Using Instagram as a Gear-a-holic

I was never one to use Instagram until I started following Matthews Effects and Pedal Projects. These guys post regularly on Instagram as one of their main communication streams to update customers (and fans like me) on their recent work, news, developments, and general updates. They are able to get instant notifications on comments and can respond...

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The Feel of an Amplifier

I never had a noise issue with the neighbors. When I was starting out, I learnt to shred on a PODxt played through my computer speakers, so the volume was always under control. When I now have the room space and the funds to purchase an actual amp, I seem to have outgrown my shredder phase, and by association, the need for a tube amp. That...

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CMAT Mods Buffer Test

I just got a hold of a CMAT Mods Buffer, a tiny little green pedal that I've mounted to the underside of my pedalboard using velcro (it seems to hold well with the patch cable tension). I conducted a test to check the effect of a buffer. I only changed the placement of the buffer, and the test was as follows: The pedalboard without the buffer The...

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Farewell, Fair Well

Well, it's time we all moved on. While I'm performing a factory reset of Chiyoko, I'll spend the next minute reminiscing. Chiyoko (which means offspring of a thousand generations) is a Variax 700 and was the guitar that got me into the fast lane of speed-picking. I learnt my licks and riffs from Dream Theater, Paul Gilbert and Joe Satriani tunes...

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Blog Updates!

I have a blog, a YouTube channel, a Tumblr account, a Twitter account, and it seems like it's in vogue to have an online "blogshop" style website to promote your wares. While I'd like to think I'm not so mainstream as to follow the whims and fancies of the internet, Weebly is a very nice website builder to use! I have a Weebly website...

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Gear Review: Mooer Micro DI (with Cabinet Simulation)

Here's my review of the Mooer Micro DI, with a focus on the cabinet simulation feature. To provide some background, I gig pretty frequently and need to go amp-less most of the time. I needed a pedal with cabinet simulation so I can go direct into the venue's mixer. The Mooer Micro DI is a great tool to have in your gig bag or on the pedalboard....

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Non-lexical Vocables in Worship: An Opinion

Have you heard of "whoa's" used in worship? There's a whole influx of modern worship songs that have this as a way to bridge between the lyrics. I know there's a whole theology of worship associated with non-lexical vocables (not proper words, almost onomatopoeia), and I agree that there is a way to worship God with these, but I personally think that "whoa", "oh", "yeah", "ooo" and other variants from the modern context of contemporary music have a greater difficulty finding its use in worshiping...

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Food Journal: E-Sarn (Thomson Road)

E-sarn in Thomson Road does a really good job at making me remember the holidays I've had in Bangkok. This restaurant has the best beef soup, pineapple rice and glass noodles arou...

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When Spiritual Sensitivity and Biblical Knowledge Converge (John 1:47-51)

John 1:47-51 Jesus calls Nathanael 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him,“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater...

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Misunderstood/Misheard Worship Lyrics

(Will be continually updated as time goes on) Puns  How do you know that... ...God loves Japanese food? Ans: "Oh, how He loves me so (miso)" Song: How He Loves ...God loves aunties? Ans: "Oh, how He loves us so (ah soh)" Song: How He Loves ..God is good at soccer? Ans: "You're the defender of the week, You comfort those in need" Song: Everlasting God ...Jesus loves carbohydrates? Ans: Because "Yes, Jesus loves me (mee)" Song: Jesus Loves Me Misheard Lyrics From "Take It All" by Hillsong, Running...

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God the Mother?

In the past three weeks, two of my cell members have been approached by evangelists from the World Mission Society, a church originating from South Korea whose beliefs are a mix of unitarian modalism and bi-theism. I don’t mean to be confusing, but it’s true. They believe that God “manifests” Himself as the Father, Spirit and Son (I don’t know if they mean that God chooses to “switch faces” as Father at one moment, then the Son at the next, which is classical modalism, or that the Godhead is only...

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How Can Non-Christians Be Better Behaved than Christians?

Have you ever come across a person who genuinely loves the poor, engages in much social work for the less-privileged, and beams with such warmth and grace that you conclude that he must be a Christian? Have you then come to a huge shock to discover that he actually isn't? I know many people who make better Christians than me. They exhibit such good Christian graces that it puts me to shame. Perhaps we make the mistake of directly linking our behavior to our nature. I don't think we realize...

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Jailbreak Adventures: How to Sync Plants Versus Zombies 2 Across Multiple Devices

Picture from pixelvolt.com Christine introduced PvZ to me a while ago, and it wasn't long before I got hooked on the mission to defend my brains from being eaten by the horde of not-so-scary zombies. It's a really fun game! So, when PvZ 2 came out this month, I was very pleasantly surprised that it came out as a free download for iOs. Of course,...

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The Sweet Presence

I recently played for New Heart's concert in Singapore Life Church. Dr. Yenn, Dr. Ephraim, Derrick, Tai-chi, Dickson, Ngee Ping, Joshua, Kim and Judy are such amazing people to play with. I have certainly improved my sight reading by leaps and bounds since the first day I played with them, and I am indebted to Yenn for taking me in even though...

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A DIY Flight Case

I totally stole this idea off Mervin John, guitarist and band leader extraordinaire, when he brought his rig down for us to check out during our band arrangement class. If you have a heavy pedalboard, need a luggage-chucking grade case which has wheels and can be locked during transit, you can most certainly use: I suppose I'll lose some baggage...

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An Experiment in Trimming the Herd

This was a quick experiment in tone crafting: What if I removed all the various power supplies and just relied on one 9V adapter like the One Spot? What if I removed the Deluxe Electric Mistress (update: I sold it off eventually), which was non-true bypass and had a bulky 18V adapter? What if I removed the Carl Martin AC Tone, removing the first...

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Cheap and Good

I know, I know. I said I’ll stop my GAS. I know I was quite proud of the fact that I managed to cut my pedalboard down to  size that I could get away with a single One Spot adapter. However, I ran into a few problems with the reduced setup: Without my AC Tone, my clean tone was “too clean”. I actually do like some dirt as a clean tone,...

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A DIY Pedaltrain Nano

The laptop cooler in office finally died, and I was about to just use it as a laptop riser when I realized it has a nice elevation angle that’s similar to a Pedaltrain. I wanted to get a Pedaltrain Nano for my jam sessions where I only really needed the amp sim and a delay (and I figured out that even that’s a bit much for a simple jam. I’m currently...

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The Memories of IRC

I recently installed a chat box onto my blog page for fun. Remember the good 'ol days of IRC? I thought I'd try to be more interactive by allowing a public chat box for people to interact, discuss, and share their thoughts. You'll find a link to my Contact page here: http://coffeeholicsstudios.blogspot.sg/p/contact-me.html Try it out, and let's see how this goes! For further action: Get your own chat b...

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Consumed by Your Hobby

Last week, my M-Audio Fast Track Pro audio interface died on me. It can’t be revived, and the technician I called quoted a repair price that was higher than what I bought it for. I thought I would have flipped out—this device has been a part of my musical life for quite a while. But strangely enough, I only experienced a little sadness, nothing...

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Jailbreak Adventures: WhatsApp on iPad, iOS 6.1

One of my biggest goals of jailbreaking the iPad was to be able to use WhatsApp on it. As you know, the messaging client only works on mobile phones, and the key to installing WhatsApp is to trick it into thinking that it is operating from a phone, and not a tablet.  Here's what I did to install WhatsApp on iOS 6.1. Step 1: Download and...

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Jailbreak Woes Part 2: When Apps Crash on Loading

I used iMovie for a good part of an afternoon to film and edit clips. It was easily 3 hours worth of work, and I was wrapping up the day's editing and ready to export my videos. The unthinkable happened. I exited the app to check out my Whatsapp messages, and when I tried to re-open the app, it just won't open. Every method I tried resulted in...

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Jailbreak Woes: Removing Siriport from iPhone

No sooner had I started to jailbreak iOS 6.1 did I encounter numerous problems. Well, it's mostly my fault. You see, in my zeal to squeeze the most out of my device, I end up trusting questionable sources. For a long time, I wanted to have Siri on my iPhone 4. In case you don't know why iPhone 4 doesn't have Siri, that's due to the fact that Apple's...

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Battle Scars (The Best $50 I Spent Ever)

I decided it was about time to clean the pedalboard. I ran out of creative juices to give a name to her, so I ended up calling her by her brand: CNB. CNB has been with me for a very long time. She's actually Australian, and I remember walking into Allan's Music and realizing I needed a pedalboard to keep my PODxt and Variax accessories. With a...

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Recycling by Repurposing

Being engineering-trained does have its real-life benefits. I'm huge on recycling, which if left unchecked, could lead to a mild case of hoarding, because I see that everything can be repurposed to suit other needs. Yes, they were originally designed to do something else, and they will probably serve their greatest use in that manner, but once the...

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Gladwell's Rule

I'm sure you've heard of Gladwell's Rule at some point in time or another. It has become the mantra for self-help and a guide post for the hopefuls who want to excel in something, be it a hobby or a professional activity. Simply put, Gladwell's Rule says that if you want to excel in something, you have to put in an average of 10,000 hours to reach...

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Practical Tips for Gigging Guitarists

I'm a rusty performer. I firmly believe that 90% of the work behind a performance is in preparation (obviously, apart from memorizing your parts). You may be able to nail every single note down, but if you've forgotten to bring things that are crucial to your setup, all that hard practice may be for naught. My latest gig with While It's Day helped...

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