Notes_Norton

Bagpipes have their place, but they are just too easy to make jokes about. The thing that gets me is the drone pipe is intentionally out of tune and as a sax player who has to adjust the intonation of every note with my lip, I my ears want me to correct it. But if it was in tune the bagpipes wouldn't sound right. - - - - - - Bayou Bill, that sounds like heaven to me, but not nearly as good as playing sax in an all-girl cabaret in New Orleans. - - - - - - When I was 18 I was underage but still playing in a band that did night clubs, We got a gig playing in a strip club. Mostly 12 bar blues in 12/8 time as this was right before strippers started disrobing to rock music. It's a good thing they had us sitting down so my hormonal appreciation didn't show. ;) The star of the show was a girl who's name I forget, but the byline was "with her million dollar wardrobe". None of which (except for pasties and g-string) stayed on throughout the show. The dancers were quite nice to us, but the strict rule was no dating anyone who works there and absolutely no leaving with one of the customers. As an 18 year old kid, I couldn't help but dream about doing more than playing sax for them. It was a good gig and lasted one season. Oh, and we actually got paid for that!!! Insights, incites and road stories by Notes

This is only semi-related, but a 'road story' about hum. I've been in the same duo since 1985 and we're still making a living by gigging. Part of the reason for that is we went into the private party / yacht club / country club / condominium / retirement development when the MADD mothers with their good intentions started ruining the night club business. On the gig I plug everything into a power conditioner to keep all the ground potentials similar. The power conditioner keeps both surges and dips from destroying my synth modules and other gear. One place that hires us a couple of times per year, and has been doing this for over a decade has a strange problem. I play sax, wind synth, flute and guitar on the gig and my guitar has Seymour Duncan P-Rail pickups. The P-Rails can be configured for P-90, Rail, Series Humbucker or Parallel Humbuckers with a few slide switches. In this particular room, if I have the selected pickup(s) in either of the single coil modes (P90 or Rail) the hum is deafening. In either humbucker mode it's quiet. When I get there, I've learn to put both pickups in the humbucker mode before I start playing. I'm glad it's a simple fix. I have no idea what the problem is, and the person who hires us says other groups have had problems with hum too. Insights and incites by Notes

Could have been bagpipes too :D

I have two radio stories: 1) I used to live near a college campus. Their radio station tower used to be miles away at remote campus extension but they decided to put it on the main campus. It was so close that if it toppled, the tower would hit my house. I got WQCS in everything. My stereo set, my amps, my reel-to-reel tape deck, and the TV. I complained to the FEC who send out an engineer who also was the engineer hired by the radio station. Needless to say, nothing got done. Since I was renting, I eventually just moved. 2) Played a grand opening party on the parking lot of an office building right next door to an AM radio station in Stuart Florida. The people heard the radio in their wired phones and everything else. I sensed trouble right from the start. We set up the PA and of course had the radio station coming out our speakers. In a rare bit of insight and luck I saw a water pipe bib and spigot next to the building, I scraped paint off a bit of the pipe and it was copper (it was an old building). So not knowing if it would work, but grasping at straws, I hooked my vehicle's jumper cables to the scraped pipe and the other end clamped to my road rack rail. Problem solved, and the gig was saved. Insights and incites by Notes

Since my primary instrument is saxophone, I can relate to this one:

Sounds like it could be a ground loop. Isolation transformers, grounding everything together, lifting grounds, keeping power cables away from signal cables, etc., all work, but sometimes different methods work on different systems. You could have a defective piece of gear too, but I'd suspect a ground loop first. With my own gear, I start with plugging everything into the same outlet on a little multi-outlet zip strip. That lets me know everything is at the same ground potential. If I still have hum, I start experimenting and tracking it down. BTW, do you know why PA Systems hum? - - Because they don't know the words. (groans are appreciated) Insights, incites and lousy puns by Notes

Thanks. Making a living doing what you would do for free means you never have to work a day in your life. And while there is plenty of time spent at it, practicing, hauling gear, booking gigs, it really doesn't seem work. It's what I do. Or rather, it's what I am.

For me it's occupational hazard. When the big acts come to town, I'm usually gigging. If I'm not gigging, I can't afford it 😪 Back in the late 60s and early 70s it was different. I was in a band that was the opening act for many of the major headliners. I got to hear "our closing acts" when we were done. We were supposed to get a record contract, but Motown didn't want to pay enough to live on. Actually it was enough for us, but not enough left over for our manager and his lawyers. Life goes on and making a living as a gigging musician still beats any legitimate day job I can think of. 😁 Insights and incites by Notes

Eh? What? Let me turn them back up. OK. Say that again.

For live gigs I like the Sennheiser MD 421. It's good in the studio too. It's dynamic has a better than average flat response in the vocal range can withstand high SPL levels without distorting has for all practical purposes zero proximity effect has a 5 position roll-off bass filter for those with a muddy voice is almost bullet-proof and Professional Audio Review rated it as the best dynamic mic under $800 I bought mine in 1985 and I do one-nighters for a living. I use it for saxophone, flute and vocals. My duo partner started with Sure B58s, and after three of them died, while my 421 still worked, she bought a 421 and hasn't looked back. Of course, one solution isn't best for everyone, but it works for both of us. It's our favorite vocal and sax mic. Insights and incites by Notes

I hope he has his ear plugs in ;)

I had kids and read them Dr. Suess so this gave me a smile.

Do you have any funny or punny song titles? Can be old or new. If so add yours to the list. Here are a couple, starting with an oldie: "Don't Wait Up For The Shrimp Boats Mama, Daddy's Comin' Home With The Crabs" or "She Used To Kiss Me On The Lips, But It's All Over Now" Your turn...

Follow the doctor's orders. I haven't been around here for long, but I like your posts and you seem like a nice guy (or else you just fooled me). My diet = If it tastes good - spit it out.

The last time I spoke with a piano tuner (are there any of these people left) they said the "stretch tuned" the instrument, progressively sharp higher than middle C and progressively flatter lower than middle C. He said the piano sounded more in tune that way. Of course, since we use equal temperament, none of are instruments are really in tune anyway. And neither the grand piano nor the violin will hide the beer gut.

Kenfucius, I thought the entire reason for the jumbo guitar was to hide the beer belly.

I like them both, but I must confess, I like the monochrome better. While the color adds interest to the picture, the monochrome brings out the composition more to my eyes. Either way -- nice work! Notes

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Very interesting, thanks! Notes

Yes, and unfortunately it didn't work. The newer buggy version works, so it's Ctrl+S every minute or two. But it's orphaned with no support so it's way past it's 'use by' date. But I have everything saved in both MTPro and MIDI type 1 format so as long as MIDI files are standard, I won't lose anything. Insights and incites by Notes

I've got to respectfully disagree with your first statement. Capitalism is all about the corporation. It's about making profits so the non-participant stockholders can increase their share value. Now they partially do this by focusing on the customer, because customers are necessary. But the focus is on profits and nothing else. But then, isn't that the reason to be in business? The difference is in a small business, the company doesn't have to grow perpetually to stay in business. But I do agree that we can live without Facebook, Twitter (I do), Google (that too), Smartphone (minimize my apps and permissions because I need the phone for business), and value the money that I'm not slaving for (I'm a professional musician - I make a living by enjoying myself). Capitalism has it's flaws, but so far it's better than the alternatives the world has tried. By pointing out the flaws we can minimize their impact on us, and perhaps someday someone will be able to improve it. Insights and incites by Notes

I started out with Master Tracks Pro, a MIDI sequencer on the Atari/ST computer. Then I followed it to Motorola Macs (Classic II), and finally Windows (I hated DOS and was happy to see Windows). Microsoft bought Passport Designs (the parent company to MTPro) to use the patented technology in Power Point and abandoned the program. This was before Windows 95 because I still have the last Passport copy with 8.3 file names. GVox bought Passport mostly for the Encore notation app and they scooped up MTPro in the process. They introduced a number of bugs, most, but not all have been fixed, and they sold it to a company renamed Passport who was underfunded, went belly-up so now MTPro is orphaned. The non-buggy 8.3 version does not load in Win10 but the slightly buggy one does. IMHO MTPro is the best stand-alone MIDI sequencer in the biz. Great interface, great editing tools, everything available in a mouse click or two (no sub-menus or sub-sub-menus), and the 8.3 version never-ever crashed. Sadly the new version occasional does. Why am I saying all this historic stuff? If Bandlab decides to abandon Cakewalk, it's possible we will be able to use it for many years - until Microsoft changes it's OS making it no longer compatible (like the 8.3 version of MTPro). Sure there will be no new features in orphaned software, but there will be no more bloatware either. Insights and incites by Notes

As far as short sighted managers are concerned, it is their job to make corporate profits, every quarter. They are looking to keep their job by keeping expenses low, profits high, and a constant turnover with their user base. It's the down side of Capitalism/"Corporationalism" (not that Communism is any better, it has an opposite set of and IMO worse problems) When a product is new, if it is good, it grows by attracting new customers, the stock prices go up, the stockholders are happy, and the upper management make huge bonuses and salary increases. Then it reaches a saturation point, just about everybody who wants that product has it. New sales keep trickling in, but the huge growth period is over. OK the increase in stock prices isn't as good as it once was, it's not losing money, but there are bigger growth opportunities for stock buyers elsewhere. What to do? The managers need their bonus. New features, frequent updates, or subscription models will keep the revenue flowing. Stockholders are happy again. But those new features introduce new bloat and new bugs so eventually the people stop buying the upgrades, and the subscription people hate paying for something they feel they should own so there go the stock prices. This is what is happening to Apple. the iPhone was their big money maker. It was a great invention and well adopted. Then it improved with new feature after new feature. Every new model had a line at the Apple Store around the block waiting for it to open. Stock prices went up. Managers got bonuses. Then the new features started to be bloatware (all the good ideas got used up). The sales dropped. They started jacking up the price to sustain stock prices. The most faithful kept buying new phones, and they became a trillion dollar company. But nothing can grow perpetually, and eventually the faithful started to think that their old iPhone was good enough, and paying a thousand dollars for what used to cost only a couple of hundred was a cause to wait until their present iPhone no longer works. And now Apple stock has dropped 33% because without that perpetual growth, stockholders are looking for growth stocks and jumping ship. Another approach is "Chiclets" items. Chew them up, spit them out, and buy again. It worked for Kodak for years, chew up a roll of film and you need another. For Gillette you dull the razor blade and you need to buy another. Canon copier out of toner? Buy some more. Buy water or a soft drink in a disposable bottle and the bottle company makes a sale. With disposable products, you don't need constant upgrades. All you need is a growing population. Perpetual growth is the big problem with corporations. Now a small business only needs to make enough money to feed the owners and employees. Without stockholders who do not physically work at the company, but only want profits, they don't need perpetual growth. Just steady as it goes. It can grow, and that's good, but has no stockholders demanding growth every quarter or they bail. Capitalism/"Corporationalism" is the economic system we are stuck with, like any system it has good and bad points, but any system that depends on perpetual growth is foolish. That's a big factor in why some former big businesses are no longer here or floundering, Sears, RCA, Atari, Gibson, K Mart, Kodak, Montgomery Wards, Chrysler, Woolworth's, and so many others. Some day Amazon will go under for the same reason. Having a free product that attracts people to your store might just work as long as your store remains profitable. Let's hope that this is the BandLab strategy. Having a free product that uses you as the customer and sells your information to corporations hungry for growth is another answer. Apple, Microsoft, have gone this way, Google, Facebook, Twitter and so many others paved the way, and it has become a profitable business model. How long with this last until that market is saturated? Depends on how may others get in the game. There should be a better system than Capitalism, but while I can see the flaws in the current system, I'm not smart enough to see the cure. OK, that's probably more than enough rambling musings and the world according to me. Insights and incites by Notes

I'm predominately a sax player who doubles on flute, drums, bass, guitar, wind synthesizer, keyboard, and vocals. On stage in my current setup I'm playing sax, flute, wind synth, guitar, vocals and a small percussion controller that I use when singing something too difficult to play while singing (I'm not a natural singer and have to work at it). My duo partner is a fantastic singer and also plays guitar and Buchla Thunder Tactile MIDI controller. I make my own backing tracks. This Morph is not nothing I need, but something I'm interested in. -- It could be an aid in making my own backing tracks, -- and on stage I might be able to not only use the drum controller, but slap the keyboard skin on and play a few keyboard synth lines, as the wind synthesizer does not do harmony well (two note drone or parallel harmony, not very versatile options). My partner's Thunder and my Wind Synthesizer do things that a keyboard synth will not do (and vice versa). Having a drum controller I can hit with sticks instead of my fingers without buying an e-drum set could be a plus. Having different ways to do things is never a big problem. Having more toys (oops! tools in case the IRS is monitoring) is always a good thing. This device looks interesting. Can it do the same things as the Thunder and other things as well? Is it a cool fun toy? Most of all I'd like to know how it's made, and if it's worth trying or not. If someone has one, let me know how rugged it seems. Is it full MIDI complaint so that a USB to MIDI interface will transfer to a 5 pin DIN MIDI sound module. It gets good reviews on Amazon, but I know those can be padded, I'd rather hear from others. It's not that expensive, if it's well built and fully MIDI compliant, I just might give it a try. (I have sound modules.) If I spring for it, I'll publish a report here. Insights and incites by Notes