bitflipper

😄 Ever notice how the guy who needs a van the most - the drummer - always squeezes his kit into a Toyota?

In every previous band, I've served as bandleader. I provided the van, lights and PA, called rehearsals, picked material, created arrangements, made up set lists, made posters, interfaced with agents, signed the contracts, cashed the checks, sang lead on 60-70% of the songs. I never took any extra pay for those duties and made it clear that off-stage everyone had an equal say in everything. I enforced the band policies we'd all agreed upon: no alcohol on stage, no girlfriends at rehearsals, no Elvis impersonations. I just don't have the energy or ambition to do all that stuff anymore.

You'd think that in a band of over-50s there'd be no infighting, bickering, power struggles and out-of-control egos. Turns out, maturity just seems to be especially elusive among musicians. Time to fire up Cakewalk again. Superior Drummer will never refuse to play a song it doesn't like, complain about not getting the respect it's entitled to, nor criticize Trillian for not playing in the pocket. Kontakt won't mind if its only duty is a tambourine part, won't insist that its talents are wasted unless it's the focus of the song. All of the vocalists (me, me and me) will know the frickin' words, know their frickin' place in the mix and know better than to demand more reverb. Of course, I'll still be rehearsing with my new band on Sunday...

99% of the time, freeze the synth. Simpler, easier and more easily un-doable. If you find that there's some compelling reason to have a separate audio track (and there are legitimate reasons for doing so), just insert a new audio track and click-drag the frozen track down to it. Of course, this only works for single instances; if you want to combine two or more synths or create a stem submix, then you'll have to bounce. Otherwise, freeze.

So how, exactly, does being part of a massive conspiracy work? Do you get, like, annual hush payments or just periodic death threats? Are there meetings and secret handshakes? Of course, we know you can't answer these questions, so don't bother.

Yes, I have seen that on at least three occasions I can recall. Once it was a defective power supply. Once it was dust-clogged fans. The third time it was defective capacitors on the motherboard (if anyone remembers the Dell fake-cap episode some years ago). So yup, it's hardware. First step: open your computer and give it a thorough cleaning, especially the power supply and CPU fans.

Too bad you had to mortgage your home and sell a kidney to pay for it all...oh, wait, you don't live in my country. Enjoy your mobility!

I hear ya, Craig. That's why I work at home and never leave the house.

Don't let it put you off coming back to Seattle. Worst case scenario: you get to witness the Big One, have stories to tell back home - where your house is still standing.

They're great listening headphones, but a bit bass-hyped for mixing. The semi-open DT 880 is flatter for about the same price. Also in the same price bracket are the AKG K702's, which are even more natural in the low end. Which is not to say you can't mix with headphones that exaggerate bass. You just have to keep that factor in mind while you're mixing, so that you don't end up with bass-light mixes. Truth is you can actually learn how to make translatable mixes on any speakers over time.

I don't mix on headphones, and agree it's not ideal. But then I have the luxury of having nice speakers and a treated room. Plus I'm in a detached garage so I can make as much racket as I like at any time of day or night. Mixing on headphones might be some peoples' only option, though. If they live with or near other people who might not be thrilled by a 3:00 AM mixing session. Or they're mixing in a bad acoustical environment. Or they have kids that never stfu.

Movie idea: man hits his head, wakes up in an alternate reality where nobody remembers lava lamps. Hilarity ensues, as in the absence of lava lamps Pink Floyd never became popular, nor did party drugs, and we went straight to disco.

Someone scored my car door in the parking garage last week. Now I'll have to get it excoriated at the body shop.

Earthquake woke me up this morning. Only a 4.6, but the epicenter was very close so the whole house was shaking. I just went back to sleep. Painkillers at bedtime will do that for you.

It's actually about current versus voltage rather than power (which mostly comes down to the speakers' efficiency rather than their impedance). You should have no problem driving 250 ohms with your Focusrite. Just don't expect crazy high volume. Which of course you don't want for mixing and editing anyway. You'll only have an issue if you decide to use those cans with a portable battery-powered device that can't deliver the necessary voltage to sustain high fidelity at higher volumes. Have a look at the Sennheiser HD-558, which sound-wise is nearly identical to the HD600 but half the price and (IIRC) 50 ohms.

It is particularly unsettling when they last more than a few seconds. In the last big one, I stood in my driveway watching waves undulating through the concrete for about 30 seconds while my whole house swayed. This even though the epicenter was 90 miles away and 2 miles down. The next one up here in the Pacific Northwest will likely be a subduction quake similar to the one that hit Anchorage in 1964. That one had a magnitude of 9.2, lasted four full minutes, tossed huge container ships onto the shore and pretty much leveled the city. The only buildings left undamaged were log cabins, so next time you're in Alaska try to keep one in sight at all times.

#1 is "oh sh*t, not again!"

You missed out on all the excitement! We've been through some dark times. Gibson acquired Cakewalk and proceeded to treat it like an unwanted stepchild. Although they did give Craig Anderton a job for awhile. Then when it was abruptly announced that CW was ceasing operations altogether, there was panic as many scrambled to find an alternate DAW in case SONAR stopped working after some future Windows update. Even diehards like me who were planning on using SPlat forever prudently investigated other DAWs (I bought Samplitude as a fallback but never really used it). So when BandLab came through as the white knight a couple months later, there was a collective sigh of relief. Now things are better than ever. The software is no longer on an artificial annual release schedule dictated by marketing, now replaced by rolling updates. The head count over at Cakewalk is smaller now, but we still have Noel so we're OK. Any old projects you might have on disk can be loaded up into the new Cakewalk by Bandlab, no problem. But keep SONAR installed, as CbB doesn't come with all the third-party plugins and instruments that were bundled with SONAR; almost all of them are still compatible with CbB.

I was referring to those who create music (or other content) for free mods. Some of the more ambitious mod projects involve dozens of people, all unpaid volunteers, working for months or even years. Of course, some of them are building a portfolio in hopes of landing a paid gig, but the majority do it just for the fun of it. You can, for example, replace all of the original music in Skyrim (which is quite good), as well as sound effects, with third-party content. For example, I use one that improves ambient sound, such as applying reverb where applicable (e.g. in a cave) or low-frequency rumble from distant lightning. Someone figured out that the PS4 version used wave files that sound better than the PC version's lossy codecs, and extracted the better-sounding PS4 audio so PC users could use it. Here's a fan-made soundtrack that can either replace or augment the original game music.

If you're like me, you usually turn the music off while playing video games. I like to be able to hear the audio cues clearly, like when an enemy is approaching from behind. And, of course, the satisfying sound of an enemy's head being removed. ( Hey, he was trying to kill me. It's justified.) Lately, though, I've been taking time to listen to some of the music that I'd been intentionally ignoring. Surprise - some of it's really good. And even more surprising, a lot of it is being created by amateurs who do it solely for the joy of making music. Here's an example, from an upcoming mod for Skyrim. The composer is a Swedish fellow by the name of Fredrik Jonasson. Poke around his Bandcamp page and be inspired.

Open-back, definitely, assuming your environment is amenable to that. IOW, you're working alone in a quiet space. And you already have some closed-back cans for tracking. Some suggestions... Beyerdynamic DT990 AKG K702 Sennheiser HD558 or HD600

You have my sympathy, Zargg. I have had to crawl out of that same hole. It's a long climb. You might be tempted to put musical endeavors on hold, perhaps feeling that engaging in a joyful activity might somehow be unbecoming. Don't succumb to that instinct. Go ahead and write some sad and/or angry songs. If some of it turns out too dark to share, don't let that stop you. It's therapy.

Although theoretically not impossible (e.g. corrupt files) I have never experienced any hangs or crashes related to free Kontakt libraries. In fact, they are often less prone to problems because they aren't as heavily scripted. Many of them contain no scripting at all. The only issues I've encountered have had to do with poor sound quality: too much stretching, bad loop edits, noise or distortion in the samples, inconsistent levels or mistakes in mapping (gaps or overlaps). Free plugins, OTOH, that's a whole 'nother can o' worms. (BTW, if you're specifically looking for a good but cheap trumpet, check out Blue Street Brass from Indiginus. $79 and you get a bunch of trumpets and related instruments such as a flugelhorn, trombone and civil war bugle.)