bitflipper

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.)

I've only missed one gig, back in 1976. That time I was so sick with the flu that I couldn't stand. Luckily, it was a trio with three singers. I only sang half the songs so the other two singers were able to manage without me. The guitarist was inspired by that gig to go solo, and he's been primarily a solo act ever since. A deserving nominee for the Show Must Go On award is Dave Grohl, who broke his leg during a performance and still managed to finish the gig. He did, however, wimp out and cancel the next night's performance.

I found out - after making reservations - that we were staying at the most popular hotel in Las Vegas for suicides.

They are the apex of the genre, no doubt. I like the old stuff best, with the original vocalist - maybe she was a notorious b*tch she could belt like no other and had a huge stage presence. Although the current gal certainly holds her own. I really regret missing them when they were in Seattle, back when they were still playing 1,000-seat rooms.

I found this inspirational. One of my favorite bands. In 2012 their singer got sick and the show was about to be cancelled, with a packed house already waiting. They came out and asked the audience if it would be OK to muddle through the show anyway. Singers from the supporting acts printed out lyric sheets and bravely gave it their best shot. Real pros, every one of them. These aren't easy songs to sing. I know I wouldn't have asked for my money back. https://youtu.be/zH33rNy33iU (Sorry, got a message that embedding this video was prohibited)

Not making this up...I passed by a Ten-dollar Store. "Everything $10 or less!" said the sign. We were on the bus at the time, so I didn't run in to see if they had any expired cereal for $9.99. Sunday's lunch at the Belaggio was $75. Food quality was pretty good, and to be fair the price included all the mimosas you could drink. For those who don't know what a mimosa is (I didn't), the recipe is to take the cheapest champagne you can buy and dilute it with reconstituted orange juice so it's semi-palatable. Turns out, "all you can drink" means approximately 0.1. We even tried adding more orange juice but it still tasted like cleaning solvent. My granddaughter's fitbit says we walked 30 miles in 3 days. Even though my back pain had returned a couple weeks ago, it wasn't slowing me down. I was pretty happy about that, until I realized that I'd been inadvertently popping hydrocodone pills each day. Meant as a just-in-case first aid item, I had put them into my daily pillbox along with the usual vitamins and heart meds, on the theory that that would elicit fewer TSA questions than a baggie. Then forgot they were in there. So it wasn't the exercise that was helping my back after all. That may also explain why I tipped every street musician we passed. Even the guy banging on a plastic bucket.

Well, last night made the whole trip worthwhile. Blue Man Group. Afterward my face literally hurt from smiling all the way through it. I wasn't even high. I'd seen lots of videos of BMG, all recorded in arenas. Last night it was an 800-seat room, really the perfect size for that kind of entertainment. Very interactive with the audience. So much of the show was going on in the audience area that we actually missed some of it due to our front row seats. A great time was had by all. Highly recommended. Yes, Christian, I am in Everett. We actually flew out of Paine Field this time. What a great experience that was. Two minutes to clear security. Didn't bother looking up the gate number, as there are only two gates. Plus it's a lot easier talking someone into giving you a ride to the airport when it's 10 minutes away. Speaking of the pool, turns out $125 just gets you an umbrella. If you want a lounge chair to go with it, it'll be $200. The biggest disappointment: four large pools and every one of them exactly 3.5 feet deep. My granddaughter broke a toenail attempting to swim. At least there was the entertainment value of a thousand tourists baring skin that really should have been better left covered.

Checked out the pool this morning. There is no shade there unless you rent an umbrella for $125. Guess it'll be a brief swim. But you don't have to get out of the pool to buy alcohol. A mere $30 for a cocktail. Good thing a) I don't drink. b) cannabis is legal here, and c) I brought my own from home (yes, the price of pot is similarly inflated here).

Las Vegas used to be the greatest tourist bargain around. At least, as long as you weren't a compulsive gambler. Hotel rooms for $45, all-you-can-eat buffets for $8.99. Shows starting at $20, maxing out at less than $100. That was because gambling used to subsidize everything. When I first came here 40 years ago, there weren't many places where gambling was legal. That's no longer the case; I have half a dozen Indian casinos close to home. As gambling revenue went down, Vegas compensated by shifting to more conventional tourist offerings and started nickle-and-diming the rubes. I arrived last night and already I've spent $40 for the cab ride (~ 2 miles), $37 for a tuna sandwich and a hamburger, $18 for two coffees, $10 for a $3 cigar, $36 on bottled water. And of course, those cheap hotel rooms are a thing of the past - $1600 for two rooms for three nights. This will probably be my last trip to Las Vegas. Disney World has become a better value. So why the f am I here? Making good on a promise, I'd promised my granddaughter I would take her to Vegas when she turned 21. We procrastinated. This week she turned 33. So we figured it was time for her to cash in on that promise. It's her first time here, and she's digging it. I would, too, if somebody else was picking up the tab. But I'm making a point of not bitching about prices, so as not to spoil her fun. Tomorrow night is Blue Man Group. We have seats down front in the "poncho section". Should make the whole adventure worthwhile.

The first time I produced any audio on a computer there was no sound card involved, just the built-in speaker of the Apple ][. I had some software that could encode audio using pulse-width modulation, a very clever way to make the primitive off/on gated speaker do more than just beep. The audio was barely recognizable, but immense fun nevertheless. A computer game called Castle Wolfenstein utilized the trick to add voices to the game. A couple years later, I bought a rather expensive synthesizer card called an Adlib. I couldn't do much with it, although at least one computer game, King's Quest, could use it for background music. Next investment was an 8-bit Soundblaster, mainly because it had a lot of support with computer games. I was recording through all those years, but to a 4-track reel-to-reel. The computer played no part in the process beyond displaying lyric cue sheets. Until 1988, when Cakewalk 1.0 let me create elaborate MIDI sequences and mixes. Even though that was a world-changer, I gave up recording for a long time in order to become a full-time workaholic. Plunging into work had its rewards, some financial but others not as welcome. Such as my first heart attack in 2005. That forced a drastic realignment of priorities, including bringing music back into my life. I reckoned Cakewalk had probably continued to improve their product, so looked them up and discovered SONAR. I ordered SONAR 5 Power Studio from Sweetwater because it came bundled with a Roland interface. That thing was pretty awful, to be honest. Fortunately, it just stopped working one day, forcing an upgrade (MOTO 828).

A review in Polyphony magazine, c. 1988 IIRC, for Cakewalk 1.0. I think Craig Anderton wrote that review, but haven't been able to get him to confirm it. I got very excited by the prospect of a MIDI sequencer on my computer, but Cakewalk was selling for about $300 and that was a financial stretch for me on a $30k/year bit-flipper's salary. As luck would have it, I went to Los Angeles to visit a customer there, a little chain of 4 music stores called Guitar Center. Made friends with the IT guy, who offered to get me Cakewalk at the employee discount - $79. I was far from home, so had to be content to repeatedly reading and re-reading the Cakewalk manual until I got back. Even then, I couldn't use the software right away, because PCs didn't come with MIDI interfaces back then, so I first had to go out and buy one. I already had two MIDI-equipped synthesizers, a Jupiter 8 and a Juno 106, and added a Yamaha TG-33 soon afterward. Audio was rendered onto a TEAC 3340S so I could add acoustic instruments and vocals, then mixed down to a Pioneer 2-track. All I had for drums was a crappy TR-808, which I used mainly for click tracks. Most of my compositions did not have drum tracks because I so despised the sound of that 808. Who'd have guessed it would be considered a "classic" today?

First episode of three..start saving up for the big auction...