NAAB Studios

Okay so there is not really any good excuse for why this blog hasn’t been updated in ages, there is lots to talk about, Main Finger and I have been up to a lot, both together and separately.  I’ll let him tell his end of the story, whenever he gets around to it.

So now here are some itemized events that have gone on that pertain to what I’ve been up to.

02/01/2009 – Geoffio Relocates to Port Angeles, WA

I have moved myself and my studio to Port Angeles, the main town I grew up in. It has a nice lazy atmosphere and I wanted to get out of the chaos of the city for now. I will probably move back sometime in the foreseeable future.  But I don’t know when that will be. I have setup my humble studio here and its a very comfortable place to work from.  Things are coming together and lots of musical work is being done, for NAAB, For myself, and for a secret project that I should be able to talk about in a few weeks.

My Main Work Station

Geoffio's Guitar Setup, The other guitars are in the guitar storage room.

10/12/09 Mega Man Battle Network Remix Album

Main Finger and I have both seen it as our civic duty to remix the original Mega Man Battle Network soundtrack. We’re doing it with 3 other re mixers associated with The Mega Man Network. On this album we’ll be working separately and together on around 10 tracks of the 24ish tracks. There will be at least one NaaB song on it. And lots of songs by the other contributors of course. Check out the project’s homepage where you can follow the project and updates are released and listen to a few samples.

11/20/09 NaaB Gets a new website.

Main Finger and I worked together to get a more solid start to our website. Its still not completely finished, but its a lot more solid than any of the previous incarnations. Check it out at http://www.noiseandabeat.com

Just a quick, 4 minute preview of my upcoming album, Mode 7:

Mode 7 Preview

First off I would just like to say that album progress is going well and things are coming very close to the final conclusion! Things have been pretty crazy as I have people both moving out of my house and into my house in the same month!

And now for something completely different. I just wanted to mention I started an editorial gaming blog with Jonah of Random Pirate Comics and some of the folks at Gamer Time. You can see the action at WingDamage.com! We just started it last week and already have several articles up. For now, we are scheduled to have at least 1 article about every other day. It’s not a news site, it’s more about opinions and articles. Though we might comment on timely news from time to time and put in our 2 cents. Enjoy!

I have a goal and that goal is to get Mode 7, my album that has taken 5 times as long as any previous album to actually release, ready to go by the start of February. I know I’ve had goals before that weren’t met, but trust me that was for the best. For example, this album got a huge delay when I stopped to read a sound engineering book, but the album wouldn’t have been the same without it. Trust me, it IS coming! And soon! In fact, I just knocked another song into the done pile this very night.

Also it should be mentioned that in the near future I will have a much fancier looking dynamic php site instead of the cruddy old html one that is currently up. I’d like to have that up with the new album, but I’m not going to make any promises.

I’m going to be at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle again this year (errrr, 2009 i guess), which if my memory serves me right starts April 4th. Random Pirate Comics will have 2 tables this year and I will be at one of them. I’m going to have some actual physical copies of my album there. I can’t sell them cuz of a few James Brown samples I used, but it’s quite possible I could have some other merch to sell and give away free cds with them. Or ya know… if you just come up and say you want one I’m sure we could work something out

I should also mention we just recorded another podcast, though we had to go back to doing it over skype because there is over a foot of snow all around us so nobody can seem to leave the house, myself included. The newest episode isn’t actually up yet as I type this, but I imagine Jonah will have it up within a day or 2. That’s all for now!

EDIT: When the newest episode is up it will be number 22.

After over 6 months of waiting for my order to finally arrive my Ibanez EGEN18 TVF is in my possession. There are already a couple reviews out there so there is not a huge reason for me to do this. But since I did it for the STM1 I figured, I might as well write one.

Also if you’re actually looking into buying one of these you already think its awesome and therefore my review is virtually useless.

The always amiable gents at Strait Music, in Port Angeles, WA took it upon themselves to give me a hilarious promotional display which I of course put up in my room and used as a backdrop for the photos. I mean I’d have to be crazy not to? Right?

For the past several years I have been obsessed with the high precision axes made by Ibanez. In particular the Saber body style. Unfortunately for me I was unable to find a Saber that met all my personal requirements for a shredding guitar. The one main hangup being the lack of 24 frets. (I know its not a big deal, but it was enough to make me choose an RG instead, which I’m very happy with BTW). Also I wasn’t too keen upon hearing that the regular S prestige series are made in Korea and the quality had suffered a little. But I still craved the Saber.  Anyways it took the likes of Herman Li to finally design the Saber of my dreams. 24 Frets, insanely versatile sounds, Flame Maple Top, and an Edge Zero Bridge, and made in Japan by team J-Craft. If I seriously had sat down a year ago and designed the Ibanez I wanted to play, this would pretty much be it and more.

The Good

What stood out to me most of all right away was the tonal variety this guitar is capable of. Sure there are other guitars out there that play just as nice, but this thing is capable of so many different tones, The DiMarzio HLM pickups do not disappoint, the neck is Warm and dreamy, when split to single coil mode it puts out a great Hendrix style blues. The Middle is warm and punchy, sounds great in combination with the neck pickup. And my personal favourite, the Bridge pickup, it has wildly active harmonics. It screams in a very good way. All the sounds are super tight and clear. There is no hum, its absolutely indescribable how clear this thing is. Its great for nearly every type of music from Jazz, Blues, Rock, Metal… It sounds great clean and dirty, its amazing. If I had to get rid of all my guitars but one. This would be my pick… and that’s a bold statement. Since my Fender Stratocaster is pretty much my soul mate.

Another thing I noticed right away was the sustain. Its as good as I’ve ever heard from a floating tremolo’d guitar. It can really hold a note, which surprised me since the body is pretty small.

The Neck plays as nicely as I could hope. I mean it pretty much doesn’t feel any better or worse than my RG1570’s neck, but that’s not a bad thing, I mean they both play amazing and they are both J-Craft guitars. So it makes sense that they would play similarly. I mean I can’t imagine a guitar playing any better. Let me put it that way. As far as the 4 scalloped frets, I can’t really feel a huge difference when playing them.

One noticeable thing about the neck is that its actually thinner towards the body than it is towards the headstock. Which actually makes for very comfortable upper fret access. This is a difference between the regular wizard neck and the Herman Li custom neck. The neck joint is also very unobtrusive. It makes for some very good upper fret access.

The craftsmanship is pretty much flawless. The inlays are perfectly inserted, there are no glue lines or anything. There is not a single defect or scratch or blemish. You know… Typical J-Craft stuff. Same deal with their cheaper guitars. I don’t know how they do it, but I am very impressed.

The Case is is very quality. Its just a J-Craft case that fits the guitar perfectly, like they all do.

The Edge-Zero tremolo is the best trem system I’ve played so far. Its super tight, it goes right back into place after hammering on it quite hard. The springs feel stiffer than the other ones I have used, but that’s probably Herman’s “custom” spring set. Its not a bad thing, just a little differnt.

Another good thing is that he actually plays his signature model of guitar. So that makes a lot more legitimate feeling.

The Gotoh Tuners are great of course, probably like they always are. I’m assuming… since I havn’t had to tune it… ever. Did I mention it stays in tune? I don’t really know any one who abuses the whammy as much as I do. And I can personally vouche for this things ability to hold tune.

It doesn’t have his name on it. It makes me feel like less of an ass. Since I got this guitar because its amazing, not because I want to be Herman Li.

The Flame Maple Top looks really nice. Its kind subtle but I like that. Also its weird, sometimes the guitar looks blue and sometimes it looks purple.

The Bad

The flat finish show fingerprints pretty easily, its not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

Includes (Mine came with the following items):

• Wrenches for changing strings and setting up the bridge
• A very quality hard case
• An instruction Manual
• Warranty Cards
• A little plastic J-Craft zip baggy
• D’Addario Strings (9-42)

Conclusions

It is what it is, a Japanese built 24 fret S series with heavenly pickups that is built exceptionally… so if you can appreciate that, it is the guitar for you. Chances are if you are a guitarist who is legitimately considering this guitar then you already know its going to be a good guitar. But if you’re just looking for a sweet 24fret S series go for the S5470 and have your own choice of pickups put in it. It would be a way to save $800+, though… like I said, these pickups are magical. The coil spliting is very cool. So although pricey, in my opinion well worth the money.

I will update this review continually and make it more useful.

Geoffiological Super Rating System (GSRS)

• Craftsmanship 9.75/10
• Playability 9.75/10
• Soundz 10/10
• StarPower 10/10

It’s been a long time since I posted so I figure I am due. Couple of things… NaaB did work on another DoD song, but complications led it to be not submitted on time. So we do have another song made, but we won’t be releasing it yet. We’re going to polish it up more since there is no longer a strict deadline on it. But we aren’t letting that late submission get us down in fact we plan to DoD again in the very near future, so look out!

On another note, I might be doing a collaboration as sort of a producer role with Ganymede Radio, but he’s living in the Dominican Republic these days and we’re having some technical difficulties with our different operating systems and what not. But if we get it sorted out I’ve already heard 3 demo tracks and I am really liking what I hear.

And on a personal note, looks like I’ll be getting one of my wisdom teeth pulled next week. Fun times. Oh and I got to go to PAX and check out lots of cool stuff. Hit up the podcast for the rundown on that.

In an effort to keep my reputation as eccentric musical freak upheld, I have picked up some new equipment this weekend.

The Martin DM Mahogany

After years of actively playing acoustics I found out that the secret behind the warm tone I was looking for was not magic, but MAHOGANY! That’s right… I’m picky about tone, and most acoustics just didn’t do it for me. Then one day I woke up and realised the one thing that all my favorites had in common, mahogany. This guitar plays great and sounds very nice too me. I hope to play it for many many years.

And then Ibanez SR 530 Bass

This bass seemed good to me. I’m not much of a bass player, but it seems to sound and play good. I got this for playing funky bass in our songs. Because we got a few songs coming up that have a lot of funky bass in them.

And I will leave you with a picture that makes starving 3rd world children cry.

So I got this guitar the other day. And before I got it I had trouble finding very much information on it. So I kind of made a promise to myself that once I had it I would do my best to write an in depth review of this instrument and it’s features. So here goes…

First off let me say that this is the only Iceman I’ve ever owned or played so I don’t know how it stacks up against the rest of them. I’m not sure how the sustain or craftsmanship compares to the other models that have giving this guitar its reputation.

The Story

For my band I needed to have a guitar dropped down 5 half steps, I am too fond of my other guitars to perform this butcherization to them, as we know with a floating tremolo its not so easy to drastically change tunings, you pretty much need a dedicated guitar. So I went looking for a moderately priced big bassy electric to turn into a beast. I found this through-neck Iceman with a whammy to be a pretty great option. At $800 it was just pricey enough to possibly be a legitimate instrument. Yet inexpensive enough to where I was willing to take a chance on it.

The Good

The neck on this thing is seriously wonderful. 24 Giant frets and some pretty nice inlay work. As soon as I picked it up I was very pleased with the playability of this instrument. Its easily as playable as any of my other guitars. Despite being painted, the neck is smooth and fast, it doesn’t seem to stick to my hands like several of the painted Gibson necks I have played.

The Pickups are DiMarzio Evolutions… They seem well balanced with the instrument. I like the sound very much. The harmonics just pop out at you, in a good way.

The rosewood fingerboard isn’t bad, the inlay work looks pretty decent. No complaints there.

It comes with a case, which is invaluable since this guitar is almost impossible to find a case for from what I hear.

I think it looks pretty awesome, I like the headstock and the Oreo pickups are pretty rad as well.

Its quite heavy and has a through neck which should help its sustain a bit. But not heavy enough to make it uncomfortable for me.

The tuners are smooth and precise enough.

Despite the unusual shape I find it comfortable to play while sitting or standing.

The Bad

The guitar is made in Indonesia, this fact sadly shows in the quality of the craftsmanship quite a bit. The bindings are less than perfect, the paint underneath the back plate is peeled, chipped and thin. The screws holding the trem springs in place appear to be inserted at weird arbitrary angles.

The tremolo was not setup very well when it arrived, I had a few very tiny screws just fall off of it and down onto the carpet which was frustrating.

The case that it comes in feels a little flimbsy. But still very usable.

I’m not super fond of the bridge, I would prefer an Edge-Zero or Edge-Pro. But as far as functionality this bridge has worked fine for me. Other than the screws falling out.

None of it is horrible, but for a similar price you can get J-Craft Prestige that is completely flawless. Why couldn’t this guitar have been J-Made?

Includes (Mine came with the following items):

• Wrenches for changing strings and setting up the bridge
• A hard case (with keys)
• An instruction Manual
• An extra tremolo spring
• A pretty lame 1/4inch guitar patch cable (6ft?)
• D’Addario Strings (9-42)

I think that’s everything it came with. I will take another look when I get it back from my technician.

Conclusions

If I were a rockstar, I probably wouldn’t play a guitar this poorly crafted. Which leads me to believe that Sam Totman does not actually play his Signature guitar. I don’t know if he does or not… It certainly is a player’s guitar, it plays great, it sounds great. It looks great from a distance. But it does seem to be less quality than other Ibanezes in the same price range.

I really can’t stress enough how nice the neck feels on this guitar. Its a dream to play. From the moment I picked it up it felt comfortable to me. And it sounds great too. So I mean those two things alone make it a worthwhile instrument. Just don’t expect the same quality you’d see in the prestige series.

Geoffiological Super Rating System (GSRS)

• Craftsmanship 7.5/10
• Playability 9/10
• Soundz 9/10
• StarPower 10/10

What started out as a mild fever and sore throat turned into an abscess in my throat. I was sick for about a week and in terrible pain. When I swallowed it was like swallowing a spiky basketball and when i wasn’t swallowing it was like my throat was on fire. It swelled up so much that it felt like the size of pencil. I could barely talk and even breathing wasn’t as good as it use to be. I had a very painful experience trying to eat a banana. I went to the doctor a few times and got a bunch of meds and now I seem to be doing ok though so things are lookin’ up.

I was able to add another song to the done pile last night. It always seems like this album will take forever to finish, but I actually was gathering kind of a status update and it’s not so bad. Turns out the overall remastering process is somewhere in the ballpark of 50%. A lot of crazy stuff happened in the first half of this year including a 2 month DoD detour. So as long as I don’t have a bunch more things getting in the way the second half should go much faster. Especially since the first half was so very research heavy. Lots of reading and experimentation really slowed the first half down. And the new headphones are making things go a lot faster too because it’s so much easier to make things sound right on a variety of systems (man, i’ve brought that up a lot). Anyway, things are looking good. I’ll be glad to get this album done and out of the way so I can start working on new projects I have on the back burner.

On an unrelated note, I got to finish off a collection yesterday. I was missing the box for Dragon Warrior (NES) and it just came from ebay thus completing my Dragon Warrior/Quest collection. I took some pictures to commemorate it. Here and here. I’m in the middle of playing through the first game and it’s a blast. It’s ridiculously simple. A one-man rpg. Good Times.