OT: Rock $ Roll placement

Nobody thought that anyone could out do Guns & Roses in terms of greed. When the band released two albums on the same day instead of a double album and claimed this would save their fans money we on the outside laughed at the giant grunt of stupidity. No one from the underground music world would fuck their fans like that.

Flash forward...

Smashing Pumpkins has gone above and beyond by signing on for 4 different version of their new album. Each one has a "bonus" song (read an extra song that wasn't good enough) and all "special" versions of the CD will be sold by big chain stores and iTunes (which isn't any different) No special version for the indy shops, unless they are the ones who will get the vinyl version which will probably be at a fair number of places any way.

As I skimmed forums looking for reaction from the bands audience I could see a lot of people were pissed off, few were surprised. I guess when a band I like pulls a stunt, like most of The Sex Pistols branded output I just laugh it off and go "good one guys" so who am I to cast a stone?

Okay, now let's play devil's advocate...

People want their favorite musicians to keep making music and love to stay in denial that their pop stars really have day jobs. So what should a working musician do? They can either make money doing music or they can cop to having a straight job. Tough call.

A second point that some people may not have thought of... Collectors live variations on releases. Color vinyl, etc.

So only a real fan can decide what they feel is a rip off. I can't comment with any authority on Guns & Roses or Smashing Pumpkins, they really aren't bands I listen to. I can say that lot's of Punk bands have been returning in many ways, some just for the cash.

DVD Part 4 and counting

Today Alan convinced me that I had to face my fears and buy a spool of disk. I headed over the the local electronics discount place then the office supply place when the first had almost no selection.

From what I had read Sony disks were considered safe, good and generally available so I bought a 50 pack of their AccuCORE DVD-R's and headed to the testing ground.

I put together a folder that weighed in at 4.0 Gigs and dropped it in Toast. I choice burning speed as "best", began the process and waited. At the 1 second left mark, a write error appeared and Toast crashed.

Hmmm... Maybe it's something I did?

I restarted the computer and began the next burn, this time at "2x", I waited and watched and Guess what happened...

As pissed off as I was I figured the drive it's self was most likely fucked and I decided I should consider cutting my losses, pull the hard drive out and wack the fucking computer with my chain mace, which my wife apparently hid.

I networked the soon to be destroyed eMac with my Mirror Door and transferred the test folder.

Next I happily popped in a fresh disk and hit all systems are go. I leaned back in my chair and felt pretty satisfied. I imagined what I could do with the eMac's carcass to ensure it's total suffering. As the burn came to an end the same error notice appeared, crashed Toast and made me see blood red.

I now began to wonder whether these drives didn't like the dyes being used on the DVDs. I put in a CD-R and burned it on the eMac, I did another I verified that they matched the original files... 100% fine.

FUCK!!!!!

I'm now going to research compatibility issues with DVD-R brands while I debate buying another hard drive and returning this batch of disks.

Microsoft's newest toy

Having money doesn't always dictate one has taste.
This is a instance where Microsoft made a good buy on the technology market and may get to look slick for more then a minute.

As an Apple user, I am impressed.

fuck me with a gear slut artist brush

After years of back and forth with various people associated with The Brothers Baschet, one can actually order instruments in a semi clear manner. Of course if you want the good stuff you are going to have to suffer through a trip to France.

Check this site and drool. I want a set of everything in fucking D-E-L-U-X-E!

Prediction

Here's my prediction...

After finally installing Ableton Live 6 I suspect I am going to be up to my ass in a fury over Core Audio and it's MIDI implementation.

DVD-R part 3: UPDATED

In my last post on this subject I had said that I had tried to contact the company that manufactured the disks. Since that time, I have not received a response. Here is my note to them:
_________________________________

I've been a TDK user my whole life. I have never experienced any issue with your cassettes, DAT, CD-Rs in many personal and professional applications.

A few months ago I bought one or two spindles of 1-16x 4.7GB disks.

Over a period of time I burned, verified and tested about about 150 disks of both data, audio and video successfully I placed them back on a spindle.

When I went to retrieve a disk I discovered it wouldn't read. I became concerned and started testing all the disks. about 100 or so disks were no longer readable. They were tested on 5 computers with different OS' and the video disks were tested on two DVD players.

I have researched this topic for two weeks now and have not found any information on disks being created, tested as working, stored and tested as not working within a three month period.

As a professional who has used optical media for some time, I am at a loss as to 1. what could have possibly happened 2. what to do to possibly retrieve the data.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this around the company and see if you can help find a solution.

All disks were burned on two Macintosh's running up to date versions of Roxio Toast. The numbers on the disks read CMDR47G-CTMW01-104 3115

Thank you for your attention.
_________________________________

Alan suggested I post in the forums at doom9.net which I have done. Although I have not found a solution, I have at least read a fair amount of interesting information and the people on the forum have been supportive.

I found a Japanese application called DVD Media Inspector which allowed me to locate who actually manufactured the batch of disks. I was able to do decoding by comparing the data with information on this site.

Meanwhile the handful of disks that aren't totally dead are dying fast. They take minutes to read and many give errors if I try to copy them and I am still searching the house for all disk from that batch. I am at a standstill as to whether I will be able to trust DVD back up again.

Replacement handles

Sometimes adding something simple like a suitable replacement handle for a piece of vintage gear can make it look so much better. I've had this experience with vintage Mic Preamps, synths and test equipment.

This place looks like they have what I need.

Minimalist

Admittedly there is more to my home studio then what meets the eye but still this is a very simple feeling work set up and I hope that it will do for my what the all white did for John and Yoko.

The tags lets you know what's not visible.

educating the snob

Okay, I'll fess up that my knowlege of current low-end "pro" audio is somewhat limited. I've never owned a Mackie product, my attitude about Soundcraft is based on their mid-end stuff from the 90's like the Spirit Studio (which I do indeed like) and I bought my Ramsa so long ago.

As I have looked at solutions to my dead mixer issue I have been stupifide by the dumbing down of equipment, the lack of real world logic in design and the simple fact that one can't just can't find a reasonable choice of analog products in this range.

So let's review my needs...

1. A couple of ins for computers (minimum 2 stereo)
2. A couple of mono ins for me to dangle 1/4" cables out of (minimum 2)
3. 1 monitor out
4. 2 stereo "mix" outs
5. good sound
6. cheaper the repairing trusted Ramsa (under $400)

Desires...

1. No built in effects
2. Nothing made by Behringer
3. something that could be re-souced to serve another function if I end up with another project studio with a real console.

As much as I have always loved mixers I am almost tempted to try working with the Mackie Big Knob because it will do most of what I need, take up little space and have a possible use later on.

I would like to know which inputs one uses if one integrates it with a mixer. I am dreading going to 48th Street and having to deal with the "sales dudes" that seem to never be able to answer my questions but are sure I need some other thing. This is a rare thing for me to feel like I should actually check out products in person. I am rarely wrong and because I'm unsure I figure I'll hedge my bets.

Plus for shits and giggles I can make them use their demo gear to run the experiments that I wouldn't want to try at home.

random, smart and automated music

In the early days of my Max (later Max/MSP) usage I was very interested in things like machine listening and software generated music. Somewhere along the line my experiments ended with minimal conclusions.

I was engrossed enough that I read through all the David Cope, Robert Rowe, Marvin Minsky, Phil Winsor and a number of others. I asked a lot of questions and was amazed at how generous these people were with their time, especially considering I was not an academic.

Now some folks at my old research spot IRCAM (of course) have come up with Omax. This looks like the software I wanted to full fill my dreams of mutant robot bands and creating the ultimate fake band.

I would say that this software looks good enough that I should probably just ignore it and just continue my fantasies.