Ibanez GSR 200 Review

I picked up this bass guitar two years ago as my first bass. I attended a music school at the time and they needed a bass player for a couple of songs so I bought a bass and learned the songs. It should be noted that I only use the bass for practicing and recording. I don't play shows so it wouldn't know how it cuts through the live mix or anything of that nature. The bass is as heavy as my Charvette by Charvel so I would say around five to six pounds. It's not the heaviest bass I've played and since it weighs about the same as my Charvel, my shoulders don't hurt after and hour or two of playing. The bass has a cherry red finish which I like a lot and is quite striking. The neck is a maple with a rosewood fretboard and it's remarkably thinner than other bass necks. At the point in time when I bought bass I had been playing guitar for three years, mainly on my Charvel and my Epiphone SG 400. The transition was effortless in that respect. It felt like I was playing one of my guitars, just with thicker strings and a slightly longer neck width wise. I believe it's the curve of the neck that's smaller, making it easier to play that a chunkier neck that could be found on a Fender Jazz bass.

This bass is also my first instrument that required a 9 Volt battery. I tried to stay away from using instruments that required batteries at the time because I just felt they were another hassle or hindrance for me, but having an active bass provided to be useful when I needed to use its "bass booster" feature and onboard EQ. It has the master volume, bass booster, treble, and bass knobs for the EQ so it is easy to adjust your tone on the go. Since I was new to onboard EQ's, this blew my damn mind when I really started tinkering with it. The split coil and single pickup sounds alright. Seeing as how it's a budget bass, I wasn't expecting a lot in terms of the pickups. The way the pickups are placed, it lets you rest your thumb at the neck and bridge pickup. Since I believe they are ceramic pickups, the tone isn't great... but I hope at $200 you weren't expecting a Geddy Lee tone. I've plugged this into my Digitech RP255 guitar pedal and put it on a clean setting so I could record straight into my laptop for backing tracks. It sounds decently good, but nothing stellar.

The bass as a whole is a pretty good and it is fantastic like beginners so that they can test the waters and see if they really want to stick with it. The neck is smaller than most basses so it isn't a hassle, the pickups could be better, but are good for the price, the EQ is fun to mess around with to get a few different tones, the finish is stunning. I'd rate the bass a 7/10. If the pickups were a little bit better, I'd personally deem it a fantastic instrument. Regardless, I use this bass a lot and it has never caused me any issues in the two full years I have owned it. 

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Rocksmith Game Review

So for the past two weeks I have been immersed in a game called Rocksmith. It's one of Ubisoft's more ingenious creations where one plugs in a real electric guitar, or bass guitar, and play to songs. I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing. I at first thought that even if the game was a flop, I'd have a decent cable I could use with Guitar Rig 5 and other programs I have for my laptop. After a few latency adjustments, I got the game down to minimum latency and fixed the audio delay. What I find cool about this game at the get go was that you can play guitar and bass. The bass can either be standard four string bass guitar, or the guitar can emulate a bass and one can play the top four strings. In a world where fast electric guitar players get all of the attention, it was nice to see the bass guitar and bass player get some well-deserved attention. I tried out a few songs and I learned to adapt to the way the notes go down. It's concept is similar to that of Rockband and Guitar Hero's scrolling note screen. The main, and obvious difference, is that instead of the five button bar at the end of the screen, there is a fretboard that is numbered like a guitar fret board. The notes come down the frets and are colored with a corresponding string color. Although it is strongly similar to the familiar 'fret board' of guitar hero and Rockband, it helps the player adjust well and play Rocksmith with just a little familiarity of the user interface.  The variety of songs in Rocksmith is something that took me by surprise. I have owned Rockband 1, 2 and Guitar Hero 3 and none of them had such a distinct variety in music. I've listened to a lot of music from a lot of eras in music. They had Muse, Lenny Kravitz, Nirvana, Eric Clapton, Lyndard Skynard, Velvet Revolver, Black Keys, and David Bowie, to name a few. They're all very well known songs and the dynamic difficulty helps out a lot. 

As far as playing a song goes, the game is pretty generous. They start you out on a lower difficulty setting, where a song will have single notes and maintain the base rhythm of the song. As they player gets a phrase correct multiple times consecutively, the difficult slowly increases. The game adds more notes and if the song has it, chords. This Dynamic Difficulty setup is fantastic for guitar players of all types. It gives beginner guitar players time to learn their fretboard in between notes, and as they progress through the difficulties, learn how to play the songs.  If the user is having trouble with the song, they game also offers an in game Riff Repeater. Here the user can choose any song they own in Rocksmith and practice sections of their choosing in different modes. The Accelerator mode sets a speed for the section, and then makes sure the user can play it at that speed, then the speed increased until they reach 100%. The difficulty of the song and the speed can be adjusted as well through pausing the game. The Leveler plays the song at a 100% speed, but not difficulty. It leaves off at the highest difficulty the user can play, and then adds more notes until that too is at a 100%

The 'story' mode is not really a story mode. It's essentially setlists the game comes up with. There seems to be no real correlation between the songs that are chosen except that they are possibly on the same dynamic difficulty setting. Some of the artists are the same in a set list though. For example, the two Black Keys songs that Rocksmith offers could be in the same setlist. You can also 'level up' in Rocksmith by gaining respect. Respect is earned by playing songs in a setlist and getting a high score. Each venue will offer a setlist and a song limit. They traditionally give anywhere between 3-6 songs in a setlist, but they limit it off at 8 songs a setlist, so you can add more songs or remove them if you wish. This add/remove feature is one of my favorites in Rocksmith because it helps me avoid songs I don't necessarily want to play like Lynard Skynard's Free Bird, a song that 9 minutes long.  When you level up, you obtain more venues and more events. When you finish playing a setlist, you're given a guitar, which as far as I can tell, is just for show. Similar to Rockband and Guitar Hero, you can equip your character with a guitar that you have earned. Since Rocksmith is sponsored by Gibson Guitars and Epiphone guitars, the player wins their guitars in-game at the end of an event.

One of THE most coolest features Rocksmith has to offer is their AMP feature. This gives the user the option to use amplifiers and pedals they earn throughout the campaign and playing songs. When a player gets over 70,000 points on a song, they obtain the pedals and amplifiers used for the song they completed, which can be used in the AMP room. You can create custom presets and play around with the numerous amps and pedals offered to make a custom tone and play whatever you want to play. It's something to fool around with and it's something different that hasn't been really offered in the gaming industry. Another feature the game offers are their mini games which kill a little time. Although the games are a bit childish, they help with a few techniques such as harmonics, alternate picking, chords, and bending to name a few. They even have a cute little game called "Scale Runner" that makes the user play the note on the screen and run down the scale of their choice (with the key of their choice) in patterns. The features and songs the game offer is a fresh new experience and I'm glad Ubisoft released a game that requires one to play a real guitar. 

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A Degree in Heavy Metal

Today I read an article concerning New College in Nottingham, England and one of their academic programs. An article on "Ultimate Guitar.com" talked about the New College's latest degree, Heavy Metal. They say the degree will have its inception at the college this upcoming Fall school year. I delved a little into this topic, and I would like to provide what information I have found, as well as my thoughts on it.

As far as I know, this is pretty new for a college. I have never heard of a college having a degree for heavy metal, which to me, is a huge step in the genre as a whole as well as music. To obtain the degree it will take two years. The first year basically introduces heavy metal and all of its aspects. The classes go through the history of heavy metal, as well as their relations to religion and philosophy. The first year sound amazingly interesting to me. Regardless of whether it is analyzing the lyrics of a Black Sabbath song, or the background and meaning of a Metallica song, the first year sounds like a fantastic time. I feel that heavy metal was, and currently is, one of the most lyrically intense genres to date. They stray from extensively singing about love, or heart break or other topics that are popular in popular, rock n' roll, blues music etc. Instead, metal bands (I'm thinking old school 80's and 90's) chose to sing about religion or philosophy and other topics, which is what the course also covers. In the second year of the degree, the musicians write music together and are provided gigs to play and perform in. They tour Britain, a nation known for its music ever since the 60's, and basically play as many shows as they can.

I am having mixed feelings about this degree currently. Although I think it is a breakthrough in music and pushing boundaries, one can only wonder the credibility of this degree and how far it can take them. My position on music has always been use what you have, and get out there and do it. If you have a guitar or bass guitar, learn technique, rhythm, and most importantly, music theory. Music theory is the fiber that holds all the music together, and is the essential basis as to why music sounds like it does, and why some notes or chords sound good together and why others do not. It's as simple as that. If you are a drummer, practice drum rudiments, technique, learning how to utilize your kit of whatever size to its fullest potential. Singer? Practice how to harmonize and stay on pitch and try expanding your vocal range and try to project more. Whatever the instrument, one should practice it and practice and play with others and just get out there. Play crappy gigs at a club for five people, play your younger sister's sweet sixteen, play the benefit show for breast cancer. Get out there and take the opportunities that are just waiting to be taken. Save your lunch money to buy a better amplifier, or get a job to fund your band's demo along with the rest of the members. Make friends with other local bands to make playing shows all the more fun, hell book shows together if you want. Get out there.

I feel that a degree in heavy metal just prolongs that beautiful process. It does not matter if the degree is for heavy metal, folk music, country, rock n' roll, blues, jazz or whatever, I personally feel it restricts people. When I think of people going to college, I assume they are going to obtain a degree which will lead them to their career. How serious will a company or an employer take an applicant that has a heavy metal degree? Sadly, not very seriously. This is not to say the degree is useless, and one will never have a successful career in heavy metal, but it will not amaze other employers. I feel musicians should jam out, get together, work their asses off and get where they want to go through seizing opportunities and pushing themselves, just like anyone else would do for their dream job.

This is also not to say that nothing fruitful will come out of this venture. With all musicians, connections are important. They basically create the web of interaction that gets a musician on their feet and out there. In the video link provided at the bottom, Kurt mentions that he obtained a lot of connections through his time in Berklee, and how he still maintains contact with them to this day. Bands should run around selling their EP's and demos and get their name to record labels and get a manager. One can also put to test how much theory they know and utilize in creative manners with other musicians who are just as energetic and willing to make music. But if one is truly motivated to make it in the music business, they will find different chord progressions that make them stand out, different arpeggiations or different rhythms. They'll paint their musical canvases with deep intricate colors that paint a mellow picture or a somber scene or whatever they chose. These heavy metal musicians want to play some god damn heavy metal, and if that is what they truly want to do, they should get out there and do it. A two year course is not going to put them on the map, they won't start touring with huge heavy metal acts like Iron Maiden or Led Zeppelin, they'll tour with their 'classmates' and other heavy metal bands in Britain. Although they will make fantastic connections, they won't leave the college with a successful band and a career with a ten year contract and a four album record deal with hundreds of hours of studio time and sponsors. They'll end up with a piece of paper that says that obtained a two year degree in heavy metal. This degree is amazing, the breakthroughs in the education of heavy metal will be huge, but in the end, how much will it really help?

Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QjN4K3KutV4 

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Paramore- Album Review

This is my first album review, ever. I hope to have a better finalized format for reviews very soon.

Paramore has finally come back with a full album since Brand New Eyes in 2009. Their self titled album is the first album without the Farro brothers (Zac and Josh Farro were the guitarist/backing vocalist and drummer respectively for Paramore before they left the band). Let me preface my review by saying that I have been waiting for this album to come out for a while now, and I am sincerely excited to hear these songs. I didn't know what to expect with the album because of Paramore stated this album won't sound like Riot! and that is something I saw coming because all bands change and grow musically. As far as the review goes, I shall review each song individually, and then the album as a whole at the end.

1. Fast in my car-The drums on this track sound very loud and prominent. Lyrically, this song is a song for the fans, telling them that Paramore has changed and that they want a new sound, which is what this album is. "We've got our riot gear on, but we just want to have fun." It shows that they want to enjoy their music and make sure it doesn't become a monotonous process. (I recall reading an interview where Hailey said that the band for the previous three albums followed a formula of sorts, and they wanted to deviate from that and make the music writing process seem new and vibrant. I personally really like this track, especially as an opener. I'd give it a 7/10.

2. Now- This song was released as the first single of the album. I like the arrangement of the song. I will admit that when I heard this song the first time, I didn't like it. It didn't sound like the Paramore I adored during the Riot! album or the Brand New eyes era. I really liked the feel of this song as time went on. It is very clear that this is the single, based on the radio feel it gives off. It sounds like something that would come on the local rock station or something of the sort. Regardless, I give this song a 6/10. It has a nice feel to it, but at the same time it isn't my favorite track on the album. It sounds really over produced, but then again it's just a radio single, the rest of the album is what matters!  

3. Grow Up- This track sounds very 311-like. The rhythm section in this song really makes it sound ten times better. It has a decent groove to it, and the lyrics flow really well on the track. I give this track a 7/10. I really like the bridge in this song and it transitions into the next part of the song very nicely. There isn't much to say about this track, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

4. Daydreaming- The beginning of this song reminds of something that would be on the Foo Fighter's most recent album, Wasting Light. The reason for this is that the drums get loud and everything sounds so heavy, but then they back off to develop suspense. The chorus has a very upbeat feel to it, and makes me want to move around. The bridge has an amazing build up, and the keys really add to it in a positive manner. The bass line in this song is really prominent and I like the sound of it. Lyrically the song is alright. 6.5/ 10

5. Interlude: Moving On- The first of three interludes. The mandolin gives this song a very Train- like feel to it. It feels weird to describe it this way, but I can kind of feel Hailey smiling as she sings this song. I like the chord pattern to this short interlude. It sounds so much more upbeat and cheery for some reason. 8/10

6. Ain't it fun- This is quite possibly one of my favorite tracks on the album. It has an insane groove to it and very Michael Jackson like. The way she places emphasis on the words is very reminiscent of the King of Pop himself. The chorus kicks in, and they sound like they sound like the good ol' Paramore I remember, but at the same time, they don't. Their style for this song is completely different and it makes them, and the track stand out. The choir in the bridge and outro is fantastic touch and it fit the song perfectly. The guitar solo fit perfectly under the choir in the outro without interfering or taking away from the choir. 9/10

7. Part II- The intro guitar part sounds a little bit muddled with the effects, but the bass makes up for it. I know I sound like a person who is only looking for the bass in these tracks, but it's because it's there. This album placed a lot more emphasis on the bass to keep the groove and feel of the song going. The chorus kicks in and the track sounds like something that should have came out of Riot! It sounds like the second half of "Let the Flames begin" from Riot! Hailey's vocals remind me of the lead vocalist of the band Fireflight, and that is definitely a good thing. The drum work in the bridge for Part II blew me away. It is so fast, yet so clean. Again, this is another one of the tracks that stands out. 9/10

8. Last Hope- This song is decently motivational, a song about let things happen, let the chips fall where they will kinda song. Nothing stands out about this song, but if a station played this song, I wouldn't switch it. 6/10

9. Still into you- This song sounds like something that would be on Brand New Eyes. The chorus is seriously catchy, and is currently stuck in my head. I like the fast strumming pattern that is in the background, it fills in the gaps for the bridge. This sounds really close to what Paramore was known for in terms of sounds and vocals. Hailey has strong vocals on this track.  7/10

10. Anklebiters- This track is purely driven by the bass and the bass drum. It pushes the song forward and make sure it stays on time. Lyrically, I really like this song. Hailey sings about being yourself and loving yourself, because you're all you've got in the world. Minus the keys, it sounds very punk rock like, especially for Paramore. The keys kind of grounded it, but at the same time added a new depth to the song, which really fit with the track as a whole. 8/10

11. Holiday (Interlude)- This interlude is just like the first interlude, mandolin with a bass track to back it up

12. Proof- In the chorus of the song, Hailey sounds a little bit country. Overall though, the track is very good musically and lyrically. The way the words are sung, the pattern essentially, is very different then other songs on this album, and other material that Paramore has released. I have listened to this track four times in a row so far, and it sounds a little bit better each time because I always hear something new. 6.5 / 10

13. Hate to see your heart break- Lyrically I really like this song. I like the message, and how Hailey gets it across and how she relates to people in similar situations. With that being said, I don't like the musical arrangement for this song, or how it was put together. I feel it would have been better as an acoustic song with piano and a soft drum beat in the back. Lyrically 8/10, musically 4/10

14. (One of those) Crazy Girls- I love the way the song is arranged. The soft, acoustic intro, followed by a brief pause, and then it just comes in with the full band. Lyrically the song is alright. Essentially talks about how she couldn't get over a guy she was with. I really like the way the song sounds though! It's just something about it, it's difficult to describe. 7/10

15. I'm not Angry anymore (Interlude)- My least favorite interlude. Strictly vocals and mandolin, which is never a bad thing. I just don't like it lyrically, in comparison to the other two interludes that is. /10

16. Be alone- A great rock track. The drums in the bridge are amazing and really shows off his ability as a drummer. I personally like the guitar riff a lot in this song for some reason, maybe cause it sounds a little bit like Coheed and Cambria. The keys in the last chorus really fill out the highs in the song. I really like this song! 8/10

17. Future- The Final track! Took a lot longer than I thought it would to get to the end of this record. I like the natural feel of this record, such as the beginning where York and Hailey are talking. The build up for this song seems really natural and well laid out. It builds up with a fade in around the halfway mark. After listening to the full song, I don't quite understand why the faded out, just to fade back in. Either way it sounds very full and just in your face. 6/10

Full album review:

17 tracks. 63 minutes and 58 seconds of music. I honestly would rate this album a 6/10. Paramore came back from a four year hiatus, and I knew they wouldn't be the same band that left. Things had to have changed, both musically, structurally and physically. This album personally wasn't for me, but that doesn't mean it isn't for everyone else. I'm not really used to experimental music where everything changes for every song. I also don't like the lyrical content for a lot of the songs, which discussed how they were getting back together after their hiatus and talking about how they were going to change. In my opinion, it's cool to sing about that for two or three songs, but come on. It's been roughly three to four years since their last album, the lyrical content couldn't have changed. Nothing song- worthy happened in the last four years?

Although this album has a few rock/ pop rock tracks, it has something for everyone. There's a funk-ish track, a blues track, acoustic track, pop rock tracks etc. Overall, the album had its ups as well as its downs, but practically every album has that. I can't say that I would go back to listen to this album in full again in the near future, but I do like certain tracks like "Fast in my car", "Part II" and "Ain't It Fun" . and "Hate to see your heart break". The reason I compared Paramore and their songs to numerous other bands is because they said they found their sound, that this is what Paramore will sound like, and what they think the sound of Paramore is. I compared them to the bands because it makes it easier for the reader to get a gist as too what the song can sound like, or be similar to if they know of the the band being referenced. Also compared because the album is very experimental and varies across numerous genres, so it is tough to pinpoint what their "sound" is. 

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