Sperzel locking tuners string breakage at the peg

I broke 2 strings before it hit me: you're not supposed to loosen the string completely after having tuned up with Sperzel locking tuners.

The thing with that is the string makes a really tight turn at the peg when tuned up and when loosening again it bends back, weakening that spot.

Rinse and repeat for every tune/detune cycle eventually breaking the string at the point it makes a turn to fit into the peg's opening.

Better would be, if you're planning to ever loosen the string that is, to insert it at a 1/2 or even 3/4 turn around the peg so that the weak spot never bends back when detuning.
Update: come to think of it, even 1/4 of a turn around would be enough. As long as the bend at the peg doesn't get straight again it should be fine.

NGD - Ran

My Ran arrived yesterday :)
As it hasn't been easy to find information on Ran apart from here, I'm going to write down my experiences ordering one and a couple of first impressions as well as some pics at end.

TL;DR version: I'm happy with it. Scroll down for pics.

I started communicating with Dariusz in November 2010 after it turned out he could build a KH2 NTB clone with a couple modifications for €1860.
I fiddled around on a KH2 in a shop a bit a couple weeks before that and everything just felt right, you know?
The real deal is about €2200 over on Thomann and that's without the modifications/improvements Ran could do (and the ESP is just a production guitar, not a custom shop).

I did some reading in old threads on a couple of forums, people were absolutely thrilled about their Ran and their reputation in Poland itself is very good as well.
I noticed from the posts prices kept going up over the years though.
Figuring prices would only continue to rise because of materials getting more expensive and of course Ran getting more and more exposure I figured I'd take my shot now.
ESP charges upwards of $6000 for custom shops...
Ibanez and ESP, to name only 2 major vendors, started out small as well so I wouldn't be surprised Ran will become a major player on the guitar market one day.
Cannibal Corpse, Vader, Annihilator and Clawfinger are just some of the bands already using Ran guitars.
So yes, it was an economical decision, I'm nowhere near the level of guitar expertise where I would require having custom shop guitars built.

Anyways, Dariusz answered my every question and it came to a point where I was happy with the specs and I wired a deposit of €1000.
The next day he sent me a mockup (see pictures) and based on that I changed a couple more things until I was satisfied.

Basically what I asked for was an ESP KH-2 NTB clone but with following changes:
* Sperzel locking tuners
* Stainless steel frets
* White body/neck/head stock binding
* Schaller strap locks
* Custom graphic on the back of the neck

€2060 in total (€40 UPS shipping + €160 flight case + €1860 guitar).

Dariusz is great to deal with btw, he offered his opinion when I asked for it and right up until a couple days ago when he sent word my guitar was going to be shipped the next day he kept up the the responsive communication.

So, Ran'd start building somewhere around 1/2/2011 and the build time would be approximately 10 months.
It turned out to be 15 months, but that's partly due to issues they had no control over.
Their spray booth was acting up and they were having problems with the distributor, creating a backlog of projects waiting to be painted.
I asked for it to be stringed with a specific brand and type of strings a couple months later which wasn't a problem at all.
It was clear to me no information nor pictures would be given during the build, but I got a notification when the woodwork was finished and a set of pictures when it was ready to send out.
On the pictures I noticed the guitar didn't have the arm rest contour the KH2 has.
Dariusz said they never do that for superstrat bound bodies which is fine by me, but it would've been nice if I had known that up front; after all I asked for a KH2 type body with a white binding.
No biggie, I payed the rest of the money (€1060) and 2 working days after they had received the money  the guitar was ready to be shipped out.
At least, that was before Dariusz discovered it was strung with a different string gauge.
They restrung it and sent it out one day later. took UPS 2 days to deliver.

So yesterday it arrived.
It took me about 15 minutes to liberate my guitar from the packaging ;)
The flight case was wrapped in an insane amount of bubble wrap and the guitar itself and the accessories in the flight case where packed in bubble wrap as well.

Despite all that the plastic thingy on the pickup selector switch was broken in half. One half I found in the Floyd cavity.

The flight case needs some additional work apart from it being well designed and very sturdy.
They put in foam padding so the guitar can't budge but the thing with that is the foam padding aren't all glued to the inside of the case so I'm going to do that myself.
The guitar was secure in the case during transit though, it was only after I removed all the bubble wrap I noticed I'd need to do some gluing for myself to make it a perfect fit.
Again, no biggie but it would've been nice if I didn't have to do that myself.

I played it for about 3 hours today, it's an amazing piece of work.
I have yet to find a single flaw in the finish and the setup is almost perfect.
Almost, because the 2nd and 5th string are a little bit sharp on intonation at the 12th fret.

Stainless steel frets in combination with the coated Ernie Ball's are a match made in heaven, bending has never been so smooth and effortless.
Action is set up exactly like I want it to be, which is pretty subjective but bonus points for them for being able to read my mind :)
The Floyd Rose is balanced perfectly, the ebony fret board and inlays are stunning.

The strings needed some stretching before the tuning got really stable but apart from that it plays like butter, what more can I say.

I don't really believe sound clips can really showcase the build quality or 'tone' of the guitar and that's why I'm not going to make one.
As I see it 'tone' comes from the amplifier/cab + effects used and the level of comfort the guitar provides the player with. Of course the guitar has tonal qualities of its own, but I don't see the point in doing a sound clip unless someone actually uses exactly the same equipment as I do.
Having said that, the thing plays like a dream and sounds fantastic, I couldn't be more happy with it.

Update: Dariusz offered to send over a replacement pickup selector plastic thingy.
Good customer service is in the little details like that.

And now it's picture time:

KDE4 multiple screen handling

So in the good old days XFree/Xorg handled monitor configuration but apparently that was working out too well so nowadays the desktop managers are in control... sigh.

It's been 4 years since the KDE guys released 4.0 and configuring multiple monitors still doesn't work.
You'd think the 'Save as Default' button in the 'Size and Orientation' section of 'System Settings' would work, wouldn't you?
Well, think again, it still doesn't.


Introducing a nice little program called 'xrandr'.
Install it, run it, save its configuration in ~/.kde/env/ so it gets loaded at the same time KDE loads and you're done.
It'll even work when no external monitor is connected, so no weirdness anymore.

Btw:
http://www.trinitydesktop.org
It's a fork of KDE 3.5 made to run on modern day distros.
KDE 3.5, which, as we all know, was almost perfect.
It even includes the old Amarok (yes, ipod sync included).

PS3 Mediatomb Debian configuration - cont.

I recently made some improvements to my mediatomb setup, so here's my config file.
It now does some server-side transcoding for stuff the PS3 doesn't have native support for like Vorbis audio, video codecs and iso images.
It's not perfect yet, but it works for most of the stuff I've got.
The mediatomb xml is pasted first, then the support scripts which handle the video transcoding, just don't forget to chmod +x them (they can be used standalone as well btw).

/etc/mediatomb/config.xml:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config version="2" xmlns="http://mediatomb.cc/config/2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://mediatomb.cc/config/2 http://mediatomb.cc/config/2.xsd">
  <server>
    <ui enabled="yes" show-tooltips="yes">
      <accounts enabled="no" session-timeout="30">
        <account user="mediatomb" password="mediatomb"/>
      </accounts>
    </ui>
    <name>[NAME]</name>
    <udn>uuid:dae13796-e78c-486c-ab54-f79c144a20f3</udn>
    <home>[PATH_TO_HOME]</home>
    <webroot>/usr/share/mediatomb/web</webroot>
    <storage caching="yes">
      <sqlite3 enabled="no">
        <database-file>sqlite3.db</database-file>
      </sqlite3>
      <mysql enabled="yes">
        <host>localhost</host>
        <username>mediatomb</username>
        <database>mediatomb</database>
      </mysql>
    </storage>
    <protocolInfo extend="yes"/>
    <custom-http-headers>
      <add header="X-User-Agent: redsonic"/>
    </custom-http-headers>
    <manufacturerURL>redsonic.com</manufacturerURL>
    <modelNumber>105</modelNumber>
    <extended-runtime-options>
      <ffmpegthumbnailer enabled="yes">
        <thumbnail-size>128</thumbnail-size>
        <seek-percentage>5</seek-percentage>
        <filmstrip-overlay>yes</filmstrip-overlay>
        <workaround-bugs>no</workaround-bugs>
        <image-quality>8</image-quality>
      </ffmpegthumbnailer>
      <mark-played-items enabled="no" suppress-cds-updates="yes">
        <string mode="prepend">*</string>
        <mark>
          <content>video</content>
        </mark>
      </mark-played-items>
    </extended-runtime-options>
  </server>
  <import hidden-files="no">
    <scripting script-charset="UTF-8">
      <common-script>/usr/share/mediatomb/js/common.js</common-script>
      <playlist-script>/usr/share/mediatomb/js/playlists.js</playlist-script>
      <virtual-layout type="builtin">
        <import-script>/usr/share/mediatomb/js/import.js</import-script>
      </virtual-layout>
    </scripting>
    <mappings>
      <extension-mimetype ignore-unknown="no">
        <map from="mp3" to="audio/mpeg"/>
        <map from="ogg" to="application/ogg"/>
        <map from="asf" to="video/x-ms-asf"/>
        <map from="asx" to="video/x-ms-asf"/>
        <map from="wma" to="audio/x-ms-wma"/>
        <map from="wax" to="audio/x-ms-wax"/>
        <map from="wmv" to="video/x-ms-wmv"/>
        <map from="wvx" to="video/x-ms-wvx"/>
        <map from="wm" to="video/x-ms-wm"/>
        <map from="wmx" to="video/x-ms-wmx"/>
        <map from="m3u" to="audio/x-mpegurl"/>
        <map from="pls" to="audio/x-scpls"/>
        <map from="flv" to="video/x-flv"/>
        <map from="avi" to="video/divx"/>
        <map from="mkv" to="video/x-matroska"/>
        <map from="mts" to="video/mpeg"/>
        <map from="ts" to="video/mpeg"/>
        <map from="m2ts" to="video/mpeg"/>
        <map from="mov" to="video/x-quicktime"/>
        <map from="vob" to="video/mpeg"/>
        <map from="m4v" to="video/mp4"/>
        <map from="vob" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="VOB" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="iso" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="ISO" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="img" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="IMG" to="video/iso"/>
        <map from="rm"  to="video/realmedia"/>
        <map from="rmvb"  to="video/realmedia"/>
      </extension-mimetype>
      <mimetype-upnpclass>
        <map from="audio/*" to="object.item.audioItem.musicTrack"/>
        <map from="video/*" to="object.item.videoItem"/>
        <map from="image/*" to="object.item.imageItem"/>
      </mimetype-upnpclass>
      <mimetype-contenttype>
        <treat mimetype="audio/mpeg" as="mp3"/>
        <treat mimetype="application/ogg" as="ogg"/>
        <treat mimetype="audio/x-flac" as="flac"/>
        <treat mimetype="image/jpeg" as="jpg"/>
        <treat mimetype="audio/x-mpegurl" as="playlist"/>
        <treat mimetype="audio/x-scpls" as="playlist"/>
        <treat mimetype="audio/x-wav" as="pcm"/>
        <treat mimetype="video/x-msvideo" as="avi"/>
        <treat mimetype="video/quicktime" as="mov"/>
        <treat mimetype="video/x-quicktime" as="mov"/>
      </mimetype-contenttype>
    </mappings>
    <online-content>
      <YouTube enabled="no" refresh="28800" update-at-start="no" purge-after="604800" racy-content="exclude" format="mp4" hd="no">
        <favorites user="mediatomb"/>
        <standardfeed feed="most_viewed" time-range="today"/>
        <playlists user="mediatomb"/>
        <uploads user="mediatomb"/>
        <standardfeed feed="recently_featured" time-range="today"/>
      </YouTube>
    </online-content>
  </import>
  <transcoding enabled="yes">
    <mimetype-profile-mappings>
      <transcode mimetype="video/x-matroska" using="transcode-video"/>
      <transcode mimetype="video/x-flv" using="transcode-video"/>
      <transcode mimetype="video/x-quicktime" using="transcode-video"/>
      <transcode mimetype="video/realmedia" using="transcode-video"/>
      <transcode mimetype="application/ogg" using="vlcmpeg"/>
      <transcode mimetype="application/ogg" using="oggflac2raw"/>
      <transcode mimetype="audio/x-flac" using="oggflac2raw"/>
      <transcode mimetype="video/iso" using="video-iso"/>
    </mimetype-profile-mappings>
    <profiles>
      <profile name="transcode-video" enabled="yes" type="external">
          <avi-fourcc-list mode="ignore">
              <fourcc>DX50</fourcc>
              <fourcc>DM4V</fourcc>
              <fourcc>M4S2</fourcc>
          </avi-fourcc-list>
          <mimetype>video/mpeg</mimetype>
          <accept-url>yes</accept-url>
          <first-resource>yes</first-resource>
          <hide-original-resource>yes</hide-original-resource>
          <accept-ogg-theora>yes</accept-ogg-theora>
          <agent command="/usr/local/bin/transcode-video" arguments="%in %out"/>
          <buffer size="1048576" chunk-size="26214" fill-size="52428"/>
      </profile>
      <profile name="video-iso" enabled="yes" type="external">
          <mimetype>video/mpeg</mimetype>
          <first-resource>yes</first-resource>
          <hide-original-resource>yes</hide-original-resource>
          <accept-ogg-theora>yes</accept-ogg-theora>
          <agent command="/usr/local/bin/transcode-video-iso" arguments="%in %out"/>
          <buffer size="1048576" chunk-size="131072" fill-size="262144"/>
          </profile>
      <profile name="oggflac2raw" enabled="no" type="external">
        <mimetype>audio/L16</mimetype>
        <accept-url>no</accept-url>
        <first-resource>yes</first-resource>
        <accept-ogg-theora>no</accept-ogg-theora>
        <agent command="ogg123" arguments="-d raw -f %out %in"/>
        <buffer size="1048576" chunk-size="131072" fill-size="262144"/>
      </profile>
      <profile name="vlcmpeg" enabled="yes" type="external">
        <mimetype>video/mpeg</mimetype>
        <accept-url>yes</accept-url>
        <first-resource>yes</first-resource>
        <accept-ogg-theora>yes</accept-ogg-theora>
        <agent command="vlc" arguments="-I dummy %in --sout #transcode{venc=ffmpeg,vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,fps=25,aenc=ffmpeg,acodec=mpga,ab=192,samplerate=44100,channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=ps,dst=%out} vlc:quit"/>
        <buffer size="14400000" chunk-size="512000" fill-size="120000"/>
      </profile>
    </profiles>
  </transcoding>
</config>

/usr/local/bin/transcode-video:

#!/bin/bash

exec "/usr/bin/avconv" -i "$1" -vcodec mpeg2video -b 4096k -r 25 -acodec ac3 -ar 48000 -ac 2 -ab 448000 -f mpegts - > "$2"

 /usr/local/bin/transcode-video-iso:

#!/bin/bash

exec "/usr/bin/vlc" -v dvdsimple://"$1" -I dummy --sout "#transcode{vcodec=mpgv,vb=800,fps=25,acodec=mpga,ab=192,samplerate=48000,channels=2,deinterlace,soverlay,audio-sync}:standard{mux=ps,access=file,dst=$2" --sub-language=en vlc:quit >> /var/log/transcode.log 2>&1

About gallops and down picking

I've got some serious problems with alternate picking.
From when I first picked up a guitar down picking felt much more natural than alternate picking but now I'm starting to realize I've made a serious mistake ignoring it.
I've always wanted being able to play kick ass down picked riff like that MoP riff.
So I practiced and practiced and built up speed until it sounded pretty good.
Meanwhile I practiced galloping as well but somewhere along the way it went wrong and now I'm re-learning to gallop the 'proper' way.
A couple days ago I realized why this happened.

Let's take this riff from MoP as an exmaple:

A |-----2-----3-----4-----3-----2-2-- [...]
E |-0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1------ [...]
    D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

This is played at 218 bpm, so it's pretty fucking fast.
Down picking obviously implies performing a down stroke, then bringing the pick back up without hitting the string and down pick again and doing this really really fast.
Now let's take this basic gallop:

E |-0--0-0-0--0-0-0--0-0-0--0-0-0-- ...
    D  D U D  D U D  D U D  D U D

And this is where my problem starts...
I'm so used at performing the D-D movement, I'm now having the greatest problems performing a basic DUD movement.
Instead I noticed I perform a gallop like this:

E |-0--0-0-0--0-0-0--0-0-0--0-0-0--
    D  U D U  U D U  U D U  U D U

Somewhere along the way my brain decided to perform a gallop, which is a form of alternate picking of course, starting with an 'up' movement to, I guess, differentiate between the regular down stroke and an alternate pick.
When doing faster alternate picked stuff I caught myself starting with an 'up' movement as well, losing speed, needlessly creating extra hand movement so losing efficiency while doing so.
Detecting and realizing why one makes mistakes is the first step, right.
So now I've got to unlearn starting an alternate series with an up stroke by default and that's easier said than done.

Dunlop Black Fang vs Ultex Sharp

Disclaimer:
This basically is one big Dunlop advertisement, so deal with it.
No, I'm not getting paid to do this and if you're reading this, Dunlop dudes: why the fuck don't you lot answer my emails?

Anyways, for what it's worth: a bit of history first... maybe this'll help someone.

Since I started learning playing the guitar I've been a bit obsessed with finding the perfect pick for me.
I noticed very early on the kind of pick I used greatly affected my playing.
The dude in the music store I bought my first guitar at (grossly overpriced, but what did I know... bastards) recommended those floppy light nylon ones, I tossed those after 5 minutes. That started my search for the perfect pick... (still haven't found the Pick of Destiny)

I recently fell in love with Dunlop's Ultex Sharps 1.0.
I already was using regular Ultex which I love for the material it's made of: durable, very nice sound and they don't slip as much as, let's say, the Tortex ones.
The Tortex ones, I used the green 0.88 ones, were great at first, but they wear down as fast as hell and they get incredibly slippery after half an hour of use.
Now, before Tortex I used the famous Jazz III for quite a while.
Incredible picks, I bought a couple of them and only had to grab another one when I lost one. They last forever, they really do.
The sharp tip was so great to use and the small size forced me learning to pick more accurately, which was great as well at first.
They only have one major downside: they're extremely slippery.
Heh, I used to cut them up with a knife to increase friction.
So when I heard Dunlop would release a Max Grip version I immediately placed an order at the local music store.
The Max Grip version has this diamond plate thing going on on the surface which really works and I used them for quite some time as well.
After a while I grew tired of the additional harmonics I created while playing fast riffs as the thumb of my picking hand would keep hitting the strings because of the small size of the pick.
Yes, I know, it's all technique and all and I guess I just suck.
But that lead me back to normal sized picks.
Ultex ones were the next ones I tried but I really missed having a sharp tip.
Apart from that Ultex is an amazing pick: the brightness of the tone it produces is amazing .
After another trip to the Dunlop site I saw the Ultex Sharp ones... and placed an order at my local music store.

Btw, start seeing a pattern here? For some arcane reason they don't stock a great variety of picks, I wonder why...
Anyways, about 2 weeks later they arrived and I fell in love.
Lightweight, durable with a sharp tip and they produce a great sound. I absolutely love them.

I noticed people talking about Hetfield's Black Fangs on a couple websites.
Looking at the specs it seemed just a branded Ultex Sharp in varying thicknesses the regular ones aren't available at and way more expensive of course.
Rephrase: ridiculously more expensive.
They go €7,50 for 6 here which is 2.5 times more than what I buy the regular ones for.
Just because of that I wouldn't buy them but it kept bugging me: was it really just a Ultex Sharp in another color, another gauge and with a fancy drawing on it or was there something else going on?
Reviews just reviewed the pick, not comparing it to a regular Ultex Sharp of course, that'd be too obvious and easy... sigh.

Then, my mother got me some as a present (thanks, Lien!) so when I got home I tried the Black Fang and Ultex Sharp back-to-back, not expecting much difference.
The first thing I noticed about Black Fang is it's a much rougher texture than regular Ultex, which is smooth as a baby's bottom.
They're exactly the same size, apart from the thickness that is.
So without further ado, here's my take on Ultex Sharp vs Black Fang:

Black Fang is better.

There's no sound difference at all but due to the rougher texture they're so much more enjoyable to hold as they're even less slippery than the regular Ultex and a bit more durable as far as I can see.
And, let's be honest here, they're just plain fucking cool; appealing to my inner Metallica fanboy even.
A black rhino silhouette on transparent yellow doesn't exactly scream metal to me.

That's it.
So, are they worth the money? Hard to say, isn't it... how much do you want to spend on a pick?
One could spend 1000's on guitars, amps and effect pedals while saying 'you get what you pay for'.

I used to say €7,50 for 6 picks is ridiculous, but I'm not too sure anymore.
Time will tell which ones I'll buy next, but chances are it'll be Black Fang.

DHCP IP end is not in the subnet or not autorized

Yesterday night the Sagem bridge supplied by my ISP suddenly decided to reboot around 4:00.
Remote firmware update? I don't think so, the firmware build number seems pretty old.
Anyways, afterwards dhcp wasn't working anymore.
Turns out the dhcp server configuration was changed to serve 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.63...
Trying to change the .63 to something like 120 simply didn't work, the damn thing refuses to accept anything over 63... "DHCP IP end is not in the subnet or not autorized".
So I changed the dhcp config to serve 192.168.1.10-50, now it works again.

Firmware-VTU-R:5.5.1.2IK105012 Time Oct 1 2009, 14:04:47