Notes_Norton

I can access my e-mails with my web host's web based app, and leave it there for download to my e-mail client later.

This works fine when I'm not at my desk.

Insights and incites by Notes

20 hours ago, bitman said:

Yes, unless it sounds bad.

IMO if it sounds bad, quantizing won't help. Practice usually will.

But perhaps I'm just too old-fashioned.

Insights and incites by Notes

Gotta admit, I don't get the Tinder reference. But I have heard the name.

IMO the reason why MIDI hasn't evolved sooner is that the original specs were very well thought out with room to grow, including some continuous controllers to be used for specific synths and/or manufacturers.

There is a lot of musical expression available with the MIDI 1 specs, that is if the synthesizer can utilize them. Two way communication with the synth seems to be the logical step forward, although I don't know what it will be used for. But thats the limits of my own imagination.

I'm curious to see what applications will use two way communications. A new world of expression might open up.

Insights and incites by Notes

I still use a client.

I want to keep a copy of many of my e-mails, especially customers in both my band and band-in-a-box businesses, and I want them accessible off-line.

I also don't want google or yahoo reading them and adding to my dossier :O

Insights and incites by Notes

I think they chose the 5 pin DIN because it was a common off-the-shelf connector.

I'm glad it hasn't changed though, I have many different ended USB cables and adapters and all I need is one MIDI type cable. Like a guitar cable and unlike XLR I'm glad it doesn't matter which way it plugs in - it's reversible - so they did a lot of things right. I just wish they wouldn't occasionally fall out when moving gear.

For me they don't fall out often enough to be a major PITA, but infrequently enough to be a nit. I do one-nighters for a living.

Whenever I have to open the back of the rack, I habitually push all the MIDI cables in whether they need it or not.

My WX5 Wind MIDI controller has a  small dedicated MIDI plus power cable that locks, which is a good thing because it hangs off the WX5 and could easily get unplugged in the middle of a solo, which would be embarrassing.

I don't need my gear to make mistakes for me, I can do that by myself :)

Insights and incites by Notes

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

Or in my case, gone years ago. If we put our heads together we could make an ..... (never mind, the censors might not like it).

Better idea, Dolly Parton.

You might notice the rock and roll toupee in my avatar :D

Notes

And the only mistake they made was that 5 pin DIN connector.

Obviously they were in-house people and not used to rolling a rack to one-nighter gigs, where the non-locking DIN connectors have a habit of falling out of their sockets.

A locking connector with a mechanism like a XLR latch would have been better.

But I'm a big fan of MIDI and the cables don't unplug themselves that often. On the other hand, they decide to be loose when there is no room to take the back off the rack ?

I run with 4 sound modules in my rack. Two Yamaha VL70m's, One Roland XV-5050 and one Roland Sound Canvas. I am truly thankful for being able to fit a few thousand sounds into 3 rack spaces (actually 2.5).

Insights and incites by Notes

I do this on the guitar and hate it when the microphones do it :D

Since I tend to record MIDI, what I end up fixing mostly is erasing slop notes - the kind where I went for that D and brushed the C# on the way.

Since I sequence all the parts and practice each one first, on a new song, I'm still prone to that occasional wrong note. if the feel and the timing is right and the rest of the track is good, in MIDI that's a simple fix. When playing/entering the most attention is on timing. In my situation wrong notes can be fixed (as long as they are uncommon - if there are a bunch, get back Notes and practice some more before recording again).

Insights and incites by notes

I guess I'm old school. Practice until I get the timing right, and play it live in real time. IMO there are no short cuts to practice until right.

But then, I'm only recording myself, and unlike Bill BRainbow, I don't have clients to accommodate.

I have my personal pride to satisfy.

Instead I make backing tracks to play behind my duo, and I want the backing tracks to sound as close to a real band as possible. If it's difficult, it might take me a few days to work up the backing track, to get the timing right, to get the notes right, to get the groove right and to get it as good as my current skills allow. But if I'm lucky, I'll get to play that song thousands of times in front of an appreciative audience and I'll be inspired to sing or play my best on top of the track.

If I knew I could do it better, it would haunt me every time I play the song.

But like I always say, there is more than one right way to make music.

Insights and incites by Notes

I'm interested in MIDI 2. I heard two way communications mentioned, and I wonder how that will work out. I don't have two way communications with my sax, drums, bass, guitar, flute, wind synthesizer, keyboard synth, or voice, and can't help wondering  what benefit 2 way communication will provide me. Will it be fantastic, a usable tool, or meh? Time will tell, and I'll stay tuned for details.

Other than perhaps a new form of synthesis, I have pretty much all I need in MIDI sound modules (notice I said need and not want). I hope MIDI 2 is so exciting that I just have to part with some of my hard earned cash.

And as I said before, I'm very glad backward compatibility was a prime concern.

Insights and incites by Notes

I'm an anti-quantizing person for most forms of music (some electronic dance music and disco songs need it). I believe that along with auto-tune, they are tools better to be left alone.

IMHO quantizing takes the soul out of the music. It takes the breath out of it. It makes it sterile.

The rhythm section needs to groove. Sometimes the 2s and 4s need to be a hair ahead of the beat, some times behind. Same for eighth notes. Big triplets need to be dragged in most cases. Melodies often drag part of a phrase and then rush to catch up or vice versa. Sometimes a certain beat of a song needs to be rushed or dragged for emphasis. In many Latin American forms of music the congas need to be played laid back behind the beat. Sometimes in jazz the ride cymbals need to be a hair pushed. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I've played professionally since the 1960s in a variety of genres and venues. When I started sequencing MIDI back in the Atari/DOS/MotorolaMac days I tried quantizing and hated the sound. Where's the groove? Where's the soul? Where's the vox humana? I realized I had to play the parts in live, in real time, and use the feel that I'm used to by playing with some of the finest musicians I've ever heard.

Of course there are many exceptions. And although you can generalize about certain things like 2&4s being laid back in the blues, the reality is no two songs are alike. If you know the song well, play it like you feel it.

One more thing, as I mentioned earlier, some "dance" forms of music and/or individual songs from the disco era on need to be quantized as that is their sound.

Of course, there is more than one right way to make music. My way may not be best for you.

Insights and incites by Notes

It was nice. I like the moment right before totality too, because it looked more like a globe than a disk.

Notes

Yes, I think GM2 was based on Roland thing called GS. It adds 128 additional standard patch names in a second bank of sounds.

I have an Edirol SD-90 that is compatible with GM2, GS and XG (which I think is a Yamaha extended bank).  I don't remember exactly how to access them. I have access to up to 16 variations of any GM1 voice by using a MSB (Most Significant Bit) and LSB (Least Significant Bit) in the MIDI stream going to the synth. I suppose GM2 and the others would be accessed in a similar way. But they are just patch maps and not additional sounds so I've never bothered with it.

GM1 is nice because I can do a MIDI sequence using GM patches, and when another person receives it, the patches will have the same name. They of course might not sound the same, because each synth has it's on variation on what they think a tenor sax, trumpet, clean guitar or fantasy sounds like, but at least it will be recognizable. If every GM synth doesn't recognize GM2 it's not going to work..

Insights and incites by Notes

I'm glad they are ensuring backwards compatibility.

Although I have new MIDI devices, I also have sound modules that go back to the dawning of MIDI like the Yamaha TX81z, Korg DS8, and Roland MT-32. While plenty of the sounds on these synths are dated, there are still some great sounds that havnen't been duplicated in newer devices.

Insights and incites by Notes

OK, I'll be patient.

In the meantime I found this:

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=toc.html

It seems to be much better than nothing, although I'd like a downloadable one, because often when I'm intensely working on music, I disconnect from my WiFi.

Notes

Is there a downloadable user manual for the current Bandlab version of Cakewalk?

Thanks,
Notes

Hot cocoa sounds like it will be in order. The tail end of that big northeastern blizzard will make it down here and Sunday is supposed to be the coldest night of the year. It normally goes into the upper 60s or 70s here at night, but Sunday night they are predicting 50s or 40s and then a warming back to normal.

I know that doesn't sound cold to people who live in the north, but it's 80 right now, and that's a big dip in temperature.

I've seen a number of full lunar eclipses, and I never get tired of them. So if I don't return, send out the Saint Bernard dogs with a full keg of brandy !!!

Notes

A cold front (for Florida) is coming, so at least the mosquitoes will be dormant.

Notes

3 hours ago, Starise said:

Thank Notes. Well, I'm going to be honest here, it isn't always as easy as it seems, at least for me.  Probably because when I look at doing it I'm not usually copying a cover, so my thinking is something like, I want to make a nice backing track>now what? I made a few things but couldn't get words for them. They sounded ok but I didn't know what to do with them. Maybe some of this is not wanting to commit to something I wasn't sure about. It's like songwriting and having a mental block. Anyone else have this issue?

Not that copying a cover can't be difficult too, especially if it has a bunch of odd stuff in it.

Some of what I do are covers, as close to a famous recording as I am able.

Some of my tracks are similar to a recording, but with my own twist on them.

Others are completely rearranged, like Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" as a cool school jazz (swing) tune, Jimmy Buffet's "Son Of  A Sailor" as a Reggae tune, Dolly Parton's "Joline" as a slow, torch song, and so on.

We play once a week at a marina on a lagoon in Florida (in our 11th year) and tropical songs are welcome. Jimmy Buffet is a big hit here too. I had a woman who is now a regular customer ask for Jimmy Buffet's "A Pirate Looks At 40".  I warned her that I didn't do it like the record (I do it as a calypso steel-drum band song with something close to a rhumba rhythm). She says she likes it better than Jimmy's ballad version and requests it often.

We often play at yacht or country clubs (good $$ for the hours) and the need a 'dinner set'. Playing old pop songs as instrumental bossa-novas works well. I put the lead on the wind synthesizer instead of the sax, turn the PA down until we are at 65dba and get my gentle chops out. After dinner we get to crank it up to about 100db and play moderately high to high energy dance music.

It depends on what I think my audience would like. I'm not always correct in my guesses, but all in all I have a good track record.

I actually like playing different genres and different energy levels of music. Each genre puts me in a different emotional state, and I have the challenge of trying to sound authentic in many genres.

We don't do originals, because I learned people want memories, but we do some parodies. We do a version of "Winter Wonderland" that has no up-north references and lots of Florida ones, like "Plastic pink flamingos in the lawn." Especially at the marina, fun songs go over well.

All and all, in order to make a living doing music and nothing but music, you need to be versatile and mold your 'act' to the needs of the audience. That sometimes means compromise, but a bad day playing music is better than a good day at any other job I can think of.

Insights and incites by Notes

The thing I've noticed about lunar eclipses, is that for me, the moon usually looks like a disk, but during a full eclipse it looks more like a globe.

And a good pair of binoculars enhances the experience.

Insights and incites by Notes

There is definitely more than one right way to do this.

For me, all the work is done at home. I try to keep things as simple as possible on stage. Since I cue the songs, sing and/or play either sax, guitar, flute or wind synth on each song.

By having mp3s pre-recorded at home on a laptop, I can start a song by highlighting it in Windows File Explorer and hitting Enter. It plays on Windows Media Player.

While it's playing, Alt+Tab puts the focus back on File Explorer. Since the laptop keyboard is always available, type two or 3 letters and the next song is cued up. Hit enter and it plays.

That was I can go from song to song seamlessly, and even change my mind in the last few seconds of the song we are playing and still go seamlessly.

I don't do set lists, but prefer to do my best to read the crowd and play what they need when they want it. Since my market is the over 40 audience, if they are fast dancing and there is 2 seconds between songs, they will head back to their seats and the next song won't bring them back. So I've learned when I need to go to the next song seamlessly.

But back on topic.

By doing my own backing tracks, I have complete control over the music. If I want to eliminate the rubato intro I can because the intro might not be danceable (is danceable a word?). I can even record two versions in case it's a listening and not dancing crowd I can do the intro.

I can also start with the hook and then go into the first verse. Often people recognize songs by the hook, and the quicker they recognize it, the faster they will respond.

I can put the key in the best key for us so we can sing it at its best.

I can lengthen slow songs because for my market 2.5 minutes isn't long enough. 4 to5 is optimal.

I can speed it up a few BPM because for live performance, it adds energy. This is something I've learned from all the live bands (no backing tracks) I've ever played with.

And by mixing in mono and having the bass and drums on a second channel, but tweaking the midrange pot, I can pump up or down the snare, or using the gain pot bring up or down the core rhythm section.

This all works for me, and it is my current way of doing things. It has evolved through the years as I find ways that solve problems I had and work better for me. It might not be the way for anybody else, and I might change it again at any time.

Insights and incites by Notes

A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY. The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game?

The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun. He explains, I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vise versa.

Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now agitated, says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5.00, and, if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.00."

This catches the blonde's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The blonde doesn't say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer.

Okay says the lawyer, your turn. She asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?" The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworkers, to no avail.

After an hour, he wakes the blonde, and hands her $500.00. The blonde says, "Thank you," and turns back to get some more sleep.

The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, "Well, what's the answer? "Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Hoping for clear weather.

Thanks for the alert!