Sound Messe Osaka 2025: May 10 Saturday

 

So I attended Sound Messe Osaka 2025 and 3 of the 4 sessions of Mattias's Freak Guitar Weekend that day.  The clinic was the reason I went. The forecast was for heavy rain. but luckily that cleared up early Saturday morning and went and dropped on Tokyo instead.

It is a 90 minute train trip for me to get there, but that means changing trains 4 times and climbing multiple stair cases to get to the different company train lines.  Made harder carrying a guitar and as the chance I would drop it was higher than normal, I took my oldest and least fussed if it got damaged 1984 MADE IN JAPAN Squire in a well padded carry on your back gigbag I bought some 4 months ago.  And as instructed, a battery operated guitar amp, headphones and tuner.  I have since become a fan of the VOX amPlug2 Metal, even if the 3 effects are way too heavy handed and there is no way to make them a bit more subtle. 

I hadn't noticed the fine print that the show opened at 10:00AM for booth staff, but 11:00AM for the rest of us, so we practiced the Ancient Japanese Art of Waiting Patiently in Line for 40 minutes.

Met a few people and gave out name cards and stickers to almost anyone that I talked with. 😀 I am strange that way!

Don't think of myself as a "guitarist", and don't care to look at all the guitars on show except the now in production FREAK GUITAR LAB Ulvs, took me straight to the ELECTRONIC ZONE Zanshin Booth. 

The Japanese Yen exchange rate is terrible at the moment, but it was still a shock to be told the 7 string made in Sweden Ulv is currently 900,000yen. That was the one I was most interested in, but not for that kind of money. Part of the reason is also the Japanese taxes Zanshin have to pay. 

It was thus interesting to see they are going to make FREAK GUITAR LAB guitars in Japan. This should reduce the cost, speed up  production and maybe have better quality. Japanese guitars are still awesome. The two examples above are the first prototypes and Mattias told me the body shape will be more Super Strat like.  I hope so, as the above doesn't look great to me. I think they should have the same body outline as the Swedish versions even if without the costly beveled edges. Note both of the prototypes didn't have locking nut and trem. But even so, the left TT fret version is some 500,000yen!  TT frets aren't cheap being made in Sweden.  Time will tell if the TT frets will be allowed to be made in Japan too.

Had to get to the Zanshin booth first thing to buy my 5,000yen clinic all day pass and get to the UMERUCUBE.  I then spent most of the day away from the exhibition space, up on 3F at the clinic, in what was a large meeting room. 

And the extra cool thing about that was the toilets were not packed full, and there were a lot of Restaurants to choose to have lunch at. Not like the Exhibition space at all!   

There was a long break between the 2nd and 3rd sessions and that is when I had lunch and visited the Exhibition space of B2F.  RED the Electric Guitars and BLUE, the Tokyo Pedal Show. I ignored Acoustic guitars and the rest except for the ORANGE section of some distributers booth. They had ORANGE CRUSH MINIs on sale for 8,800yen, but I bought one 6 or so years ago for about that price in Sydney. 

There were many performances on 2 main stages, but I didn't attend any of those, and probably the way many attending enjoyed their version of the event. Is that what all the middle aged women were there for? 

Most of the makers had a small stage/demo space in their booth and at around 4:30PM when I got there, there were all playing to be louder than everyone else. IT WAS SO LOUD AND NOISY! Just the kind of space I hate to be in. Most of the companies in the Electric Guitar zone were custom, small makers, with only Ibanez being a big brand. 

I didn't like the noise level at all, so didn't put up with it for too long and left  before 5:00PM, for the 90 minute trip back home. 

Mattias's Freak Guitar Weekend was well worth it to me, even if he spent so long talking and demoing KONNAKOL I really didn't need to have taken a guitar.

Mattias and Tokyo Metal City did give exercises to practice in the hand outs. The FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND 30 page TAB book is great, and he will give us a download link for the backing tracks.  He spent some time using his FLUMMOXED as an example, and that is in the GROW YOUR OWN MUSTACHE Volume 10 I already own.

Mattias prefers single string scale exercises, and the TAB book has an exercise in Lydian, MAY THE FOURTHS BE WITH YOU, that goes through all of them. And this is a practice thing I was playing with that kind of shows my recent, mostly single string with diversions approach.

This is me in my tiny studio, I am recording what I am playing into REAPER listening to the repeating 8 bar backing over my monitors. My SHARP AQUOS mobile phone was in a Ulanzi phone tripod on my desk recording me.  In Vegas Movie Studio I replace the phone sound with what REAPER output.  The scale fret board graphic is something in made in CorelDraw after getting the 8 string trying to work out what I was doing...

Mattias also stressed how important a volume pedal is for him. He uses an indestructible DUNLOP passive volume pedal, around 30,000yen in Japan, which is more than I paid for my Ibanez 7 String guitar! 

I took his advice and bought one mid 2024, the BOSS FV-50H. The H is important as it is the 250k ohm for use with guitar.  Some 6,600yen at the time, and completely fine for my home studio use.

I was pretty much knocked out for much of the next 2 days with sore legs and shoulder. Will do it all again next year, I am sure.

And just before 5PM Wednesday afternoon Japan time, Mattias emailed me the link for the backing tracks, that I have now down loaded. Lots of work here. 

Looking forward to seeing him and Freak Kitchen on stage in September.

But often  practice goes like this:

To get around this constant issue, I bought a music stand to hold the TAB at a height fine for me to stand, so don't need a chair.  I  have guitar straps and strap locks, and have for many years, but have rarely used them. Time to change that. 

Next big trip for me will be to the Setagaya Literary Museum in Tokyo for The World of Masamune Shirow Exhibition. Expected to do that when visit grandson later in the year, but plans change and I should do this before summer really sets in here. Like the last week of May.

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