[p0ke]

Greetings humans! I, am not Ziltoid, the Omniscient.

I'm Pauli, and I've been registered here for quite some time already, but I realised just now that I haven't written anything here yet. So, here we go:

I live in Finland - in Eurajoki to be more specific. It's on the west coast, between Pori and Rauma if you want to look it up on a map etc. I've lived here for almost 4 years now. Before moving here, I lived in Gothenburg, Sweden for 12 years. I was born in Luvia according to my passport (obviously born in the nearest big city, Pori). Luvia is another small village next to Eurajoki. I've also lived in Sydney, Australia for a short time, when I was 4 years old.

When I was a kid -or an even smaller kid, depending on the readers own age- I used to dream about being a rockstar, as many kids do. I remember wanting a guitar already when I was 8. My mother didn't like the idea, so I started playing the guitar when I was 12, when we started a band in school. Then my father sent me some extra money for my birthday, so I could buy an electric guitar and an amp. (He lives in Australia btw.) So I bought this cheap guitar and amp package from a local music store. The guitar is a Vietnam made one, pretty good entry level guitar. It has one humbucker and two singlecoils, and the body is Stratocaster-like but slightly twisted. Looks cooler than standard strats IMO.

Then, a couple of years ago we moved to Finland, and I had to leave the band. When we had moved, I bought a cooler guitar: An ESP LTD-MMV, which is a cheap version on the ESP-SV and only sold in Finland. It has two EMG-HZ-H4 pickups and a licensed floyd rose trem.
Later the same year, I joined my current band, which was called The Antarctium at the time (We changed the name to Aphasis in 2007 and our entire lineup has changed). We played Children Of Bodom covers and other crap. Later on, we started playing more progressive stuff, and I started realising that lower tunings were what I want and need. So, I bought baritone strings for my Vietnam-guitar and played it in A-tuning. It went well, but I couldn't play solos with it. So I decided that I need a 7-string.

In the summer of 2006, I finaly had enough money to buy my first sevenstring: The Ibanez RG1527. I'm still totaly in love with that guitar, eventhough I've had it for nearly two years. I've noticed recently that I can't play the same stuff with my 6-strings anymore, I keep missing strings all the time etc. 7-string guitars are totaly my thing.

So, now I've played for 7 years. I'm not that good at lead playing, but rhytm-wise, I think I can play just about anything.

Amplifiers and effects then:

My first amp was a Peavey Rage 158, 15W combo. I still have it somewhere.
In my old band, we played our guitars straight through the PA, so I needed some effects. So I bought a Zoom 505-II. A year later I bought a v-amp2 because the zoom sucked.
In my new band, we didn't have any PA-things, so I needed a bigger amp. So my mother bought me Marshall MG100HDFX for my 16th birtday, and I bought an AVT412A cab for it. I realised it didn't have enough gain for my playing, so I tried it with my vamp2, but it sounded like shit. So I used my Zoom with it, and it sounded very heavy, eventhough a bit too digital. But it broke, so I bought a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone instead. It was great, until I traded the amp and cab for a Peavey Valveking halfstack. Now this amp doesn't need anything to boost the distortion.

My main setup is:

Ibanez RG1527 --> Peavey Valveking 100 with a tuner pedal in the fx-loop. The tuner pedal is a Korg DT-10 btw. Very precise thing.

At home, I use my V-amp2 straight into my computer. Sounds decent, and that's what I practice with. Sometimes I use NI Guitar Rig 2 also, when I want to get some particular sound, Dimebag-style distortion for instance.

I realised now that I haven't said anything about what kind of music I'm into. So, obviously, it's all about metal. That's what I play, and that's what I listen to. "In the beginning" I was mostly into power metal, but when I heard Metallicas Master of Puppets, it all changed. That's also the particular song that made me decide to start playing the guitar. So, I am into old school thrash, but also more modern kinds. Then, when I heard Opeth, it all changed again. I got more into Progressive stuff, and death metal vocals. So now, I basically like everything that has to do with metal. Except for some power metal bands, and these girly emocore bands. Oh, and I don't like primitive black metal either.

I'll add some pics and maybe some more text to this thread later on.