Frozbyte Evolution

The group was founded during our high school years when we joined a song writing contest.  I formed the group.  I taught most of the band members from drums, guitars and bass.  I played the keyboards that time.  Our name was Music Legacy and we won first place during the song writing contest.  Our drums was an improvised drumset… whilst the rest of the instruments were just borrowed except from my keyboards.  Original members were Louie on guitar, Dolores on bass, John2x on drums, Anelyn on vocals and I was the keyboardist. It was a blessing in disguise that we shared our talent and skills.  Anelyn got a very good voice, Louie got a gene poll of musicians from singing to playing guitar, John2x got a strong arm that can hit drums as loud as Sepultura, Dolores got a family of musicians from the late Dad who’s a guitarist, a brother who’s bassist and another brother who is a drummer…. So, now you’ve guess where we’ve borrowed most of our instruments when we first started.  Hehehe.

We’ve been invited to play in school activities and even during student programs outside our school, like Science Camp, school campaigns and programs.  Then, we added a male vocalist, Ven Ian, a balladeer.  We were invited during JS Prom and we’re playing ballad OPMs like Ariel Rivera, Gary V. and even Folk and Country music like “Perhaps Love and Aubrey”.
Suddenly, Philippine Local Bands became famous like Introvoys, which Louie our guitarist started singing and that change our group and our genre of music.  Louie became our vocalist and his first song was Will I Survive by Introvoys.  And then, we continued that kind of genre because the crowd started loving this new hype.  We then performed Line to heaven by Introvoys, Next in line by After Image and bands like Alamid, Teeth, The Youth, Siakol, Yano, Rivermaya and the band that influenced us most, the Eraserheads.
Gigs then continued from battle of the bands, prom night, SK victory party, a different serenade during pageant, intermission during seminars and even had our own Concert at school, two in a row.  Then, later, we got a regular schedule in a pub during Saturday night at Mariano’s Grill and Restaurant and that’s our ultimate goal that time.

By:  VRB

Frozbyte

My band back home in the Philippines was and is Frozbyte. Most of us are nurses and that’s why members keep changing and adding up coz after we graduated we work abroad. Louie, a nurse and is our lead singer is now in New York. John2x, a nurse, our drummer is now in Florida. Dolores, accountant, former bassist that became our first female lead singer is in Capiz. Jingle, a marketing graduate is our famous lead guitarist that sounded like Steve Vai and is now in Manila. Shane, electrical communications engineer, is our bassist who can play like Flea and even sounds like Flea. He loves RHCP and RATM and is now in Capiz.

We had two additional vocals when our former vocalist went abroad and Dolores got married. They are Ruby and Rommelle. Ruby, a nurse is now in the Middle East while Rommelle is a nautical graduate who concentrated more on his band and is doing well in the Philippines as a singer, guitarist and keyboardist. As for me, I’m a nurse myself who still loves music, plays the guitar, keyboard, drums and a little bit of this and that. Lastly, a special member of the group named Blue does the research for our songs and is also our critic in our performance and sound.



By: VRB

Boss Super Overdrive

How this yellow stomp box became my favourite? During our early years in the band, my mate Louie went on a vacation in New York and there he purchased a Fender Precision Bass, which rather sound crispy.  He also bought two guitar effects with it and a hardcase for the bass, which is bulky and quite heavy as well.  The effects pedal were Boss Super Overdrive and Ibanez Flanger.  I am not into modulation effects during that time so I won’t be detailing more on the Flanger but instead the Super Overdrive.
I was learning Blues, Old school rock like Deep Purple’s Smoke on the water and Highway star, and this band called Eraserhead, which is known as the Beatles of the Philippines.  This is when I learn to love the Super Overdrive.  Less gain but more punch.  When doing lead or solos, it is really standout. 
My settings are’ Level at 12 o’clock, Tone at 1 or 2 o’clock and Drive @ 9 o’clock.  This always works in either rhythm or lead depending on the guitar volume you’re giving or switching pickups from single coil to humbuckers.
I also use Super Overdrive to boost my distortion pedal during lead.  Also when I am playing a clean tone and during lead, I will give it a good stomp and that’s it a well-delivered solo, neat and clean.  Until now I still love the sound and feel of this Yellow Monster thing called Boss Super Overdrive.


By:  VRB

Boss Distortion pt2

I remembered during the 90s era when we did a front act to a Philippine local band called “Yano” where I only had one guitar effects and it’s the famous orange stomp box Boss Distortion.
During that time, my band was Frozbyte and we are newbie in the world of Rock/Alternative.  We performed three cover songs that gig; Selling the drama by Live, Today by Smashing Pumpkins and Long Hair by another Philippine local group called The Weedd.
My set up that night was a borrowed Sunburst Lyon strat by Washburn which I always use or borrow from Louie the man, Boss distortion with settings of Tone at 12 o’clock, Level at 10 o’clock and Dist all the way up.  Then the amp that I used was a cabinet amp 4x4 but I couldn’t recall the brand and it was really loud and powerful that I can feel the air behind me everytime I strum or do powerchords.
Boss distortion did not fail me and until now I can vividly remember my experience during that gig.  This little orange stomp box is my hero and a legend, a truly old school rock gadget.

By:  VRB

Boss Distortion pt1

First Battle of the band that I joined was in “Hideout” and this was way back mid 90s in Roxas City, Capiz, Philippines.

I was not the original member of the group, I just jam with them.  I don’t have my gear that time.  What happened was, while they were rehearsing, I joined them and they were impressed on how I play the guitar.  So, they invited me to join the group as sessionist guitarist. We played “Black and Yellow Led Better” by Pearl Jam, and one original composition titled “Empty Bottle”, which sounds like a combination of Pearl Jam and STP.  I forgot the name of our band but it was founded by 4 young talented lads namely; Lenny, Lief John, Dinno Santi and Oliver.

The most interesting part that night was I don’t have an effects pedal.  Good thing my mate “Badong” got a cousin who happens to be joining the Battle of the bands and guess who it was, Barbie Almalbis.  We approached her to borrow a guitar effects and she’s very pretty and lend me “The Boss Distortion”.  That’s when this orange stomp box became famous.
By the way, we were second that night and we’re branded as Pearl Jam of Capiz.  Barbie Almalbis’ band rank 1^st that night; and she’s Brilliant, from lead vocals to lead guitar.  She sang “Love Will Keep Us Alive, Ode To My Family and Zombie”, not quite sure about the last one.

By:  VRB

Tanglewood 3/4 acoustic guitar

I had a Tanglewood guitar that's junior size, I'm not pretty sure, that really sounded good.  Although it is a junior guitar but it ressonates very loud that you would think it is a big guitar.  The downside was it was too small for my fingers, however, on the other hand I improved my reach, stretching and speed because of the small fret board.  The built of the guitar from wood to finish is really smooth and clean.  It is very solid art work and craftmanship that its durable and I would say up fot its standard.  Here's a link of our video, and I am using this Junior Tanglewood.  So, judge the sound by your own ears. 

By the way, the video was recorded using a laptop so everything was raw, unrehearsed and no other technology, gadgets or edit made just the Tanglewood guitar and the laptop.

How to tune the guitar

The most common and natural way of tuning the guitar is by ear.  You need to have a tuning pipe or a keyboard, a piano or another guitar and as much as possible replicate the sound of every string to the other guitar.  However, this really takes a lot of skills and practise that is why this is not so simple as it seem.
Second, would be to tune the strings by getting the sound of the lower E string or shall I say the 6^th string from another instrument or by assumption that this sounds like lower E.  After that you need to press your finger on the 5^th Fret, 6^th String and with an open 5^th string making sure that they sound almost the same.  Just tweak the tuning key to tighten meaning increasing the pitch and loosen to lower the pitch whilst plucking the string to know if they match the same note already.  Proceed to 5^th string, 5^th fret and with an open 4^th string, adjust the tuning key of the guitar again either to tighten or loosen in order to match the note of the 5^th string.  Next, would be 4^th string, 5^th fret the same procedure as above.  Then 3^rd string, 4^th fret with the same technique and procedure as above.  And lastly, 2^nd string, 5^th fret with the same technique and procedure above.  This one also needs a lot of skills, practise and focus. 
Third, would be to buy a tuner which is available in this site at our aStore or go directly to Amazon.co.uk, or buy directly online or directly to music store.  Good brands of tuner are Korg, Boss, Yamaha, etc.  It is very easy to use.  For acoustic guitar, the tuner comes with a microphone and if you’re using a chromatic tuner just hit the string and tune them one a time.  Other tuners you need to switch them to particular string i.e. 1st through 6th string while others uses notes like E-A-D-G-B-E.  For electric guitar, just plug it in if you’re using chromatic tuner and if not just follow the steps above like the ones for acoustic guitar.
Lastly, there applications now for mobile phones so all you need to do is download a guitar tuner application that is compatible to your phone and install and that’s it.  Like before I was using Nokia 6600 and I installed a symbian chromatic tuner and it works fine with my acoustic.  Now, with my Sony-Erickson Xperia X10i, still downloaded a guitar tuner called g-String and it works fine also. 
If you want a detailed video on how to tune your guitar, just go to our favourites and there’s a link there about guitar tuning.


By:  VRB                                                                       

Lyon by Washburn Stratocaster

My first electric guitar package was Lyon by Washburn.  After a long battle of searching online and
reading reviews about guitar and which music store to buy, I have decided to
just go to the nearest music store in Southampton to look, try and then
hopefully buy an electric guitar.

I tried a couple of shops which were adjacent to each other,
tried to look at the guitars and was a bit shy to try one.  Because of my tight budget plus being the new
kid in town, I was really shy to test their guitar.  But then, I conquered my shyness and tried a
couple, and finally decided to buy this Lyon electric guitar by Washburn,
colour black bundled with gig bag, 10-watt Stagg practise amp, strap, 3
plectrums and 3-meter lead.

The guitar is superb, double humbucker bridge pickup, and
two single coil’s, 5-way toggle switch, 1 volume knob and 1 tone knob.  The action was fairly decent, but the sound
or tone quality was rather brilliant.
The store was clever coz I didn’t realize I was using a high-end
amplifier, which is not the one included with the bundle, not the 10-watt Stagg
practise amp.

After buying the guitar, I went home and hooked up
everything and tried using the practise amp, the sound was rubbish especially
using the built-in overdrive although, on clean tone, using the neck pickup, it
is performing well.  The one good thing
about this practise amp is the MP3 input as well as the headset output where it’s
easy and convenient to jam in my room.

If you’re interested of the sound of the guitar just click
on the link:  http://www.youtube.com/user/09mindthegap#p/a
I am using Lyon electric guitar by Washburn on most of the videos here.






By: VRB                                                                      

Evolution MK-249C2

We went yesterday for car boot in Shootash and the weather
was fine.  There were only few people
around and we saw a group of Filipino as well and greeted each other
Mabuhay!  Now, as we roam around I saw a
keyboard and it caught my interest.  I
went and investigate and to my surprise it was a MIDI keyboard.  Not that I need it but I desperately want it
coz I haven’t got the chance to try and play around with a MIDI keyboard
before.  I saw them in the tele, youtube,
magazines and have read from some reviews but not actually fiddle around with
one. 

It was an Evolution MK-249C2 MIDI keyboard and being sold
for £25.  It’s a good bargain,
right?  So, I enquire if it fully
functional and what are the accessories that comes with it.  The man said “yes it fully functional, my son
owns it, we’re just moving house that’s why we are disposing some of our stuff
and the keyboard comes with this USB cable and an adaptor.”  I ask again, why does it need an adaptor, isn’t
USB bus powered?  He replied “yes it is
bus powered, but you can also use it with an external power supply”.  I negotiated for £15 pound and he said “£20,
last offer, coz if not I’m going to put this on ebay.”  Then, I bought it for £20. 

When I arrived home, I browse the net for reviews,
description, manual, etc. on how to go about with this Evolution MK-249C2 and
found a lot of helpful insights although some are not like they said the
software that comes with it is useless or it’s like a toy.  I wasn’t discouraged yet coz I haven’t plugged
it.  To my surprise, it is plug n’
play.  Lucky enough for me, I have
installed in my Laptop a software called Mixcraft 4 and it has virtual
instruments as MIDI and there it is MK-249C2 works and it’s brilliant.  Pretty soon I will post videos or perhaps
compose and record songs using this toy Evolution MK-249C2.

By: VRB

MTV Video Music Awards 2010

A very nice opening act by Eminem’s Not Afraid followed by collaboration with Rihana, Love the way you lie.  Also Eminem won best male and best hiphop, unfortunately Eminem left the building for a gig in New York and did not get the chance to accept his awards.  The host was Chelsea which I think was not really impressive coz she often does character assassination plus below-the-belt remarks to almost everyone.  Lady gaga on the other hand did very well, won best pop, best female and best video.  How I wish she did the closing act instead of Kanye.  Taylor Swift’s performance was brilliant.  She earned her confidence very well on stage despite the unfortunate moment with Kanye from last year’s VMA.  Also Florence and the Machine was excellent plus performances of Bruno Mars, B.o.B. and Hayley Williams and ending their act with Paramore.  One of my disappointment was why Justin Bieber performed outside rather they used the poor boy for marketing/promoting  VMA coz almost all their ads mentioned Justin Bieber but then it was Kanye doing the closing act where there was nothing much to see or hear about Kanye.  Adding to it, Justin Bieber won the New Artist.  Linkin Park performed very well that night, very impressive.  And, Best Rock goes to 30 Seconds to Mars and I like it.  Jack Ass 3D is something to look forward to.  They were the presenter that night and it was rather hilarious.  Mary J. Blige and Drake performed well.  And last but not the least Usher burned the dance floor with his moves and the song OMG plus the effects.  Usher and Justin Bieber could have closed the night with Lady Gaga which could have been something different and memorable.


By:  Vincent Ryan Borres

Home Recording Studio

In order to setup a home recording studio, here are the
equipments that I gathered. First off a laptop that was hand-me-down by my brother
and sister-in-law. Then, old earphones that was stuck in a cupboard. I bought
an electric guitar, cheap one and also bought some stuff online like
microphone, mic stand, amplifier and some leads. Also went to car boot and by
chance bought a used MIDI keyboard that is well functioning. Also there was an
old computer speaker that is working well that I sometimes use as monitor
speakers.

Now to start your own recording studio you must have all of the above meaning a descent laptop like mine Sony Vaio VGN-NS20E. Then, a
recording software, like Energy XT, which is what I’m using now. Pretty straight forward, very easy to use and most of all, it is multi-purpose.  You can use it live, mixing, recording, sequencing and even mastering. Then you need an audio interface. I am using Native Instruments Guitar Session Rig. A very nice one. It doesn’t matter whether it is USB or firewire. It all depends on how you use it and which one is within your budget and you’re comfortable with. Minimum requirement for your interface would be one mic input and one instrument input. I am using Shure C606 microphone. It is cheap but works well. Doesn’t sacrifice quality.  Again, it doesn’t matter if you opt to use condenser or cardioid. It is entirely up to you and your budget.

Now try your instruments as well as microphone, after
installing the software and plugging in your hardware i.e. DAW and Audio
Interface. Start recording your songs, edit, mix and save as wav or mp3
depending where you want to submit your songs.
Good luck.  For sample songs/music

of my home recording studio just check out these links. 


http://www.reverbnation.com/vincentryanborres
http://www.myspace.com/vincentryanborres
http://www.youtube.com/09mindthegap



By: Vincent Ryan Borres

Stagg 10GA practice amp

This amp is a real deal. Value for money and very handy,
most especially for solo rehearsals and jamming. It has CD/MP3 mini jack input
where your favorite backing tracks or even songs you can jam along. This Stagg
10GA has built in overdrive so if you don’t have your pedals or guitar effects
yet, you can fiddle with this one and get your tone as you like it. Clean
channel is very decent. The Stagg
10GA is well appreciated if you have
multi-effects that have reverb or delay and other stuff which will make Stagg
10GA sound louder and like a bigger amp.
Also, for quiet session like in your bedroom, you can make use of the headphones
output.  I even use this one during video
recording via laptop and then webcam to upload on YouTube.  Here are some links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgRMDbEGH3E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhLXVfEVERM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjxQ-78Esug



Overall, I never regret having this small but versatile
practice amp. Stagg
10GA.





VRB

Labtec Pulse 385

The Labtec Pulse 385 PC is a three-speaker set made up of
two satellite speakers and a subwoofer. It also has a mouse-like
controller to turn power on & off or turn the volume up & down. Good sound quality, very clear & well-balance treble/bass. Suitable for bed room or small lounge.  Excellent when watching movies or listening to music. In addition, you can use Labtec Pulse 385 as an improvised monitor for your home recording studio. Whether use it during recording or after when you're mixing/mastering your record.  It is very helpful to me, when I try to finish some recording and trying to listen to how my sounded like, the balance between bass and treble as well as how stereo the record was.  Here are some links of my recording using Labtec Pulse 385 as my monitor.



http://www.reverbnation.com/vincentryanborres



http://www.myspace.com/vincentryanborres



Buy album at:  Myspace or iTunes





VRB

ION center stage review

I bought this item online from Maplin. It was smooth
transaction quick deliver, although the box was like it was already opened and
returned to them but still I go for it because I was intrigued of this item.  Unboxing, checked if it was complete and looks
like it was.  Tried to assemble the
stands, speakers, etc and then now comes the leads what I got in my hand was
the microphone lead and the lead for extension speaker wasn’t there.  I checked the microphone box and found that
it was in there so I concluded the item was really opened and perhaps returned
to Maplin.

Still continued and assembled/connect everything. There are three inputs; microphone, guitar
and RCA input for iPod/Laptop.  First, I
started testing the microphone and I was disappointed because it was rather a
cheap microphone as well as the lead that comes with it. Microphone sound
quality is rubbish.  There’s no echo or
reverb or any effects like delay forthe microphone so it’s another minus
factor.

Now the iPod input with the lead and holder that comes with
this ION center stage, I tried testing it with iPhone and I was impressed. It
was loud and crystal clear sound.  I
tried it with my netbook and I was really impressed even with just one speaker
minus the extension speaker, it can really punch a good sound not to mention
that this is a 50 watt mini amp.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for me with this
item because I will be using this just for home parties, karaoke and doing some
activities in a nursing home where I work, so a mini portable PA system I think
this will work.

Lastly, as I am a guitarist, I tried connecting my electric
guitar directly onto the guitar input. It was brilliant. The sound of the
guitar got bass even though the speakers itself is so small like a shelf
speaker but it can produce a loud, clear and bassy guitar sound.  Not too bad really.  I was even tempted to connect the microphone
on the guitar input and yes it’s rather sounding good coz the unit doesn’t have
equalizer, the guitar input got a bassy sound, it works with my voice.

Overall conclusion and suggestions, the unit is fairly
decent depending on what you’re going to use it for. Easy to assemble and it’s
like all in one for a performer like me. Got a guitar, backing track input via
mp3, iPod or laptop and mic input.  The
downside of ION center stage is that there’s no effects for microphone like
delay, echo or reverb plus no tone or equalizer but most importantly the
effects.  I would suggest to ION to do
away with the microphone because it was so useless and cheap and instead put on
some effects to the unit.



VRB