"It's just peanuts to space"

Alex Scott. I enjoy instruments, amplification, nature, science and photography. One day I hope to save enough money and start a travel blog.

[sci-universe]

We actually have pictures that great of Mars, a planet about 225 million kilometers (140 million miles) away from us. Image copyright: NASA

[bendrummin]

I was taking some self portraits yesterday and for some reason my flash didn’t fire when it should have done (wasn’t the first time, either) and I got super mad so whilst I was swearing at my camera it suddenly fired. Serves me right for buying the cheapest triggers and remote I could find :’) (I love how the autofocus chose my hand rather than my face during the accidental shot. It made getting angry worthwhile lol)

[guitarist-problems]

[hms-alex]

That isn't a guitarists problem, that's someone who's too god damn lazy to learn how to actually play.

Shit, that annoyed me.

[hms-alex]

Another guitar related posts. (Chances are they all will be)

So, this wasn't my first electric guitar, it was my third. But it was the guitar that seriously got me into playing, it's from 2001, made in Korea, Epiphone Heritage Les Paul, it's awful but I love it. This thing has many gig battle scars, chips all along the edges, the pickup selector doesn't always work even though I've had it and the wiring changed twice now. Although I'm not the biggest Epiphone/Gibson fan, I strongly think you can get such higher quality builds for the price, I love this guitar. It will never be sold, it'll stay hung on the wall for many years.

I had the original pickups swapped to Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB (bridge) and SH-2n Jazz (neck). They're pretty nice, my musical taste has changed over the years so I don't often revisit this guitar for the JB, but when it comes time to record clean the Jazz beats most low-output pickups hands down, one of the best sounding pickups. They made a pretty big difference to the guitar. I've played a few Gibsons and the gap between Epiphone and Gibson build quality is narrowing, if this guitar was in new condition you wouldn't be able to tell I don't think. The frets are completely worn down, 12-15th frets are pretty awful. But shit I love it. Apologies for the bad lighting on the top photo.

[hms-alex]

My gigging amp setup!

It's a Line 6 Vetta 2 HD going into the matching Line 6 412 Cabinet with Celestion V30's.

It's a shame these amps aren't made anymore, but they were a huge amount of money. The head new was around £1400, it's a 300 watt (With a 150 Watt attenuator) stereo head. As heads go this thing is stupidly heavy and has about 70 of Line 6's HD amps built in. I think there's some really great models and some not-so great ones, so I can see why people were annoyed at the £1400 price. £2000 if you get the cab with it. For my heavy settings I use the models of the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and Engl Powerball. On their own the amps sound pretty shit, it's not until you start playing around with all the additional EQ and mic/cab simulations that you find a good tone, I love it though. It's got balls.

Pretty sure Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah) use(s) one of these. 

[hms-alex]

Who do you actually think you are? Do you even go here?

Where am I?

[hms-alex]

Anyone a Charvel fan? I wanted one of the Desolation DC-1 series guitars as soon as they came out, unbelievable value for what you actually get. Charvel aren't the biggest of guitar manufacturers, although owned by Fender I believe, and they've been pretty quiet I think, and as soon as they came out with these I wanted one, alas I could not afford one so I saved up and then found one on sale! BOOM.

It's beautiful. dat blu finish.

Never had a guitar with a compound radius neck before, they make a pretty big difference and it makes it so nice to play at the high frets, it's like playing guitar on a stick of butter it's great. Starts at 12" at the nut and goes to 16", it's subtle but makes a nice difference. EMG 81 & 85, I've never been a MASSIVE EMG fan, but they sound pretty metal. It's been on so many metal records since 1979 you can't really fault it. I'm not for/against active pickups, they sound good. If you could get the exact same tonality but with more dynamics on a passive, I probably would. I had the passive version of these pickups in a Schecter once and these certainly sound superior.

Even though the Desolation series is considered budget, it's definitely up there with high end guitars, it's seriously a professional piece of gear and I'm proud to be on stage with a Charvel, i've been converted.

[hms-alex]

Going to go through my instruments, I have a fair few! This one has been getting a lot of attention lately. It's an Ibanez RG7321, it's a 7 string that I have currently tuned to Drop G#. Using Ernie Ball strings, i'm not a massive Ernie Ball fan but I couldn't find the right string gauge with D'Addario, maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. I've been trying to learn and write a lot of the new metal progressive stuff, that's why I got this. 

It's a really nice guitar it's a shame it's been discontinued, I traded a Schecter Flying V with EMG's for this, and it's all stock. I plan to replace the pickups at some point, probably to some of the new Seymour Duncan pickups designed for 7/8 strings like the Pegasus/Nazgul. 

[zh-yg]

Mears Peak by Cinematic Photography

[hms-alex]

I'll occasionally upload some of my own photos, this was a pretty cold day, especially for a ginger.

[bendrummin]

I bought Atlas on vinyl whilst I was at Warped. I now have three copies of this album :D It’s too good!