Unveling the Santa Guitar.: no strings attached and you're bound to have a white christmas with this one. View it at our Esplanade store while it lasts.

Zen Guitarwerkz Official Opening 9 Nov 07

Finally! We had our launch party for the official opening of Zen Guitarwerkz! Amidst great food and great booze from Brewerkz, we had the company of so many friends of Maestro. It was a gathering after so long, with friends, dealers, artistes coming down to celebrate together the next milestone of Maestro. Along with it, our latest shipment of electric guitars and amplifiers from Stagg have finally hit the shores of Singapore as well. So come on down, chill out and check out some of the coolest and cheapest electrics in town!

Special thanks to the following people for turning up:

- Eric from FM Music

- Allan from Praisetune

- David from Novelty Music

- Carl (Bai Yun) of Sony Music Publishing and his wife

- KP & KY, the brothers of KC

- Errik, Jeremy & Kenneth (Instructors of Maestro Music School)

- Linton's wife and his little one to come

- the many friends of Hozen

- John B. (guitarist, Roomful of Blues)

- Jourdan, Bingxiong & Kenneth from SMU Guitarissimo

- Management & Staff of Maestro Guitars

- and all the many others who came down but I might have left out (too much beer causes alcoholic amnesia).

Keep the blues alive!

Music China 2007

Hozen in front of the poster

View of the Expo centre.

KC @ the Poster

Music China Shanghai is an annual Music event which is the biggest fair in Asia. Shanghai is probably the best place in Asia to hold such an event because of the massive China domestic market, the amount of Chinese instrument makers which basically make approx 80% of the world's supplier to various brands.

Shanghai is an amazing place, every year I visit I can see new buildings, new roads. It is growing at such a tremendous rate that set me wondering how they can do it. MRT Line in Shanghai was only 2 in the previous year but now they have 5 lines. In 2010, they will be having 10 lines. All the saying about China is the next superpower is not surprising at all.

Overall the quality of the chinese instruments had improved but the good chinese ones are still way ahead of the budget makers. Prices had increased as well. Some of the better chinese guitars are already priced smiliar to korean and japanese made ones.

This year KC and me scanned the entire 5 halls of musical suppliers to negotiate the best prices and products with great value to bring to our partners and customers. Took us 3.5 days to finish the walk. We also have a small booth at the show to exhibit Singapore handcrafted guitars to the interest of some Europeans buyers.

Guess we at Maestro Guitars will have to work harder to stay ahead of the chinese makers. =)

Maestro New Model CT-1 Custom Table

Today we will look at the construction of a table. First, you need a laminate top, not a solid top, as a laminate is stronger, thus being able to withstand the weight of the things you are putting on. Next you would need 4 legs which are solid, making the weight distribution even. Make sure to knock on the wood as you would a neck to test the sound.

Using the bolt on system, fix up the legs with the table top. Add some rubber or ABS plastic on the ends of the legs to let the the table stand firmly without any lateral shaking or sliding.

Finally, using 2 strips of top quality pine, construct the X-bracing at the bottom part of the table top to give it more strength and to prevent warping. Fasten down with clamps to ensure the gluing is firm and wait to dry. Scallop and shape the bracing as you like.

The final product, ready to use.

*Disclaimer: The above instruction is just pure nonsense from the Maestro staff. However we DID construct the table. You can check it out at Maestro @ Esplanade.

Warning!! G.A.S.-inducing!!

For those people in the never-ending quest of GAS (Gear Aquiring Symdrome), here's something you should hop on down to try. Its not one pedal, its 10. And its 10 in one. Its the Muza FD-55, a digital modeling guitar distortion stomp pedal contains 10 well-known guitar distortion tones and models.

1)IBANEZ® TS808 (TUBE SCREAMER®)
2)MXR® M-104 (distortion+)
3)BOSS® DS-1 (DISTORTION)
4)DUNLOP® FUZZFACE™
5)ELECTRO-HARMONIX® BIG MUFF π™
6)ProCo™ VINTAGE RAT™
7)DOD® FX69 (GRUNGE®)
8)IBANEZ® SM7 (SMASH BOX®)
9)BOSS® MT-2 (METAL ZONE®)
10)DOD® FX86 (DEATH METAL™)

We tried it with our Fender Squire Hello Kitty stratocaster and boy! were we in for a shock. Each effect was an exact matching for its original counterpart and what's more, it comes with a storage function to store your own preset patches.

Silent Emissions

A joke I heard on a Sunday in KL over some coffee and pancakes. Enjoy.

An old lady walks into a clinic and asked to see the doctor for consultation. She said to the doctor," Doctor Doctor! I have a serious problem!"

"What is it?" asked the doctor.

"I keep getting these silent farts coming. They ain't smelly and there's no sound, but I'm pretty annoyed by them. Is there any way to get rid of them?

The doctor searches around the drawers and took out a bottle of pills.

"Here, take these, 2 pills 3 times daily, after meals. When you finish the medication, come back and we will see how it goes."

So the old lady followed the instructions given by the doctor. A week later, she came back, this time with an angry look on the face.

"Hey Doc! You told me to take the pills and I did. But now the farts are freaking loud like cymbals crashing! What the hell did you give me?!" the old lady shouted.

The doctor calmly replied, "Ok, now that we have cured your hearing problem, let's move on to your nose......"

New products at our retail outlets!

Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you our new product arrivals that have invaded our retail outlets! First off, GOTOH!!

Together with the Grovers that we already have, you have only one stop to find what you need for machine heads!

Our Stagg cymbals are in! And we are totally going crazy over them! We have individual cymbals as well as the package sets! Come on down today to try them!

Visit our retail outlet Zen Guitarwerkz to check them out!

On a totally different note, the rainy weather is so cooling, the resident cat was found seeking warmth from the office chair. Let's not disturb lest we turn into a scratching pole. Shhh...

Someone wanted a Maestro badly...

At the tunnel that joins Excelsior Shopping Centre to Peninsula Shopping Centre, we have a display case for advertising purposes. As you can tell from the above picture, we have 2 guitars in the display, a Maestro SD-1 and a Zen electric strat. However this morning, we recieved a call from the management side reporting a theft that took place. The result is shown below.

I guess our guitars have turned out to be so popular that such robbery can take place. All in front of a camera. Woot! Someone seriously wants a Maestro guitar badly... Heh...

Mic

New Outlet! Akan Datang!

Our new retail outlet is in the making. Its called Zen Guitarwerkz. It serves to enhance the product range of our other 2 retails outlets and also provide a more personalised service for repair consultation. Our Product Development Manager aka "Guitar Surgeon" KC will be there twice a week for consultation. So if your guitar requires his surgical precision or in need of a diagnosis, do feel free to visit us at Zen Guitarwerkz, Peninsula Shopping Centre, #B1-34. Planned are a new range of highly affordable electric guitars, amps and cymbals. Here is sneak preview of the place:

Learning from the maestro -- Hideo Kamimoto

I had the greatest honor of meeting the legendary repair maestro on one of my trips to a guitar workshop and there he was conducting a master class in fretting and fret dressing. I was there to polish up my french polishing techniques but ended up in his master class and discussion in depth into the finer points of fret dressing. The guy is amazing! For those who don't know him, he has written a famous book titled "Complete Guitar Repair" and given for his reputation, his rates are still affordable for the average consumer and reasonable enough for him to earn a decent living.

Luthier Way of Nail Cuting

We all know that we gotta keep our nails trimmed to play the guitar... but sometimes it is just so difficult to find a good nail cutter! A bit of fine grit sandpaper to buff the nail up after this =D

Back from days of Seoul Searching

The boss and I are back after several days of Seoul searching. Stopped over at Bangkok for 1.5 days on the way back and it was overall a short but nice getaway - had some really great food and music. The primary purpose of going up was to visit Music Korea 2007 and it was fruitful in terms of getting ideas for future product developments as well as meeting suppliers. Now I shall let you savour some pics that I took along the way.



Entrance of music korea. Met guitarist Michael Angelo and Neil Zaza there, but pretty small exhibition, something like the size of a Suntec convention hall.



Big Juicy, sweet melons. I wonder how many seeds they can spread :)



It says that, but no one around there speaks it.



Eg.1 of why no one speaks the language.



E.g 2 - The name sent a shiver down my spine, I wouldn't dare enter that restaurant :p Of course we have our very own bloopers in Singapore.









Misc pics of Deoksugung Palace. Can't say much about it's history, but the actual place was destroyed by the Japanese and hence it was rebuilt to 'preserve' some history.



Kim Chi is really an acquired taste but being in Seoul redefined 'Korean food' for me. I will probably try not to eat Korean food in Singapore again. This smoked duck is simply the juiciest duck I've ever eaten.



Prime Max for prime time. My boss and I had a bottle each at our hotel on the 2nd night. 4.900 won each, cheap! Everything else in Seoul is expensive though.



Stream of life in Dongongae: a major textile and fashion district.



Some birds basking in the stream of life.



5 piece Jazz band in Itaewon. Due to strong American military presence nearby, most of the Koreans there could speak English.



A unique shop in Itaewon: get your dreadlocks done here!


that's all for now
KC

Listen to the tone

SometimesI get comtemplative and metaphysical. Ever wondered what tone really means? I've come up with a few possibilites about how most of us derive the tone we 'hear'.

1) Etymology - Culture, history etc shapes the usage of certain words. E.g words like 'presence', 'warmth', 'woody' etc have been used to describe tone. What do they really mean to the individual? Tough question.

2) Appearance - Preconceived notions: A martin look alike will tend to sound like a Martin.

3) Insecurity - Reading tons of reviews, picking up the jargon and then using these words/phrases to describe tone without much thought or understanding.

While not getting overtly philosophical, I believe that using words to describe a particular tone is futile, unless you can actually pick out a guitar to illustrate those words. Sounds esoteric but this show's a certain internalised understanding of the adjectives themselves.

Reason why some people perpetually seem to choose the right guitars with the right sound can be attributed to the above. Think about it, it's just like picking durians. Some just sniff and they know. My urge to guitar players, try 'sniffing' more and discover. :)

KC

Guitar/Guitarist Jokes

Some of these you may have heard over the years, some might be new to you. Some are hilarious, others lame. Whatever it may be, take no offense, look on the bright side and have a good laugh at ourselves, the guitarist. :)

Q: How many bluegrass players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Five - One to turn the bulb and four to complain that it's electric.

Q: Why are guitarist's fingers like lightning?
A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: What did the guitar say to the guitarist?
A: Pick on someone your own size!

Q: In the 22nd century, how many guitarists will it take to replace a light source ?
A: Five, one to actually do it and four to reminisce about how much better the old tubes were.

Q: What did the guitarist say to his crying guitar?
A: Don't fret!

Q: What do a guitar solo and premature ejaculation have in common?
A: You know it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it.

Q: How can you tell if there is a guitarist at the door?
A: He knocks out of time, and comes in too early.

- Did you hear about the guitarist who was going to a gig and locked his keys in the car? It took him two hours to get the drummer out....

Off the record, so that I don't get hammered by the various guitarists now glaring at me, here are two jokes (non-guitar and imo, the best) from the great Tommy Emmanuel. Here goes:

Q: What do you get when you throw a piano down a mine shaft?
A: A flat minor.

Q: What is the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you cut a banjo up.

The Day Fingerpickers Took Over The World

David Crosby(center) is Fingerpicking! Please don't let him take over the world!

Bike Craze

As a biker, I always like to go around looking for gear as much as I enjoy "shopping" for guitar effects/parts/accessories. Featured above is one of the popular brands of bike front fork suspension, RST GILA. I wonder if it makes one a crazy biker after installation... (note: Gila is crazy or mad in Malay)



Michael

Musikmesse 2007: Friends from afar

We always meet up with some friends from all over the world every year during Musikmesse for a few drinks or dinner, some jamming or a chat to catch up on the latest news, e.g. who's married, who's got kids etc.

Sonia Rutstein from US

Jurgen from Germany

Matteo Titotto from Italy

Enrico Crivellaro from Italy

Our friends from UK and India