8119

Happy anniversary :)

Cork Sniffing

I believe cork-sniffing happens on many areas especially on stuff that are subjective and hard to quantify (esp to the 5 human senses), ie. sound, taste, feeling etc. If you are wondering what does the term cork-sniffing means, this is the definition from google

"A derogatory term used to describe a person that tends to overanalyze physical properties that may not even be relevant. These people seem to split hairs on details and are usually just percieved as windbags who just like to hear themselves speak. The implied insult of the word, is that the corksniffer, is a lab worker that microanalyzes everything to the extreme, but fails to see the big picture. The term probably originated in the wine industry or the wine conneisour pastime to describe people that innaccurately believe they can tell the quality of a wine by sniffing the cork" 

This happens very commonly in online guitar forums that I visit because the many aspects of guitar ie tone, playability, sound is inherently subjective and you will always get long debates about A vs B, singlecoils vs humbuckers, Jap vs Korea, mass vs boutique etc etc. Have to admit all of us are cork sniffers to a certain extent because we have our own personal preferences and biases.

I stumbled on this from My Les Paul forums some time back and thought it was pretty hilarious and real to a certain extent. I think I'm somewhere in Level 2 :P

The unofficial Field Guide to spotting, identifying and classifying the Cork Sniffer:

Level 1 CorkSniffalus Minimus

Dismisses guitars made in China; prefers Korean or Japanese.
Amp must have a tube in it somewhere.
Pedals he uses can be described as “sounds a lot like [X] pedal” or “just as good as [Y] pedal.”
Enjoys that his sound is “pretty close” to youtube clips of equipment he admires.

Player profile: 420 is just as important as 401k, ok more so. Spends 10 hours playing for each 1 hour on gear.

Level 2 CorkSniffalus Regularus

Dismisses any guitar not made in the USA.
Reissue tube amps are nice; solid state is all crap. 70’s tube amps are good too.
Pedals must have true bypass.
Frustrated his sound is “pretty close” to youtube clips of equipment he admires.

Player profile: Average income. Spends 4 hours on gear for each 1 hour of playing. May still play out a bit, doing covers.

Level 3 CorkSniffalus Superious
Dismisses any guitar not accompanied by paperwork containing the words “Custom Shop.” Guitar should closely resemble one in a picture with a major guitar player who played at least two decades ago.
Dismisses stock pickups as too muddy. Hand wound is the only way to go.
Dismisses stock caps and capacitors. Only PIO capacitors will do. Knows that current Gibson bumble-bees are “fake.”
Amps stay the same, but of course stock tubes are “junk.”
Monster amp cord or high level planet waves style cord is necessary to avoid losing “top end” of signal.
Anything stock causes tone to sound as if a “blanket” has been thrown over stock part during playing. Blankets are not good. Page never played with a blanket.
Pedals must be the same name and appearance as they were in the 70’s or early 80’s, unless they are actually from that period – true bypass ignored for these gems.
Dismisses youtube clips and demands tightly controlled comparisons that eliminate all variables.

Player profile: Manager or in sales where commissions are good. Spends 20 hours on gear for each 1 hour of playing. May have played out when younger.

Level 4 Corksniffalus Maximus

Dismisses any guitar that isn’t pre-1970; or custom shop and that has not had all hardware replaced with identical items that provide no functional improvement but that cost at least 500% more than the stock parts, in order to achieve historical accuracy (due to ageing or dimensions based on an old guitar). Guitar player who played a similar model must have been famous at least thirty years ago.
Capacitors should actually be from the 1950’s.
Reissue amps are out. Only boutique amps or amps made before 1970 are ok; careful tube selection is a priority.
Mogami platinum cords are necessary to maintain signal fidelity.
Pedals must be at least thirty years old (except channel switchers and tuners, which must be true bypass), and must cost at least three times the average cost of a new pedal of similar function. Boutique pedals are alright too, as long as they meet the same price criteria.
Power must be isolated and conditioned before touching precious equipment.
Dismisses any clip as simply unable to remove all variables or capture the nuance of a live performance.

Player Profile: Dentist, lawyer or such. Knows intros to many, many songs. Can play blues scale but is especially proud to know how to get a “jazz vibe” going. Spends 40 hours on gear for each 1 hour of playing.

What's worse than a cold toilet seat?

A warm one :P

Blasphemy

Follow the star

That scene above looks awfully familiar :P

Anyways, I hope to get the Tim really soon, has a 6 months waiting time, and hopefully is worth the wait. It's supposed to be one of the most transparent overdrives there is in the market with a very unique eq and tone stack. Timmy is the younger brother of Tim, simple with less switches but we guitarists will always want more :)

Hope to get it by Christmas this year :P - kinda coincides with the pic above ;)

Age vs music

Ever since I moved, I have not been having a proper place to keep my CDs and have been temporarily putting them in a storage box for quite some time. One fine day, I decided to take them out for some casual listening, and only then did I realize I had quite a large number of CDs (perhaps around 200+) which some I have accumulated over the years since high school. I started my collection from the 90s when alternative rock and grunge was the in-thing, so it's pretty easy to guess what sort of CDs will be in my collection.

So I took some out, listened to them, and to my surprise, found out that my music preference has changed, maybe I got older, maybe my taste got better ;-). I could not like more than half of what I had in the storage box after I've listened to them, so I thought in light of the storage problem I had, it is time that I did some 'herd trimming' and reduce this collection by selling them as used CDs in a local forum.

So I ended up with a for sale stash with almost 70+ CDs. I'm sure I liked them when I bought them initially but somehow I could not recall ever putting them in to the CD player to play. I suppose thats why some still looked very new and shiny. So here they are, listed here, as a reminder for me that I used to own these so that I won't buy them again in the future (I hope not :P)

Aerosmith - Nine Lives
Ash - 1977
Ash - Intergalactic Sonic 7's (2CDs)
Ash - Nu-clear Sound
Bryan Adams - Unplugged
Chris Cornell - Euphoria Morning
Chuck Loeb - Listen
Coldplay - Parachutes
Coldplay - Rush of Blood to the Head
Coldplay - X & Y
Collective Soul - Greatest Hits 1994-2001
Creed - Human Clay
Creed - My Own Prison
Creed - Weathered
ELVA (2CD)
Eric Clapton - Complete Clapton
G3 Live in Tokyo - Satch, Vai, Petrucci (2CDs)
G3 Rocking in the free world - Satch, Vai, Malmsteen (2CDs)
Garbage - Version 2.0
Green Day - International Superhits
Incubus - A Crow Left of the Murder
Incubus - Light Grenades
Incubus - Make Yourself
Incubus - Morning View
Jazz Cafe Piano
Joe Satriani - Crystal Planet
Joe Satriani - Engines of Creation
Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream
Joe Satriani - Is There Love In Space
Joe Satriani - Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani - Not of This Earth
Joe Satriani - Professor Satch and the Musterion of Rock (1CD+1DVD)
Joe Satriani - Satriani Live! (2CD)
Joe Satriani - Strange Beautiful Music
Joe Satriani - Supercolossal
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
Joe Satriani - The Extremist
Joe Satriani - Time Machine (2CD)
Khalil Fong - Timeless Live in HK 2009 (DVD)
Kula Shaker - K
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park - Meteora
Mansun - Attack of the Grey Lantern
Metallica - And Justice For All
Metallica - Black
Metallica - Load
Metallica - Reload
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Metallica - S & M (2DC)
Michael Buble - Call Me Irresponsible
Michael Buble - It's Time
Michael Buble - Michael Buble
Nirvana - From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah
Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York
Nirvana - Nevermind
Oasis - Don't Believe the Truth
Oasis - Heathen Chemistry
Oasis - Standing on the Shoulder of Giants
Pearl Jam - Official Bootleg - Rock am Ring, Nürburg, Germany
Radiohead - The Best Of (2CDs)
REM - New Adventures in Hi-Fi
REM - Up!
Savage Garden - Savage Garden
Silverchair - Neon Ballroom
Silverchair - The Best Of (2CDs)
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
Smashing Pumpkins - Greatest Hits (2CDs)
Smashing Pumpkins - Pieces Iscariot
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Soundgarden - A-sides
Steve Vai - Alive in An Ultra World (2CDs)
Steve Vai - Real Illusions : Reflections
Steve Vai - The Seventh Song
Steve Vai - The Ultra Zone
Suede - A New Morning
Travis - The Man Who

So far I've been able to clear out almost 50 out of the 70 over CDs listed here. Though I'm selling at a loss but it's better than having these lying around doing nothing. All sales proceeds will go towards my Stratocaster fund (slowly but surely getting there).  Hoping to clear out the remaining CDs real soon.