Ibanez GIO Soundgear GSR206 Bass Review

Here's the new 6-string beast that I bought recently that you've probably seen in my "Hard Rock Gee" video.

About:
I was never much of a bass player. However, since I need to do recordings and I didn't want to use computer generated bass, I decided to get an ACTUAL bass. This 6-string bass is an absolute BEAST! Because it's 6 strings, the neck is HUGE and navigating around it is a whole new challenge from playing guitar. I enjoy playing this bass. It might be a challenge to play, but it sure is fun during practice sessions! Also, this bass despite being a 6-strings set me back $360 which I think is a very reasonable price.

.:Technical Specs (Click to View):.

Personal Views:

One of my main criteria for picking an instrument is its versatility in different genres. This bass, I can honestly say can fit in with pretty much any style and genre. The diversity in tone can be rich, it can be crisp, it can be powerful. Also, because it's a 6-string, it has a lot of diversity in its range of notes available.

Design:
I was a bit disappointed that this guitar only came in black. Since my Ibanez RG370DX Electric Guitar was already black so I wanted a bit of diversity (all about the no racial LOL). HOWEVER, with that being said, I still like the glossy finish AND I especially like the chrome hardware installed on it.

Sound:
As I've said, this bass has a great diversity in tone. It also has something called a boom switch, and if you ever listen to the band KoRn, it gives that hard rock heavy crunchy sound when you go give the strings a hard pluck. Sliding up and down the bass is smooth, it can also gives a pretty good thick sound for those pop/jazz songs.

Playing Comfort:
The neck, as I've said is HUGE! So playing this thing isn't exactly easy. However, the neck is still smooth and pretty fast. The one thing I like about the way that this plays is that it improves my guitar technique. Because of the fact that the neck is so big, switching from this bass to my guitar makes my guitar feel SO much more tiny and so much easier to play.

Complaints:
There are a few drawbacks to this bass. One being the fact that there is an annual running cost to this bass. Why you ask? Because the pickups require a 9V battery to use. However, the man who sold this to me said that I would only need to change the batteries around once every 6 months or so. An upside to that is that the battery will only start to use power when you plug your patch cord in, so if you're doing silent practice, you're fine.

Overall Impression:
It's a great bass, harder to play than a 4-string but definitely MUCH more fun. Sound is great and it feels fantastic! Plus it scares people hahaha

Ibanez RG Series RG370DX Guitar Review

Here is the guitar that you guys see me play so often in my videos. This is my very first electric guitar, the Ibanez RG370DX.

About the guitar:
It is a part of the RG Series that makes excellent quality guitars at an affordable price. I got mine for around $450 while the music store was having its Christmas Sale. These RG Series guitars are a musician's best friend when it comes to rock, metal etc. It has a very comfortable and thin neck that gives great comfort while playing and has some pretty hot pickups, combined with a pretty descent tremolo bridge that gives very good tuning stability. This model that I have was made in Indonesia.

.:Technical Specs (Click to View):.

Personal views on the guitar:

Well, personally this guitar has pretty much been with me through many gigs, practice sessions, performances and it's honestly one of my best friends by now. It has also taken a few beatings here and there, but despite that, it managed to still sound awesome! This guitar might be a bit tailored to hard rockers but trust me, this baby's been with me to old-school jazz and pop performances and it still managed to fit in with the style and please the crowd.

Design:
What drew me to this guitar in the first place was its shiny black body and shark tooth inlays. I liked the design because it sort of fits in-between the Fender classy look and the BC Rich overly flashy design. That said though, the black does seem dull after being used to it, but the glossy finish ensure that on stage, this baby will SHINE!!!

Sound:
I ESPECIALLY love how it sounds. The INF pickups are pretty hot and can either make the guitar really sing or make it growl. However, I personally only like the two extreme sides of the pickup. Anything in the middle just sounds too "twangy", sounds like a hillbilly instrument.

Playing Comfort:
The neck is really fast and smooth, getting around it is really easy. I've also lowered the action of the guitar to give even better playing comfort for myself.

Complaints:
The only complaint I have is for the tremolo bridge. It seems to be made of some really cheap material, because when I was lowering the action, as the screws turned, I could see parts of the bridge being shredded off, and so that was my only worry with this guitar. Of course, after a few dive bombs or hard hammering with the whammy bar and you will be a bit out of tune but hey, it was $450....

Overall Impression:
I would definitely recommend this guitar. Reasons are because it sounds good, it plays well, it's super versatile, and it's pretty well-priced.

Just A Musician

Sorry for not updating this blog for a while. I've been quite busy with....everything actually.

So anyways, lately I've announced that I am coming back to kpop. Yes that is a fact. HOWEVER! It does not mean that I will be constantly uploading kpop videos and nothing else. I thought my brief explanation of why I temporarily left kpop on my Bo Beep collaboration instruction video was good enough...apparently not.

Yesterday I did a cover of Lee Hom's new song. And the response that I got on Facebook and Twitter was.....just.....UUUUGH!!! People asked me they said that they thought I was back in kpop, then why am I doing cpop again.

I'm going to be very VERY honest with you guys and gals here. These are my thoughts on kpop.

1. It's a cultural type of music so therefore it is a category of a type of music itself, which means it gets boring (for me personally of course) when it's being played too frequently

2. I like kpop music NOT because of how good looking the artists are but just because the songs sound really nice.

3. There is only one Korean guy that's on my top 10 list of my most admirable and influential musicians and that is Yiruma (who isn't REALLY kpop to be honest)

4. I admire artists who can perform (at least nearly as good if not better than their CD version without the help of computers and digital gizmos), write their own lyrics, compose their own melodies and background, multi-diversely-talented, and are able to pick out or add the slightest detail in a song, and let just be fairly honest....the hit kpop artists nowadays just doesn't have that....everyone just seems too concerned about looks, fashion and how can they maximize their profits. Other than that most of the songs that they sing are canned music. With that said however, kudos and a great job to the people who work as composers and lyric writers for kpop record companies.

5.I REALLY don't like all this drama thing going on with record companies like JYP, SM, etc etc. I personally think it's just immature, stupid, irresponsible, and pure nosiness. Plus it has absolutely nothing to do with the music. Jay Park's a developing musician, not a clown or a prostitute....plus ever heard that you can't be racist to yourself? Pricks....

So with all that, throughout the entire time that I stopped doing kpop. In the end I've chosen that I want to be more musically opened. I don't want to wake up one morning and having to see the ugly loser in the mirror and having to stare at him in the eye and see a conforming clown, always doing what other people want me to do just so that I can get them to like me. Again, I'm a human, not your MP3 player or your personal composer/arranger/DJ. I want to be an individual, I want to stick out of the crowd as much as my music is concerned. I want my music to be something that's not like a song that you would usually hear today in the 21st century. If I kept on going down ALWAYS doing Korean music, then I would feel pretty disgusting inside. It would physically make me very uncomfortable on the inside.

Now do you people know why I don't constantly post kpop? Because there IS a reason why I post Chinese, English, Japanese, Italian, etc. songs. There is also a reason for why I started a 2nd channel for my original compositions as well as personal videos. I DON'T, I repeat, I DO NOT want people to know me just as a kpop artist. I just want to be a good all-round musician. I'm not going to cover a song because the guys/girls in there are hot, nor will I cover a song because you think me posting cpop songs are meaningless. That's that, I will not be endlessly posting kpop songs on my channel. (DUE TO THE REASON STATED ABOVE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THIS POST. IF YOU DON'T GET IT, READ AGAIN PLEASE UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND) If you have a problem with me posting anything non-kpop then please UNSUBSCRIBE to me now because I don't want to have you being disappointed with me and as well I don't want to be guilty of disappointing you and have to know that my work is not being appreciated just because you dislike the song because it's of a certain language or the artist because they look ugly to you.

Seattle Trip 2010

So Spring Break has started for me and so my parents wanted to bring the family out on a trip. This trip would be the last trip that our family will take as a group of 3 individually moving bodies XD

ok so to start off, we left the house at 7am to go to Seattle. First things first, crossing the border. Now my history teacher was totally right about "Fortress America" security is tight and they want to get as much information out of you as possible. This was how the conversation with the American border patrol went.
BP: Hello there
Dad: Hello
BP: May I see your documents please
Dad: yup *hands passport*
BP: What is the purpose of your visit to the United States?
Dad: Vacation
BP: Where do you intend to go?
Dad: Seattle
BP: What particularly draws you to Seattle?
Dad: It's beautiful, never been there before
BP: Bringing any alcohol or tobacco?
Dad: No
BP: Planning to bring back any fruits or vegetables? Peaches, lemons, limes, cabbages?
Dad: No
BP: What is your occupation in Canada?
Dad: *cannot disclose*
BP: Here are your documents sir have a wonderful day here in the United States

Now after that I was thinking....WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD HIDE A BOMB INSIDE CABBAGES?...

So after crossing the border we first hit a small town and mannn it gave the most awesome first impression of America. The first house that I saw was the ones that you see from old American movies. It had fading light blue paint, made of wood and it had the American flag hanging and a front porch. The best part about this picture was that there was an old white man sitting in a rocking chair in the front porch. He was very fat and he had a shotgun in his hand on his lap. That was the first impression of America for me.

As I pressed on to the highway I found that I was running over more and more rodents that have already been road killed. My mom was just like OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO LOOK OUT LOOK OUT LOOK OU- OHHHHH YOU ARE SOOOOOOOO CLEANING THAT UP WHEN WE GET HOME......
by the way the change from km/h to mph was totally confusing @.@ and also, on the highway there are lots of very nosy police officers around everywhere.

So by around 5pm we arrived at Seattle, and once we got there my GPS system just went extremely mad....it went like this
*I'm going in a straight line"
-turn right at next 500m - recalculating - turn left at next 200 - turn left - recalculating - keep left for the next 1.8km then take the right exit - recalculating.....

*I'm turning around in the city*
-turn right at next 200m - turn right - *turns right* - recalculating - turn right, then turn right, then turn right - "ARE YOU KIDDING ME"

and eventually it made me mad so we used the old school map to find our hotel.

First night we went around China Town and I must say the first impression was pretty good actually. Considering China Town's the most ghetto place of all cities, the people in China Town after 6pm were quite normal and even nice. People were holding the doors opened and stuff and no sign of druggies and all so I was quite pleased, except when I asked this one person where I could find the nearest ATM he said "there's one 2 blocks away from here but that's not good, so there's one 4 blocks away from here, that one's quite safe" I'm like "SAFE?? O.O"

2nd day, we decided to walk the coast of the city along all the Piers. I just gotta say, everything about that place was AWESOME scenery was stunning, and even the smell was so fresh. One of the most memorable part of that place was this restaurant that had a tradition of its customers feeding the seagulls with fries...and turns out what happens is that the sea gulls circle the restaurant and people throw fries at the sea gulls and they catch it and they nom nom nom it up and it was quite entertaining XD plus the halibut was amazing. Afterwards we went to the aquarium and then to the Pudget Market where we saw lots of intense fishes being sold and finally back to our hotel to rest. After my parents woke up from their nap, we took the car out to the Westfield mall where I MET A FAN!!! He showed me around the mall and took me to Guitar Center (music HEAVEN) where we get to pick out any guitars or instruments around the store and we get to try them out however we like. It was SO awesome. Afterwards, that concluded day 2

Day 3, we took the car to the Space Needle to take some scenery pictures. Then we went to take a cruise which took a while actually. We got to see many....boats XD and floating homes as well as rich famous people's houses such as Bill Gates and the CEO of Starbucks. I gotta say Bill Gate's house was smaller than I would've imagined...after the cruise we went back to our hotel to rest. At night me and my old man went up the Space Needle again to take some night scenery which were BEAUTIFUL!! That concluded our 3rd day

4th day we left Seattle to go home. On the way we went past Richmond and Vancouver and I have to say....RICHMOND WAS SCARY!!! It was wayyy too many Chinese people.....It wasn't any different from Hong Kong....it was creepy...and finally we got home.

Whew so yea that was my trip for this Spring Break haha

Star King Star King Star King @.@

Whenever I look at my comments of my channel comments there's a lot of them regarding me being in Star King @.@
Now I should let you know that I haven't gotten a single invitation from them, and to be quite frank, it's flattering but I think they'd invite people like kaotsun or keudae instead of me...since I have like 1800 subscribers and they have...o....4000!!! 7000!!! x.x
but if I DID get into Star King I'd be very excited since it means a trip to Korea :D I get to meet my buds hahaha~ plus I love traveling ^^

Ahhh the good ol’ days….

For the past…year or so, I’ve been going on a little nostalgia trip, as in looking back at the things that were around during when I was still very young such as songs, movies, TV shows, etc. Eventually I went all the way back until I was around 4 to 8 years old living in China. It was then that I realized how much I miss those days. Now all that is very understandable but what I’m about to say next might not be…cause the thing is, when I was living in China, my family was…not exactly top middle class leveled…like we were sort poor. My parents and I used to live in a shaggy little apartment, floors were made of granite and other rocks…our stoves used gas instead of electricity, and our toilet was the squat toilets, not the ones that you can sit down on. We didn’t have to struggle for our life to get by every day but it wasn’t that easy as well. The reason why I miss those days was because, believe it or not, the less things that you have in life, makes life itself so much more sweeter and meaningful.

As a kid, I didn’t have an N64, SNES, and all the fancy things that turns people into couch potatoes. The best things that I got were Ultraman action figures that my friends gave me because they didn’t want to play with it anymore, some toy cars, and…well…my childish imaginations...and a TV. However, I cherished all that. I didn’t care about the fact that I didn’t have a game system, because I didn’t know what a game system was, I didn’t know any better. When I used to walk around a toy store, I wanted to buy so many things so badly. However I knew that I couldn’t have them because of my conditions. That’s why as a child I never spazzed or cried out loud in public cause my parents won’t buy me something. If I wanted to get something, like a typical Asian kid, I had to work hard for it. I had to get 100% on my language test or something along the lines of that just to get a toy that costs 14 - 50RMB (divide that by 6 or 7 and that’s roughly how much it is in Canadian/US dollars). I guess it was my parents’ way of teaching me that everything in life comes at a price. However I didn’t feel that it was unfair that my parents made me do this, because in the end, I was happy to get my toy and I felt good about it because I worked hard to earn it. Also, since we didn’t have machines to do house chores for us, I had to do the dishes while my mom cleans the kitchen, and I had to do my own laundry BY HAND with those primitive scrubbing boards =.=

Basically my point is that there will always be people in this world that has it worse than you or me…that’s why I see myself as a spoiled brat now…but really, I do miss those days now, life was so much more sweeter…I lived more than I did now, people saw me as a lively happy child. Now I think people see me as an Asian kid who has no life, sits at home and does music. It’s true, I don’t have much of a life compared to when I was a kid. I used to go outside every day to explore and learn about the world and to enjoy the outside. Now, since there’s nothing outside besides the cold weather, I mostly stay at home and do whatever…how I want to once again smell the fresh aroma of spring and summer, feel the warm weather and the relaxing breeze for longer than 4 months, and not having to endure 8-9 months of harsh winter. Most importantly I want to be a kid again, not having to worry about a thing…that’s what I want again…but then again, I’m not a kid anymore so I can’t get whatever I want now…

R.I.P Michael Jackson

Some of you might have already seen my new YouTube video regarding this topic but it's Day 2 and I still can't accept the fact that he's ACTUALLY dead! I turned on the news yesterday and headline "Michael Jackson Dead" my head just went light right at that instant and I yelled very loudly "WHAT??" even though there was no one home. My eyes were glued to the TV screen and hearing everyone say what's been going on and I'm just sitting there going like...noo....effing....way......

The reason why I've admired and respected this man for those of you who don't know yet is because, ever since I was little, around 5 years old like ever since my aunt showed me the "Billie Jean" music video, suddenly this unexplainable feeling of joy and happiness just surged through my body, and IMMEDIATELY I was hooked. The guy had such a unique voice, so soulful and strong! His dance moves were also so sharp and so awesome and cool I was instantly inspired. I would watch his music videos over and over again, sometimes I would dance and sing to his songs even though back then the only words in English I knew was "yes" and "no". I'd also take a sweeper and pretend it's a guitar, that was how much I wanted to be like him and how awesome he is along with his talent in singing and dancing.

His death seemed a little TOO soon for me...I'd always think he would die around the time I'm 30 or something...and also, watching him perform and his mvs he seemed to have surpassed the boundary of being human, so I thought he could get through everything...apparently not...unless this whole thing was a scam and he's actually not dead...

I've never noticed this before, but he didn't seem to have played such a big part in my life before, but now that he passed away it feels like everything that he's ever built up that's a part of me is just sort of gone...like it feels empty inside in some places now...before it was like "okay he's alive and he's awesome" now it's just like "he's dead...I can't believe it...now what am I gonna do..." especially the fact that he's always been a huge inspiration to me and he's the one that built up my interest in my music. Now some parts of that feels like it's gone, but some parts will still always remain.

R.I.P Michael Jackson! You will always be my #1 inspiration! Thank you for these many great years of music and memories!!

This is the music video that got me interested in guitar.
Michael Jackson - Black Or White
First time watching it I was like hooollyyy guitarr....so coolll....so sexyyyy...sound.....*drooooll*