hkr

Anthrocon furries; I have reserved our room at the Westin.

Figured I should post this here too:

So, I got my Ion kit today: (And this is split up because of the stupid image restrictions)



The box is damn heavy. 30 lbs. It's also about the size of the original bundle box.

Here are some pics of the box itself. If this is going to be at retail, only a few stores will have room for them:





It comes packed which much smaller boxes



The first thing I pulled out and played with was the pedal. I could already tell this was going to be the loudest part of the kit. Here's some comparison pics:




I'll talk about how the pedal performs later. Moving on, next are the pads. They're quite large as you can see:




The pads feel nice and bouncy, and feel like they can take a beating. Even the plastic seems more heavy duty.

The cymbals are next.




Oh hey, it comes with sticks. I bet these will be nicer then *plays with them for ten seconds*...They're worse then the stock rock band sticks. I did not know that was possible.

Set up took a while. After I pulled everything out I fired up a Star Trek Next Generation episode, and I still was building in 15 minutes after it ended.







And you'll have a ton of garbage at the end:



So, how does the kit do?

Surprisingly well, after you fiddle with it. I'm still trying to get it adjusted to my style (And still trying to find out what it is.). You can move every single bit of the kit around, and those who just stick with the default RB layout are missing out.

I played a few songs with stock everything. Three things became apparent: First, the kick pedal is loud, accurate, but sucks compared to the Omega pedal. It lacks the feedback a real bass pedal gives and if you're used to that, you'll be happy to know the omega pedal and any other pedal mod works with the Ion kit. All you need is a eighth inch to quarter inch adapter.

The second thing that became apparent was that a ride cymbal is desperately needed. I found myself constantly swinging at air or hitting the crash, losing my combo. After about an hour I got used to it, but it made for some awkward transitions.

Thirdly, holy shit this kit has bounce. So much bounce that five songs in I was still holding my sticks too loose and having them fly out my hands. Anti-vibe sticks are a must. I tried a song out with a set of 5A nylon tipped normal sticks and my hands were hurting afterwords. I switched back to my anti-vibes and they hurt far less.

I rocked out for a bit, playing a variety of songs. Rolls were a lot easier to do. I had zero dropped notes. It was quite amazing. However, there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to remembering what pad to hit. I often found myself sticking to the pads simply because I'm so used to that.

Sound level was definitely reduced, but not completely silent. I tend to wail a bit on my kits. If you hit plastic, it will be loud. The pads and the cymbals provide a nice whump noise though.

Cymbal response was perfect and spot on. I think Joystiq either got a broken kit or was too stupid to put the cymbals on right.

I'm boding this part because it is very important. You CAN switch cymbal and pad inputs without penalty (At least in RB1.) Yes, this means that for songs like Orange Crush you can make the ride cymbal the red notes and the red pad the yellow notes.

Some of you may remember my boyfriend made one of the first double bass kits. I have him working on a kick pedal that can switch inputs on the fly. In a week or two we should have a working prototype.

So, first day impressions are definitely favorable. I'm going to have to wait for my third cymbal to get here, along with putting the kit through some serious marathon sessions before I pass final judgment. But for all intensive purposes, this kit rocks and is worth the $300.

When did it become fashionable to pretend to have mental illnesses?

So I haven't really been updating this thing that much. Mostly it's because I don't usually have the attention span to type out a long entry anymore.

Not much has been going on. I found a new job a few months ago, co-running the kitchen at a new fair trade cafe in town. The pay kinda sucks but the atmosphere is great, as well as the food. So I'll stick with it for a while.

Our upstairs neighbor have been great so far, at least from the "guys living downstairs" angle as we haven't really gotten to know him yet. But since he isn't shouting at the TV or his girlfriend all day every day like the previous neighbors, and he hasn't complained about me playing Rock Band too loud, he's okay in my book. We've been invited to his housewarming party next week so I'll learn a bit more then.

Speaking of Rock Band, the game has made me really want to get a drum kit of my own. Of course, I really can't have a real kit in an apartment, so the next best thing is an electronic kit. Which just so happens to be what a company called ION is putting out for Rock Band 2. A real electric drum kit that happens to work with RB/RB2. I have it on pre-order. We'll see what I think about it in a few months.

I went back to the demon known as FFXI for a few months while I was out of a job and managed to take a character to 75 and finish a ton of missions. I still haven't beaten CoP or ToAU or the last to missions of Zilart yet, but I think I'm satisfied with what I accomplished. Time to put the character in stasis until I get the urge to play again.

It's also a great change from only four years ago. I was actually able to look for and find work while playing, as opposed to letting it take over my life. And I'm stopping my play as my own decision, instead of the whole running out of money thing.

I also just started playing Soul Calibur 4. While I can't say I wasted my money, the fact that the game plays exactly the same as SC2 makes the game a bit boring for me. Even Tekken 4 and 5 vastly improved gameplay from Tekken 3. But at least it will tide me over until Street Fighter 4.

The one advantage of SC4, and most fighting games is that I can just play them for 10 minutes and feel like I got what I wanted from the game. FFXI is the only game now where I can spend hours on it. Any other game and I'm looking for something else to do right away.

I say most fighting games because Super Smash Brothers Brawl is an utter disappointment. While I have always sucked at the smash games, SSBB just frustrates me on so many levels. The camera still does that horrible zoom in and out thing that I've hated since the original (Though to be fair there's really no other way to do it). The time requirements to unlock over half of the entire character list is long, and the best way to do it, Subspace Emissary, is one of the worst "games" I have ever played.

My warhammer painting has stalled out for the moment it seems. I'm trying to force myself to paint what I already have assembled + primed, but none of what I have is appealing to me right now. High Elves are pretty boring to paint, even if they are fun to play against. As for my skaven army, once you realize you need to paint about 150 clanrats/slaves, you start to wonder what made you choose this crazy hoard army in the first place.

My friend anthony is flying out from Detroit to stay with us for a week. It should be fun.

Dill pickle have no reason to be on a pizza with salami, mushrooms and onion. I wanted to like you so much Via Verde, but you're yet another pizza place that sucks.

Oh hi, going to Anthrocon, brb

That random journal button up top they just put in? That is the most horrible thing they could have done.

Was this a decision of that new elected group that was paraded around LJ like American Idol contestants?

Why did LJ have to start sucking after I got a permanent membership?

IDE is a horrible piece of shit and I wish whoever came up with the whole thing rots in hell.

Gonna try this meme to get myself back into the live journal habit.


""Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by asking me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, etc. Re-post in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.""