A new amplifier for a new guitar

As I have got into the habit of leaving my guitar amplifier in our practice room, I thought that it would be a good idea to buy a small amp so that I can practice at home and also get more acquainted with the various sounds available on the Stagg Tele.

So I looked at various options available from Israeli music stores then I looked at what is available on the Internet. In the end I plumped for the amplifier pictured on the left; deliberately I have given no idea of the scale of this amp, but it occurs to me that the input socket is standard so one can figure out how big the amp is - 12.5 cm high, 12.2 cm wide and 6 cm in depth. In other words, it's miniscule.

The amplifier arrived within 10-11 days of ordering which is very fast. In fact, when I went to pick up the parcel, I had no idea of what I was collecting (because I didn't expect anything yet), although had I been more on the ball, I would have seen that the messages that I had been receiving via Email and SMS originated from the person selling the amp (I almost never look at the name). This cost all of about 85 NIS, plus another 20 NIS for the battery. 

In fact, I was a bit dubious about the battery: the standard 9 volt battery has distinctive connectors whereas the amp had only two small sheets of metal. I put the battery in one way and turned on the amp but no guide light came on. I then turned the battery upside down - this way worked. It seems as if the manufacturer saved a few pennies by not using the regular 9v connectors.

But what does the amp sound like? Very good, in fact. I discovered that the neck pickup on the Stagg that I had previously ignored turned out to sound better than the bridge pickup, at least through this amp. The amp even has an overdrive setting which is basically increasing the gain in the pre-amp stage so that the final sound is distorted. Not bad, but I can't see myself ever using this option. 

Those with a good memory may recall that I wrote several years ago about buying a small practice amp (Aroma AG-03M Rechargable Cube Guitar Amplifier). I looked for this a few weeks ago but couldn't find it which is why I ordered a new amplifier. I wasn't too enamoured of that amplifier because it automatically came up with overdrive and the controls were a bit fiddly. On the other hand, it didn't need a battery.

I am sorely tempted to take this amp with me for the next band practice, saying that I've bought a new amplifier. It's worth it for the joke value.

Incidentally, whilst unpacking the guitar lead that came with the guitar in a plastic bag, I discovered that the guitar did indeed come with two Allen keys, should I need to straighten the neck. I originally wrote that this accessory was missing, or at least was not supplied. Sorry.

Conclusion: a well spent 100 NIS.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
55	29/09/2006	Donwloading from YouTube	King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, Youtube
513	29/09/2012	Watching the dark	DCI Banks, Peter Robinson
1262	29/09/2019	Many rivers to cross	DCI Banks
1340	29/09/2020	Birthday (song)	MIDI

The amateur nutrionist

In preparation for yet another appointment with my dietician, I underwent blood tests this morning. I already have most of the results and they make for confused reading. As far as I, the amateur nutrionist, can figure out, there are three major areas being tested, as follows...

Glucose: as far as I am concerned, this is the most important test. I am pleased to see that the glucose in blood level decreased to 'only' 100 mg/dL. This is just below the beginning of the pre-diabetic range (101-120 mg/dL) so this decrease is good. I'm not sure as to what could be the cause of this decrease, but never argue with a good result.

Triglycerides and cholesterol: there is an increase in all of these parameters, which some would say is not good. There are no dangerous levels here, but lower is definitely better; in fact, all of the levels are reasonable, but they have increased, especially the free triglycerides. One of the nutrition books that I read in the earlier part of the summer encouraged the eating of some saturated fat, but I think that I am going to ignore that advice from now on. I think that the increase can be attributed to buying cheese with a higher fat level (15 or 22%), so I'm going back to eating cheese with only 5% fat. 

Iron: this is the most confusing area. On the one hand, the haemoglobin level is 15.6 g/dL, which is a good mid-range level. On the other hand, the ferritin level is very low and the transferrin level is very high. Ferritin is a protein that acts as an iron store, and if it is low, then the body doesn't have many iron reserves - apparently I am suffering from iron deficiency, although not anaemia. The iron level itself is 81 μg/dL, which is at the low end of the scale, but still within the realms of normalcy. Transferrin is another protein that binds iron and transfers it to cells; an over-abundance of transferrin means again that there is an insufficiency of iron. Broccoli is quite a good source of iron, as well as a few other nutrients, but I've been ignoring it lately in favour of cabbage. So it's back to eating broccoli, not that I mind. Recently I've also been eating poached chicken breast that, whilst being a high protein and low fat and sugar food, is also a low iron food, so that will have to stop.

I'll see what the real dietician says when we meet in another week.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
14	28/09/2005	Something special - Delphi rules!	Programming, Delphi, Randy Newman
289	28/09/2010	Malta log #1	Holiday, Malta
290	28/09/2010	Malta log #2	Holiday, Father, Malta
636	28/09/2013	Reading books	Films, Literature, Beatles
637	28/09/2013	More afterwords (My gap year, part 8)	Gap year, Old recordings
1075	28/09/2017	Train journey to Karmiel	Trains
1176	28/09/2018	Walking the dog leads to epiphanies	DBA
1261	28/09/2019	Understanding the UNLINK command in Priority	Priority tips

"The great escape", aka "The 7/4 song"

On 23 July, I noted the beginnings of a new song, with the imposing 7/4 time signature. Judging by my dated demos, the arrangement came together moderately swiftly, and by 22 Aug, I had what I considered to be the final version of the music.

Words, of course, were a different matter. The primary reason for the lack of words was that I had no ideas about what to write. The secondary reason was that each line in the song has only five syllables, so this became quite an important technical constraint. Eventually one evening I wrote "So the journey starts/To an unknown place/How long will it take?/What will be the pace?", which of course is referring to the process of writing the words - the journey being the process of writing and the unknown place being the destination, the completed lyric. I had no idea how long it would take me to write the words.

Unfortunately, after this belated start, I couldn't progress. I opened a document in which I would occasionally write the odd couplet, but nothing was sticking together, and certainly not for the length of the required lyric. Then another evening had me writing "She knows me so well/Knows the words to say/<missing line>/How to get her way" - this was definitely interesting. This could be about someone who is in a relationship with a woman but is totally under her thumb. There was a third line, but I don't recall now what it was as it was later replaced by something much better.

Walking with the dog on Thursday evening, I found some more suitable lines, and on Friday morning I was finally able to write two verses, each composed of twelve lines each. At this stage, the phrase 'The great escape' popped into my head and I was able to include this: the protagonist is going to make his (or her) escape from the dominant woman. The second verse was more 'physical', describing the escape, with lines like 'chipping at the stone' and 'Shoveling up the dirt'. 

On Saturday morning, I wrote the final verse then started improving the lyrics, by changing words here and there, replacing lines and in one case even changing a rhyming line to a non-rhyming line as I had a better line. There's still one rhyming line that I would like to replace but I haven't found anything suitable yet ('And there are no bends').

When I started singing the words to the melody, I discovered that the tune was pitched too high, from B below middle C upto D, an octave above middle C. Lowering the tune by a tone (now A - C) made it easier to sing. When originally sequencing the song, I had included a middle section; frequently I do this without including a tune, trusting that a contrasting tune will pop up when I write the words. This did not happen this time, so I had to chop out the middle section. Then I discovered that the final bar before the removed section had an Ab chord whereas the next bar (the first bar of the third verse) had a C chord. I had to rework part of the instrumental break between the second and third verses; walking the dog helped me think of a possibility, but in the end it was easier than I thought.

So now I have the music track and I have the words. Despite the odd rhythm of seven beats in a bar, I found the song far from difficult to sing. Now I have to get used to the tune and the words, but that's not too difficult. I imagine that I'll record the first version on Friday, rerecording the vocal until it's good. 

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
287	26/09/2010	Prague log #4	Holiday, Prague
288	26/09/2010	Prague log #5	Holiday, Prague
635	26/09/2013	More holiday	DBA, Statistics, Sandy Denny, Old recordings
1175	26/09/2018	Turnitin	DBA
1259	26/09/2019	Two important events	DBA, Health
1338	26/09/2020	Priority procedures cross referencer	Programming, Priority tips

Emigration day

On this day, 45 years ago, I emigrated from Britain to Israel. I've already written about the original day (twice, in fact) - see the listings in 'This day in history'. Instead, I want to write about where I was on the 10th anniversary, 1988, as I was doing something quite unusual, at least for me.

I had been called up for reserve military duty in September 1988, presumably a few days after the New Year. To my displeasure, we were to be sent to an area around the Arab city of Nablus, in what some would call the occupied territories and others the West bank. After a few days of revision (mainly target practice), we were divided into groups where each group would help with guarding a Jewish settlement in the area.

My name was not called. At first, I though that I had misheard (i.e. that it had been called and I missed it), but no, I was supernumerary. Could I go home? Of course not. I was told to join the organising staff for the time being, who were quartered in the police headquarters in Nablus. I didn't do anything there, but after the first or second day, I was taken to one of the settlements to guard on a Friday night - this day was my emigration anniversary and I remember talking about it to someone.

Probably I spent Saturday night at this settlement as well, although I don't recall. The next thing that I do remember was going back to Nablus, and as it was now the morning before Yom Kippur, I asked whether I could go home for the fast. I was allowed to do so, and for some reason that I don't remember, I arranged with the person who took me most of the way home that I would meet him again at a certain junction in Jerusalem in two days time. As we would be travelling again, I left my army equipment in his car.

After the fast, I travelled to Jerusalem and waited at the junction where I though that we had agreed to meet. I waited a few hours before I realised that this wasn't the place, so I took a bus to Nablus (there was still such a thing) and reported once again to the police headquarters there, this time without any equipment (although obviously I still had my rifle). I was told to wait and something would be arranged.

The Succot holiday came (as always) about a day after I returned to Nablus, and as no one had told me to do anything yet, I went AWOL and and spent a weekend at home. I returned promptly after the holiday and was about to get an earful from the commander (along the lines of 'you could have gone to one of the settlements and relieve someone else'), when another reservist who also had taken an unauthorised holiday turned up. As he arrived a few hours after me, the commander's wrath was spent on this person and I was ignored.

Eventually I was told that I would be going to a settlement called Tapu'ach (apple), a few kilometers south of Nablus. I was delivered there and started guarding. Several days later my equipment turned up. As there were only three of us assigned to Tapu'ach, we skimped on the hours that we were supposed to guard, allowing one rotating person to be at home. When I returned from my first (and possibly only) official leave, I brought with me a small electric light - this was so that I could read in the evenings in my room (yes, we had individual rooms in an abandoned building). We also had to cook for ourselves.

In this fashion, another ten lazy days passed. Who would have thought 10 years previously that this would be how I spent my time?

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
202	25/09/2009	Defining my laptop computer's wireless IP settings	Computer
286	25/09/2010	Terezin	Holiday, Holocaust, Terezin
634	25/09/2013	Emigration	Israel, Kibbutz
1174	25/09/2018	It was 40 years ago today	Israel, Personal
1339	25/09/2020	Accordion	Musical instruments
1530	25/09/2022	Two films	Films

Initial sections in the Nutrition course

So far, I've studied the first three sections of the initial module in the Nutrition course, namely

1. The GI tract and the physiology of nutrient digestion and absorption
2. Cellular respiration and main metabolic pathways
3. Fluid and electrolyte balance

At the end of every section, there is a multiple choice questionnaire for self-assessment. I wrote a week ago, "I wonder at what level of detail are the students required to remember", and I've discovered that the answer is "at a very high level". Some of the questions are not strictly multiple choice as they are looking for specific words. As an example of a non-multiple choice question, there is this question from 'cellular respiration': The outer mitochondrial membrane is highly _____ while the inner membrane is _____. My answer was the outer membrane is highly permeable (correct) whereas the inner membrane is semi-permeable (incorrect). The latter answer is impermeable, but there was no way of knowing that this is the answer from the question itself. I suspect that the topic of permeability did not appear in any of the material.

Here's a nasty example of a question from the GI tract section:

Indicate which 3 statements are correct for the gastric phase of digestive regulation by ticking in the box next to it.

1. The gastric phase describes those stimuli that originate from the stomach.
2. The gastric phase comprises those stimuli that originate from the head
3. Gastric phase stimuli include distention of the stomach (which activates stretch receptors)
4. Neural response: Gastric juice secretion and smooth muscle contraction are promoted.
5. Gastric secretion and gastric motility are inhibited (enterogastric reflex).
6. Intestinal secretions, smooth muscle contraction, and bile and pancreatic juice production are promoted.

I chose 1, 4 and 6, whereas the correct answers are 1, 3 and 4. I got two answers correct, but instead of receiving a mark for each correct answer (i.e. 2 marks), I instead received 0. 

My marks were 17/22, 18/22 and 13/13 respectively. I can see the questions and my answers on the website, but I can't figure out how to download them for futher study. I'll have to go over the first section yet again - this is far more complicated than the third.  

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
12	23/09/2005	James Taylor and the Wikis	James Taylor
53	23/09/2006	Stevie Wonder	MIDI, Stevie Wonder
284	23/09/2010	Prague log #3	Holiday, Prague, Holocaust
760	23/09/2014	Literature review	DBA
1074	23/09/2017	The Jewish New Year/A death in the family/My first video clip	Jewish holidays, Cooking, Obituary, Home movies
1172	23/09/2018	Vinyl log #31 - 23 September	Vinyl log, 10cc

Trident Studios inconsistency (why was 'Ride a white swan' recorded on 8 track?)

Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video with record producer Tony Visconti diving into the multi-track recordings of two T-Rex songs, "Jeepster" and "Ride a white swan". "Jeepster" was started in Los Angeles and was recorded on 16 track, but Visconti points out that he was used to working with 8 track recorders and so only about 12 tracks were used, leaving 4 empty. "Ride a white swan" was recorded at Trident Studios on 1 July 1970 and was an 8 track recording. Visconti played the various tracks and noted that they initially recorded three tracks of backing vocals that were bounced down to one track, freeing up two tracks.

Wait a minute - Van der Graaf Generator recorded "The least we can do" at the end of December 1969 at Trident studios, at least four months before "Ride a white swan". All of the songs bar one were recorded on 8 tracks, but the final song, "After the flood", was recorded on 16 tracks. There were problems with aligning the 16 track machine which is why recording that song took longer than the others. 

So if Trident had fixed their 16 track machine by the end of December 1969, why was Visconti recording T-Rex on 8 tracks several months later? It's not as if Visconti misremembered, as he played each one of the eight tracks. At this stage in their career, T-Rex was still considered a dippy, trippy act ("Ride a white swan" was their first hit) so Marc Bolan would not have been paying for the recording time. Maybe the record company didn't want to pay the extra cost for using the 16 track machine.

A conundrum to which I will probably never find the answer.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
10	18/09/2005	Little criminals	Randy Newman
407	18/09/2011	Continuing the diet	Diet, Acupuncture
757	18/09/2014	Walking with the GPS	Health, Mobile phone
1073	18/09/2017	Literature review - I don't believe this!	ERP, DBA
1169	18/09/2018	Vinyl log #29 - 17 September	Vinyl log, City Boy
1425	18/09/2021	Popup menus: a misconception	Programming, Delphi

The GI tract and the new guitar

I devoted a few hours yesterday morning to studying the material for my new course, Fundamentals of Human Nutrition and Metabolism. The opening chapter is about the GI tract, that begins with the mouth and ends with the anus. The pre-recorded lectures and accompanying material went into the topic at quite a depth (which enzymes are released at which part of the tract, etc) and I wonder at what level of detail are the students required to remember. There will probably be a multiple choice questionnaire at the end of this section so I'll know soon. After the GI tract, there is material on metabolic pathways (I learnt this material 45 years ago, and since man has existed for several hundred thousand years, I doubt that there will be much new material here) then other systems within the body are discussed. And this is the first unit! I had wanted to continue studying today but that didn't work out. I do intend to spend several hours a day studying during the Succot holiday in another two weeks; also the swimming pool will soon be closed so that gives me a few more hours a week to devote to the studying.

Last night at band rehearsal, I introduced the Stagg guitar. This was my first chance to hear the guitar through an amplifier and so check out the pickups and the various combinations of sounds available. A guitar with two pickups normally has three available combinations, namely neck pickup, neck and bridge, and finally bridge pickup. As the bridge pickup on the Stagg can either be in humbucker mode or single coil mode, there are five possible combinations of pickups. That said, the only good sound comes from the bridge pickup as humbucker; the single coil variant sounds almost the same but less 'full' so there's not much point in using this option. The neck pickup is very muffled and doesn't sound particularly good; it's for when I want to play but not be heard. The tone control goes from a good sound to a very muffled sound, so it looks like I won't be touching the controls very much. Playing the guitar was very easy although at one stage my left hand started hurting; this might be because of the semi-circular neck. I discovered at one stage that the guitar suffers from a mild case of 'neck dive'; having the guitar higher up on my chest should mitigate this. The Stagg weighs 2.7 kg whereas the Washburn is a kilo heavier.

As usual, I had to compete with the wall of sound from the other guitarist, so I couldn't really hear the tonal possibilities of the guitar; was I drowned out simply because of volume or because of the tone? Yesterday morning I had sent to everyone a link to a YouTube video that explains the job of each instrument and how they should play in order to create a good composite sound where everyone leaves room for everyone else. I'm fairly certain that I am the only one who watched this; obviously the others hadn't taken the hint.

It seems almost certain that we won't be playing a show in two weeks' time; this is primarily because the female singer wants to rest her voice (she complained several times during our rehearsals last week) and secondarily because intergrating the keyboard player is going far slower than we had originally reckoned. Had it not been for him, I think we could have already added four new tunes to our original set.

There's another new tune (for us, of course) that we are working on but it's very difficult, being a Greek-influenced tune in 7/8. We spent about half an hour working only on the introduction, so it's far from clear yet whether we will continue with this. Everyone is supposed to listen to it during the coming week so that we will have a better idea of how it is supposed to be.  Maybe our mistake is beginning with drums and not with guitar; the drums are supposed to give the rhythm to everyone else.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
199	17/09/2009	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Literature, Steig Larsson
977	17/09/2016	Obligatory monthly grandfather picture	Grandfather
1072	17/09/2017	Interface for importing XML files into Priority	Priority tips
1168	17/09/2018	Maartin Allcock, 1957-2018	Obituary, Fairport Convention

Cropping videos

Via Google Photos, I finally managed to download the missing video from last night, 'Autumn Samba'. Having done so, I considered cropping the video, as a large amount of the screen is taken with, on one side the curtain behind us and above our heads, and on the other side the audience. I tried a few online cropping tools; both were very easy, but this one results in a slightly smaller file (although this might be a function of the cropping), but more importantly lacks the watermark of a different site. The file itself is slightly larger than the original, meaning that the phone that made the video compressed the data. The video can now be accessed here.

A few days ago I was watching yet another YouTube video showing how one can improve one's rhythm guitar playing. One of the suggestions was regarding the right hand: keep it moving down and up like a metronome, but hit the strings only when necessary. The samba rhythm is quite complicated, with plenty of off-beats being played; when I look at my right hand in the video, I can see it metronome like, even though I'm not playing all the strokes. In other words, I am playing exactly how the YT video suggests. Like athletes and sportsmen, I can see that I can improve my rhythm work by watching videos of myself playing.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
9	15/09/2005	Migraine	Migraine
406	15/09/2011	Planning the SQL	Delphi, SQL, Firebird
511	15/09/2012	My father's 90th birthday	Personal, Father

Yes, had my father lived then todays would have been his 101th birthday.

A long, long day

Today started very early as usual with a walk around the kibbutz, giving the dog a chance to do whatever she needs to do. This was followed by a quick breakfast then into the car for a drive to Jerusalem. My wife had to undergo a removal of an internal cyst: not a big problem, but it had to be done under general anaesthetic, meaning that she had to spend the night in hospital for observation. This reminded me of any first day when I used to serve in the army reserves: hurry up and wait. That said, everyone in the hospital was very courteous and helpful, especially the two nurses in the recovery room.

After my wife was released from the recovery room, it was up to the ward: the 'new' wing of the hospital (it's been open for several years) offers single rooms to patients, including en suite bathroom, chairs and even a mattress where an accompanying person can sleep. After she settled in (no food or water, lest she become nauseous or aspirate), I was allowed to leave. I then drove to the music shop in central Jerusalem where I intended to buy the new Stagg guitar. It turns out that the shop is focused on drums and percussion instruments (a drum lesson was underway when I was there), but they also stock some guitars. 

I saw hanging on a wall the same model that I came to buy, but in a natural finish. The salesman said that he found this model at the same time as he found the black one, so he thought he'd bring it out and display it. The black guitar came in a cardboard box, accompanied by a guitar lead but no Allen key (for adjusting the neck) or any other accessories. First I checked the neck to see that it was straight, that the neck was bolted on properly, and that the frets were set correctly and were the right size. The guitar passed the physical tests. The intonation seems ok although there was some buzz when I played the bottom string on its own - I'll rub some graphite into the nut when I change strings, which will probably be soon.

I played the guitar for about half an hour, although only acoustically - there was no nearby amplifier and the salesman didn't provide one. I hope that the electrics are ok. That reminds me: the humbucker bridge pickup has plastic wrap on it that I should remove, although this shouldn't affect the sound.

From Jerusalem I drove home, had something to eat and drink then took the dog for a walk. Then it was down to the dining room air raid shelter for a final rehearsal for the New Year show. Once this was finished, we took the equipment - mainly the drum kit - up to the dining room and set up again. The guitars went through the PA system via DI boxes; the bass guitar was fine but my line didn't work. Eventually the guitar was heard, only for it to disappear then reappear then disappear. When we came to perform, I had to start the first song three times as twice the sound disappeared during the first line.

Again a huge sigh of relief when the show was over. Here's a video of one of the songs; someone was kind enough to film the songs, but for some reason I haven't been able to download the best song on to my computer. Maybe I'll succeed tomorrow.

And most importantly, 

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
281	14/09/2010	A twilight health stage	Health
405	14/09/2011	Firebird DB management	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
510	14/09/2012	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
974	14/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted!	DBA

GAS

For the last couple of months, I've been suffering from GAS. I don't mean intestinal gas but rather Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. In other words, I've been thinking about buying a new guitar. This is not to say that I want to replace my Washburn semi-acoustic; the opposite is true as I very much like this guitar and the range of tones that I am able to achieve.

Originally the first pains of GAS started whilst looking at the offerings of the store from which I bought my bass guitar. I remembered how easy it was to play a real Telecaster guitar (which I tried when I bought the 12 string) so I thought that I might buy a T-style guitar, for the same reason that I bought the bass. This is how things stood until a few weeks ago.

When I asked my wife what she thought about buying a new guitar, her first reaction was to say that there was no room left in the music room for hanging another guitar on the wall. I then told her that the SG copy has pickup problems and that I won't be using it any more, so that guitar can be stored under our bed and the new guitar hung in its place. Last night I saw a possible extra place on a wall in the music room, so maybe the SG won't get retired after all.

My original thinking was that the new guitar would be little more than an ornament, but in the past few weeks I've been playing guitar more and more often, culminating in the swimming pool performance, with further appearances guaranteed (and I notice that I have hardly played the piano in the past few months, whereas I have been practicing frequently on the guitar). I realised that my semi-acoustic, as good as it is, is somewhat large and heavy. Maybe it would be better to use a T-style guitar when I play standing up. After last night's practice, a smaller guitar would also be better when playing sitting down.

So I looked again at the first store's catalogue and saw that they had a T-style thin-line guitar priced at 1,950 NIS. This is a bit more than I wanted to pay (and the colour is somewhat off-putting) but maybe the advantages that accrue from the thin-line are worth the extra cost, whereas the more standard T-style model costs 1,552 NIS. My 'friend' Shmulik Budagov has comparable models priced at 2,800 NIS (thin-line) and 1,400 NIS (regular) – I wonder why the thin-line model costs exactly twice as much as the regular model.

At this stage, it occurred to me that it would be worthwhile looking for videos on YouTube about these various guitars. The first compared a regular T-style with a thin-line model; the sounds from these guitars were identical. In other words, the difference between the two types would be aesthetic only, and so there seems to be no reason to pay the extra cost.

Then I started looking at regular T-style guitars available in Israel: each shop seems to sell a different brand and at different prices. It was only when I looked closely at the specifications of these guitars did I notice that all feature two single coil pickups. I am not a gear head, but I prefer the warm sound of the humbuckers on the Washburn to the bright and treble sound of single coil pickups. Then I noticed that one guitar, the Stagg SET-PLUS, pictured left, has one single coil pickup and one humbucker, albeit at an additional cost of 110 NIS – a small price to pay for what promises to be an important upgrade (the basic model costs 880 NIS, the PLUS 990 NIS).

I spent some time looking for YouTube videos reviewing this guitar, and all of them say that this guitar is very good value for money; here's one review and here's another, albeit in German. The guitar comes in three finishes: white, black and natural. I was mentally debating between the black and natural finish, so I asked my wife which finish she thought was better from an aesthetic point of view. She also considered the black and natural, plumping eventually for the black. I concurred with her and pointed out that this seems to be the only colour available from the store where I intend to buy this so it's just as well that she chose this colour.

I do not intend to order this guitar via the Internet, as I did with the bass. First I want to play it and see what it feels like before purchasing (one video taught me about something called 'neck dive' that I want to check out). This won't be for another week as the shop from which I intend to buy the guitar is situated in the middle of Jerusalem, and my next trip there will only be in another week's time.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
401	03/09/2011	Financial report	MBA, Finance
623	03/09/2013	Frederik Pohl, 26/11/1919-02/09/2013	Literature, Obituary
1068	03/09/2017	Casualty - one (tv series)	TV series
1256	03/09/2019	Priority tip: another thing to be aware of	Priority tips