this gentle dreamer v. hopeless cynic thing has always bothered me. you
just need to throw a little realism in there to break the false
dichotomy.
gentle dreamer + empirical analysis = hopeless cynic.
i'm a cynic *because* i'm a dreamer.
there's
no contradiction in dreaming of things that never were and asking why
not, and being realistic about what the answer actually is.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
well, i can't state for certain what it is that happened this evening, but i am certain the signal is now correct. previous times, it was always a little ambiguous. it's not this time - it's completely clear. clear highs. clear lows.
it was actually great tonight to be able to hear these tunes as they're supposed to sound. it's been a while.
while i do think that some of the other fixes were a part of the problem, it turns out that the major problem was some kind of a gain issue. i spent the afternoon fiddling with cables, and it did sort of just magically click all of a sudden. i may have bent something back into shape, and if that's true then it suggests that i need to be a little careful when i'm taking the contacts in and out.
but, the more i listened the more i became convinced that it's a power issue. i lost all of july, august and september to this. is it a coincidence that the air conditioner upstairs turned off this weekend and it turned on when the problem started? it almost makes sense that the mixer and/or amp wasn't drawing enough power. that's a good way to explain what i was hearing, anyways. better than magnetic interference, anyways.
right now i'm just glad it's fixed. and i suppose i have something to be thankful for this weekend.
i should finally get back to where i was in the morning. seriously, this time. and i'm going to freak out if it doesn't sound right when i wake up.
it was actually great tonight to be able to hear these tunes as they're supposed to sound. it's been a while.
while i do think that some of the other fixes were a part of the problem, it turns out that the major problem was some kind of a gain issue. i spent the afternoon fiddling with cables, and it did sort of just magically click all of a sudden. i may have bent something back into shape, and if that's true then it suggests that i need to be a little careful when i'm taking the contacts in and out.
but, the more i listened the more i became convinced that it's a power issue. i lost all of july, august and september to this. is it a coincidence that the air conditioner upstairs turned off this weekend and it turned on when the problem started? it almost makes sense that the mixer and/or amp wasn't drawing enough power. that's a good way to explain what i was hearing, anyways. better than magnetic interference, anyways.
right now i'm just glad it's fixed. and i suppose i have something to be thankful for this weekend.
i should finally get back to where i was in the morning. seriously, this time. and i'm going to freak out if it doesn't sound right when i wake up.
obligatory influential post.
well, there's some backwards guitar work, and the accompanying forwards guitar work. i'd actually like to post to castles made of sand, but it's not available on youtube, apparently. nor is merman. ugh. but, it's not just that. i grew up listening to and learning how to play hendrix, so i very quickly fall back into the old pentatonics when left to my own devices...
as for the song. umm.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
well, there's some backwards guitar work, and the accompanying forwards guitar work. i'd actually like to post to castles made of sand, but it's not available on youtube, apparently. nor is merman. ugh. but, it's not just that. i grew up listening to and learning how to play hendrix, so i very quickly fall back into the old pentatonics when left to my own devices...
as for the song. umm.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
obligatory influential on post.
i'm pushing it a little. this was released the same week as i did the track. but, yield got some pretty heavy play from me, and there's a kind of pearl jam flavour to the track, so it's fair. if i was going to pick a pearl jam track most similar to try and denote the flavour in it, it would be this one rather than something on vitalogy, even if the latter is technically more accurate.
these lyrics are awesome. as a lyricist, vedder is frustrating. but, the tunes he clicks on can be pretty inspiring. i've always dug that beatnik beach bum pothead ocean mysticism.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
i'm pushing it a little. this was released the same week as i did the track. but, yield got some pretty heavy play from me, and there's a kind of pearl jam flavour to the track, so it's fair. if i was going to pick a pearl jam track most similar to try and denote the flavour in it, it would be this one rather than something on vitalogy, even if the latter is technically more accurate.
these lyrics are awesome. as a lyricist, vedder is frustrating. but, the tunes he clicks on can be pretty inspiring. i've always dug that beatnik beach bum pothead ocean mysticism.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
obligatory influential on post.
there's really a wide variety of key/goettel productions [and no doubt lpd productions, although i'm less familiar with their work] that make creative use of time reversal, but i'm pulling this one out because i know i was listening to it a lot at the time, and it's kind of conceptually relevant.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is evil and must be destroyed)
there's really a wide variety of key/goettel productions [and no doubt lpd productions, although i'm less familiar with their work] that make creative use of time reversal, but i'm pulling this one out because i know i was listening to it a lot at the time, and it's kind of conceptually relevant.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is evil and must be destroyed)
deathtokoalas
obligatory influential post.
well, it was actually the ry30 that is the influence; this was right at about the same time as i was just getting into autechre, and the fact that i was already familiar with the ry30 is perhaps a part of the reason i was more easily able to delve into autechre than a lot of other techno. autechre would gradually become a larger influence after 1998, but i was only just getting into them when the track was being recorded. what i'm getting at is that i'm kind of trying to downplay the actual artistic influence; it's more like i had this machine, and i was looking for examples of people that wrote music with tools like it (i didn't realize at the time that autechre were literally using an ry30, themselves). i'd then take some of those ideas and try and port them to the punk songs i was re-recording.
the result is pretty weird. i suspect most people would find something unsettling, perhaps even frightening, at the idea of autechre remixing punk rock. but, it's kind of what i was aiming for. sort of. it's mildly revisionist, but it gets the idea across.
this disc would grow into one of my favourite techno discs, and deserves the acclaim it gets. years later, jim thirlwell would use the term "ethnic music for future cultures that do not yet exist" to describe some of his own music, but i think it's a pretty striking analysis of this. whether the stories of gear stolen as looting during riots are true or not, i think the claims of musical illiteracy are accurate and i think that's a part of the reason that so much of their work has this kind of dark, celtic tonality. i think that's an under explored slant in trying to get your ahead around the abstraction. it's as tied to the island's distant past as much as it is to it's present, or future. there's a digital tribalism to it that is very idiosyncratically british.
(relevant track: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed, thug culture, confused, wish, nope, ignorance is bliss, anything with a drum machine, really, which is most of the stuff after 1998)
Antonio Schacht
I am not sure who you are, this is an interesting comment
deathtokoalas
i'm running through years of old recordings in real time on my youtube channel. i started in late 1996 about a year and a half ago, and have worked my way up to 1998. that means i'll get around to 2015 some time around the year 2032. i wasn't sure how to approach uploading 17 years of music, and decided this was the most comprehensive way, even if it takes forever. and, it allows me to present myself in terms of how i developed.
i do these "obligatory influentials" whenever i completed a new track, 17 years ago.
i guess it made more sense when google+ was cross-linked to youtube.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
That's why i saw you on SDRE's Diary and Weezer's Pinkerton. I'm listening to all kinds of music since 2010, and I think the the six thousand albums I listened aren't enough.
deathtokoalas
that would have been lp2 for the obligatory influential post; didn't get as much into diary. and i think i've cited the blue album, but wouldn't really cite pinkerton. i would have been commenting on those records in my music critic's hat :)
i mean, i try to put a synopsis of the disc in, too, so i'm not just spamming.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Have you listened to Amon Tobin's 1997 album?
deathtokoalas
no, he's a bit of a black hole for me. i've always found him a little too conventional, but it's not like i've spent a lot of time listening, either. you have to keep in mind that i'm coming at this from an industrial/noise perspective, so i'm interpreting autechre through the filter of acts like coil and skinny puppy. i mostly restricted my delves into 90s electronic music to the warp records spectrum, just because it was really the only stuff that i could find that was really only techno in an aesthetic sense.
i'd put amon tobin in a list of stuff that includes dj shadow, daft punk, chemical brothers - it's just too close to dancefloor techno, and not experimental enough to hold my interest. but i again need to temper that with the caveat that i've only really scratched the surface of it.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Your comments are pretty interesting. It's like talking with a music critic who knows what he's talking about. I never saw Amon Tobin like that, and maybe I need to stop listening to mainstream hardcore punk and focus on more stuff that I missed and it's the wide electronic/experimental genre.
deathtokoalas
the warp stuff was really always head and shoulders above, and they all had their idiosyncratic slants that could separate them out: autechre with the experimental parts, aphex with a kind of chamber music approach, squarepusher with the insane jazz leanings, plaid with the lush ambience. i really haven't heard much since that isn't in some way just a rehashing of what was really an explosion of creativity in the mid-to-late 90s.
regarding north america, skinny puppy morphed into a band called download that released two remarkable records, but they're quite noisy. most of the 90s stuff on the subconscious communications label is worth exploring. there was some interesting stuff on invisible records, but it's a lower signal-to-noise. dead voices on air jumps out immediately.
when you get out of the warp sphere and these kind of remnant strains of industrial music, though, you start getting bigger influences from hip-hop, from house music, from pop music. it becomes more oriented for dance parties and less oriented for headphone listening. that's what made the warp stuff so refreshing: it was really absolute listening music. even the ninja tune stuff is mostly party-focused. that's fine, it has it's role and everything, but it sounds a lot more dated by nature of what it is and is, frankly, just a lot less serious by nature of what it is, too.
obligatory influential post.
well, it was actually the ry30 that is the influence; this was right at about the same time as i was just getting into autechre, and the fact that i was already familiar with the ry30 is perhaps a part of the reason i was more easily able to delve into autechre than a lot of other techno. autechre would gradually become a larger influence after 1998, but i was only just getting into them when the track was being recorded. what i'm getting at is that i'm kind of trying to downplay the actual artistic influence; it's more like i had this machine, and i was looking for examples of people that wrote music with tools like it (i didn't realize at the time that autechre were literally using an ry30, themselves). i'd then take some of those ideas and try and port them to the punk songs i was re-recording.
the result is pretty weird. i suspect most people would find something unsettling, perhaps even frightening, at the idea of autechre remixing punk rock. but, it's kind of what i was aiming for. sort of. it's mildly revisionist, but it gets the idea across.
this disc would grow into one of my favourite techno discs, and deserves the acclaim it gets. years later, jim thirlwell would use the term "ethnic music for future cultures that do not yet exist" to describe some of his own music, but i think it's a pretty striking analysis of this. whether the stories of gear stolen as looting during riots are true or not, i think the claims of musical illiteracy are accurate and i think that's a part of the reason that so much of their work has this kind of dark, celtic tonality. i think that's an under explored slant in trying to get your ahead around the abstraction. it's as tied to the island's distant past as much as it is to it's present, or future. there's a digital tribalism to it that is very idiosyncratically british.
(relevant track: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed, thug culture, confused, wish, nope, ignorance is bliss, anything with a drum machine, really, which is most of the stuff after 1998)
Antonio Schacht
I am not sure who you are, this is an interesting comment
deathtokoalas
i'm running through years of old recordings in real time on my youtube channel. i started in late 1996 about a year and a half ago, and have worked my way up to 1998. that means i'll get around to 2015 some time around the year 2032. i wasn't sure how to approach uploading 17 years of music, and decided this was the most comprehensive way, even if it takes forever. and, it allows me to present myself in terms of how i developed.
i do these "obligatory influentials" whenever i completed a new track, 17 years ago.
i guess it made more sense when google+ was cross-linked to youtube.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
That's why i saw you on SDRE's Diary and Weezer's Pinkerton. I'm listening to all kinds of music since 2010, and I think the the six thousand albums I listened aren't enough.
deathtokoalas
that would have been lp2 for the obligatory influential post; didn't get as much into diary. and i think i've cited the blue album, but wouldn't really cite pinkerton. i would have been commenting on those records in my music critic's hat :)
i mean, i try to put a synopsis of the disc in, too, so i'm not just spamming.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Have you listened to Amon Tobin's 1997 album?
deathtokoalas
no, he's a bit of a black hole for me. i've always found him a little too conventional, but it's not like i've spent a lot of time listening, either. you have to keep in mind that i'm coming at this from an industrial/noise perspective, so i'm interpreting autechre through the filter of acts like coil and skinny puppy. i mostly restricted my delves into 90s electronic music to the warp records spectrum, just because it was really the only stuff that i could find that was really only techno in an aesthetic sense.
i'd put amon tobin in a list of stuff that includes dj shadow, daft punk, chemical brothers - it's just too close to dancefloor techno, and not experimental enough to hold my interest. but i again need to temper that with the caveat that i've only really scratched the surface of it.
Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Your comments are pretty interesting. It's like talking with a music critic who knows what he's talking about. I never saw Amon Tobin like that, and maybe I need to stop listening to mainstream hardcore punk and focus on more stuff that I missed and it's the wide electronic/experimental genre.
deathtokoalas
the warp stuff was really always head and shoulders above, and they all had their idiosyncratic slants that could separate them out: autechre with the experimental parts, aphex with a kind of chamber music approach, squarepusher with the insane jazz leanings, plaid with the lush ambience. i really haven't heard much since that isn't in some way just a rehashing of what was really an explosion of creativity in the mid-to-late 90s.
regarding north america, skinny puppy morphed into a band called download that released two remarkable records, but they're quite noisy. most of the 90s stuff on the subconscious communications label is worth exploring. there was some interesting stuff on invisible records, but it's a lower signal-to-noise. dead voices on air jumps out immediately.
when you get out of the warp sphere and these kind of remnant strains of industrial music, though, you start getting bigger influences from hip-hop, from house music, from pop music. it becomes more oriented for dance parties and less oriented for headphone listening. that's what made the warp stuff so refreshing: it was really absolute listening music. even the ninja tune stuff is mostly party-focused. that's fine, it has it's role and everything, but it sounds a lot more dated by nature of what it is and is, frankly, just a lot less serious by nature of what it is, too.
obligatory influential post.
i don't want to say it was conscious, but it's almost a remix. you can it hear in the song structure, the way the chords cycle around and then in the collapse in the middle (i'm trying to avoid using the term "breakdown"). you listen to something so often, it just sort of assimilates itself, and you don't realize you're doing it; that's the truth with this. the second half of nevermind was always really just one song, because i always listened to it in transit.
but, i've always like these kinds of longwinded chord progressions that take a nice trip around the world before they get back to the cadence. i'm in absolute solidarity with ludwig, here; fuck you, amadeus.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
i don't want to say it was conscious, but it's almost a remix. you can it hear in the song structure, the way the chords cycle around and then in the collapse in the middle (i'm trying to avoid using the term "breakdown"). you listen to something so often, it just sort of assimilates itself, and you don't realize you're doing it; that's the truth with this. the second half of nevermind was always really just one song, because i always listened to it in transit.
but, i've always like these kinds of longwinded chord progressions that take a nice trip around the world before they get back to the cadence. i'm in absolute solidarity with ludwig, here; fuck you, amadeus.
(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)
i'm throwing a challenge out there. i'd do it, but i've got other things to do.
somebody needs to notate this record (and the green record; it won't work for pinkerton, or the later material) with a scorewriter with the aim of using baroque instrumentation: organ, bass, lute, harpsichord, cello, trumpet, some horns in the background. you need to make sure you get the vocal melodies & harmonies down. maybe have a little fun with the bass, but i don't think it'll be necessary to modify it much to get the effect i'm thinking.
i think it might provide a little more appreciation for how well written this record is.
somebody needs to notate this record (and the green record; it won't work for pinkerton, or the later material) with a scorewriter with the aim of using baroque instrumentation: organ, bass, lute, harpsichord, cello, trumpet, some horns in the background. you need to make sure you get the vocal melodies & harmonies down. maybe have a little fun with the bass, but i don't think it'll be necessary to modify it much to get the effect i'm thinking.
i think it might provide a little more appreciation for how well written this record is.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
on second thought, it seems - seems - to have clicked into place.
that only makes sense if the problem was in the left ear, and my fiddling around with the short managed to fix the connection.
i'm running with it, anyways. let's see if i can get through both records without pulling out a glaring "muffle".
that only makes sense if the problem was in the left ear, and my fiddling around with the short managed to fix the connection.
i'm running with it, anyways. let's see if i can get through both records without pulling out a glaring "muffle".
switching to hey, god in the alter-reality
yeah, i'm swapping out various plugs and, while they all sound a little different, there's a consistency: the working cord is muffled across the board. i'm going to continue testing for the night, but i'm pretty much convinced that i need a new cord.
i'll probably buy three of them. they're like $10 each. in the mean time, i *think* i can finish mixing.
there's an alter-reality update tonight, which means i'm very far behind where i wanted to be right now, but i just need to keep plugging away at it. at least i've got some daylight to an answer, now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvkURqZ9F8
i'll probably buy three of them. they're like $10 each. in the mean time, i *think* i can finish mixing.
there's an alter-reality update tonight, which means i'm very far behind where i wanted to be right now, but i just need to keep plugging away at it. at least i've got some daylight to an answer, now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvkURqZ9F8
Thursday, October 8, 2015
well, how's this for out there? but i think i got it.
the short in the phones was worse than i thought, so i started tying to figure out some other cause - dirt, maybe?
the cords are an 1/8th inch. all the outs in the room are 1/4 inch. so, i need an adapter. i started playing with the connection to see if i could isolate it to one side of the cord, maybe.
what i began to realize is that i could get a fuller sound if i pulled the tip out just a bit. but, i couldn't get it back again after. and then it clicked.
what i'm thinking is that it isn't the cord, but the tip - that is, that this particular tip seems to have a microscopic defect on it that is not connecting properly in the adapter, but the other one doesn't. it's something most people probably wouldn't notice, but apparent on the high and low end; i think i'm getting a reduced signal due to the contact not snapping into place properly.
i happen to have a dozen of those adapters, somehow; i don't know how. but, i've experimented with a few and i'm getting closer to the proper "boom".
you can hear what i mean if you check out the first few seconds of the attached track. a drum-bass-guitar crash comes in after the arpeggio. through a good set of phones, it should get that "crush" effect on the bottom end. i was getting that through the shorted phones, but not getting it through the working ones; when i swapped the adapter out, i started getting it through the working ones.
it's a little different through each of the adapters, which just upholds the idea that there's some kind of mild contact problem.
you can hear it here, too, with the rising bass parts. that bass should saturate the mix - "BOOM". but, i wasn't getting the volume spikes - as though it was through a limiter.
the short in the phones was worse than i thought, so i started tying to figure out some other cause - dirt, maybe?
the cords are an 1/8th inch. all the outs in the room are 1/4 inch. so, i need an adapter. i started playing with the connection to see if i could isolate it to one side of the cord, maybe.
what i began to realize is that i could get a fuller sound if i pulled the tip out just a bit. but, i couldn't get it back again after. and then it clicked.
what i'm thinking is that it isn't the cord, but the tip - that is, that this particular tip seems to have a microscopic defect on it that is not connecting properly in the adapter, but the other one doesn't. it's something most people probably wouldn't notice, but apparent on the high and low end; i think i'm getting a reduced signal due to the contact not snapping into place properly.
i happen to have a dozen of those adapters, somehow; i don't know how. but, i've experimented with a few and i'm getting closer to the proper "boom".
you can hear what i mean if you check out the first few seconds of the attached track. a drum-bass-guitar crash comes in after the arpeggio. through a good set of phones, it should get that "crush" effect on the bottom end. i was getting that through the shorted phones, but not getting it through the working ones; when i swapped the adapter out, i started getting it through the working ones.
it's a little different through each of the adapters, which just upholds the idea that there's some kind of mild contact problem.
you can hear it here, too, with the rising bass parts. that bass should saturate the mix - "BOOM". but, i wasn't getting the volume spikes - as though it was through a limiter.
well...
i'm pretty much convinced that i'm getting different results out of the different headphone cords, with the functioning pair sounding like it's through a limiter and the shorted pair sound a lot more full and open, like it's meant to.
i suppose it could be an impedance issue. a factory defect. that's so remarkably obscure. but i've been saying forever that it sounds like the signal is being obstructed, somehow, and swapping the cables seems to have fixed it.
i'm normally one to pretty loudly poo-poo audiophile claims of impedance making a difference, and i'm not exactly going to say my ears don't lie (although i can't double blind this...), but it seems to be a difference.
with all the randomness, i don't know - maybe the signal is warming up the phones, and it's warping it? i think i'm in the realm of science fiction.
i'm trying to think back to when i switched cables and don't recall exactly. i actually wasn't even sure that i had switched cables at all until i went and looked. it could have been when i swapped braces, back around new year's. but, i'm pretty sure it was working fine until a few months ago. and, again - the randomness. how does impedance "break"?
i'm going to keep testing overnight. but it honestly seems to me like it sounds right through the shorted cable.
they're usable, for now. the short is intermittent. but, i'll need to swap them. so, if i can convince myself of as much, i'll just order another cable. maybe two...
for now, i'm just excited to get a breakthrough. although, this doesn't really add up to me. how is it that other measures seemed to make a difference, if it was the headphone cord?
for now, i'll just keep listening. and if it keeps sounding good, i'll have to accept it.
i'm pretty much convinced that i'm getting different results out of the different headphone cords, with the functioning pair sounding like it's through a limiter and the shorted pair sound a lot more full and open, like it's meant to.
i suppose it could be an impedance issue. a factory defect. that's so remarkably obscure. but i've been saying forever that it sounds like the signal is being obstructed, somehow, and swapping the cables seems to have fixed it.
i'm normally one to pretty loudly poo-poo audiophile claims of impedance making a difference, and i'm not exactly going to say my ears don't lie (although i can't double blind this...), but it seems to be a difference.
with all the randomness, i don't know - maybe the signal is warming up the phones, and it's warping it? i think i'm in the realm of science fiction.
i'm trying to think back to when i switched cables and don't recall exactly. i actually wasn't even sure that i had switched cables at all until i went and looked. it could have been when i swapped braces, back around new year's. but, i'm pretty sure it was working fine until a few months ago. and, again - the randomness. how does impedance "break"?
i'm going to keep testing overnight. but it honestly seems to me like it sounds right through the shorted cable.
they're usable, for now. the short is intermittent. but, i'll need to swap them. so, if i can convince myself of as much, i'll just order another cable. maybe two...
for now, i'm just excited to get a breakthrough. although, this doesn't really add up to me. how is it that other measures seemed to make a difference, if it was the headphone cord?
for now, i'll just keep listening. and if it keeps sounding good, i'll have to accept it.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
i'm still dreaming about you fairly regularly
it's weird.
because there's entire narratives that only exist in the dream reality, so that if i were to bump into you some time in the near future, i would have difficulty determining what real memories are and what dream memories are.
i wrote a sarcastic essay a few years ago that argues that all history eventually becomes poetry; that as we become further and further from events that happened in the past, they take on the nature of myth. two thousand years from now, we will probably have burned all our historical records many times over and the only memory of us will be in translated chinese documents, and local arabic documents that speak of barbarians. america will exist only in the terms of a myth.
it's interesting to see how it occurs over the course of a single lifetime, too. in the dream world, for example, you have an apartment on the 8th floor of a building on the carleton campus. it's consistent. i know the layout of the place well. even which drawer you keep candles in, and where you leave the soy in the fridge.
because there's entire narratives that only exist in the dream reality, so that if i were to bump into you some time in the near future, i would have difficulty determining what real memories are and what dream memories are.
i wrote a sarcastic essay a few years ago that argues that all history eventually becomes poetry; that as we become further and further from events that happened in the past, they take on the nature of myth. two thousand years from now, we will probably have burned all our historical records many times over and the only memory of us will be in translated chinese documents, and local arabic documents that speak of barbarians. america will exist only in the terms of a myth.
it's interesting to see how it occurs over the course of a single lifetime, too. in the dream world, for example, you have an apartment on the 8th floor of a building on the carleton campus. it's consistent. i know the layout of the place well. even which drawer you keep candles in, and where you leave the soy in the fridge.
ok, my headphones aren't broken, at least. phew.
the noise-cancelling phones are designed to compensate for signals out of a low quality device, and provide somewhat of a bass boost in addition to blocking out surrounding noise. the old sennheisers are open-backed, so they sound a bit more airy; that's normally a net benefit, but it does lose a tad of bass compression out of this device. conversely, the noise-cancelling phones consistently distort the heavier bass tones when plugged into the recording pc.
overall, it sounds the way it's supposed to, with those caveats kept in mind.
i'm going to listen a little more, but i should be back on the pc by the end of the night.
the noise-cancelling phones are designed to compensate for signals out of a low quality device, and provide somewhat of a bass boost in addition to blocking out surrounding noise. the old sennheisers are open-backed, so they sound a bit more airy; that's normally a net benefit, but it does lose a tad of bass compression out of this device. conversely, the noise-cancelling phones consistently distort the heavier bass tones when plugged into the recording pc.
overall, it sounds the way it's supposed to, with those caveats kept in mind.
i'm going to listen a little more, but i should be back on the pc by the end of the night.
well, this is rather comical.
if i can reduce at least part of the problem to the headphones, the first thing i want to check is the cord, right? i can replace the cord. i can't replace the phones [they're long out of production].
about two years ago now, i had the cord replaced, but it was unstable in the left side so i replaced it a second time. meaning, i have a backup. and, i checked the backup and sure enough it seemed to sound better. but, i have to be careful - this is in the realm of bias, and i can hardly double-blind it.
but, i had to really push the left side in to account for the short.
so, i put the working cord back in and made sure it was really pushed in as tight as i could push it. and that seems to have made the difference.
i need to test. i've been through this so many times. but it maybe explains the randomness, if the cord was just not quite in enough.
well, if that turns out to be it, it's worth a laugh from future readers, i guess. fuck.
i think the device is just about charged. i'll find out soon.
it's the kind of thing that snaps in really easily. but it's also ancient. so, it would be easy to not realize it's not pushed in far enough.
if i can reduce at least part of the problem to the headphones, the first thing i want to check is the cord, right? i can replace the cord. i can't replace the phones [they're long out of production].
about two years ago now, i had the cord replaced, but it was unstable in the left side so i replaced it a second time. meaning, i have a backup. and, i checked the backup and sure enough it seemed to sound better. but, i have to be careful - this is in the realm of bias, and i can hardly double-blind it.
but, i had to really push the left side in to account for the short.
so, i put the working cord back in and made sure it was really pushed in as tight as i could push it. and that seems to have made the difference.
i need to test. i've been through this so many times. but it maybe explains the randomness, if the cord was just not quite in enough.
well, if that turns out to be it, it's worth a laugh from future readers, i guess. fuck.
i think the device is just about charged. i'll find out soon.
it's the kind of thing that snaps in really easily. but it's also ancient. so, it would be easy to not realize it's not pushed in far enough.
i'm starting to think i damaged my mixing phones. i need to recharge my mp3 player, but that's going to be the crux of testing today.
the playback from the computer seems to sound better through the other phones, which is a serious departure from previous testing.
if i can determine that this is true, i'm not sure where i go from there.
my mixing phones are very old sennheisers with very good specs. my walking phones are a newer sennheiser model with a noise-reduction filter. they're fine for sitting on the bus, but i can't use them to mix because of that filter. that just doesn't make any sense. yet, if it turns out that the old sennheisers sound poorly through the mp3 player then the reality is that i'm dealing with some serious degradation that is an absolute hard block.
i'll have to buy new phones before i can do any further mixes. which will mean that i'll have to put aside the next few months for reading, as i save up.
i'm not there yet, but it's pretty clear. and i suppose it's the obvious answer, in hindsight, as i tested everything else with little effect.
the only glimmer of hope is that there was so much variation in the output; that it did sound right from time to time.
i'll know in a few hours.
i can at least state with certainty that the mixes sound pristine through the new phones, out of the mp3 player, so the mixes are good and i'm not hearing things. if they don't sound pristine through the old phones, that's the obvious problem.
i've been trying to figure out now, for three months, why i can't get the mixes to sound right....
once i figure this out, i'll be back on track. but, if the phones are broken, it's going to be a while.
the playback from the computer seems to sound better through the other phones, which is a serious departure from previous testing.
if i can determine that this is true, i'm not sure where i go from there.
my mixing phones are very old sennheisers with very good specs. my walking phones are a newer sennheiser model with a noise-reduction filter. they're fine for sitting on the bus, but i can't use them to mix because of that filter. that just doesn't make any sense. yet, if it turns out that the old sennheisers sound poorly through the mp3 player then the reality is that i'm dealing with some serious degradation that is an absolute hard block.
i'll have to buy new phones before i can do any further mixes. which will mean that i'll have to put aside the next few months for reading, as i save up.
i'm not there yet, but it's pretty clear. and i suppose it's the obvious answer, in hindsight, as i tested everything else with little effect.
the only glimmer of hope is that there was so much variation in the output; that it did sound right from time to time.
i'll know in a few hours.
i can at least state with certainty that the mixes sound pristine through the new phones, out of the mp3 player, so the mixes are good and i'm not hearing things. if they don't sound pristine through the old phones, that's the obvious problem.
i've been trying to figure out now, for three months, why i can't get the mixes to sound right....
once i figure this out, i'll be back on track. but, if the phones are broken, it's going to be a while.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Sunday, October 4, 2015
this stranger in detroit very nearly ended up buried from an unplanned overnight in the cold
about a year ago, detroit's famous punk rock bowling alley bar unleashed a minor crisis in the city by converting itself into a split disco/folk bar (disco upstairs, indie/folk downstairs), supposedly under the impression that the punk rock era was over. generations of rock fans in the city have been going through the stages of loss ever since, stuck somewhere between anger and depression. the topic still comes up regularly in smoking sections, with the lone explorer that's set foot in the new world reporting their findings to shocked listeners who can't believe it's really that bad.
"the whole upstairs is a disco club?"
"yup. all of it."
"there's no other section? it's ALL disco? it's really that bad?"
"yup. the whole thing."
"no. like, i mean - not even a room..."
"all of it. it really is that bad."
whether due to popular outcry or increasing financial losses or some other reason, the downstairs folk section seems to be in the process of converting itself back into a punk bar. want my honest guess? punk rock fans are losers, sure. but we're not the massive dorks that an indie/folk bar will bring in. you don't sell a lot of beer to these people. they drink herbal tea, and complain that the smoker on the other side of the room walked by them on the way in, which will possibly affect their grandchildren by offsetting their genetic energy.
bars will always serve punks because we're the market. there's no deficit of coffee houses for the indie dorks to congregate in.
detroit is currently a mess, as woodward is still being torn up. to be frank, i completely forgot that was happening, and walked directly into the construction without any knowledge of detours; thankfully, very little was required. but, it was a cold and very dark walk through broken concrete. i had the first jjjjjjjjjjjjj record in the phones, which was rather effective over it's second, atmospheric half. and, i can report that it sounded correctly through the mp3 player, as well.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
sisters of your sunshine vapor are a local act that i've near-missed repeatedly, but finally caught last night. you can guess by their name that they want to exist in a specific period, but the result is somewhat stale; i was waiting for the stonehenge to fall rather than looking around for the ghost of syd. but, calling something stale does not suggest that it's terrible. the rhythm section is actually pretty solid. what they really need, i would argue, is a second guitarist to fill the sound out a little and take it over the top.
bands like this tend to float for long periods without accomplishing anything, but there's a long shot possibility that they might develop.
it'd been three or four years since i'd heard any grooms, and they've definitely expanded their sound quite a bit. they've also become a three piece, it seems. this is the only video i could find of them as a three piece...
they still sound a lot like sonic youth, but they seem to be trying to break away from it. you can tell because they're moving in multiple directions. i've seen this a thousand times and it works out one of two ways: if they settle on a specific sound, it will no doubt be because they get some kind of financial pull on it. then, the focus becomes on compressing the sound as much as possible, and it quickly becomes boring. but, if they keep flailing around and the experiments increase rather than decrease then they have the potential to take it to the next level.
it's hard to say what direction they're going in. for the moment, the set was hit and miss: when they wanted to rock, they could and did but a lot of it was passive and mediocre jangle-pop.
so, i'm learning that a part of the experience of living in detroit is developing a healthy level of cautious fear regarding the architecture, and then conquering it.
i didn't see a lot of shows upstairs before it transitioned, but the ones i saw were loud: cloud nothings, boris. the place shook. like, uncomfortably. as the opening sets were playing, it actually crossed my mind a few times that this was better because we're closer to the ground, so it shouldn't be so scary.
but, it only took a few seconds before the wobble asserted itself. i've been to enough shows to know that this was more than the bass from the speakers; the floor was shaking left-to-right. that is, perpendicular to the motion of the sound waves. very bad.
i took a look outside and saw the concrete torn up, right to the front door. what's under the building? three hundred years of caverns, sewers? hidden treasures? masonic lodges? hoffa? who knows; but i know i'm not on solid ground. and, what are the chances that detroit found it in it's budget to do a proper engineering assessment to put in the rail system? you think that's on illitch' mind? you think he cares at all? no; i'm thinking that chances are high that there was no assessment done at all...
i had to move back a little, which blunted the physical effect of the sound. i'm aware that this is a large part of the experience; i've been to plenty of shows where the sound is pummelling. but, i think my intuition of my surroundings was justified.
i did slowly move up, but the show was done by the time i was getting the courage to get to the front.
there was a benefit, though: i got to see a relatively interesting light show from a bit of distance. you can't see it in this video, presumably because the camera is too close. but it's a wall of white light surrounding the stage, making the band members appear as apparitions. simple but effective.
as for the band? they're a known entity in what they do; joy division goes grunge. swans performing nirvana covers. brutal and dark, but always melodic and never stupid. creative use of guitar effects. but, you're not getting half of it by watching this video. this is a band that you'll get the most out of by seeing live, and letting the sound physically affect you.
and, as for myself, i need to get over this fear of detroit's architecture, as healthy as it may be.
i hadn't bothered to check the time; it was moving a little slower than normal, due to a chance encounter in the smoking section before aptbs. but, i get out and check my clock and it's three minutes until the last bus. no chance. shit.
i make the decision to walk to the tunnel and wait for a cab, aware that i'm still feeling a little funny from the chance encounter and thinking i'm probably better off getting a coffee, anyways. after waiting at the bus station for a while, i finally approach the border guards to ask them to call me a cab.
"call you a cab?"
"yeah."
"where are you from?"
"i live in windsor."
"they call cabs in downtown windsor?"
"well, i'm from ottawa. i don't know. i never use taxis, i walk everywhere, it's just that you've got all these barricades here preventing me from getting home unless i'm inside an automobile of some sort."
"it's a security concern."
"can you call me a cab, please?"
"no. what you do is go to that road over there and wait for one to drive by."
i've really never done that before. like i say: i walk everywhere. but, sure enough, there's a sign on the road that i don't think i've ever seen before: taxi stand.
it's about ten minutes, which is not bad.
"how much to get just across the border?"
"across what border?"
"to canada."
"to canada? you have documents?"
"yup."
"$60."
i got him down to $50, but that was it.
see, here's the thing: even if i could afford that, and was willing to pay it, i'd still be stuck. my bank card only works in canada. i had $17 in cash on me, which i thought would be enough - it's literally two minutes to the other side. but, the cabbie is concerned about getting searched by customs ("i'm a muslim. they always search me.") and it's just a no go.
a few minutes later, cabbie #2 pulls up...
$60. still. he tells me it's a flat rate set by the company due to losses stemming from hold ups in customs.
so, basically, i have to pay $60 for a two minute drive across the border that i'm not allowed to walk because border security does routine racial profiling on cabbies doing their job. great system. very efficient.
in the end, i was at the bus stop for more than 6.5 hours: from 1:45 to 8:30. i took a few walks. i spent well over an hour on the couch in the fancy hotel lobby across the street when i was getting a little cold; strangely, nobody asked me to leave. i was dressed to be able to walk for a few hours, but not to sit outside for six hours so it was really necessary to get in and warm up. another novelty was getting back pennies on a coffee purchase, which no longer exist in canada.
i asked two different cops if they could just shuttle me over, and they both refused. as mentioned, it's a two-minute drive under the bridge, if that. i had documents. 10 degrees isn't enough to kill you after even a few hours, but after 6 hours? as mentioned: i went in repeatedly, because the shivering felt as though it was onsetting hypothermia, and i do believe that this is the right range of temperatures.
i'm considering looking into the responses the cops provided me and pushing the point. i do believe that they should have been required to shuttle me across.
but, i know now that catching a cab in the middle of the night isn't an option and that if i'm stuck downtown then i need to find an all-night coffee shop close to the venue.
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/10/03.html
"the whole upstairs is a disco club?"
"yup. all of it."
"there's no other section? it's ALL disco? it's really that bad?"
"yup. the whole thing."
"no. like, i mean - not even a room..."
"all of it. it really is that bad."
whether due to popular outcry or increasing financial losses or some other reason, the downstairs folk section seems to be in the process of converting itself back into a punk bar. want my honest guess? punk rock fans are losers, sure. but we're not the massive dorks that an indie/folk bar will bring in. you don't sell a lot of beer to these people. they drink herbal tea, and complain that the smoker on the other side of the room walked by them on the way in, which will possibly affect their grandchildren by offsetting their genetic energy.
bars will always serve punks because we're the market. there's no deficit of coffee houses for the indie dorks to congregate in.
detroit is currently a mess, as woodward is still being torn up. to be frank, i completely forgot that was happening, and walked directly into the construction without any knowledge of detours; thankfully, very little was required. but, it was a cold and very dark walk through broken concrete. i had the first jjjjjjjjjjjjj record in the phones, which was rather effective over it's second, atmospheric half. and, i can report that it sounded correctly through the mp3 player, as well.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
sisters of your sunshine vapor are a local act that i've near-missed repeatedly, but finally caught last night. you can guess by their name that they want to exist in a specific period, but the result is somewhat stale; i was waiting for the stonehenge to fall rather than looking around for the ghost of syd. but, calling something stale does not suggest that it's terrible. the rhythm section is actually pretty solid. what they really need, i would argue, is a second guitarist to fill the sound out a little and take it over the top.
bands like this tend to float for long periods without accomplishing anything, but there's a long shot possibility that they might develop.
it'd been three or four years since i'd heard any grooms, and they've definitely expanded their sound quite a bit. they've also become a three piece, it seems. this is the only video i could find of them as a three piece...
they still sound a lot like sonic youth, but they seem to be trying to break away from it. you can tell because they're moving in multiple directions. i've seen this a thousand times and it works out one of two ways: if they settle on a specific sound, it will no doubt be because they get some kind of financial pull on it. then, the focus becomes on compressing the sound as much as possible, and it quickly becomes boring. but, if they keep flailing around and the experiments increase rather than decrease then they have the potential to take it to the next level.
it's hard to say what direction they're going in. for the moment, the set was hit and miss: when they wanted to rock, they could and did but a lot of it was passive and mediocre jangle-pop.
so, i'm learning that a part of the experience of living in detroit is developing a healthy level of cautious fear regarding the architecture, and then conquering it.
i didn't see a lot of shows upstairs before it transitioned, but the ones i saw were loud: cloud nothings, boris. the place shook. like, uncomfortably. as the opening sets were playing, it actually crossed my mind a few times that this was better because we're closer to the ground, so it shouldn't be so scary.
but, it only took a few seconds before the wobble asserted itself. i've been to enough shows to know that this was more than the bass from the speakers; the floor was shaking left-to-right. that is, perpendicular to the motion of the sound waves. very bad.
i took a look outside and saw the concrete torn up, right to the front door. what's under the building? three hundred years of caverns, sewers? hidden treasures? masonic lodges? hoffa? who knows; but i know i'm not on solid ground. and, what are the chances that detroit found it in it's budget to do a proper engineering assessment to put in the rail system? you think that's on illitch' mind? you think he cares at all? no; i'm thinking that chances are high that there was no assessment done at all...
i had to move back a little, which blunted the physical effect of the sound. i'm aware that this is a large part of the experience; i've been to plenty of shows where the sound is pummelling. but, i think my intuition of my surroundings was justified.
i did slowly move up, but the show was done by the time i was getting the courage to get to the front.
there was a benefit, though: i got to see a relatively interesting light show from a bit of distance. you can't see it in this video, presumably because the camera is too close. but it's a wall of white light surrounding the stage, making the band members appear as apparitions. simple but effective.
as for the band? they're a known entity in what they do; joy division goes grunge. swans performing nirvana covers. brutal and dark, but always melodic and never stupid. creative use of guitar effects. but, you're not getting half of it by watching this video. this is a band that you'll get the most out of by seeing live, and letting the sound physically affect you.
and, as for myself, i need to get over this fear of detroit's architecture, as healthy as it may be.
i hadn't bothered to check the time; it was moving a little slower than normal, due to a chance encounter in the smoking section before aptbs. but, i get out and check my clock and it's three minutes until the last bus. no chance. shit.
i make the decision to walk to the tunnel and wait for a cab, aware that i'm still feeling a little funny from the chance encounter and thinking i'm probably better off getting a coffee, anyways. after waiting at the bus station for a while, i finally approach the border guards to ask them to call me a cab.
"call you a cab?"
"yeah."
"where are you from?"
"i live in windsor."
"they call cabs in downtown windsor?"
"well, i'm from ottawa. i don't know. i never use taxis, i walk everywhere, it's just that you've got all these barricades here preventing me from getting home unless i'm inside an automobile of some sort."
"it's a security concern."
"can you call me a cab, please?"
"no. what you do is go to that road over there and wait for one to drive by."
i've really never done that before. like i say: i walk everywhere. but, sure enough, there's a sign on the road that i don't think i've ever seen before: taxi stand.
it's about ten minutes, which is not bad.
"how much to get just across the border?"
"across what border?"
"to canada."
"to canada? you have documents?"
"yup."
"$60."
i got him down to $50, but that was it.
see, here's the thing: even if i could afford that, and was willing to pay it, i'd still be stuck. my bank card only works in canada. i had $17 in cash on me, which i thought would be enough - it's literally two minutes to the other side. but, the cabbie is concerned about getting searched by customs ("i'm a muslim. they always search me.") and it's just a no go.
a few minutes later, cabbie #2 pulls up...
$60. still. he tells me it's a flat rate set by the company due to losses stemming from hold ups in customs.
so, basically, i have to pay $60 for a two minute drive across the border that i'm not allowed to walk because border security does routine racial profiling on cabbies doing their job. great system. very efficient.
in the end, i was at the bus stop for more than 6.5 hours: from 1:45 to 8:30. i took a few walks. i spent well over an hour on the couch in the fancy hotel lobby across the street when i was getting a little cold; strangely, nobody asked me to leave. i was dressed to be able to walk for a few hours, but not to sit outside for six hours so it was really necessary to get in and warm up. another novelty was getting back pennies on a coffee purchase, which no longer exist in canada.
i asked two different cops if they could just shuttle me over, and they both refused. as mentioned, it's a two-minute drive under the bridge, if that. i had documents. 10 degrees isn't enough to kill you after even a few hours, but after 6 hours? as mentioned: i went in repeatedly, because the shivering felt as though it was onsetting hypothermia, and i do believe that this is the right range of temperatures.
i'm considering looking into the responses the cops provided me and pushing the point. i do believe that they should have been required to shuttle me across.
but, i know now that catching a cab in the middle of the night isn't an option and that if i'm stuck downtown then i need to find an all-night coffee shop close to the venue.
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/10/03.html
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