Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by LeoRuoska

[WTA] Sound Blaster X-Fi with front panel

LeoRuoska — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:44:42 +0800

Hey =)

I'm thinking of making recording instruments a bit easier on my future computer. So I'm looking into sound cards that have a 5.25" I/O drive for guitar cable (1/4" TRS) inputs and other good stuff. The only one that I've found so far is the Creative X-Fi Platinum, that comes with such an extension. Does anyone know if there are any other (good) sound cards and/or solutions with front panel input jacks for instruments? I don't want USB stuff and all those RM5000 studio cards are totally out of my range.

How much should I pay for a Creative X-Fi with the I/O drive in Malaysia? A card with this ( http://www.soundblaster.com/products/produ...6&product=14659 ) is what I'm looking for.

Thanks everyone =)

Guitar stores with lotsa used gear?

LeoRuoska — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:39:15 +0800

Hey guys =)

Asking if any of you know about any stores that carry a lot of used stuff, old stuff, weird stuff? I'm looking for wahs and any stomboxes especially for bass, but I don't care about buying them new. They still sound exactly the same even when somebody's stomped on them a bit, so why pay full price =) I'm situated in Penang, but go to KL every now and then. The Yamaha stores (Queensbay, Gurney, Bkt Bintang) are about the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. CK and Bentley also only new stuff..the kinda stores I'm looking for are like the ones in that underground area near Funan Mall in Singapore, you know what I mean =)

Most guitar stores seem to only have the same stuff, the Indonesian made Ibanez and Yamaha low-end instruments and Behringer and Boss pedals..blah blah. Any interesting stores you can point me to? =) I love Ibanez and Boss, don't take me wrong, I'm just more looking into second hand gear which they never carry.

Thanks!

F-Zero AX machines in Malaysia?

LeoRuoska — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:57:21 +0800

Hey guys!

Everyone knows F-Zero GX. The best racing game ever, period. For the GC. The hardest and prettiest, a perfect game. So there's an arcade version of it too, F-Zero AX. You can put your GC memory card into the AX machine while playing and it will unlock the arcade specific drivers and courses (if you're good enough) for you to play in your Gamecube F-Zero GX game. Awesome!

Just one problem, F-Zero AX machines are incredibly rare! In USA, Europe and Asia I've only seen a single one and that was in Jusco, in Mid-Valley Megamall, KL. Too bad it was situated in this "drop your kids here"-corner and the seat was totally set up for kids. No way an adult man can fit in there. If I can't locate any other F-Zero AX machines I'll try to cram myself in there next time I'm visiting KL..

So, anyone else found any AX machines? Singapore, JB, KL? Maybe even Penang? =)

Thanks!

SMC Barricade wireless loses DNS all the time

LeoRuoska — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:48:05 +0800

Hey everybody =)

I've got a problem with my wifi router, bought it used @ RM50 from my neighbor a week or two ago. Now before I go back telling him he sold me a load of bull I was thinking maybe some you might help me fix the problem with it ;-) The router is an SMC Barricade SMCWBR14-G2 UEA.

The problem is that the router loses the internet connection all the time, the DNS to be specific. I get perfect wlan coverage and my laptop says everything's ok, but I just won't get any incoming packets and all I'm getting from the web is "Looking for www.lowyat.net..." and that's it. Now usually when this happens and I look at the router's config page it will say primary DNS is 192.168.2.1 and secondary DNS is 0.0.0.0. These should be 202.87.whatever, the PenangFon DNS addresses. I have no idea what's causing this, it may work well for a day or only for an hour. Then all of a sudden the DNS goes to 192.168.2.1 which is ofcourse the router's own gateway address and will never work. Forcing DNS as 202.87.blah doesn't work either, there's an option in the router's config to specify my own DNS servers but it won't help.

The only way to get the router to find the real DNS addresses again is to soft reset it from it's own maintenance menu. It will often say 192.168 for a few minutes after resetting but then the DNS returns to 202.87 like it should and I get a good internet access again (well, good in terms of it working not in terms of speed).

I have DHCP and NAT enabled. Without DHCP I can't get any internet connectivity via the router. Since this is PenangFon there's just a cable coming to house from the stairway which I plug into the laptop and things work by themselves. The problem is definitely with the router as whenever it kills my connection I can just switch the WAN cable over to the laptop and immediately get a working connection. I don't need the router for anything else but the wifi.

Any ideas or anything are very much welcome, please help me figure this out..I hope it's not broken!
Thanks!

Leo

[addedon]January 23, 2008, 10:00 am[/addedon]Please, anyone? =)

Kevinson acoustic guitar, ever heard of?

LeoRuoska — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:43:52 +0800

Hey everybody =)

I just bought a new guitar, an acoustic with electronics (EQ, presence, sound cut(?) and mid sweep, no tuner)...after a bit of haggling I ended up paying RM400 with a bag for it. It's a Kevinson acoustic, a Greenburst color steel string. Anyone ever heard of these guitars. I bought it from this guitar store on Penang, next to the Bukit Jambul Yamaha store. The salesperson said it's Chinese (it also sez that in the guitar=), I think it plays really nicely and sounded tolerable thru an amp, also sounds ok on it's on. The E-string has this bad-ish vibe to it if you play the guitar really hard, but then again it was only RM400. Stays in tune alright. Looks really damn good, it's like a sunburst except in green so I think you could call it a greenburst =)

I was just wondering if any of you have ever heard of this brand, Kevinson? Maybe it's some generic Chinese guitar that usually goes by some other name but this store has got a couple of them branded for themselves by the Kevinson name or something like that? Any ideas, experiences? =)

How to tell apart pirates and originals?

LeoRuoska — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:45:48 +0800

Hey!

Just got to Malaysia (Penang) on Monday and I'm having the time of my life here. One question tho, are all the movies copies here? I just went to some random dvd store in Bukit Jambul mall and bought a couple of anime dvds. I was like, wt..?, there's 4 different copies of a movie and all with differen covers etc etc. So I just picked the one I liked the most. Most of the cover papers look a bit cheap, like some kid slapped some images together in Photoshop..but they have all these holograms and a zillion stickers saying "Original" in every imaginable language. So I put in the dvd when I get home and the resolution is WORSE THAN ANY DOWNLOADED MOVIE! Is everything like that here? I mean when they have the full dvd to use for one movie, why do they have such a crappy resolution? It's all so pixelated..also with some dvds the subs don't work at all..

Did I just buy a pirate copy? I'm guessing I did..are the only real originals the ones imported from Japan (that naturally never have english subtitles)? And is anything available in 16:9 widescreen and 5.1 Dolby? Everything seems to be 4:3 and 2.0ch, not to mention the sub-VHS resolution!

At least the selection is great around here, but where can I get the quality stuff on Penang?

Singing lessons in Penang

LeoRuoska — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:29:29 +0800

Hey, I'm finally moving to Malaysia next week with my wife =) I previously asked about some guitars and stuff here. I play guitar, bass and write songs for my band Kemosabe (www.myspace.com/julmakemosabe or www.kemosabe.fi). Now I'm a mediocre singer, but enjoy singing a lot! We'll be staying in Penang for about 6 months and really haven't got much to do while my wife goes to USM, so I was thinking..why don't I take some singing lessons?! In Finland lessons are something like RM100-200 per hour (20-40euro/h) so I can't afford them all the time...they gotta be cheaper in Malaysia, right?

I'm not looking for any "real classical training" or anything like that, I just wanna be able to carry a tune while singing with a band. I can already somewhat do it by myself when playing acoustic guitar but I play bass in the band and we're damn loud =) I have a big frikking voice, it just sounds like crap when I try to sing nicely and not scream..so, anyone know anything about teaching good rock style singing? Stuff like Nirvana, Helmet, Faith No More, Alice In Chains and so on?

PenangFON the best on Penang?

LeoRuoska — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:03:08 +0800

Hey guys =)

Me and my wife are moving to Penang (from Europe, Finland!) in like 3 weeks. We'll most likely be staying at Sunny Ville Condomium for about 6 months. Now I've been browsing all these Malaysian ISPs and it seems 2mbps is the maximum you get on Penang. Is PenangFON the best and the cheapest for 2mbps? It sure looks that way! Is Bittorrent or some other service blocked, etc? How's the installation, they say it's one-time RM40 and RM80 for the installation. Can I do it myself? I mean they obviously might have to hook up some connections in the apartment but I can plug my own pc in for sure How long is their delivery time?

It's all weird to me, in Finland the normal internet for most active internet users would be 8/1mbps with a free WLAN router when you sign up and no charges except the monthly payment. No long term subscriptions either, you pay on a montly basis and can cancel whenever you wanna. And no blocked services, can d/l all you want on torrent and other "warez" related progs.

On another subject, what's the best cellphone service provider on Penang? I'm bringing my own phone (Nokia 5140), so all I need is the SIM card. Prepaid is ok too, everything goes as long as it's cheap and no long term contracts. My wife has the same thing going on and we'll mostly be calling each other and then our friends back in Finland every now and then. What would be the best for us?

Thanks in advance!!

Leo

How much $$$ is a decent acoustic in Malaysia?

LeoRuoska — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:53:16 +0800

Hey guys!

This is my very first thread on LowYat =) My wife got a student exchange place in USM, so I'm moving with her obviously. We'll be living in Penang for 5 months starting from December 2007. Now, I love playing guitar and bass, but obviously it'd be stupid to bring a guitar from Finland (yeah, Scandinavia..North Europe, anyone?) as we try to travel lightly.

So, to my question is: how much does a decent 6-string electric acoustic cost in Malaysia?

I play both bass and guitar and have had bands and stuff going on in Finland but when we get to Malaysia I'll probably be spending quite a bit of time alone so I'm just looking for an instrument to play around with at our to-be-home. Who knows, maybe I'll join a band in Penang or something and buy meself some more gear =)

Here's my most recent band: http://www.kemosabe.fi
It's in Finnish but the site is quite clear and the songs are on the front page =) We quit, but will one day reform. I play bass, but I make most parts of the songs at home on guitar.

Thanks, everyone!