i got my $1 guitar fix and put it all together and got nothing but hum out of it.
strangely, there's no ground on the input. so, the circuit isn't completing. but, it completed in the store.
i made an error: i took a walk down the street, and then didn't plug it back in when i came back. who knows what they did. i think they may have ripped the ground out. it would have taken two seconds.
see, the thing is that it shouldn't have worked in the store without the ground - the ground was there when i plugged it in, and it wasn't when i took it home.
it's not expensive to fix, i need a soldering iron anyways, but why do that? it's just upsetting that some people can be that disrespectful.
like, it's not that the ground is loose.
the ground is gone. no guitar can work without a ground. but, it did work.
somebody ripped it out....
either way, that's that for the day, let me take a look at those headphones.
it sounds crazy to think somebody would do that.
but the only other explanation is that somebody was sitting around the corner mimicking my open strings, tricking me into thinking it worked. that's even crazier.
it's just impossible that it could have worked without the ground. but it did. and it was entirely gone when i went back.
ripping a cord off a board like that could create other problems, as well.
but i have a circuit diagram, and it will be very east to fix if there's further damage.
so, you'll have to add $1 worth of solder and $1 worth of wires to the fix price. a soldering iron is going to be around $20, but it's not fair to work it into the price because it's something i need to get anyways.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
deathtokoalas
the rx40 is the absolute bottom of the line ibanez strat copy; i picked one up in a pawn shop today for $40 (including a case and a strap). i got a deal because the pawn shop owners didn't realize how simple putting a nut on a loose input jack is, and felt the need to mark it down due to it being "broken". however, they're generally going to sell for under $150 nowadays.
looking into it, it strikes me as a sort of ponzi scheme set up by ibanez. $100 is probably what they're worth - so you can get the 40s at a bit more than cost. ibanez then increases the price dramatically by slapping on different models while changing the guitar rather minimally. the upper end rxs sold for around $800. i can't find any real difference between them and the 40s that isn't merely cosmetic. and how much is that strat actually worth when you strip out the bullshit? a whole lot less than you paid for it...
the guitar is solidly constructed. smooth neck. that's more than can be said for a lot of newer strats; vintage strats are incomparable, but the difference in build quality between a modern strat and an ibanez copy is pretty much negligible. in some cases, they may have been made in the same factory.
the electronics are built to sound like a strat, and they do. that's my next point. for now, note that if you want a good strat body to put your own pickups in, you want to be thinking about the ibanez copies.
what this video really demonstrates, though, is how meaningless the guitar input is in the face of modern processing. that's a beginner guitar for people with a budget, but do you think a $3000 strat is going to sound better through the same amp simulator and the same dozens of effects? it's not.
when you break it down to the physics nowadays, you're combining sounds out of a type of pickup. the pickups will have defined properties. that's all you're really looking for: body shape and pickup type.
the rx40 is the absolute bottom of the line ibanez strat copy; i picked one up in a pawn shop today for $40 (including a case and a strap). i got a deal because the pawn shop owners didn't realize how simple putting a nut on a loose input jack is, and felt the need to mark it down due to it being "broken". however, they're generally going to sell for under $150 nowadays.
looking into it, it strikes me as a sort of ponzi scheme set up by ibanez. $100 is probably what they're worth - so you can get the 40s at a bit more than cost. ibanez then increases the price dramatically by slapping on different models while changing the guitar rather minimally. the upper end rxs sold for around $800. i can't find any real difference between them and the 40s that isn't merely cosmetic. and how much is that strat actually worth when you strip out the bullshit? a whole lot less than you paid for it...
the guitar is solidly constructed. smooth neck. that's more than can be said for a lot of newer strats; vintage strats are incomparable, but the difference in build quality between a modern strat and an ibanez copy is pretty much negligible. in some cases, they may have been made in the same factory.
the electronics are built to sound like a strat, and they do. that's my next point. for now, note that if you want a good strat body to put your own pickups in, you want to be thinking about the ibanez copies.
what this video really demonstrates, though, is how meaningless the guitar input is in the face of modern processing. that's a beginner guitar for people with a budget, but do you think a $3000 strat is going to sound better through the same amp simulator and the same dozens of effects? it's not.
when you break it down to the physics nowadays, you're combining sounds out of a type of pickup. the pickups will have defined properties. that's all you're really looking for: body shape and pickup type.
José González
basswood body?
deathtokoalas
you're not going to hear a difference on a double blind a/b between maple, alder and basswood through an amp simulator, and you're going to destroy the guitar's characteristics at the equalization stage of the mixdown, anyways. you'll hear a difference in pickup combinations.
José González
set dimarzio andy timmons on the rx40 and a tube amp?
deathtokoalas
that's not the tone i'm looking for, i'm an experimental guitarist that's looking for a way to get some single coils through a long effects chain on the way into a firewire computing interface, mostly to get a "skinnier" flanged and chorused sound. i use humbuckers through preamps for lead parts.
but i would argue that this model is a good base to start from if you want to put your own pickups in.
well, i lost the day, but i gained a guitar and a vacuum. there's still a touch of rust on the pickups, but i'm going to leave it there. i'll get the spring, nut and strings on tomorrow - for around $10 total. but i'm going to lose most of the day tomorrow, too. for the moment, i'm hungry and sleepy....
haven't vacuumed the phones yet, will wait until tomorrow.
haven't vacuumed the phones yet, will wait until tomorrow.
caulking gun
jessica
hi,
i'm just wondering if i could borrow a caulking gun. there's no urgency to this, and i'm going to want to wait until we get a dry day with low humidity so i can caulk with the windows open.
it's september now, so the weather is going to be cooling down a little. i didn't have to turn the heat on last year until very late in the fall, so i'm not planning on turning it on any time soon. but, last year you sort of explicitly told me to just turn the heat up to whatever i wanted - and i did. i'm going to be a little more aware of the electricity costs this year, for obvious reasons.
there was really a substantial draft heading under the window in the kitchen last year, and all the hammering upstairs has crumbled the plaster a little so i'd expect it to be even worse this year. i really think it's an easy thing to do that will make a big difference.
i still have some of your caulk under the sink but i don't have a gun, so i'm wondering if you'll let me borrow yours. the bedroom and bathroom aren't drafty, but i really think the two windows in the kitchen should be sealed around the cracks to try. it'll both keep costs down and make the air a little less dry, due to the heaters not needing to work as hard.
the landlord
I have a caulking gun there, I will be around and I will check in with you
hi,
i'm just wondering if i could borrow a caulking gun. there's no urgency to this, and i'm going to want to wait until we get a dry day with low humidity so i can caulk with the windows open.
it's september now, so the weather is going to be cooling down a little. i didn't have to turn the heat on last year until very late in the fall, so i'm not planning on turning it on any time soon. but, last year you sort of explicitly told me to just turn the heat up to whatever i wanted - and i did. i'm going to be a little more aware of the electricity costs this year, for obvious reasons.
there was really a substantial draft heading under the window in the kitchen last year, and all the hammering upstairs has crumbled the plaster a little so i'd expect it to be even worse this year. i really think it's an easy thing to do that will make a big difference.
i still have some of your caulk under the sink but i don't have a gun, so i'm wondering if you'll let me borrow yours. the bedroom and bathroom aren't drafty, but i really think the two windows in the kitchen should be sealed around the cracks to try. it'll both keep costs down and make the air a little less dry, due to the heaters not needing to work as hard.
the landlord
I have a caulking gun there, I will be around and I will check in with you
yeah, so the loose pickup was a triviality.
you see that spring? it was gone.
well, one of them was gone. the other was under the pick guard.
i'm going to put 9s on this (which is very skinny for me, but it's a strat), so i'll head down to long & mcquade's tomorrow.
current estimated projected cost to fix the "broken" guitar:
one washer - $0.50
one spring - $0.50
total: $1.
how does that even happen? well, clearly somebody tried to swap out some humbuckers. either they couldn't figure it out and fucked it up or they swapped something more expensive out before they sold it and didn't bother to connect it properly.
the pickups appear to be unmarked.
i had a washer around. it's keeping the jack in place, but it could benefit from a nut to lock it in.
there's nothing else wrong with this guitar...
actually, i should just go with 10s. i have 12s on my jazz guitar and 11s on my punk guitar. this is going to be my alt/gaze guitar - no need to go that far down. if i ever get a three sss strat or a jazzmaster or a tele, i can go to nine there. i can't see myself wanting less chunk, though.
the jazzmaster is a beast of it's own, and i'll probably never be able to afford one.
access to single coils is really closing a hole in my arsenal that i've, up to this point, used all kinds of effects processing and equalization tricks to try and get around. believe it or not, i've never had a single coil guitar - since i started playing in about 1990. and this is actually my first new (electric) guitar in almost fifteen years.
actually, that's not true - some of the garage sale pickups i've been through over the years have been single coil, and i guess that means i have bought new guitars over the last fifteen years, but they were all under $10 and never used for anything besides ridiculous tunings and noise generations. which i guess produces some continuity. but i plan to hang on to this one, it's a more serious addition.
you see that spring? it was gone.
well, one of them was gone. the other was under the pick guard.
i'm going to put 9s on this (which is very skinny for me, but it's a strat), so i'll head down to long & mcquade's tomorrow.
current estimated projected cost to fix the "broken" guitar:
one washer - $0.50
one spring - $0.50
total: $1.
how does that even happen? well, clearly somebody tried to swap out some humbuckers. either they couldn't figure it out and fucked it up or they swapped something more expensive out before they sold it and didn't bother to connect it properly.
the pickups appear to be unmarked.
i had a washer around. it's keeping the jack in place, but it could benefit from a nut to lock it in.
there's nothing else wrong with this guitar...
actually, i should just go with 10s. i have 12s on my jazz guitar and 11s on my punk guitar. this is going to be my alt/gaze guitar - no need to go that far down. if i ever get a three sss strat or a jazzmaster or a tele, i can go to nine there. i can't see myself wanting less chunk, though.
the jazzmaster is a beast of it's own, and i'll probably never be able to afford one.
access to single coils is really closing a hole in my arsenal that i've, up to this point, used all kinds of effects processing and equalization tricks to try and get around. believe it or not, i've never had a single coil guitar - since i started playing in about 1990. and this is actually my first new (electric) guitar in almost fifteen years.
actually, that's not true - some of the garage sale pickups i've been through over the years have been single coil, and i guess that means i have bought new guitars over the last fifteen years, but they were all under $10 and never used for anything besides ridiculous tunings and noise generations. which i guess produces some continuity. but i plan to hang on to this one, it's a more serious addition.
so, i went searching through the streets of windsor for an affordable vacuum, and came back with a beat to shit strat.
i couldn't resist. i've been meaning to pick up something with single coils (this is an h-s-s "fat strat") for a long time, but haven't run into the opportunity. it's a lower end ibanez copy, but it's solidly constructed. i focus almost entirely on necks and body shapes when i'm evaluating guitars. the rest can be modified. but, the truth is i never do, because the main sound source for what i do is the computer. i'm going to plug a $3000 strat through the same effects loop, and it's not going to be all that easy to tell the difference in sound. it's honestly not worth the cash. if i was more interested in gigging and i wanted a better connection to the amp, maybe....but i don't....
what's important is playability. ibanez are known for their "fast necks", which work well with the strat design.
but it's the single coils i wanted, and that i will put to good use in open chord passages.
it needs some work. it's full of rust. while i was able to verify that all of the pickups work, one of them is very loose and the jack needs a washer. but i honestly think it's a ten minute job.
for the price ($40, including a case), i can't complain much - even if i end up ripping the pickups out altogether. the neck is good enough to build up with.
i did get a vacuum, as well. the first shop i went to had a nice little unit for $25, but it was missing the carpet head. after taking a look around, it's the best choice immediately available. i can probably pick up a head one day on ebay or something.
i couldn't resist. i've been meaning to pick up something with single coils (this is an h-s-s "fat strat") for a long time, but haven't run into the opportunity. it's a lower end ibanez copy, but it's solidly constructed. i focus almost entirely on necks and body shapes when i'm evaluating guitars. the rest can be modified. but, the truth is i never do, because the main sound source for what i do is the computer. i'm going to plug a $3000 strat through the same effects loop, and it's not going to be all that easy to tell the difference in sound. it's honestly not worth the cash. if i was more interested in gigging and i wanted a better connection to the amp, maybe....but i don't....
what's important is playability. ibanez are known for their "fast necks", which work well with the strat design.
but it's the single coils i wanted, and that i will put to good use in open chord passages.
it needs some work. it's full of rust. while i was able to verify that all of the pickups work, one of them is very loose and the jack needs a washer. but i honestly think it's a ten minute job.
for the price ($40, including a case), i can't complain much - even if i end up ripping the pickups out altogether. the neck is good enough to build up with.
i did get a vacuum, as well. the first shop i went to had a nice little unit for $25, but it was missing the carpet head. after taking a look around, it's the best choice immediately available. i can probably pick up a head one day on ebay or something.
gah.....
buzz is in the phones. in the back of my mind i knew it all along. i've been fighting with dirt in there for months, and i know there's a hair deep in the drivers because i can see it and can't reach it. i've been putting it off because the rattle was so much weaker on the other tracks and i was just mentally compensating...i couldn't imagine it was really the dirt....
but my cheaper phones aren't rattling. here's the thing: i'm not 100% certain it's rattling due to the dirt, it could be rattling because the studio phones are reproducing it properly and the non-studio phones are squishing the fuck out of it.
at least i know now that the track actually sounds good through consumer grade equipment.
the thing is i need the deep compression, and it's rattling it to the point that i can't mix it because i can't tell if the compression is actually distorting or the speaker is rattling.
so, i need to find a vacuum as a top priority this morning. i tossed the one i brought down here - it was older than my mother is, and just wasn't working.i can't mix with the other phones, it sounds like i'm wearing earplugs...but if i can't get the hair out, i may have to mix the bass separately through them...
see, the phone is sealed. it's probably why the phones have lasted 30 years. but it means i can't get the hair out with tweezers because i can't reach it...
you just can't overstate the value of high end phones like this. it would cost upwards of $500 to replace them with something comparable, and i don't have that. and i WILL tell, because i've been using them so long that my ears just won't accept anything less.
so, these basically have to last forever, sort of thing. the vacuum worked last time.
buzz is in the phones. in the back of my mind i knew it all along. i've been fighting with dirt in there for months, and i know there's a hair deep in the drivers because i can see it and can't reach it. i've been putting it off because the rattle was so much weaker on the other tracks and i was just mentally compensating...i couldn't imagine it was really the dirt....
but my cheaper phones aren't rattling. here's the thing: i'm not 100% certain it's rattling due to the dirt, it could be rattling because the studio phones are reproducing it properly and the non-studio phones are squishing the fuck out of it.
at least i know now that the track actually sounds good through consumer grade equipment.
the thing is i need the deep compression, and it's rattling it to the point that i can't mix it because i can't tell if the compression is actually distorting or the speaker is rattling.
so, i need to find a vacuum as a top priority this morning. i tossed the one i brought down here - it was older than my mother is, and just wasn't working.i can't mix with the other phones, it sounds like i'm wearing earplugs...but if i can't get the hair out, i may have to mix the bass separately through them...
see, the phone is sealed. it's probably why the phones have lasted 30 years. but it means i can't get the hair out with tweezers because i can't reach it...
you just can't overstate the value of high end phones like this. it would cost upwards of $500 to replace them with something comparable, and i don't have that. and i WILL tell, because i've been using them so long that my ears just won't accept anything less.
so, these basically have to last forever, sort of thing. the vacuum worked last time.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
digitech bass squeeze
this pedal is actually great for recording through the mixer out - i use it as a di box, with a lmb-3 in front for extra limiting, and then run it through tape simulation and reverb effects when it gets in. the caveat is you have to want a smooth, sustained tone (i play a lot of bass parts with half or full notes and i want them to last) with basically zero dynamics, meaning it works better for orchestral styles or electronic music than for rock or funk, excluding punk - it also works well for fast punk picking...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_Lrj3-O4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_Lrj3-O4
ok, these parts sound considerably better. i think the compression pedal is buffering the signal a little, which is helping the limiter even when it's off. i also plugged it into a regulated power supply, which may have minimized any background. and i turned the low eq pot down a bit on the way in. it's still buzzing mildly, but the clippiness is gone.
i'm sleepy. but i have every reason to think this'll be done tomorrow.
i'm sleepy. but i have every reason to think this'll be done tomorrow.
two things to take note of.
first, boogeyman just became #2 to hit 1000 hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTfycvt1VU
second, evil just became #2 to hit 300 (which remains youtube's designation of "popular") without being featured on the front page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUlXmRA-A0
first, boogeyman just became #2 to hit 1000 hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTfycvt1VU
second, evil just became #2 to hit 300 (which remains youtube's designation of "popular") without being featured on the front page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUlXmRA-A0
gah. no.
just a little out of tune, bloody microtone, so i need to redo the bass parts. but i have a better understanding of how to lay them out, now, and what i want them to sound like when they get in, so that's going to guide the input signal.
i'm going to want to route the pick parts one way, with heavy limiting, and the finger parts another, with heavy compression. that should minimize noise on the way in, and give me what i need to process.
gonna eat first...
just a little out of tune, bloody microtone, so i need to redo the bass parts. but i have a better understanding of how to lay them out, now, and what i want them to sound like when they get in, so that's going to guide the input signal.
i'm going to want to route the pick parts one way, with heavy limiting, and the finger parts another, with heavy compression. that should minimize noise on the way in, and give me what i need to process.
gonna eat first...
ok...
neurotic bass freakout transcended. you want it to drive anyways, jess. relax.
that means i could very conceivably have this finished before i sleep next, or at least have the first section of about 6:40 finished. i'm thinking it's going to be around 20 minutes in final form, with the twenty minute version appearing only on the single and a roughly ten minute version on the disc.
but i'm also thinking doubles again, with the length of this. we'll see how that goes....two or three more tracks before that's done, and then i sit down and figure it out....
i mean, i do want the full version on the record.
but i don't want a 90 minute double. if it's going to be a double, it's going to be at least 140 minutes.
i've got that guitarland stuff, too, which sort of fits the theme.
i wasn't initially planning on doing a single for the choir, but now i'm thinking i want at least two versions. that's a possible level of thematic unity.
i'm also kind of thinking of sequencing the 2001 midi files into a separate record. the idea of splitting out the vst mixes is completely redundant because they're just the final versions minus overdubbed guitars and minor rearrangements (i didn't realize the differences would be so minimal when i started), but those old midi files have a chiptune vibe and consequently offer something a little different.
i mean, i could see a specialized market for the raw midi arrangements, specifically.
yeah. but if i do that, i'm going to want to push it forward to early 2003 to encompass some further midi tracks.
the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj thing really closes at the end of 2001, but the midi approach carried on to further ideas.
so.
1) jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj double record, maybe, end of 2001.
2) thru single record, probably, early 2003.
again: i'll have to see how much there is and how it sequences. for now, i want to finish this song....
i should note that the flurry of mostly completed tracks ends around 2003. from 2003 to 2007, there's a lot of very big ideas that are barely demoed out and they're going to require a large amount of recording to finish. the three or four hours i have down for that period is going to balloon to ten times that, at least. after 2007, it's even more sparse, as all i really have to show between 2007-2011 (when i lost my studio) is that 18 minute proverbs track (which took two years to record) and a few barely articulated ideas. between work and school i just didn't have the time. but, the proverbs symphony will be the length of a full record when it's finally done. from 2011-2013, i was basically homeless and focusing more on rethinking my life than writing, and i may end up homeless again in mid-2015 if things don't work out. that's why i'm doing this: however long i'm able to sustain current conditions is probably going to be my last chance to finish things, so i want to make sure as much gets finished as i can get finished. wherever i leave off is likely going to be where i leave off. forever...
as much as the social conditions may be less than enviable, i admit i'm in the enviable position of having a lot of material that was written in the height of my creative years (my 20s) and that i'm finishing in a more reflective and mature age. so, it combines the immediacy of youth with the reflection of age. composers used to have that ability to look back and reinterpret, nowadays everything is pumped out and finalized when it's first thought up. i think it's going to create a lot of more substantial sound than i would have been able to create at the time, and than i may be able to create entirely now.
if i can find a way to keep the studio up until i'm done my old work, i'm going to be pushing 40 by the time i write new material. and i'm sure it will be quite different...
i mean, i'm not going to be one of these old people trying to hang on to their 20s. i'm going to mature into writing styles that are more reflective of my age.
i always want to take these aging pop stars and grab them by the neck and ask them "have you ever contemplated the idea of writing music for people in your own age and peer group?".
as much shit as i give the boomers, it's best talents - the gabriels and the bowies and the fripps - mostly figured that out. some of them died before they got old. some of them tried to deny reality. but they'll be forgotten, while the ones that matured won't be.
gen x musicians have seemed hopelessly unable to keep up with their audience. reznor has shown flashes of maturity. he's really the *only* one that has.
(actually, i think you can put sonic youth and swans in the "aged gracefully" category (minus thurston moore's recent midlife crisis), and the mt zions are a late gen x band that was already a cut above and has kept growing, but the overriding theme of gen x musicians is "arrested development". and i shudder to predict the future....)
i have every intent to learn from that.
neurotic bass freakout transcended. you want it to drive anyways, jess. relax.
that means i could very conceivably have this finished before i sleep next, or at least have the first section of about 6:40 finished. i'm thinking it's going to be around 20 minutes in final form, with the twenty minute version appearing only on the single and a roughly ten minute version on the disc.
but i'm also thinking doubles again, with the length of this. we'll see how that goes....two or three more tracks before that's done, and then i sit down and figure it out....
i mean, i do want the full version on the record.
but i don't want a 90 minute double. if it's going to be a double, it's going to be at least 140 minutes.
i've got that guitarland stuff, too, which sort of fits the theme.
i wasn't initially planning on doing a single for the choir, but now i'm thinking i want at least two versions. that's a possible level of thematic unity.
i'm also kind of thinking of sequencing the 2001 midi files into a separate record. the idea of splitting out the vst mixes is completely redundant because they're just the final versions minus overdubbed guitars and minor rearrangements (i didn't realize the differences would be so minimal when i started), but those old midi files have a chiptune vibe and consequently offer something a little different.
i mean, i could see a specialized market for the raw midi arrangements, specifically.
yeah. but if i do that, i'm going to want to push it forward to early 2003 to encompass some further midi tracks.
the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj thing really closes at the end of 2001, but the midi approach carried on to further ideas.
so.
1) jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj double record, maybe, end of 2001.
2) thru single record, probably, early 2003.
again: i'll have to see how much there is and how it sequences. for now, i want to finish this song....
i should note that the flurry of mostly completed tracks ends around 2003. from 2003 to 2007, there's a lot of very big ideas that are barely demoed out and they're going to require a large amount of recording to finish. the three or four hours i have down for that period is going to balloon to ten times that, at least. after 2007, it's even more sparse, as all i really have to show between 2007-2011 (when i lost my studio) is that 18 minute proverbs track (which took two years to record) and a few barely articulated ideas. between work and school i just didn't have the time. but, the proverbs symphony will be the length of a full record when it's finally done. from 2011-2013, i was basically homeless and focusing more on rethinking my life than writing, and i may end up homeless again in mid-2015 if things don't work out. that's why i'm doing this: however long i'm able to sustain current conditions is probably going to be my last chance to finish things, so i want to make sure as much gets finished as i can get finished. wherever i leave off is likely going to be where i leave off. forever...
as much as the social conditions may be less than enviable, i admit i'm in the enviable position of having a lot of material that was written in the height of my creative years (my 20s) and that i'm finishing in a more reflective and mature age. so, it combines the immediacy of youth with the reflection of age. composers used to have that ability to look back and reinterpret, nowadays everything is pumped out and finalized when it's first thought up. i think it's going to create a lot of more substantial sound than i would have been able to create at the time, and than i may be able to create entirely now.
if i can find a way to keep the studio up until i'm done my old work, i'm going to be pushing 40 by the time i write new material. and i'm sure it will be quite different...
i mean, i'm not going to be one of these old people trying to hang on to their 20s. i'm going to mature into writing styles that are more reflective of my age.
i always want to take these aging pop stars and grab them by the neck and ask them "have you ever contemplated the idea of writing music for people in your own age and peer group?".
as much shit as i give the boomers, it's best talents - the gabriels and the bowies and the fripps - mostly figured that out. some of them died before they got old. some of them tried to deny reality. but they'll be forgotten, while the ones that matured won't be.
gen x musicians have seemed hopelessly unable to keep up with their audience. reznor has shown flashes of maturity. he's really the *only* one that has.
(actually, i think you can put sonic youth and swans in the "aged gracefully" category (minus thurston moore's recent midlife crisis), and the mt zions are a late gen x band that was already a cut above and has kept growing, but the overriding theme of gen x musicians is "arrested development". and i shudder to predict the future....)
i have every intent to learn from that.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
proverbs (first movement)
i was just sorting through the source files for this (which is 40 gb, yes, it is THAT intricately constructed.), which is the last thing i did with live bass, to see if the source on the bass buzzes, and sure enough it does. i guess i just dealt with it.
but, you know, every time i listen to this i'm overwhelmed with pride over how elaborate it is. my symphony of psilocybin induced madness is really something else in the way it merges romantic music with electronica, but it's always been more of a proof of concept. this is only the first part of an incomplete work, but it's really my opus.
and it is a legit opus. headphones, please.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/proverbs
it's really an electric guitar concerto when you break it down.
but, you know, every time i listen to this i'm overwhelmed with pride over how elaborate it is. my symphony of psilocybin induced madness is really something else in the way it merges romantic music with electronica, but it's always been more of a proof of concept. this is only the first part of an incomplete work, but it's really my opus.
and it is a legit opus. headphones, please.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/proverbs
it's really an electric guitar concerto when you break it down.
uploading bass fx jam to soundcloud
this is actually a bass guitar. it's through a high octave pitch shift guitar effect that i initially programmed as a noisy grunge fill, but the bass takes it down to a more acceptable octave range and, due to the thickness of the strings, allows for the creation of reedy, woody and brassy sounds. then there's that ghastly reverb. dunno what i'll do with this (it may end up in the crash symphony), but it needs gongs and spooky synths and stuff...
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/02-09-2014a
as an aside, that means i've isolated the buzz to a frequency issue, as the bass sounds fine when pitch shifted up a bit...
https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/02-09-2014a
as an aside, that means i've isolated the buzz to a frequency issue, as the bass sounds fine when pitch shifted up a bit...
switching
the active switch on the pod seems to have helped enough. i'm sort of
being silly in looking for a crystal clear pick tone, because it's
coming up against a wall of fuzz and i'm probably going to end up
fuzzing it as well. that makes sense for the pod - it's designed to take
a passive guitar in, so plugging an active bass into it is a very loud
signal. that should have been obvious from the start.
it makes less sense to me from the mixer, though. the things i've read have suggested to me that the extra power from the active pickups should minimize that kind of noise because you don't need to turn the volume up as high. i mean, i get it - it's more power, and it's overdriving it. it should be connected to a di. but the gain is at 75% just to pick the signal up at a decent level. the only other approach would be to take it in at like 50% and floor it when it gets in, but then...
...well, maybe that's just it. maybe you'd have to turn the passive down so far to get the same results that you'd be losing it. maybe you still need the active low, but not as low, so you can get more of the performance.
i think i'm happy with the pod with the pad on through the pre-amp. i'm going to try mixing a bit of it and see if i can get it to sound right....
it makes less sense to me from the mixer, though. the things i've read have suggested to me that the extra power from the active pickups should minimize that kind of noise because you don't need to turn the volume up as high. i mean, i get it - it's more power, and it's overdriving it. it should be connected to a di. but the gain is at 75% just to pick the signal up at a decent level. the only other approach would be to take it in at like 50% and floor it when it gets in, but then...
...well, maybe that's just it. maybe you'd have to turn the passive down so far to get the same results that you'd be losing it. maybe you still need the active low, but not as low, so you can get more of the performance.
i think i'm happy with the pod with the pad on through the pre-amp. i'm going to try mixing a bit of it and see if i can get it to sound right....
yup.
no improvement with the mixer.
dramatic improvement with the soundblaster.
so, if it's humming, the soundblaster is getting around it. good enough...
...but i think it's asio. let's see if i can find evidence of that...
i know i can get around it by compressing the hell out of it because i did it once before, which is fine for finger parts, but i need a pick attack for this and don't want to compress it out.
the only other thing i can think of is that the active pickups are too loud. maybe if i try recording at a very, very low volume.
actually, i have a switch on the pod to try for that, too.
no improvement with the mixer.
dramatic improvement with the soundblaster.
so, if it's humming, the soundblaster is getting around it. good enough...
...but i think it's asio. let's see if i can find evidence of that...
i know i can get around it by compressing the hell out of it because i did it once before, which is fine for finger parts, but i need a pick attack for this and don't want to compress it out.
the only other thing i can think of is that the active pickups are too loud. maybe if i try recording at a very, very low volume.
actually, i have a switch on the pod to try for that, too.
the
limiter didn't help either, indicating it's not actually clipping. it's
buzzing around 100 hz, and there doesn't seem to be a way to deal with
it except dropping the eq - which is no good, because that's where i
want the bass to be.
next thing i'm going to try is directly plugging it into the mixer. those active pups might be pissing off the pod...
if the mixer clears it up, i know it's the drivers on the pod - which, to be fair, are made for guitar frequencies. guitar starts at e2. i'm playing between e1 and f#2.
if the mixer doesn't clear it up, it's either an asio thing (which i suspect is true) or neither input can deal with the pickups.
step three will be testing it with the soundblaster to see if i can create the same problem or not, determining if it's really asio or just the bass.
i need to be clear that it isn't buzzing on the monitor, so it's a capture/driver issue with the pod. but i think it's asio because the initial line in was through the pod to the mixer. i'll find out in a few minutes...
of course, i could also be getting a hum at 100hz that the di box would in theory resolve, but you'd think i'd hear it on the monitor....
next thing i'm going to try is directly plugging it into the mixer. those active pups might be pissing off the pod...
if the mixer clears it up, i know it's the drivers on the pod - which, to be fair, are made for guitar frequencies. guitar starts at e2. i'm playing between e1 and f#2.
if the mixer doesn't clear it up, it's either an asio thing (which i suspect is true) or neither input can deal with the pickups.
step three will be testing it with the soundblaster to see if i can create the same problem or not, determining if it's really asio or just the bass.
i need to be clear that it isn't buzzing on the monitor, so it's a capture/driver issue with the pod. but i think it's asio because the initial line in was through the pod to the mixer. i'll find out in a few minutes...
of course, i could also be getting a hum at 100hz that the di box would in theory resolve, but you'd think i'd hear it on the monitor....
actually, the sample rate idea is
not going to work unless i reroute it to my maudio card. the mixer and
pod both have 48 max. it's only the maudio that can go up to 192, but i
never use it for recording because it only has one old-fashioned
red/white in. it's purely for playback. it's an idea, but it would be
easier to just use the soundblaster. still, i'm curious as to how much
better it is through 48, just for the bass.
i should just use the pod through a bassman. if i direct usb it in, i can't overload it.
easy.
i wanted to avoid that because i wanted to shape it in the daw, but i don't think the clips are otherwise avoidable without killing the dynamics. i'll have to experiment to see if it's workable, but i think this is the best approach.
i should just use the pod through a bassman. if i direct usb it in, i can't overload it.
easy.
i wanted to avoid that because i wanted to shape it in the daw, but i don't think the clips are otherwise avoidable without killing the dynamics. i'll have to experiment to see if it's workable, but i think this is the best approach.
actually, it could be that it's clipping due to the
sample rate. just, empirically: i've never had bass clip when recording
to tape, which takes a continuous signal. it could be clipping as
certain low frequencies with long waveforms get cut in the sampling,
which may be more pronounced through asio than through whatever my
soundblaster is using.
it doesn't clip on monitor, only in record, telling me it's something to do with the capture.
i stick with cd quality when i'm recording. i know there's a lot of people that will argue against that - they say to use 24/48K as the standard. there's no technical reason i don't do this. it's just that i want to mix it the way i'm going to hear it. i've experimented with it a bit, and i find that that extra bit of "headroom" is just fucking up the mix because when i eventually mix it down to 16/44 there's aspects of the reverb and whatnot that don't sound as pronounced. i'd rather spend the time mixing it the way i want it to sound at the quality level people will listen to it at, which might mean turning the effects up a bit more or doubling them or whatever.
but one solution to this may be to take the bass in at like 192 and then downsample.
i have the battery, i'm going to replace it now and i'll let you know what i end up doing. i know this is a solvable problem, it's just a question of getting the answer.
it doesn't clip on monitor, only in record, telling me it's something to do with the capture.
i stick with cd quality when i'm recording. i know there's a lot of people that will argue against that - they say to use 24/48K as the standard. there's no technical reason i don't do this. it's just that i want to mix it the way i'm going to hear it. i've experimented with it a bit, and i find that that extra bit of "headroom" is just fucking up the mix because when i eventually mix it down to 16/44 there's aspects of the reverb and whatnot that don't sound as pronounced. i'd rather spend the time mixing it the way i want it to sound at the quality level people will listen to it at, which might mean turning the effects up a bit more or doubling them or whatever.
but one solution to this may be to take the bass in at like 192 and then downsample.
i have the battery, i'm going to replace it now and i'll let you know what i end up doing. i know this is a solvable problem, it's just a question of getting the answer.
i'm not really getting a hum, which is
what the dis are usually good for. it's clipping from playing dynamics
and the in being too sensitive. not the right solution.
it's a limiter/battery/compression/volume issue....
i mean, the box might give it more headroom, and it might help, but it's going to be easier to restrict those spikes - for picking parts, anyways.
it's a limiter/battery/compression/volume issue....
i mean, the box might give it more headroom, and it might help, but it's going to be easier to restrict those spikes - for picking parts, anyways.
i didn't realize that bass has no passive out on it. the last song i finished with a live bass part was late 2009, which means that that battery has been sitting in there for at least five years. i couldn't even remember if i took the battery out or not. i assumed whatever was in there was long gone...
nope.
but that means i recorded parts with a five year old battery...
the clipping-bass-through-electronic-equipment problem is very well established. it's a complex thing with a lot of causes and a react-as-they-occur type solution set. the easiest thing is to use analog technology, but it always has to be a last resort (i haven't had to use it yet). the two key things are limiters and compressors, but you also have to deal with technique, source, volume, eq.
the last time i had this problem, i was forced to deal with my mixer because my old soundblaster wasn't being read. i've fixed that, now. the soundblaster didn't seem to have those problems. it's tempting, and it may be what i do in the end.
first, i'm going to swap the battery out when the sun comes up, but i'm actually ok with redoing the picked parts with a limiter, which should mostly resolve the worst clipping. it's the finger parts that i'd rather avoid doing that for and that i'm hoping i can just fix with compression & eq.
i'll have to hear how big a difference the new battery makes before i make decisions about that.
i could also always try micing it if i have to. i have a very large roland keyboard/bass amp that gets very little use. i'm not the biggest on the tone of the amp, though.
it's kind of too thick. but it might work for this track.
it may be that the soundblaster is actually a direct input ("DI"), or something closer to it. it's one of the live drive boxes from the mid 90s. i've done tons of recording with it, it really is a great little box for what it is, it's just that it's not asio compatible so i can't record in with cubase. i'd have to do the parts separately and paste them in. but it's a minor annoyance if it clears the clips.
that's it here. it connects to the soundcard with an oldskool pin connector. most of the recording i'm doing nowadays is through usb (the pod) or firewire (mixer).
http://www.hardware-one.com/reviews/platinum/images/LiveDrivePanel_big.jpg
i could also always just get some di cords. the mixer has multiple direct ins, i've just never used them due to not having the right cords...
nope.
but that means i recorded parts with a five year old battery...
the clipping-bass-through-electronic-equipment problem is very well established. it's a complex thing with a lot of causes and a react-as-they-occur type solution set. the easiest thing is to use analog technology, but it always has to be a last resort (i haven't had to use it yet). the two key things are limiters and compressors, but you also have to deal with technique, source, volume, eq.
the last time i had this problem, i was forced to deal with my mixer because my old soundblaster wasn't being read. i've fixed that, now. the soundblaster didn't seem to have those problems. it's tempting, and it may be what i do in the end.
first, i'm going to swap the battery out when the sun comes up, but i'm actually ok with redoing the picked parts with a limiter, which should mostly resolve the worst clipping. it's the finger parts that i'd rather avoid doing that for and that i'm hoping i can just fix with compression & eq.
i'll have to hear how big a difference the new battery makes before i make decisions about that.
i could also always try micing it if i have to. i have a very large roland keyboard/bass amp that gets very little use. i'm not the biggest on the tone of the amp, though.
it's kind of too thick. but it might work for this track.
it may be that the soundblaster is actually a direct input ("DI"), or something closer to it. it's one of the live drive boxes from the mid 90s. i've done tons of recording with it, it really is a great little box for what it is, it's just that it's not asio compatible so i can't record in with cubase. i'd have to do the parts separately and paste them in. but it's a minor annoyance if it clears the clips.
that's it here. it connects to the soundcard with an oldskool pin connector. most of the recording i'm doing nowadays is through usb (the pod) or firewire (mixer).
http://www.hardware-one.com/reviews/platinum/images/LiveDrivePanel_big.jpg
i could also always just get some di cords. the mixer has multiple direct ins, i've just never used them due to not having the right cords...
Monday, September 1, 2014
uploading to spin inside dull aberrations to the scratchpad
i'm also re-upping that last temp file, to fix the levels.
it's all sequenced, but that's it for the day. it's very hot in here (i think buddy upstairs with his a/c is away for the long weekend) and i don't want to lose another hard drive. considering that what happened to the last one was that the motor seized. whenever i hear the fan click in, now, i get paranoid.
i had that machine on for years straight without any problems, and in an apartment hotter than this, but the older they get the more likely they're going to bust. these drives are on borrowed time. i'm backing up regularly now, but i don't want to fuck with fate.
it's all sequenced, but that's it for the day. it's very hot in here (i think buddy upstairs with his a/c is away for the long weekend) and i don't want to lose another hard drive. considering that what happened to the last one was that the motor seized. whenever i hear the fan click in, now, i get paranoid.
i had that machine on for years straight without any problems, and in an apartment hotter than this, but the older they get the more likely they're going to bust. these drives are on borrowed time. i'm backing up regularly now, but i don't want to fuck with fate.
lol...
so, i bounced everything too quietly. i thought the guitars sounded weird and i just couldn't figure out what the fuck it was...thought my amp was maybe going on me....
i knew to turn the effects off, but i have the master at -1. so, it came out around a decibel down. i've verified that i get the right level if i rebounce with the master at 0.
that means, i'm going to have to go back to the file before i bounced (i saved it at that point), rebounce everything and then reintegrate the parts i've added later. that might take all day.
i'm going to take a different approach, though. what i had done before was bounce multiple parts down into the same file, but i figured out halfway through that it's really just an effects issue and i'm not really clearing up processor space that way. what i basically want to do is just run the different files through the effects i've got set on them.
the other thing, is i watched my track count go down, which made me a little sad. this'll keep it back up where it ought to be.
so, deep breath. ok, go...
so, i bounced everything too quietly. i thought the guitars sounded weird and i just couldn't figure out what the fuck it was...thought my amp was maybe going on me....
i knew to turn the effects off, but i have the master at -1. so, it came out around a decibel down. i've verified that i get the right level if i rebounce with the master at 0.
that means, i'm going to have to go back to the file before i bounced (i saved it at that point), rebounce everything and then reintegrate the parts i've added later. that might take all day.
i'm going to take a different approach, though. what i had done before was bounce multiple parts down into the same file, but i figured out halfway through that it's really just an effects issue and i'm not really clearing up processor space that way. what i basically want to do is just run the different files through the effects i've got set on them.
the other thing, is i watched my track count go down, which made me a little sad. this'll keep it back up where it ought to be.
so, deep breath. ok, go...
Sunday, August 31, 2014
deathtokoalas
right.
so, a compressed audio file (an mp3) reduces it's size by throwing away information on the high and low end. running that through an eq that exaggerates the low and high end can compensate for this mildly. it's not as good as an uncompressed source through a flat eq, but it's better than a compressed file through a flat eq. but, when you put an uncompressed file through an eq designed to compensate for compression loss, it's going to sound absurd.
there's actually been a change in mixing philosophy recently, where producers in certain genres are mixing their records to sound optimally through compression, throwing all kinds of wrenches in the whole thing...
at the end of the day, you're right: there's an eq in foobar and there's probably an eq on your mp3 player, but not all eqs are created equally (the one in my sansa is kind of weak and was not able to boost the lows as powerfully as my bass boost headphones were).
ExpensiveGarbage
Soooo..... you're just sitting here having a conversation with yourself?
deathtokoalas
the truth is we're all really conversing with ourselves.
ExpensiveGarbage
Yes, this is I can agree with.
ImActuallyABanana
well what you have to understand is that when an mp3 "throws away" information in the highs and lows, that information is gone. Beats audio exaggerating the lows and highs isnt exactly a good things. Beats audio is boosting the severed highs and lows... its not adding, its boosting.. so basically, your boosting highs and lows that sounds like crap.. you get me ?
deathtokoalas
if you look at the response on the phones, it actually cuts the lowest registers and boosts around 100. this is consistent with an "mp3 bass boost". i have a pair of sennheisers that does the same thing, but it's marketed as "bass boost for mp3 response".
what an mp3 throws away is mostly outside the audible range, but it sort of bleeds over into the audible range in various ways. i don't have the numbers off hand, but it's not going to cut at 100. it'll highpass around 20 or something and then slowly reduce the information up to around 50 iirc. so you want that cut down bottom to cut out the noise, and then the boost a little higher to exaggerate the lost lows.
so, no. you can't boost information that is gone. it's just gone. it's not boosting a "severed" high or low. what's lost is lost. what's is doing is exaggerating what still exists in order to compensate.
it's not some kind of magical de-mp3 uncompression algorithm or something, it's really essentially a trick. but if they're anything like my sennheisers, it's a trick that works.
stated another way, you can mangle the signal under 50 and boost at 100 and get the effect of reconstructed bass, even though it's not what's actually happening.
if you're listening to really deep bass, you'll possibly be able to tell. but the average bass range is simply not that low. you're getting overtones and murkiness on the bottom. the overtones are gone, they can't be reclaimed, but you can fudge it by boosting a little higher.
i doubt the phones have them, but a little reverb box might be able to reconstruct a bit of those overtones. you'd be fighting with purists, though. fuck, i'd fight with you over that...
ImActuallyABanana
thats mostly what i said.. if you ever listen to an mp3, you can clearly hear that isnt not just the unheard frequencies being gone.. if that was the case, then mp3s would sounds great.. but its not. mp3s sound like shit in general no matter what bitrate they are. they lose alot of the frequencies that matter as well and with those frequencies completley gone, boosting the highs and lows will do absolutley nothing for sound quality
deathtokoalas
obviously, you can't make an mp3 sound like a flac by using an eq. that's not what i was saying. but, you can make an mp3 sound "punchier" by boosting the bass, and it will sound better to most people.
you can try it yourself. find a wave editor. i still use a copy of cool edit i "found" somewhere back in about 1998, but i think the standard free tool to do this nowadays is audacity. rip a cd to wav. pick something that's not deep bass music. then, run it through a high pass filter around 20 hz. you'll immediately notice that the rumble is gone, but that the track doesn't sound particularly different. then put it through a parametric eq that slopes from -50% at 20 to +50% at 100 and then back down again to 0 around 150. you'll immediately notice that it's punchier than the file that's just cut at 20, even though it's missing the subbass.
it's not a perfect comparison because the mp3 is losing some information up to about 50 (iirc). but it gets the point across.
ImActuallyABanana
ive done this alot and i can honestly say that to me, being in audio for 6+ years, i have never heard an mp3 sound even slightly better with any type of eq... its like compressing distortion, no difference. in reality your just turning up Crap. Ive had to take mp3 samples of things and put them in a new song (24bit/44.1k) and when you blend in that mp3 well in there, thats when an mp3 is tolerable. but yes your right, to some people(meaning regular consumers), boosting those frequencies on an mp3 would sound better. to them. not to us of course. i just hate mp3s in reality.
Randy Parsons
The compression rate has a lot to do with it. Unless you use a really bad compression people simply can't tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed. Even so called audiophiles. They have done studies, although they are kinda hard to find with Google. As for EQ. EQ to the room or to your 10$ earbuds or whatever makes it sound good to you. Beats certainly didn't invent the EQ. Many cheap earbuds have pretty horrible bass. I would always prefer to EQ myself instead of some 'preset' that Apple and Beats does. Not sure if Apple still does this on their ipods.
deathtokoalas
for those that are curious, the highpass (sort of.) does occur after the fourier transform (for the lowest frequencies), but this isn't the right place to get into the mathematics of the issue and such a pedantic discussion does nothing to address my argument. if you want to look into this, though, understanding the way the waveform is split in encoding will help you understand why more information is lost at 40 hz than at 100 hz and why there's still enough of the signal around 100 hz to boost for the signal loss in the subbass. i don't think i implied that mp3s literally highpass, and i apologize if you've misread me in that way.
fwiw, i wrote the following piece of music using wavelet and fourier transforms in partial requirement of a graduate level course in mathematics on data compression algorithms:
right.
so, a compressed audio file (an mp3) reduces it's size by throwing away information on the high and low end. running that through an eq that exaggerates the low and high end can compensate for this mildly. it's not as good as an uncompressed source through a flat eq, but it's better than a compressed file through a flat eq. but, when you put an uncompressed file through an eq designed to compensate for compression loss, it's going to sound absurd.
there's actually been a change in mixing philosophy recently, where producers in certain genres are mixing their records to sound optimally through compression, throwing all kinds of wrenches in the whole thing...
at the end of the day, you're right: there's an eq in foobar and there's probably an eq on your mp3 player, but not all eqs are created equally (the one in my sansa is kind of weak and was not able to boost the lows as powerfully as my bass boost headphones were).
ExpensiveGarbage
Soooo..... you're just sitting here having a conversation with yourself?
deathtokoalas
the truth is we're all really conversing with ourselves.
ExpensiveGarbage
Yes, this is I can agree with.
ImActuallyABanana
well what you have to understand is that when an mp3 "throws away" information in the highs and lows, that information is gone. Beats audio exaggerating the lows and highs isnt exactly a good things. Beats audio is boosting the severed highs and lows... its not adding, its boosting.. so basically, your boosting highs and lows that sounds like crap.. you get me ?
deathtokoalas
if you look at the response on the phones, it actually cuts the lowest registers and boosts around 100. this is consistent with an "mp3 bass boost". i have a pair of sennheisers that does the same thing, but it's marketed as "bass boost for mp3 response".
what an mp3 throws away is mostly outside the audible range, but it sort of bleeds over into the audible range in various ways. i don't have the numbers off hand, but it's not going to cut at 100. it'll highpass around 20 or something and then slowly reduce the information up to around 50 iirc. so you want that cut down bottom to cut out the noise, and then the boost a little higher to exaggerate the lost lows.
so, no. you can't boost information that is gone. it's just gone. it's not boosting a "severed" high or low. what's lost is lost. what's is doing is exaggerating what still exists in order to compensate.
it's not some kind of magical de-mp3 uncompression algorithm or something, it's really essentially a trick. but if they're anything like my sennheisers, it's a trick that works.
stated another way, you can mangle the signal under 50 and boost at 100 and get the effect of reconstructed bass, even though it's not what's actually happening.
if you're listening to really deep bass, you'll possibly be able to tell. but the average bass range is simply not that low. you're getting overtones and murkiness on the bottom. the overtones are gone, they can't be reclaimed, but you can fudge it by boosting a little higher.
i doubt the phones have them, but a little reverb box might be able to reconstruct a bit of those overtones. you'd be fighting with purists, though. fuck, i'd fight with you over that...
ImActuallyABanana
thats mostly what i said.. if you ever listen to an mp3, you can clearly hear that isnt not just the unheard frequencies being gone.. if that was the case, then mp3s would sounds great.. but its not. mp3s sound like shit in general no matter what bitrate they are. they lose alot of the frequencies that matter as well and with those frequencies completley gone, boosting the highs and lows will do absolutley nothing for sound quality
deathtokoalas
obviously, you can't make an mp3 sound like a flac by using an eq. that's not what i was saying. but, you can make an mp3 sound "punchier" by boosting the bass, and it will sound better to most people.
you can try it yourself. find a wave editor. i still use a copy of cool edit i "found" somewhere back in about 1998, but i think the standard free tool to do this nowadays is audacity. rip a cd to wav. pick something that's not deep bass music. then, run it through a high pass filter around 20 hz. you'll immediately notice that the rumble is gone, but that the track doesn't sound particularly different. then put it through a parametric eq that slopes from -50% at 20 to +50% at 100 and then back down again to 0 around 150. you'll immediately notice that it's punchier than the file that's just cut at 20, even though it's missing the subbass.
it's not a perfect comparison because the mp3 is losing some information up to about 50 (iirc). but it gets the point across.
ImActuallyABanana
ive done this alot and i can honestly say that to me, being in audio for 6+ years, i have never heard an mp3 sound even slightly better with any type of eq... its like compressing distortion, no difference. in reality your just turning up Crap. Ive had to take mp3 samples of things and put them in a new song (24bit/44.1k) and when you blend in that mp3 well in there, thats when an mp3 is tolerable. but yes your right, to some people(meaning regular consumers), boosting those frequencies on an mp3 would sound better. to them. not to us of course. i just hate mp3s in reality.
Randy Parsons
The compression rate has a lot to do with it. Unless you use a really bad compression people simply can't tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed. Even so called audiophiles. They have done studies, although they are kinda hard to find with Google. As for EQ. EQ to the room or to your 10$ earbuds or whatever makes it sound good to you. Beats certainly didn't invent the EQ. Many cheap earbuds have pretty horrible bass. I would always prefer to EQ myself instead of some 'preset' that Apple and Beats does. Not sure if Apple still does this on their ipods.
deathtokoalas
for those that are curious, the highpass (sort of.) does occur after the fourier transform (for the lowest frequencies), but this isn't the right place to get into the mathematics of the issue and such a pedantic discussion does nothing to address my argument. if you want to look into this, though, understanding the way the waveform is split in encoding will help you understand why more information is lost at 40 hz than at 100 hz and why there's still enough of the signal around 100 hz to boost for the signal loss in the subbass. i don't think i implied that mp3s literally highpass, and i apologize if you've misread me in that way.
fwiw, i wrote the following piece of music using wavelet and fourier transforms in partial requirement of a graduate level course in mathematics on data compression algorithms:
i just want to ask if you did an a/b with compressed v uncompressed sources regarding the bass?
the reason is that mp3 compression kills the bass. some time in the middle of the last decade, i actually bought a pair of sennheisers with a bass boost (and they were advertised and marketed this way) that was purposefully designed to counteract the mp3 compression. if you tried to use them in the studio, the bass was totally muddy and washed out. but, if you plugged some studio phones into the mp3 player, the bass sounded thin - reflecting the source.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkVZwj4pZ7A
the reason is that mp3 compression kills the bass. some time in the middle of the last decade, i actually bought a pair of sennheisers with a bass boost (and they were advertised and marketed this way) that was purposefully designed to counteract the mp3 compression. if you tried to use them in the studio, the bass was totally muddy and washed out. but, if you plugged some studio phones into the mp3 player, the bass sounded thin - reflecting the source.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkVZwj4pZ7A
a discussion of “beats” headphones
deathtokoalas
but, just how bad are they? i've never heard them.
i'm not quite an audiophile. as a composer and heavy listener of complex music, i'm very concerned about quality, but i know most of the claims made by audiophiles are unable to pass double-blind tests and you usually want to take what they say carefully. i've been into high end sennheisers since i was in grade school, so i know what good and bad headphones sound like. i just can't think they're really that bad, not even with the understanding that they're mass marketed for profit rather than manufactured for audio purposes.
one of the things that's recently impressed me with my sennheisers is their ability to pick up the bow noise on a cello part. just excellent reproduction. but, is somebody listening to top 40 pop looking for that kind of response, or do they just want the bass to drown everything out? if your expectations are less (and dre's expectations may not have been high), you're going to test the phones in less stringent ways and ultimately not be able to tell.
there's going to be a cut-off point in terms of quality where virtually everybody says "this is shit", but that cut-off point is much lower for the consumer market than it is for the audiophile one.
so, how bad are they?
the other thing you have to keep in mind is that headphones nowadays are mostly bought for portable use, which means the source is probably compressed. are people really using flac? i doubt it. music that's....found...online is still generally compressed.
i was looking for a pair of sennheisers a few years ago for portable use and searched around a little and realized they're actually producing a completely different line of phones for it than their studio models, which are created specifically to compensate for the loss inherent in compression. i ended up going with a bass boost model. when i plugged my studio sennheisers into my mp3 player, i could hear the problems with the compression - on certain albums that i've heard hundreds of times and can play back in my head from start to finish. the bass boost alleviated that mildly (although it didn't help with the high end). conversely, i couldn't use the bass boost in the studio for obvious reasons, it just muddied everything.
i'm going to guess that the beats are probably a bit boomy, but it's a valid question as to whether that's a purposeful response to the compression and whether people are using wonky metrics.
but, i'm really just curious: how bad are they?
Stegmutt
Innerfidelity's review is a good place to start, although maybe a bit technical: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/monster-beats-dr-dre-solo
deathtokoalas
that wasn't very technical at all.
it's beginning to confirm my suspicion that these phones are made for compressed audio, though - exaggerated low end, and a rolled off high end, where it doesn't matter due to the compression killing it.
i again have to reiterate that high-end companies do this, but they market their products properly. the result sounds awful from a flat source, but really brings the compression back to life on the bottom.
i can't argue they're not overpriced (my bass boost sennheisers were $100 (canadian) not $350), but are these reviews using them to do what they were engineered to do....?
Berenizes Gutierrez
when it comes down to it beats are perfect for the average consumer that really doesn't care about being able to hear every aspect of a song
deathtokoalas
i'm really curious if somebody with a pair could test with compressed audio, specifically. that's not the way you're supposed to test audio equipment, but it's the consumer reality right now. it would maybe help if beats had specified, as sennheiser did. but, it's easy to draw the conclusion from the frequency response that that's what they're going for.
luwiigi427
Marques does explanation of what Beats is actually doing with the audio /watch?v=Cdbn_pmxFic
He also does a side-by-side comparison with the M50s /watch?v=et_PWifUd1w
The only thing he doesn't do (which is probably what you really want out of this) are legit audio tests/comparisons. To be fair, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the equipment to actually do it.
deathtokoalas
right.
so, a compressed audio file (an mp3) reduces it's size by throwing away information on the high and low end. running that through an eq that exaggerates the low and high end can compensate for this mildly. it's not as good as an uncompressed source through a flat eq, but it's better than a compressed file through a flat eq. but, when you put an uncompressed file through an eq designed to compensate for compression loss, it's going to sound absurd.
there's actually been a change in mixing philosophy recently, where producers in certain genres are mixing their records to sound optimally through compression, throwing all kinds of wrenches in the whole thing...
at the end of the day, he's right: there's an eq in foobar and there's probably an eq on your mp3 player, but not all eqs are created equally (the one in my sansa is kind of weak and was not able to boost the lows as powerfully as my bass boost headphones were).
so, maybe they're overpriced.
but maybe it's a clever way to make up for sales lost to torrents, while making the pirated product sound better at the same time.
i mean, i'm not as big as dre. nobody's torrenting my work. right now, i'll argue that if you like it you should throw me some cash, 'cause i'm just getting by and it'll help me keep going.
but if i was dre, and i had some money in the bank, what would bother me most about torrenting would be that people aren't hearing the thing i spent hours and hours creating properly. i mean, i didn't spend all day tweaking the reverb so you could fucking compress the file afterwards and lose it. if i had to resign myself to compressed audio as the de facto standard, i'd be yelling at people to tweak their eqs properly...
it makes sense when you analyze it.
even if it's overpriced.
when you keep that in mind, the whole "as the artist meant it" thing does make sense - presuming you'd otherwise be listening to compressed audio on a flat eq. more accurate would be "closer to how the artist meant it to sound, considering you're BUTCHERING THE FUCKING SOURCE".
i think it was kef (a medium to high-end british speaker manufacturer) that initially came up with the "as it was meant to sound" line in relation to producing very flat speakers.
Stegmutt
I don't think the solo hd's were designed with compressed files in mind- they were just badly designed. From a manufacturing standpoint, it doesn't make sense to deliberately create an acute roll off spanning the lower two bass octaves and have a spike from 100 to 300hz. This probably has more to do with Monster's incompetence than any strategic design. But this is all in the past. By most accounts, the Solo 2's are excellent performers and a great value. Hopefully Beats bringing engineering in house has turned around their product line and they will offer good products at competitive prices.
deathtokoalas
but it does if you're trying to compensate heavy bass compression - which is just as applicable to xenakis as it is to dubstep.
somebody really ought to do the test.
Fabian
sincerly, they sound good :/
Stegmutt
No, from a manufacturing standpoint it doesn't make sense to have a roll off in the lower two octaves. It's not like they save money by having crappy response in the octaves most bassheads crave.
deathtokoalas
on a clean source, yes, but an mp3 is going to cut off so much from the lows that turning it up below 100 hz is just going to introduce noise. it's 100-300 where you can still reconstruct it. that's probably also why there's such a steep cut about 7500 - you're just going to get static on an mp3 if you boost it there.
fwiw, it's below 114 hz where mp3s start getting noisy.
Miguel
About 2 years ago. I had a friend who purchased Beats -- the ones that sit on the ear and not cover them. I tried them out and I was astonished how similar it sounded to my $40 sennheiser ear buds. Sure the bass was higher but it was missing a certain clarity to it. Sure my friend didn't have a dedicated amp or use flac or even a phone with a great sound chip. But this is the typical consumer. Buying "high end" headphones just for the brand and less for actual quality. But whatever. The sound was obviously not horrible but horrible due to the price. It'd be fine if they were $35.
deathtokoalas
and here's another question: was their ability to compensate for mp3s a part of the reason apple bought them and then changed the design?
one of the reasons i don't own an ipod is drm. now, i understand they've changed it a little. but i want a device i can put what i want on without proprietary software &etc.
if this pair of headphones shows up to make lossy audio sound better, it potentially hurts their product.
Stegmutt
I understand the concept of psycho acoustic compression, but once again, from a manufacturing standpoint, having a steep roll off spanning the lowest two octaves is bizarre. Sure, many consumers use lossy files, but it make no sense to deliberate manufacture poor response below 100hz. Or are you implying that beats assumes all their customers exclusively listen to 96kb mp3's that have no data below 100hz and then specifically designed their headphones to perform poorly in that range? That is a dubious assumption at best.
deathtokoalas
you don't have to go down to 96 to get bad low responses, you can hear it at 128-256, but the limitations of the technology are going to create weaker bass response even at 320.
i am explicitly stating that it seems like beats has assumed that their customers are listening to mp3s on their phone, and this is the reason they've created the frequency response that they have.
and they're mostly right.
and again: sennheiser did something similar with their "bass boost mp3 phones", which sound great through my sandisk that's sending out mp3s and horrific from my cd player.
MistahJuicyBoy
What bitrate are your MP3s? Lossless is a big difference, but it's not that drastic. Good headphones will always sound better, no matter what you're putting in
deathtokoalas
i rip to 320, but the stuff that i....find....is however i...found...it, which is often 256 or lower. 192 is probably most common.
in my view, you want your studio headphones flat. but flat phones will then reproduce the compression. just trust me when i say that that bass boost in the sennheisers (which i can confirm were engineered specifically for mp3 use) made a gigantic difference. but, as one would expect, it made higher quality sources sound muddy, as well.
Toxis
To be honest - they sound pretty nice, especially if you like deep bass, and as a person who listens to hardcore (gabber, not a punk one:) - they really really sound great - never owned them, too expensive, and I bet there are better headphones for the price (i.e. audio technica) but the beats do not sound crappy at all (again, I am not an audiophile, they sounded good for my taste) - the price is different beast - would I buy them - nope. would I use them if I had those - yes:)
heh, I do own scullcandy fix - and I never knew until this video they are same category as beats (the overpriced category:) - got these beacause my brainwavz died, like them a lot, especially because managed to get them for ~33$ - look awesome, sound awesome, fit awesome :)
energeez
hey smart lady , love your comments! i own a pair of beats and use them for dubstep, club music, which i listen a lot to, but listen to everything, which i use other headphones for. My theory for the freq. is that they try to make them fun sounding (which i do find them fun), and how do you make something sound fun? You cut off the sub bass, and increase the kick bass/ mid freq synth bass. Thats my take.
but, just how bad are they? i've never heard them.
i'm not quite an audiophile. as a composer and heavy listener of complex music, i'm very concerned about quality, but i know most of the claims made by audiophiles are unable to pass double-blind tests and you usually want to take what they say carefully. i've been into high end sennheisers since i was in grade school, so i know what good and bad headphones sound like. i just can't think they're really that bad, not even with the understanding that they're mass marketed for profit rather than manufactured for audio purposes.
one of the things that's recently impressed me with my sennheisers is their ability to pick up the bow noise on a cello part. just excellent reproduction. but, is somebody listening to top 40 pop looking for that kind of response, or do they just want the bass to drown everything out? if your expectations are less (and dre's expectations may not have been high), you're going to test the phones in less stringent ways and ultimately not be able to tell.
there's going to be a cut-off point in terms of quality where virtually everybody says "this is shit", but that cut-off point is much lower for the consumer market than it is for the audiophile one.
so, how bad are they?
the other thing you have to keep in mind is that headphones nowadays are mostly bought for portable use, which means the source is probably compressed. are people really using flac? i doubt it. music that's....found...online is still generally compressed.
i was looking for a pair of sennheisers a few years ago for portable use and searched around a little and realized they're actually producing a completely different line of phones for it than their studio models, which are created specifically to compensate for the loss inherent in compression. i ended up going with a bass boost model. when i plugged my studio sennheisers into my mp3 player, i could hear the problems with the compression - on certain albums that i've heard hundreds of times and can play back in my head from start to finish. the bass boost alleviated that mildly (although it didn't help with the high end). conversely, i couldn't use the bass boost in the studio for obvious reasons, it just muddied everything.
i'm going to guess that the beats are probably a bit boomy, but it's a valid question as to whether that's a purposeful response to the compression and whether people are using wonky metrics.
but, i'm really just curious: how bad are they?
Stegmutt
Innerfidelity's review is a good place to start, although maybe a bit technical: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/monster-beats-dr-dre-solo
deathtokoalas
that wasn't very technical at all.
it's beginning to confirm my suspicion that these phones are made for compressed audio, though - exaggerated low end, and a rolled off high end, where it doesn't matter due to the compression killing it.
i again have to reiterate that high-end companies do this, but they market their products properly. the result sounds awful from a flat source, but really brings the compression back to life on the bottom.
i can't argue they're not overpriced (my bass boost sennheisers were $100 (canadian) not $350), but are these reviews using them to do what they were engineered to do....?
Berenizes Gutierrez
when it comes down to it beats are perfect for the average consumer that really doesn't care about being able to hear every aspect of a song
deathtokoalas
i'm really curious if somebody with a pair could test with compressed audio, specifically. that's not the way you're supposed to test audio equipment, but it's the consumer reality right now. it would maybe help if beats had specified, as sennheiser did. but, it's easy to draw the conclusion from the frequency response that that's what they're going for.
luwiigi427
Marques does explanation of what Beats is actually doing with the audio /watch?v=Cdbn_pmxFic
He also does a side-by-side comparison with the M50s /watch?v=et_PWifUd1w
The only thing he doesn't do (which is probably what you really want out of this) are legit audio tests/comparisons. To be fair, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the equipment to actually do it.
deathtokoalas
right.
so, a compressed audio file (an mp3) reduces it's size by throwing away information on the high and low end. running that through an eq that exaggerates the low and high end can compensate for this mildly. it's not as good as an uncompressed source through a flat eq, but it's better than a compressed file through a flat eq. but, when you put an uncompressed file through an eq designed to compensate for compression loss, it's going to sound absurd.
there's actually been a change in mixing philosophy recently, where producers in certain genres are mixing their records to sound optimally through compression, throwing all kinds of wrenches in the whole thing...
at the end of the day, he's right: there's an eq in foobar and there's probably an eq on your mp3 player, but not all eqs are created equally (the one in my sansa is kind of weak and was not able to boost the lows as powerfully as my bass boost headphones were).
so, maybe they're overpriced.
but maybe it's a clever way to make up for sales lost to torrents, while making the pirated product sound better at the same time.
i mean, i'm not as big as dre. nobody's torrenting my work. right now, i'll argue that if you like it you should throw me some cash, 'cause i'm just getting by and it'll help me keep going.
but if i was dre, and i had some money in the bank, what would bother me most about torrenting would be that people aren't hearing the thing i spent hours and hours creating properly. i mean, i didn't spend all day tweaking the reverb so you could fucking compress the file afterwards and lose it. if i had to resign myself to compressed audio as the de facto standard, i'd be yelling at people to tweak their eqs properly...
it makes sense when you analyze it.
even if it's overpriced.
when you keep that in mind, the whole "as the artist meant it" thing does make sense - presuming you'd otherwise be listening to compressed audio on a flat eq. more accurate would be "closer to how the artist meant it to sound, considering you're BUTCHERING THE FUCKING SOURCE".
i think it was kef (a medium to high-end british speaker manufacturer) that initially came up with the "as it was meant to sound" line in relation to producing very flat speakers.
Stegmutt
I don't think the solo hd's were designed with compressed files in mind- they were just badly designed. From a manufacturing standpoint, it doesn't make sense to deliberately create an acute roll off spanning the lower two bass octaves and have a spike from 100 to 300hz. This probably has more to do with Monster's incompetence than any strategic design. But this is all in the past. By most accounts, the Solo 2's are excellent performers and a great value. Hopefully Beats bringing engineering in house has turned around their product line and they will offer good products at competitive prices.
deathtokoalas
but it does if you're trying to compensate heavy bass compression - which is just as applicable to xenakis as it is to dubstep.
somebody really ought to do the test.
Fabian
sincerly, they sound good :/
Stegmutt
No, from a manufacturing standpoint it doesn't make sense to have a roll off in the lower two octaves. It's not like they save money by having crappy response in the octaves most bassheads crave.
deathtokoalas
on a clean source, yes, but an mp3 is going to cut off so much from the lows that turning it up below 100 hz is just going to introduce noise. it's 100-300 where you can still reconstruct it. that's probably also why there's such a steep cut about 7500 - you're just going to get static on an mp3 if you boost it there.
fwiw, it's below 114 hz where mp3s start getting noisy.
Miguel
About 2 years ago. I had a friend who purchased Beats -- the ones that sit on the ear and not cover them. I tried them out and I was astonished how similar it sounded to my $40 sennheiser ear buds. Sure the bass was higher but it was missing a certain clarity to it. Sure my friend didn't have a dedicated amp or use flac or even a phone with a great sound chip. But this is the typical consumer. Buying "high end" headphones just for the brand and less for actual quality. But whatever. The sound was obviously not horrible but horrible due to the price. It'd be fine if they were $35.
deathtokoalas
and here's another question: was their ability to compensate for mp3s a part of the reason apple bought them and then changed the design?
one of the reasons i don't own an ipod is drm. now, i understand they've changed it a little. but i want a device i can put what i want on without proprietary software &etc.
if this pair of headphones shows up to make lossy audio sound better, it potentially hurts their product.
Stegmutt
I understand the concept of psycho acoustic compression, but once again, from a manufacturing standpoint, having a steep roll off spanning the lowest two octaves is bizarre. Sure, many consumers use lossy files, but it make no sense to deliberate manufacture poor response below 100hz. Or are you implying that beats assumes all their customers exclusively listen to 96kb mp3's that have no data below 100hz and then specifically designed their headphones to perform poorly in that range? That is a dubious assumption at best.
deathtokoalas
you don't have to go down to 96 to get bad low responses, you can hear it at 128-256, but the limitations of the technology are going to create weaker bass response even at 320.
i am explicitly stating that it seems like beats has assumed that their customers are listening to mp3s on their phone, and this is the reason they've created the frequency response that they have.
and they're mostly right.
and again: sennheiser did something similar with their "bass boost mp3 phones", which sound great through my sandisk that's sending out mp3s and horrific from my cd player.
MistahJuicyBoy
What bitrate are your MP3s? Lossless is a big difference, but it's not that drastic. Good headphones will always sound better, no matter what you're putting in
deathtokoalas
i rip to 320, but the stuff that i....find....is however i...found...it, which is often 256 or lower. 192 is probably most common.
in my view, you want your studio headphones flat. but flat phones will then reproduce the compression. just trust me when i say that that bass boost in the sennheisers (which i can confirm were engineered specifically for mp3 use) made a gigantic difference. but, as one would expect, it made higher quality sources sound muddy, as well.
Toxis
To be honest - they sound pretty nice, especially if you like deep bass, and as a person who listens to hardcore (gabber, not a punk one:) - they really really sound great - never owned them, too expensive, and I bet there are better headphones for the price (i.e. audio technica) but the beats do not sound crappy at all (again, I am not an audiophile, they sounded good for my taste) - the price is different beast - would I buy them - nope. would I use them if I had those - yes:)
heh, I do own scullcandy fix - and I never knew until this video they are same category as beats (the overpriced category:) - got these beacause my brainwavz died, like them a lot, especially because managed to get them for ~33$ - look awesome, sound awesome, fit awesome :)
energeez
hey smart lady , love your comments! i own a pair of beats and use them for dubstep, club music, which i listen a lot to, but listen to everything, which i use other headphones for. My theory for the freq. is that they try to make them fun sounding (which i do find them fun), and how do you make something sound fun? You cut off the sub bass, and increase the kick bass/ mid freq synth bass. Thats my take.
it's going to be very close, but i think my august totals should just match my july totals.
but my july totals were a significant increase in hits over my june ones (judging by the way the curve was swinging, it was a two or three or even four month jump), so i'm ok with a minimal growth rate, or even a very small negative one.
i don't think my september totals will greatly exceed my july or august ones, either. i'm going to be waiting until the end of october or even november before i see any real increases.
but i think i caught the curve and will not concern myself with it for another few weeks.
i have enough data at this point to understand what kind of rates i'm getting in drawing people to bandcamp. this page is really just a blog, it's sort of inconsequential if people get here....
from approximately 52,000 comment views, i've generated around 12,000 video views - which is a little under 25%. a bit more than 10% of that gets to bandcamp. so i'm looking at about 3% of the traffic getting to where i want it - which is not bad, really.
i don't have metrics, but i think i've averaged around 10,000 comment views over each of the last two months. i need to get that up to around 15,000 and then 20,000 - but that's easier said than done. some of the comments are on videos that get a steady stream of visitors, so once they migrate to the top of the comment section they're fixed. others are on videos that are trending, and they get lost in a torrent of other comments and quickly forgotten.
what i've learned is that trolling the trending videos can get a quick boost in posts, but that this fades within a day or two due to high turnover in the comments section. the more worthwhile approach is to find older videos that continue to generate steady traffic and try and climb the comment section...
but my july totals were a significant increase in hits over my june ones (judging by the way the curve was swinging, it was a two or three or even four month jump), so i'm ok with a minimal growth rate, or even a very small negative one.
i don't think my september totals will greatly exceed my july or august ones, either. i'm going to be waiting until the end of october or even november before i see any real increases.
but i think i caught the curve and will not concern myself with it for another few weeks.
i have enough data at this point to understand what kind of rates i'm getting in drawing people to bandcamp. this page is really just a blog, it's sort of inconsequential if people get here....
from approximately 52,000 comment views, i've generated around 12,000 video views - which is a little under 25%. a bit more than 10% of that gets to bandcamp. so i'm looking at about 3% of the traffic getting to where i want it - which is not bad, really.
i don't have metrics, but i think i've averaged around 10,000 comment views over each of the last two months. i need to get that up to around 15,000 and then 20,000 - but that's easier said than done. some of the comments are on videos that get a steady stream of visitors, so once they migrate to the top of the comment section they're fixed. others are on videos that are trending, and they get lost in a torrent of other comments and quickly forgotten.
what i've learned is that trolling the trending videos can get a quick boost in posts, but that this fades within a day or two due to high turnover in the comments section. the more worthwhile approach is to find older videos that continue to generate steady traffic and try and climb the comment section...
bass parts are written and demoed, now the mixing headache begins...
the problem is that i don't really want heavy compression on the source for most of it, so i'm trying to get the parts in clean, but that's always a struggle with bass. i may have to re do some parts with the active pickups on or the volume very low, but the ideas are all down, at least.
i didn't sleep well yesterday afternoon, so i'm going to crash a little early.
the problem is that i don't really want heavy compression on the source for most of it, so i'm trying to get the parts in clean, but that's always a struggle with bass. i may have to re do some parts with the active pickups on or the volume very low, but the ideas are all down, at least.
i didn't sleep well yesterday afternoon, so i'm going to crash a little early.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
i've never understood why so many rock bands have their bass players playing the root notes so often. it may have initially been out of a lack of training, but it became stylistic and trying to do something else with a bass ended up really frowned upon. bass solos continue to be ridiculed...
but, a good bass counterpoint can really elevate an otherwise ok rock song to something sublime by adding something more complex on the bottom end. it's really constant in the history of art-rock from the beatles through floyd, bowie, joy division, nirvana...
given how important it is, and how obvious it's importance is, it's really just kind of head-scratching how it is that so many musicians just ignore it, or merely use it to beef up the guitars.
but, a good bass counterpoint can really elevate an otherwise ok rock song to something sublime by adding something more complex on the bottom end. it's really constant in the history of art-rock from the beatles through floyd, bowie, joy division, nirvana...
given how important it is, and how obvious it's importance is, it's really just kind of head-scratching how it is that so many musicians just ignore it, or merely use it to beef up the guitars.
uploading to spin inside dull aberrations to the scratchpad
this is pretty much everything except the bass and any extra guitar subtleties i may throw in at last minute. i might turn that distorted cello up a bit, not sure...
that means it'll also be the last rough mix posted - for the first part. there's going to be the three parts to this.
http://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/scratchpad/
updates are a good string mix, piano and extra synth and guitars.
that means it'll also be the last rough mix posted - for the first part. there's going to be the three parts to this.
http://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/scratchpad/
updates are a good string mix, piano and extra synth and guitars.
AmbiAnts
Ahh that's a refreshing simple melody, I'm so glad I came across this.
What an atrocity today's popular music is. Corporate cancer milking teenagers for everything their parents can afford. I used to think It was just me getting older but now, I think today's music actually does just suck.
Turn on popular radio and what do you hear nowadays? emotionless shit where the only thing that matters is that the bass sounds like a lawnmower raping a chainsaw and makes you feel physically sick.
The saddest thing is there are still wonderful artists out there, but they're not given the time of day because they don't fit into this perfect celebrity culture we have. It's a great SHAME.
deathtokoalas
so, you think this isn't emotionless shit? it's some white people appropriating some black music, watering it down as far as they can and turning a profit from it.
you're right about modern radio music being awful. what you're missing is that the radio music you grew up with was just as bad.
AmbiAnts
So you think that this band all got together one night and conspired to water down some black music and make a profit?
I can't say for sure that didn't happen, but I think far more likely that they were just influenced and inspired by blues music. Not sure what you were getting at in your comment but if you're saying that this music is in the same slimey catagory as today's Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber then you're not playing with a full deck.
deathtokoalas
if you were around at the time (maybe five or six years earlier), you know the kind of segregation that existed. the whole movement of white musicians taking up black music was about picking up a style that was very successful in black markets, but that white radio stations wouldn't play because the musicians weren't white. by commodifying the product for a white audience, they were able to open up a whole new audience demographic. this isn't the only band that were doing that at the time, but it's one of the least creative examples.
the technology is different, but i don't hear anything more substantial in this than i do in a miley tune. sorry.
if anything, miley has way better producers.
it's a different target audience, but there's no greater artistic value here - in both cases, we're talking about breaking something artistic down to it's lowest level and mass marketing it as a commodity.
AmbiAnts
So what constitutes artistic value? evidently not a group of white guys singing a watered down black blues song, even though they wrote the song and played the instruments. That's just as artistic as somebody who has somebody else write their songs for them, and play the instruments for them?
deathtokoalas
i think you're being a little delusional in suggesting they wrote this song. it's a traditional blues jam.
Edohiguma
Fun fact: the same "corporate cancer" milked the hippies, too. They even produced the hippie "uniform" that every hippie had to wear to show his "individualism" (hilarious, I know.) It was a big market. And all the popular records for the hippie generation didn't grow on trees either. Someone had to produce those too and production doesn't come free.
Ultimately it's always the "corporate cancer", the "evil capitalists" who produce things and bring innovation and progress, while those who rile against those imaginary evils have usually very little to show in terms of production, innovation and progress. The hippies are a great example. They were great at whining about the system and tearing things down, but they have not produced a single thing worth mentioning. Destruction is much easier than production.
deathtokoalas
the hippies created this. it's their fault. they can't step away from it, now, and say "i don't understand this". sure you do. i'll be damned if i'm going to sit here and let hippies claim they don't understand a culture that pushes sex & drugs as the sole purpose of existence...
see, this is why those zappa records are so historically important. he explains it all, with flair and musicianship.
awillypower
It's the same melody of Matchbox by Carl Perkins
deathtokoalas
and carl perkins was, of course, one of the first white rock musicians to get somewhere by stealing ideas from black music.
1894cossack
I eat trolls for breakfast, with my cherrios.
deathtokoalas
well, eat me then.
Jack Grattan
I just love politically correct historical revisionism.
deathtokoalas
i don't see anything revisionist about it. just about anybody alive at the time will tell what i typed.
Jack Grattan
In his introduction to the Howlin' Wolf biography (a book I'M SURE you haven't read), B.B. King said "They said that Jimmie Rodgers (a white man) was the father of country music, but Wolf and I knew better. He was a BLUES singer, same as us, and a DAMNED GOOD one at that." Please notice that Mr. King said NOTHING about "the white man stealing our music." It's called CROSS- POLLINATION. You, of course, call it theft. Which makes you a politically correct historical revisionist. Case closed.
deathtokoalas
i hardly think that somebody that died in 1935 is relevant in the discussion of white musicians appropriating black music in the 1950s and 1960s, as that black form had barely even developed yet. if that's the best you can do, it's beyond being even a stretch - it's just irrelevant.
Jack Grattan
You know, if you said something about white (and black) BUSINESSMEN ripping off black (and white) musicians, I'd be in total agreement with you. Because that's what businessmen do. BUT NOOOO.....we get the ol' PC song and dance routine from you ONE MORE TIME. I'm sure that your delay in answering was because you had to look up who Jimmie Rodgers was. Now go back to your dorm, PC college boy robot.
deathtokoalas
i'm not sure that you're clear about what segregation means. the idea of "cross pollination" largely erases the entire racial condition at the time. segregation means that whites and blacks did not attend school together, did not work together, did not go to church together, did not live in the same areas of the city and did not attend the same types of entertainment.
under segregation, a black man could not simply buy an opera ticket and watch the show. likewise, a white man could not just cross the railroad tracks and enjoy a blues performance.
it was out of these conditions that you had the mimicry that existed. there was a white audience for rock music, but segregation prevented it from being able to listen to it. the solution was for white musicians to perform the rock music for the white audience.
of course, this started easing in the north earlier than it did in the south, and the segregation was eventually abolished in law if not in culture. but it was a legal reality, enforced by people with guns. "cross-pollination", in the period, was a deathwish.
what's frustrating is not that there was a cultural interchange; it may have even been partly responsible for the civil rights movement. what's frustrating is how much open plagiarism occurred.
but, there's a reason why all the early white rock records were full of covers. young white americans would not have been allowed to listen to the original recordings.
Jack Grattan
I notice that you like Frank Zappa. You do realize that Henry Vestine, the lead guitarist on this "emotionless shit", was the original second guitarist of the Mothers of Invention. Oh, the irony! A little trivia goes a long way, doesn't it?
deathtokoalas
by that logic, wings were brilliant.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i was about fifteen years too old to connect to mcr when it came out. i'm more in the cure/pumpkins generation. sorry.
Jack Grattan
Pretentious Post Punk Pontificator.
deathtokoalas
the pretentious part is really fairly inaccurate. i mean, i get it fairly regularly, but people don't seem to know what the word really means, which is sort of ironic. but i'll wear the other three readily enough.
Jack Grattan
How ironic. And pretentious.
Harry Sowerby
I'm 16 and couldn't agree more. I hate the fake and exploiting "talent shows" that air the same thing every year. What happened to talent? Seems that the industry only cares about how much you don't wear, and how easy you are to brainwash. I'm counting one another true music uprising again, and, thank god, I can see it happening. This is why I'm glad of proper bands being signed to an artist, such as Noel Gallagher; they've played in a band and understand how hard it is for talent to get you noticed. I still wish I was around the 1960s, at Woodstock or Haight Ashbury, listening to the sounds of the free and loving, peace man, I totally agree with you.
deathtokoalas
when you grow up, you'll realize that noel gallagher is a talentless douchebag.
Slightlydelic
At least the bands on the radio in the '60s actually played instruments.
deathtokoalas
actually, the 60s were dominated by session musicians - a lot of it uncredited. the rolling stones, for example, neither wrote nor performed the majority of their own songs. similarly with the beach boys.
Slightlydelic
I'm sure they mimed the instruments on the music videos, but they still played instruments live. If not, they did a good job of acting like they did.
deathtokoalas
there were very few music videos in the 60s. mtv launched in the 80s. a tv was still a luxury item. the 60s are still in the era of radio.
i don't know about live and think it would likely come down to a case-by-case thing. i mean, somebody like hendrix was obviously playing. i wouldn't be surprised to learn that the stones were often lip-synching, but i really have no idea. then, there's stuff like the monkees, who were in fact representative of the norm....
i meant in the studio. the rolling stones were actually noted for their use of talented session guitarists - a list that included people like jimmy page and john mclaughlin. these are the people that actually wrote the early stones classics.
the dominant songwriter and performer for the beach boys was a session musician named carol kaye. this was not known in the 60s. even paul mccartney thought brian wilson was the main songwriter.
it was in fact the beatles that broke this up, despite their own reliance on their own crutches (largely billy preston, george martin and eric clapton). before 1965, session musicians dominated the industry, which is something that traced back to the jazz era. after 1970, that was fairly rare.
and the situation held through the 70s and 80s before starting to turn back to the jazz model in the late 90s.
on that level, the 60s are actually the point in the past most similar to today, because of that shared sort of hybrid state.
Slightlydelic
Oh, I gotcha. thanks
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i'm not trolling; i'm entirely serious, and entirely correct. please don't mistake your ignorance for disingenuity on my behalf.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i don't know even know what the second suggestion means, but i just clearly stated that i'm not trolling. now, you need to understand that.
Jack Grattan
The Stones wrote and played their own tunes. PERIOD. They AUGMENTED some songs with session pros like Ry Cooder and Nicky Hopkins. The Beach Boys WROTE their own tunes, and after '65 utilized The Wrecking Crew (LA session pros) on record. You are, AS USUAL, entirely INCORRECT. Don't they have one of those "History of Rock" courses at that junior college you attend?
deathtokoalas
i've already stated the reality of the situation, and have grown tired enough of gratton's vacuous trolling and badly presented disinformation to outright block him.
i will state again that the stones and beach boys both followed the industry standard of the time, which was to split the process into "writing" and "performing". up until the beatles changed this aspect of the industry, it was very rare for white musicians to write their own music and even rarer for successful black musicians to do so. pretty much the only people that performed their own music would have been unsigned black musicians. neither the stones nor the beach boys were exceptions to this rule.
fwiw, i'm 35 years old and graduated with a math degree from an accredited university in 2006.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i did not remember that - it was quite some time go, and while my memory is quite good it tends to focus on things that aren't entirely irrelevant. i do a lot of posting on this site. that particular comment was rather snide, but consider the context; a few snarky comments does not a troll make.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
sampling is a bit of a double-edged sword. it can be done terribly. but, it's not fair to attack the tool. i mean, at it's worst sampling isn't different than doing a cover. and, if you want to talk 60s music and covers - the reality is that all these "60s classics" are building on existing structures in a way that is no better or worse than the process of sampling is. i wouldn't give somebody like jimmy page any more credit than somebody like run dmc when it comes to actual creativity, it's just that they're stealing ideas in different ways.
i tend to avoid sampling music in my own work. in fact, i don't think i've ever sampled an existing song (although i've sampled sounds from films and video games, which is what "sampling" almost exclusively means in my liner credits. well, that and using a sampler to trigger notes, in which case i'll almost always provide my own samples. the closest i've come to sampling music is cutting out isolated drum snippets and using them to build larger drum loops.). but it can be done with a high degree of creativity. one of the better examples of somebody that used sampling creatively is an act called art of noise. despite their records being 20-30 years old, i think they remain the kind of primary example of what can be done with the form.
actually, that's not true. i have a track called about a squirrel that samples and loops about a second of the nirvana hit about a girl, but you wouldn't be able to tell by merely listening to it.
throughthefire
Too bad her she doesn't have actual talent that can grab attention more than antics that include dry humping 'Beatle Juice,' while trying, and failing miserably, to do an assless twerk.
deathtokoalas
i take it you're referring to miley cyrus. i wasn't arguing that miley is talented - she isn't, i was arguing that she isn't less talented than a lot of the so-called classic rock musicians of the 60s and 70s. time will eventually sort this out, the boomers just need to die first...
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's a good point. bowie got paid for ice, ice baby. nobody ever sent robert johnson royalties for the dozens of riffs that page stole from him.
jake pace
look up Canned heats net worth and compare it to any mainstream musician today. That will tell you all you need to know about music then and business now! While some songs now still send a message and can be enjoyable to listen to 99.9% are in it for the money. Back in the day you were popular and broke long before you were famous. Now you are rich as soon as you are popular and famous. The music just doesnt have the soul its a business now, but honestly it can still be entertaining!
deathtokoalas
record contracts in the 60s were notoriously terrible. even the beatles got screwed. it's not like things are better now. while i don't know how many records they sold, i doubt they made any money off of it.
bands like this were primarily interested in the groupies, not the music.)
Ahh that's a refreshing simple melody, I'm so glad I came across this.
What an atrocity today's popular music is. Corporate cancer milking teenagers for everything their parents can afford. I used to think It was just me getting older but now, I think today's music actually does just suck.
Turn on popular radio and what do you hear nowadays? emotionless shit where the only thing that matters is that the bass sounds like a lawnmower raping a chainsaw and makes you feel physically sick.
The saddest thing is there are still wonderful artists out there, but they're not given the time of day because they don't fit into this perfect celebrity culture we have. It's a great SHAME.
deathtokoalas
so, you think this isn't emotionless shit? it's some white people appropriating some black music, watering it down as far as they can and turning a profit from it.
you're right about modern radio music being awful. what you're missing is that the radio music you grew up with was just as bad.
AmbiAnts
So you think that this band all got together one night and conspired to water down some black music and make a profit?
I can't say for sure that didn't happen, but I think far more likely that they were just influenced and inspired by blues music. Not sure what you were getting at in your comment but if you're saying that this music is in the same slimey catagory as today's Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber then you're not playing with a full deck.
deathtokoalas
if you were around at the time (maybe five or six years earlier), you know the kind of segregation that existed. the whole movement of white musicians taking up black music was about picking up a style that was very successful in black markets, but that white radio stations wouldn't play because the musicians weren't white. by commodifying the product for a white audience, they were able to open up a whole new audience demographic. this isn't the only band that were doing that at the time, but it's one of the least creative examples.
the technology is different, but i don't hear anything more substantial in this than i do in a miley tune. sorry.
if anything, miley has way better producers.
it's a different target audience, but there's no greater artistic value here - in both cases, we're talking about breaking something artistic down to it's lowest level and mass marketing it as a commodity.
AmbiAnts
So what constitutes artistic value? evidently not a group of white guys singing a watered down black blues song, even though they wrote the song and played the instruments. That's just as artistic as somebody who has somebody else write their songs for them, and play the instruments for them?
deathtokoalas
i think you're being a little delusional in suggesting they wrote this song. it's a traditional blues jam.
Edohiguma
Fun fact: the same "corporate cancer" milked the hippies, too. They even produced the hippie "uniform" that every hippie had to wear to show his "individualism" (hilarious, I know.) It was a big market. And all the popular records for the hippie generation didn't grow on trees either. Someone had to produce those too and production doesn't come free.
Ultimately it's always the "corporate cancer", the "evil capitalists" who produce things and bring innovation and progress, while those who rile against those imaginary evils have usually very little to show in terms of production, innovation and progress. The hippies are a great example. They were great at whining about the system and tearing things down, but they have not produced a single thing worth mentioning. Destruction is much easier than production.
deathtokoalas
the hippies created this. it's their fault. they can't step away from it, now, and say "i don't understand this". sure you do. i'll be damned if i'm going to sit here and let hippies claim they don't understand a culture that pushes sex & drugs as the sole purpose of existence...
see, this is why those zappa records are so historically important. he explains it all, with flair and musicianship.
awillypower
It's the same melody of Matchbox by Carl Perkins
deathtokoalas
and carl perkins was, of course, one of the first white rock musicians to get somewhere by stealing ideas from black music.
1894cossack
I eat trolls for breakfast, with my cherrios.
deathtokoalas
well, eat me then.
Jack Grattan
I just love politically correct historical revisionism.
deathtokoalas
i don't see anything revisionist about it. just about anybody alive at the time will tell what i typed.
Jack Grattan
In his introduction to the Howlin' Wolf biography (a book I'M SURE you haven't read), B.B. King said "They said that Jimmie Rodgers (a white man) was the father of country music, but Wolf and I knew better. He was a BLUES singer, same as us, and a DAMNED GOOD one at that." Please notice that Mr. King said NOTHING about "the white man stealing our music." It's called CROSS- POLLINATION. You, of course, call it theft. Which makes you a politically correct historical revisionist. Case closed.
deathtokoalas
i hardly think that somebody that died in 1935 is relevant in the discussion of white musicians appropriating black music in the 1950s and 1960s, as that black form had barely even developed yet. if that's the best you can do, it's beyond being even a stretch - it's just irrelevant.
Jack Grattan
You know, if you said something about white (and black) BUSINESSMEN ripping off black (and white) musicians, I'd be in total agreement with you. Because that's what businessmen do. BUT NOOOO.....we get the ol' PC song and dance routine from you ONE MORE TIME. I'm sure that your delay in answering was because you had to look up who Jimmie Rodgers was. Now go back to your dorm, PC college boy robot.
deathtokoalas
i'm not sure that you're clear about what segregation means. the idea of "cross pollination" largely erases the entire racial condition at the time. segregation means that whites and blacks did not attend school together, did not work together, did not go to church together, did not live in the same areas of the city and did not attend the same types of entertainment.
under segregation, a black man could not simply buy an opera ticket and watch the show. likewise, a white man could not just cross the railroad tracks and enjoy a blues performance.
it was out of these conditions that you had the mimicry that existed. there was a white audience for rock music, but segregation prevented it from being able to listen to it. the solution was for white musicians to perform the rock music for the white audience.
of course, this started easing in the north earlier than it did in the south, and the segregation was eventually abolished in law if not in culture. but it was a legal reality, enforced by people with guns. "cross-pollination", in the period, was a deathwish.
what's frustrating is not that there was a cultural interchange; it may have even been partly responsible for the civil rights movement. what's frustrating is how much open plagiarism occurred.
but, there's a reason why all the early white rock records were full of covers. young white americans would not have been allowed to listen to the original recordings.
Jack Grattan
I notice that you like Frank Zappa. You do realize that Henry Vestine, the lead guitarist on this "emotionless shit", was the original second guitarist of the Mothers of Invention. Oh, the irony! A little trivia goes a long way, doesn't it?
deathtokoalas
by that logic, wings were brilliant.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i was about fifteen years too old to connect to mcr when it came out. i'm more in the cure/pumpkins generation. sorry.
Jack Grattan
Pretentious Post Punk Pontificator.
deathtokoalas
the pretentious part is really fairly inaccurate. i mean, i get it fairly regularly, but people don't seem to know what the word really means, which is sort of ironic. but i'll wear the other three readily enough.
Jack Grattan
How ironic. And pretentious.
Harry Sowerby
I'm 16 and couldn't agree more. I hate the fake and exploiting "talent shows" that air the same thing every year. What happened to talent? Seems that the industry only cares about how much you don't wear, and how easy you are to brainwash. I'm counting one another true music uprising again, and, thank god, I can see it happening. This is why I'm glad of proper bands being signed to an artist, such as Noel Gallagher; they've played in a band and understand how hard it is for talent to get you noticed. I still wish I was around the 1960s, at Woodstock or Haight Ashbury, listening to the sounds of the free and loving, peace man, I totally agree with you.
deathtokoalas
when you grow up, you'll realize that noel gallagher is a talentless douchebag.
Slightlydelic
At least the bands on the radio in the '60s actually played instruments.
deathtokoalas
actually, the 60s were dominated by session musicians - a lot of it uncredited. the rolling stones, for example, neither wrote nor performed the majority of their own songs. similarly with the beach boys.
Slightlydelic
I'm sure they mimed the instruments on the music videos, but they still played instruments live. If not, they did a good job of acting like they did.
deathtokoalas
there were very few music videos in the 60s. mtv launched in the 80s. a tv was still a luxury item. the 60s are still in the era of radio.
i don't know about live and think it would likely come down to a case-by-case thing. i mean, somebody like hendrix was obviously playing. i wouldn't be surprised to learn that the stones were often lip-synching, but i really have no idea. then, there's stuff like the monkees, who were in fact representative of the norm....
i meant in the studio. the rolling stones were actually noted for their use of talented session guitarists - a list that included people like jimmy page and john mclaughlin. these are the people that actually wrote the early stones classics.
the dominant songwriter and performer for the beach boys was a session musician named carol kaye. this was not known in the 60s. even paul mccartney thought brian wilson was the main songwriter.
it was in fact the beatles that broke this up, despite their own reliance on their own crutches (largely billy preston, george martin and eric clapton). before 1965, session musicians dominated the industry, which is something that traced back to the jazz era. after 1970, that was fairly rare.
and the situation held through the 70s and 80s before starting to turn back to the jazz model in the late 90s.
on that level, the 60s are actually the point in the past most similar to today, because of that shared sort of hybrid state.
Slightlydelic
Oh, I gotcha. thanks
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i'm not trolling; i'm entirely serious, and entirely correct. please don't mistake your ignorance for disingenuity on my behalf.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i don't know even know what the second suggestion means, but i just clearly stated that i'm not trolling. now, you need to understand that.
Jack Grattan
The Stones wrote and played their own tunes. PERIOD. They AUGMENTED some songs with session pros like Ry Cooder and Nicky Hopkins. The Beach Boys WROTE their own tunes, and after '65 utilized The Wrecking Crew (LA session pros) on record. You are, AS USUAL, entirely INCORRECT. Don't they have one of those "History of Rock" courses at that junior college you attend?
deathtokoalas
i've already stated the reality of the situation, and have grown tired enough of gratton's vacuous trolling and badly presented disinformation to outright block him.
i will state again that the stones and beach boys both followed the industry standard of the time, which was to split the process into "writing" and "performing". up until the beatles changed this aspect of the industry, it was very rare for white musicians to write their own music and even rarer for successful black musicians to do so. pretty much the only people that performed their own music would have been unsigned black musicians. neither the stones nor the beach boys were exceptions to this rule.
fwiw, i'm 35 years old and graduated with a math degree from an accredited university in 2006.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
i did not remember that - it was quite some time go, and while my memory is quite good it tends to focus on things that aren't entirely irrelevant. i do a lot of posting on this site. that particular comment was rather snide, but consider the context; a few snarky comments does not a troll make.
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
sampling is a bit of a double-edged sword. it can be done terribly. but, it's not fair to attack the tool. i mean, at it's worst sampling isn't different than doing a cover. and, if you want to talk 60s music and covers - the reality is that all these "60s classics" are building on existing structures in a way that is no better or worse than the process of sampling is. i wouldn't give somebody like jimmy page any more credit than somebody like run dmc when it comes to actual creativity, it's just that they're stealing ideas in different ways.
i tend to avoid sampling music in my own work. in fact, i don't think i've ever sampled an existing song (although i've sampled sounds from films and video games, which is what "sampling" almost exclusively means in my liner credits. well, that and using a sampler to trigger notes, in which case i'll almost always provide my own samples. the closest i've come to sampling music is cutting out isolated drum snippets and using them to build larger drum loops.). but it can be done with a high degree of creativity. one of the better examples of somebody that used sampling creatively is an act called art of noise. despite their records being 20-30 years old, i think they remain the kind of primary example of what can be done with the form.
actually, that's not true. i have a track called about a squirrel that samples and loops about a second of the nirvana hit about a girl, but you wouldn't be able to tell by merely listening to it.
throughthefire
Too bad her she doesn't have actual talent that can grab attention more than antics that include dry humping 'Beatle Juice,' while trying, and failing miserably, to do an assless twerk.
deathtokoalas
i take it you're referring to miley cyrus. i wasn't arguing that miley is talented - she isn't, i was arguing that she isn't less talented than a lot of the so-called classic rock musicians of the 60s and 70s. time will eventually sort this out, the boomers just need to die first...
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
it's a good point. bowie got paid for ice, ice baby. nobody ever sent robert johnson royalties for the dozens of riffs that page stole from him.
jake pace
look up Canned heats net worth and compare it to any mainstream musician today. That will tell you all you need to know about music then and business now! While some songs now still send a message and can be enjoyable to listen to 99.9% are in it for the money. Back in the day you were popular and broke long before you were famous. Now you are rich as soon as you are popular and famous. The music just doesnt have the soul its a business now, but honestly it can still be entertaining!
deathtokoalas
record contracts in the 60s were notoriously terrible. even the beatles got screwed. it's not like things are better now. while i don't know how many records they sold, i doubt they made any money off of it.
bands like this were primarily interested in the groupies, not the music.)
Friday, August 29, 2014
yeah. i wanted some swanky psych guitar, but i don't think there's room for it or the choir. i was going to put a temp mix up, but i found myself nodding off when mixing the levels on the last synth, so i'm going to leave it for when i wake up. i'll be working on the bass over the weekend...
i was going to hit detroit tonight to see zorch, but it's a long ride to pontiac and i'm not really up for it. this is worth checking out though, in absence of my rough mix:
https://zorch.bandcamp.com/album/demo
i was going to hit detroit tonight to see zorch, but it's a long ride to pontiac and i'm not really up for it. this is worth checking out though, in absence of my rough mix:
https://zorch.bandcamp.com/album/demo
my processor is hitting a limit at a little under 130 tracks, but probably due more to all of the plugins. i'm going to need several bass parts so it's not reasonable to stop...
it's good to know where the limits are, anyways.
two tactics.
1) there's a number of things i may be able to bounce - particularly all the delays constructed out of layering parts.
2) i may render the track, record into a second project and then import the files back in in minimal form. that way the final project gets one bass part that's been bounced down rather than 8.
(1) is more likely. it would give me back around 30 tracks immediately, and that's probably good enough to get it done.
it's getting closer to the point where i can start playing the bass. the strings are finally mixed; i'm currently working on adding some fuzz to some guitar parts. there's one more lead part and a synth fill.
i'm second-guessing the choir. there's not enough space in the mix. i'm going to do to an "overdub mix" that takes the main guitar out and may bring it in there if i ignore it in the main mix.
it's good to know where the limits are, anyways.
two tactics.
1) there's a number of things i may be able to bounce - particularly all the delays constructed out of layering parts.
2) i may render the track, record into a second project and then import the files back in in minimal form. that way the final project gets one bass part that's been bounced down rather than 8.
(1) is more likely. it would give me back around 30 tracks immediately, and that's probably good enough to get it done.
it's getting closer to the point where i can start playing the bass. the strings are finally mixed; i'm currently working on adding some fuzz to some guitar parts. there's one more lead part and a synth fill.
i'm second-guessing the choir. there's not enough space in the mix. i'm going to do to an "overdub mix" that takes the main guitar out and may bring it in there if i ignore it in the main mix.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
i actually bettered my weird al troll in terms of single day hits...
i needed three good, strategic ones to do it, though, and it's not going to have the same fallout. regardless, what i needed was just one outlier to match the outlier from last month, and i think i've got it. hopefully, hits are up enough month/month next month that i don't need the single hit like that to keep the curve going...
(that's over 230 views yesterday)
of course, i troll for social awareness. you already know that. mean people should be annihilated. i'm using the term lightly....
i needed three good, strategic ones to do it, though, and it's not going to have the same fallout. regardless, what i needed was just one outlier to match the outlier from last month, and i think i've got it. hopefully, hits are up enough month/month next month that i don't need the single hit like that to keep the curve going...
(that's over 230 views yesterday)
of course, i troll for social awareness. you already know that. mean people should be annihilated. i'm using the term lightly....
funny how things work out.
the expensive fake strings had too much reverb baked into the samples and no way to get it out. please, people - keep your samples dry. let me do the effects work myself. it's especially problematic for the staccato, which you don't want bleeding off between the notes.
the free fake strings initially seemed to have better staccato, but upon listening to them over and over they lacked a level of depth. i tried a few effects, but it was just a lack of character.
my machine can't really handle the expensive string plugin. it's bad programming - there's no reason, in theory, that i can't run a sampler on a dual core processor with over a gb of free ram but it's doing it over three application levels and a far-too-fancy gui. it's not the samples that's eating the ram, it's the sampler. but, hey, you've all got 16 gb of ram to waste, right? i've got 2 i can use...
what i can do is run each phrase one at a time through the sampler, dump them to wave and then mix them into the project as wave files. there's no loss in quality.
so, i ran all the expensive fake strings through and mixed them at roughly half the volume of the free fake strings, just to beef the free ones (which have a better staccato, but lack depth) up a bit.
i think it's finally sounding the way i want, but i'll have to confirm in a few hours.
it's really amazing, though, that i'm using a thousand dollar plugin as a secondary sound source to a free one. remember kids: markets don't work. you usually don't get what you pay for...
next song, i'm going to replace that fancy string set with one of the competitors that has a drier source. for now, this is working.
i should point out that upgrading this thing would not be expensive. the board can take 8 gb of ram. there's 4 in there, in 2 gb chunks. i have a 64-bit os from school (2, actually). so, i'd just have to get 2 sticks of 2 which would be relatively cheap nowadays...
it's the hassle. it's an nlited os with all kinds of scripting set up...
i haven't seen a reason to yet. this is the closest to a reason i've yet seen. but it's not convincing me.
the expensive fake strings had too much reverb baked into the samples and no way to get it out. please, people - keep your samples dry. let me do the effects work myself. it's especially problematic for the staccato, which you don't want bleeding off between the notes.
the free fake strings initially seemed to have better staccato, but upon listening to them over and over they lacked a level of depth. i tried a few effects, but it was just a lack of character.
my machine can't really handle the expensive string plugin. it's bad programming - there's no reason, in theory, that i can't run a sampler on a dual core processor with over a gb of free ram but it's doing it over three application levels and a far-too-fancy gui. it's not the samples that's eating the ram, it's the sampler. but, hey, you've all got 16 gb of ram to waste, right? i've got 2 i can use...
what i can do is run each phrase one at a time through the sampler, dump them to wave and then mix them into the project as wave files. there's no loss in quality.
so, i ran all the expensive fake strings through and mixed them at roughly half the volume of the free fake strings, just to beef the free ones (which have a better staccato, but lack depth) up a bit.
i think it's finally sounding the way i want, but i'll have to confirm in a few hours.
it's really amazing, though, that i'm using a thousand dollar plugin as a secondary sound source to a free one. remember kids: markets don't work. you usually don't get what you pay for...
next song, i'm going to replace that fancy string set with one of the competitors that has a drier source. for now, this is working.
i should point out that upgrading this thing would not be expensive. the board can take 8 gb of ram. there's 4 in there, in 2 gb chunks. i have a 64-bit os from school (2, actually). so, i'd just have to get 2 sticks of 2 which would be relatively cheap nowadays...
it's the hassle. it's an nlited os with all kinds of scripting set up...
i haven't seen a reason to yet. this is the closest to a reason i've yet seen. but it's not convincing me.
contemplating travelling into michigan to see zorch
hrmmn. gotta give this a good listen, as they're hitting detroit tomorrow. well, a suburb of detroit. i really liked their demo back when it was doing the rounds, like a lot a lot, but i haven't heard this yet. if i could walk across the street, it wouldn't be a decision, but it's a two hour bus ride through detroit and it's going to mean i won't be able to get back across the border until the morning....
i'm a little concerned it's less psych and more pop. when i'm done mixing this string section...few hours...
yeah. it's a shame they decided to sound indistinguishable from the animal collective (i'm not a fan, too sappy/kitschy). that demo was really good, though. too far from downtown...
actually, it seems to have picked up starting about ten minutes in....
i guess it's sort of expected that they'd put that townshend-goes-kraut lizard song on here.
they should have cut the first ten minutes off, it's really just giving people the wrong idea.
this is a step down from the demos (two of the four substantial tracks were already released before the record was, and i really prefer the more experimental material they discarded on their demos to the trendy pop songs they tossed on to here), but there's just so much potential that i'd feel like i'm missing something if i don't go.
and i guess the band they're touring with is worth staying for.
i've actually never been that deep into michigan, the ride has it's up sides.
and, actually, it seems like those extra tracks are included in this file.
i'm a little concerned it's less psych and more pop. when i'm done mixing this string section...few hours...
yeah. it's a shame they decided to sound indistinguishable from the animal collective (i'm not a fan, too sappy/kitschy). that demo was really good, though. too far from downtown...
actually, it seems to have picked up starting about ten minutes in....
i guess it's sort of expected that they'd put that townshend-goes-kraut lizard song on here.
they should have cut the first ten minutes off, it's really just giving people the wrong idea.
this is a step down from the demos (two of the four substantial tracks were already released before the record was, and i really prefer the more experimental material they discarded on their demos to the trendy pop songs they tossed on to here), but there's just so much potential that i'd feel like i'm missing something if i don't go.
and i guess the band they're touring with is worth staying for.
i've actually never been that deep into michigan, the ride has it's up sides.
and, actually, it seems like those extra tracks are included in this file.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
bit of a slowdown the last 24 hours....
i really have a lot invested in that growth curve, psychologically. i understand i had a huge spike in july from trolling weird al, and numbers are up month-to-month when that's controlled for, but i really wanted to get a good spike in for the end of august to try and keep the curve growing (it seemed like i was going to miss it by about 100 views). so, i've got some real high-quality trolls up that i've had to tend to, but i'm going to close it down after supper to try and get most of this done by the morning.
i really have a lot invested in that growth curve, psychologically. i understand i had a huge spike in july from trolling weird al, and numbers are up month-to-month when that's controlled for, but i really wanted to get a good spike in for the end of august to try and keep the curve growing (it seemed like i was going to miss it by about 100 views). so, i've got some real high-quality trolls up that i've had to tend to, but i'm going to close it down after supper to try and get most of this done by the morning.
Jessica;
I would like to clear up a few points in your email.
While your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced
by separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that),
both these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the
road. There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they
are both combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and
sewage.
With respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being
undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing
the watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement
following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers
servicing your property.
You are most likely correct in that there is a correlation between
rainfall and the slow running plumbing in your house. This is due to
the combined nature of the sewer that services your property. During
rain events, combined sewers fill with rainwater and therefore have
limited capacity to accept flows from buildings.
With respect to the apartment building across the street from you, all
rainfall runoff from this property would have entered the sewer system
via foundation drains prior to the fire, so the fact that the basement
may have flooded and the water is now entering the floor drain would
change the drainage pattern very little. In fact, rainwater entering
the sewers from this property would be very small in proportion to
that coming from the catchbasins draining the roads in the area.
With respect to abandonment of the connections servicing the apartment
building, that would be addressed when the building is demolished by
the Building Department. If you have concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.
Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if
you want to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely;
Name Withheld, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator
the plug was like 50 feet deep in the drain, almost certainly in the city pipes. if i understand correctly, that means the city should have paid to remove it...
i've seen people throw everything you can think of down the drains. it was probably garbage from the street that washed through after the storm.
i want to be clear: i can't complain about my landlord in terms of responsiveness, interest, etc. i mean, he just paid to clear a city drain. on the other hand, it's because he wouldn't listen to what i was saying....
I would like to clear up a few points in your email.
While your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced
by separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that),
both these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the
road. There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they
are both combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and
sewage.
With respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being
undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing
the watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement
following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers
servicing your property.
You are most likely correct in that there is a correlation between
rainfall and the slow running plumbing in your house. This is due to
the combined nature of the sewer that services your property. During
rain events, combined sewers fill with rainwater and therefore have
limited capacity to accept flows from buildings.
With respect to the apartment building across the street from you, all
rainfall runoff from this property would have entered the sewer system
via foundation drains prior to the fire, so the fact that the basement
may have flooded and the water is now entering the floor drain would
change the drainage pattern very little. In fact, rainwater entering
the sewers from this property would be very small in proportion to
that coming from the catchbasins draining the roads in the area.
With respect to abandonment of the connections servicing the apartment
building, that would be addressed when the building is demolished by
the Building Department. If you have concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.
Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if
you want to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely;
Name Withheld, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator
the plug was like 50 feet deep in the drain, almost certainly in the city pipes. if i understand correctly, that means the city should have paid to remove it...
i've seen people throw everything you can think of down the drains. it was probably garbage from the street that washed through after the storm.
i want to be clear: i can't complain about my landlord in terms of responsiveness, interest, etc. i mean, he just paid to clear a city drain. on the other hand, it's because he wouldn't listen to what i was saying....
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
ircam
hrmmn. might try this. by far the best demos i've heard.
actually sounds like real music, not a film score.
http://www.uvi.net/en/composer-tools/ircam-solo-instruments.html
a lot of the reviews don't seem to get it, though.
actually sounds like real music, not a film score.
http://www.uvi.net/en/composer-tools/ircam-solo-instruments.html
a lot of the reviews don't seem to get it, though.
i'm paranooooooooooiid, and curioussssssssss
posting on the forums almost every day....
so paranooooooooooid, and curiousssssssssss
never seen a coincidence i can't explain...
always paranoooooooooooooid, and curioussssssssss
gotta figure out why a thing is a thing that way.
gotta understand, understand this shit,
follow them dots, it's all connected
gotta understand, understand this shit,
follow them dots, it's all connected
YEAH
posting on the forums almost every day....
so paranooooooooooid, and curiousssssssssss
never seen a coincidence i can't explain...
always paranoooooooooooooid, and curioussssssssss
gotta figure out why a thing is a thing that way.
gotta understand, understand this shit,
follow them dots, it's all connected
gotta understand, understand this shit,
follow them dots, it's all connected
YEAH
uploading to spin inside dull aberrations to the scratchpad
i rendered this morning to check for glitches on playback, and they're thankfully not there. might as well replace the temp file...
the strings are updated and there's a little bluesy guitar solo in the build. i'm chewing on a piano part, which, if added, will probably be the last midi track.
the piano is in, and that's the end of the midi part. well, except for the end section.
a synth part, a vocal part, a few more guitars, bass, final guitar overdubs and then final mixing.....
the strings are updated and there's a little bluesy guitar solo in the build. i'm chewing on a piano part, which, if added, will probably be the last midi track.
the piano is in, and that's the end of the midi part. well, except for the end section.
a synth part, a vocal part, a few more guitars, bass, final guitar overdubs and then final mixing.....
so, i set up some thousand dollar string plugins beside some free ones...
i'll admit the thousand dollar plugins would be more applicable if i was writing film scores, but i'm not. i'm trying to construct a small chamber orchestra. given the price of these things, it's actually remarkable how inflexible they are.
the thing is that i understand i'm working against the purpose of the software. the idea is that if you buy the fancy sample set then you won't have to sit around and multitrack individual instruments anymore.
but, then how do you route each instrument through separate effects processes? generally, how do you be neurotic about over-producing everything?
i'm being a little self-deprecating, but i'm making a valid point. these are the details that composers and arrangers live their lives for. that hint of distortion on the trumpet, that reverb on the flute....oh!...
the free plugins are simply better able to give me what i want, and at a quarter of the ram usage, too.
there's probably some sample libraries for solo instruments, jazz bands, chamber music, etc. but i don't need them right now.
i stumbled upon this library of prepared instruments, though - inspired by john cage. it's not useful for anything i have lined up right now (maybe one thing) but it sounds like fun...
see, the thing is that it's a good idea...
but if they want to make this useful for musicians, they should separate the libraries into individual vst instruments, one for each real instrument. that's how people write and arrange and mix.
that way, if my mix has 2 violins, a viola and a cello (a standard chamber orchestra - and this is not my current mix, fwiw) then i can set each up to it's own channel and mix it individually with it's own character.
but, sure - give me every possible cello sound imaginable. let me fuck with the mic. let me determine how big the room is. and etc. these are good ideas.
it's the way the thing is formatted that isn't so hot.
i'll admit the thousand dollar plugins would be more applicable if i was writing film scores, but i'm not. i'm trying to construct a small chamber orchestra. given the price of these things, it's actually remarkable how inflexible they are.
the thing is that i understand i'm working against the purpose of the software. the idea is that if you buy the fancy sample set then you won't have to sit around and multitrack individual instruments anymore.
but, then how do you route each instrument through separate effects processes? generally, how do you be neurotic about over-producing everything?
i'm being a little self-deprecating, but i'm making a valid point. these are the details that composers and arrangers live their lives for. that hint of distortion on the trumpet, that reverb on the flute....oh!...
the free plugins are simply better able to give me what i want, and at a quarter of the ram usage, too.
there's probably some sample libraries for solo instruments, jazz bands, chamber music, etc. but i don't need them right now.
i stumbled upon this library of prepared instruments, though - inspired by john cage. it's not useful for anything i have lined up right now (maybe one thing) but it sounds like fun...
see, the thing is that it's a good idea...
but if they want to make this useful for musicians, they should separate the libraries into individual vst instruments, one for each real instrument. that's how people write and arrange and mix.
that way, if my mix has 2 violins, a viola and a cello (a standard chamber orchestra - and this is not my current mix, fwiw) then i can set each up to it's own channel and mix it individually with it's own character.
but, sure - give me every possible cello sound imaginable. let me fuck with the mic. let me determine how big the room is. and etc. these are good ideas.
it's the way the thing is formatted that isn't so hot.
deathtokoalas
i really wish plugin developers would focus more on modularity. this goes for soft synths, samplers, effects and everything else. i know, use something like reaktor, right? but, when every developer decides they're going to make the "ultimate synth" or "ultimate sampler", what you actually end up with is a huge array of synths and samplers that can do one or two things really well and are lacklustre at everything else. if there was an easily accessible interface within cubase where i could string filters and generators and specific libraries from different manufacturers together, i could take what i like out of synth x and connect it to what i like out of synth y - allowing me to create my own ultimate synth. and, ultimately that's what all us composers actually want, even if some of us don't have the clarity of thought to realize it. it makes it more like building your own modular system, or even like stringing guitar effects together.
it works with samplers, too. there's been this tendency recently to create these 50 gb libraries full of these ready-made samples. but, composers and arrangers and mixers and producers just don't think like that. the way we think is in terms of separating each track as much as possible. i've been sequencing some string sections recently and realizing that the best samplers are in kontakt, but you can't really separate them well without using 50 gb of ram. see, the flaw is that it's not designed to separate them, you're supposed to pick the ensemble you want out of the box. no real composer is going to want that, as it makes it impossible to isolate the tracks. i could, for example, want some bassy fuzz on the cello, a heavier distortion on the viola and a harmonic exciter on the violin. to do that in the kontakt sample libraries, you need to load the instance as many times as you have instruments - and it defeats the aim of the software. i'd rather see the sample libraries split into instruments. sell me 5 gb of cellos, 5 gb of violins, etc and let me load them as separate instruments with smaller footprints and mix it myself.
i know this is going to require a rethink and a new interface, but i think the developers have to come to the realization that they're using the wrong approach and go back to thinking in terms of modularity. ultimately, they're programmers - they get modularity, they're just ignoring it. perceived market demand for total solutions, or something. it's not actually what we want. what we want is control. these sample libraries - whether they're strings, horns or whatever else - are really largely useless to actually compose with.
OK
I wish everything worked more like Nexus tbh, yes it's simple and yes it's basic but damn that's how they should all work with added features instead of a new UI for everything and also having to have 49234932 different instances taking up 10x more ram that exists in your pc
deathtokoalas
the benefit of modularity is that it allows user control over the level of complexity. the way i would use a modular sampling system would be quite elaborate.
it's not like options don't exist, but they tend to be outdated and not really designed for modern daws - or they require a level of programming to build. when it comes to synthesis, that pre-requisite for programming is necessary. but, if i'm orchestrating something, i want to just do it, not write a program to do it. what they're selling is really the samples.
again, i think it's just a disconnect between what a composer is going to want and what the designers think they want. and i think it's sort of obvious that this standard approach is backwards for almost everybody, upon a moment's reflection. it's useful if you want to write film scores, i guess, but not very useful, otherwise.
i really wish plugin developers would focus more on modularity. this goes for soft synths, samplers, effects and everything else. i know, use something like reaktor, right? but, when every developer decides they're going to make the "ultimate synth" or "ultimate sampler", what you actually end up with is a huge array of synths and samplers that can do one or two things really well and are lacklustre at everything else. if there was an easily accessible interface within cubase where i could string filters and generators and specific libraries from different manufacturers together, i could take what i like out of synth x and connect it to what i like out of synth y - allowing me to create my own ultimate synth. and, ultimately that's what all us composers actually want, even if some of us don't have the clarity of thought to realize it. it makes it more like building your own modular system, or even like stringing guitar effects together.
it works with samplers, too. there's been this tendency recently to create these 50 gb libraries full of these ready-made samples. but, composers and arrangers and mixers and producers just don't think like that. the way we think is in terms of separating each track as much as possible. i've been sequencing some string sections recently and realizing that the best samplers are in kontakt, but you can't really separate them well without using 50 gb of ram. see, the flaw is that it's not designed to separate them, you're supposed to pick the ensemble you want out of the box. no real composer is going to want that, as it makes it impossible to isolate the tracks. i could, for example, want some bassy fuzz on the cello, a heavier distortion on the viola and a harmonic exciter on the violin. to do that in the kontakt sample libraries, you need to load the instance as many times as you have instruments - and it defeats the aim of the software. i'd rather see the sample libraries split into instruments. sell me 5 gb of cellos, 5 gb of violins, etc and let me load them as separate instruments with smaller footprints and mix it myself.
i know this is going to require a rethink and a new interface, but i think the developers have to come to the realization that they're using the wrong approach and go back to thinking in terms of modularity. ultimately, they're programmers - they get modularity, they're just ignoring it. perceived market demand for total solutions, or something. it's not actually what we want. what we want is control. these sample libraries - whether they're strings, horns or whatever else - are really largely useless to actually compose with.
OK
I wish everything worked more like Nexus tbh, yes it's simple and yes it's basic but damn that's how they should all work with added features instead of a new UI for everything and also having to have 49234932 different instances taking up 10x more ram that exists in your pc
deathtokoalas
the benefit of modularity is that it allows user control over the level of complexity. the way i would use a modular sampling system would be quite elaborate.
it's not like options don't exist, but they tend to be outdated and not really designed for modern daws - or they require a level of programming to build. when it comes to synthesis, that pre-requisite for programming is necessary. but, if i'm orchestrating something, i want to just do it, not write a program to do it. what they're selling is really the samples.
again, i think it's just a disconnect between what a composer is going to want and what the designers think they want. and i think it's sort of obvious that this standard approach is backwards for almost everybody, upon a moment's reflection. it's useful if you want to write film scores, i guess, but not very useful, otherwise.
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