this tab for a number of years, only recently did I actually try to play the entire song. Now I think that there are a few minor things that I should have written differently to make it easier to play while maintaining the same notes.

Although the Second Acoustic Guitar mostly plays the fills, on bars 67-82 I decided to have it “solo” a little bit. The First Acoustic Guitar still plays pretty much the same thing, while the Second Acoustic Guitar take the lead. And since I thought Guitar Pro could not playback the section correctly (at least the GP4 version), I decided to post a supplemental video to demonstrate how it should be played. I posted it on my university website account, but since I’m no longer in college, I reposted the video here. (I know I looked horrible at the time).

My favorite section of the song is bars 83-92. Why? Each section of the song start with Em chord. Minor chord, sad chord. But this one section starts with G major chord. Suddenly, after going through the sadness of the song, comes the happy part (although bar 87 pull the song back to the somber mood).

The Ending Solo

Again, it doesn’t go out of E minor and E harmonic minor scale. I have to admit, that when I play this myself, I still cannot play bar 104 exactly as I tabbed it. I simplify it a bit when I play it. But what I wrote in the tab was what I could catch with my ears from the recording. When you see my tabs, don’t assume that I can play whatever I write. But how I write it I suppose is the easiest way to play it, if you can play it exactly like that.

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Closing Note

Needless to say, I spent countless hours making this tab. When I released it, I really could not think of how else it could be better (of course today I think there’s some room for improvement).

Looking back at my “Incomplete Work” folder in my computer, there are many incomplete tabs that I had created since then, but never released to anyone. Unfortunately, this Another You tab had set the bar too high for myself. I got discouraged by the amount of work involved in producing the tabs that meet the standard that I have for my work. So I never released anything anymore after that.

But now I’m back. I’m gonna make more tabs after this. I will take my time, I will not be too obsessed about the details (although you can still expect some good stuff). I will not attempt to transcribe every single thing I could hear. This particular tab is my best work, but i will no longer feel the false need of producing something better every time.

I hope you enjoy it. And as usual, if you learn from it, please credit me in your videos or whatever. That’s all I ask. I don’t want money, I just want some moral support to keep me doing this. :)

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.

Bean, reporting for duty

2009-12-16T23:21:00.001-08:00

Aku mule main gitar mase kat skola asrama taun 1997 kot, mase aku form 2. Macam isap rokok gak la, main gitar pon pengaruh kawan gak. Aku tak tau nak start cammana, but kawan aku kate Kurt Cobain is good. So aku pon beli la satu gitar acoustic ngan Nirvana Live songbook. That’s how it began, tak berguru. :(

But I picked it up quickly. My technical knowledge quickly grew better than most other guitar players in my school, even those who’ve played longer than me (my seniors). I guess what set me apart from them was that I actually liked learning fundamentals, not just songs. I liked spending time learning music theory and guitar techniques on my own.

Seinggat aku, first time aku try cari lagu was ACAB’s “Fight for Your Right” when I was 15. I didn’t like that song. Lirik dia cam cibai. Skinhead Melayu? That’s just dumb. That’s like black people in Africa forming their own chapter of KKK. Anyway, other kids in my school loved the song. They liked playing in on the guitar, but no one knew how to play the solo. I found it really obvious. The first half of the solo is just 1-2-3, 2-3-4, 3-4-5… pattern in G Major scale, and the rest is just a few notes from the same scale. So I taught some friends and seniors how to play it. But that was it. I didn’t bother learning any other music by ear at the time.

Lepas skola menengah, sebelum aku gi US, probably in 2002, kawan aku introduced aku to GuitarPro3. I found it awesome. Ye la dulu-dulu aku nak blaja lagu best-best kena beli buku. Skrg download jek. Pastu GP boleh playback plak tu. Boleh slow kan, etc. Nice!

Aku pon try la cari tab lagu Another You by Karl Cromok online. Ade la dalam dua tige tab aku jumpe. Mase tu mysongbook.com jek la source yang boleh diharap. But tab-tab yang aku jumpe semua tak memuaskan hati aku. Some of them have completely wrong notes. It’s extremely obvious, especially when the note is long. But that’s not surprising. A lot of people don’t know how to play the song correctly. Mase skola dulu pon ramai gak bebudak main lagu ni, but none of them did it right.

So armed with my RG390gx (pretty much my only guitar until today), I decided to make my own tab, and show my fellow amateur Malaysian guitarists how to play it like the original recording. I released my first version (on GP3) in 2002 on mysongbook.com under the name BeanKanan. The download count quickly surpassed other tabs of the song made by other people. I realized that my talent wasn’t so much playing the guitar. I’m a better transcriber/tabber.

Soon after that, in Summer of 2003, I released a revision (on GP4) along with a short video tutorial. I spent many many hours refining my tab to make it sound as close as possible to the original recording. I had listen to the song way too many times in the process that after that I rarely listen to the song anymore. Sampai muak orang kate.

That was the only full tab that I made from scratch that I ever released. I am extremely proud of it. I’m still getting positive feedback from people about it to this day. It probably still is the best tab of the song you can find out there. Unfortunately, because I may have set the bar too high for myself on that one, and devoted too many hours on it, that I never released anything anymore after that. I made a few tabs after that that were never finished, but I didn’t even dare to share it with anybody.

Mase kat U pon busy gile, sampai tak cukup mase nak main gitar. I’ve quit playing guitar so many times after that, which explains why I’m still not as good as someone who’s been playing for 12 years.

Taun lepas aku post satu video kat youtube. Pendek gile. Aku cari kejap pastu record. Saje nak tengok kalo ade orang yang interested. If I could find 10 people who like it I’d be happy. And yes, I did find that and a few more.

But I just had to wait another year to do more. Part of it was because I suddenly got a lot of responsibilities at work. Part of it can be blamed for my laziness. But most importantly, I was anxious, for some reasons I really don’t know.

But that’s enough. I’m done being a quitter. I wanna make tabs again. That’s my talent, it will benefit some people, I’m not gonna waste it. I probably won’t be making complete tabs after this, I won’t be able to top my previous work, but I’ll keep doing it. I’ll keep sharing it, with those who still love Rock Kapak. And yes, unlike popular western music, Rock Kapak scene still lacks quality tabs. So I’m gonna do my part, and hopefully help others learn the art too.

To those who’ve been showing me sincere support all this time, I really thank you. I owe you guys big time. I hope you’ll still like my work.