August 2008

Cheap Electrical Products and Indoor Fireworks

Cheap electrical products in not a bargain.

Yesterday evening, my father in law was awakened with a big surprise – indoor fireworks coming from a wall socket. It happened twice. On the first instance I was able to unplug all applliances from the socket. On the second time the socket displayed fireworks (without anything plugged in) – the main fuse burst. It was late in the evening and all we could do is wait til morning to have it fixed. Everyone in the family didnt get a decent sleep as we took turns making paypay to the son.

In the morning I discovered that the circuit breaker did not trip off. What actually tripped off was fuse which as located before the electric meter. The electrician inspected the circuit breaker that failed to function and realized its substandard brand.

Clearly the lesson here is never settle for a bargain on cheap electrical products. Sometimes you wouldn’t know its function until its too late. I was fortunate enough to learn about this without having bigger damages. Others have to endure damaged appliances or worse a burning house.

The socket wasa cheap one used normally on extention cords. It is almost flat and mounted on the wall. There seems to have a problem on the wall as moist seeps thru the wall and enters the socket thru the screws. Since the socket was compact and flat, the moist can easily get between the live wires which can short it.

With a moist wall, the electrician recomended that I install a heavy duty royo brand socket with a base. There should be an air gap between the wall and the sockets. Also do not plug in several power hungry appliances on a single socket mount.

And so I did a thorough review on all the electrical wirings around the house and will be rerouting and completely modifying it for a safer use in the next few months. I suggest all of you should review your electrical set up at home. Normally a house is built with basic electrical wirings. But when people live in, with big ideas on how they want their house to look cool, they tend to forget an important part which would often concentrate power hungry appliances on a single part of the house not realizing the capacity of the wirings towards that part of the house. If you can spend thousands on buying appliances, why not spend a few hundreds or a thousand on electrical safety measures. It is wise to have an electrician review your plans and explain what you plan to install on certain parts of the house.

Let the fireworks display virtually on your TV screens watching the olympics and not physically inside your home.

Back At Mayrics

After over 10 years I was able to play at mayrics again.

The last time I play at mayrics was in around 1997. I was with the band LVNA then. I was also playing for lastiko, lolita carbon, Ysagani Ybbara, and some other singers. Mayrics was the home of most budding musicians during those days. Only a few were able to come up with an album then since recording was too expensive and indie was not that popular yet. THese photos were taken in 1995 in front of mayrics. Notice my old punk look.

Last Aug 7, our band was called to play at mayrics. We will be opening the night with 4 songs. Our band was temporarily called Elm Street. We arrived on the venue at around 8:30 as we are supposed to take the stage at 9. But everything was delayed and so we sort of tambay outside the venue. When we arrived the place was full of UST students. I think mayrics serves dinner kaya puno ang venue. But almost all of them left when the band started as entrance will be charged if they stay on.

I noticed that the signboard outside was missing. Probably it was being repaired. But I noticed the whiteboard of scheduled bands looks totally worn out. I suspect this is still the same sign board used way back then.

This favourite spot is now gone. So most of the people now sit on the gutter.

Inside mayrics the place seems to be wider. The stage became bigger and the control of the house sound set up is now behind the bassist on the right side of the stage. Unlike before which was located under the stairs. The guitar amps are now all peavey. Even the drums. Looks like the mayrics got a sponsor for this. Gone are those twin reverb fenders which miyo, nitoy, pio and chikoy enjoys. Still the instruments are not feed thru the house. So its up to the players to adjust their volumes for a good mix. Pretty much the old way. As I hooked up my 5 string ibanez bass on the peavey bass amp, I totally forgot my emg pickups are loud. And so we did our first song with too much bass. Couldnt adjust the tone during the song as we did a fast first number. The succeeding songs became more mixed.
This picture was taken in 1994 at mayrics. That is jet our lead singer of LVNA. At the backdrop is a poster of LA105 and Musicians For Peace. All of these backdrops are gone now.

After our set, a couple of promising bands performed. Both young and energetic. Then after a barrage of “emo” “scremo” bands which I found intriguing especially how they mixed the emo-thing with punk rock complete with attitude and colorful get up plus the jumps and slams.

There are still bands who would goes onstage and plugs in their guitars and starts playing without minding how they sound like. They may not even know what the knobs are on the amps except for the volume. As long as they hear their instruments then they start playing. Really amateurs who need more experience. But the energy is there. Even one guitarist couldnt figure out how to turn off a feedback from his guitar which lasted almost two songs. Only surfaced on the last song when he realized he was sitting in a feedback position in front of the amp. Or maybe he didnt actually figured it out but was just surprised the feedback was gone when he stood up. LOL.

Mayrics really brought back memories. But the crowd was totally different now. Still see familiar faces especially from the crew. But the audience and their tastes of music is now totally different. Someone from the organized mass movement of the 80s-90s decade brought up an idea of having a reunion concert in mayrics bringing the old people (audience and bands) back to the place. I am excited about this.

GAS hehehehe

Gear Acquisition Syndrome tawag nila… but I am just setting up my home studio for better and easier workflow. Here are my latest aqcuisitions:

Bought this 2nd hand but its good as new. Complete with box and all its peripherals. It is a Behringer UMX41 midi controller. At least now I can program midi tracks with ease. Plus I have more controls on other parameters using its knobs and stuffs like that. Also got benders which I dont have on the other Yamaha PSR I was using. This device is very helpful specially in programming drums. It can actually read the velocity of your playing. Makes drum tracking easier coz you wont be editing velocity of each snare. Making the drumming more realistic.

This comes with A Behringer UCA 200 which is a simple usb audio interface with stereo in and out. All you need is a good mixer and you can start tracking any instrument or mic without worrying about latency issues. Just plug in the input from you stereo out of you mixer then plug in the output to a dedicated channel that does not go to the main mix (for monitoring lang of playback from PC). You can simultaneously record 2 tracks from here or one stereo track. Comes very handy sometimes. I could actually simultaneously use this with my 1820m without any issues. Problem lang it can only handle 16bit.I swapped mt BTB 5string with this 4string bass from Japan. Its a TUNE Bassmaniac. What attracted me to this bass is that it has EMG pick ups and very neat electronics. Parang radyo ung cavity unlike most bass that looks crammed up electronics. This one has that original bridge from the older versions of the bassmaniac. Mas matibay and much string stability than the newer version of bassmaniac. Plus it has a metal nut. Which probably contributes to the brightness of the tone.

I got this from joshua (lowbee of philmusic). Ebaj Asurin has always reminded me to get a tune bass. According to him, the neck is narrow and the string spacing is similar to ibanez sdgrs which I am acustomed to. Lahat daw ng Tune basses are made in japan. And they all have exotic wood. Indeed the EMG kicks off its loud sound. But I find the tone a bit high. Maybe because I am acustomed to using the varimids of sdgrs. What I did was to use my old DOD Bass Compressor to kick in the boom in the punch and the sustain. I maybe get a Hartke VXL or a behringer BDI to have more control on tone with this bass. I am still using my 5string SDGR on gigs. This will be off to a good repainting soon as it looks all worn out already. In the mean time I will be using this Bassmaniac. Im using it on pictorials of our new band. My wife puts justice on the rock appeal of the bass on this pic.

I also got a new softcase for my acoustic bass. And got a new phospurous coated strings for it courtesy of alfie. We are doing several recording projects and most of the song needs acoustic bass to get the tone similar to the cure songs.

I have lately been experimenting on how to maximize the power of the PC for multimedia productions. I am currently trying on Ubunto Studio and its multitrack recording software called Ardour2. I have read good reviews about the capability of this set up as it is known to have no drops in recording even when simultaneously running several tracks. I am looking for one that will parallel the stability of a mac on protools while thinking of a budget. If I could perfect this set up, it would be a big help in saving the cost of software when I go commercial. No remarkable breakthrough yet tho.