Saturday, August 28, 2004

Appliance Bust

Its been a tough couple of days as a consumer. We bought a new washer and dryer last weekend and they were delivered today. Well, they don't fit. Buy German backfired on us this time around. We have a small laundry room and it looks like the super capacity models just won't fit. After a couple of hours at Best Buy measuring, and measuring again we found some that might work. If they don't we are going to have to stack them. They will be delivered on Monday so hopefully it will work out.

First DSL and now this.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Setting Up Your DSL Connection

Strike One.

I received my DSL install kit today. After the better part of an hour working on my own and another hour with customer support all I have is an opened troble ticket with escalation.

It amazes me anyone has DSL. This is my third attempt in over the years to get DSL and all have failed. We will see if they can get me up and running.

Also, don't you hate when they tell you to perform troubleshooting such as, please shutdown your computer, unplug all the wires, plug them back end, and restart your computer. Like this wasn't the first thing I did before I called you!!!

Stay tuned...

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Sunday, August 22, 2004

DSL vs Cable

This site has been running off of my cable connection. I've decided to attempt the switch to DSL, mainly because my work will reimburse me for DSL service since they are the ISP. Over the next month, if all is successful, I should convert over to DSL.

I suspect upload speeds will be quicker, but downloads will be slower. This is good for users of my site, but bad for my lossless music downloads.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Battle continued

Can you believe it? We won tonight's competition. I am quite surprised. We played well, for us, but listening back to the recordings and watching the video we still weren't 100 %. We had great energy on stage and a nice sound mix so all of the good things paid off for us.

Now the final round is September 11, which is the night of both Edwin McCain, which Jacki and I are going to, and Gov't Mule, which Katie and Mike are going to. I may be selling some Edwin tickets on ebay if we can coordinate times to play on 9/11.

I'm off to bed and quite happy about tonight's small victory.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Battle of the bands

Another battle of the bands took place tonight. We played a great set at jakes toadhouse. It felt good to play one of our best sets, played in front of new people and were even exposed to judges that have grammy and multi platinum credits.

the second band is a hippie jam band. Not a bad band in any way and seem to be hitting it off with the jakes crowd. I think they called honky voodoo.

Who knows if this battle will take us anywhere but regardless its been fun. It turns out the band will make a debut appearance without me monday at smiths. I'm a little bummed I can't join them but hopefully they'll make it through the first two rounds and I can join themn on wednesday.


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from EarthLink.

Day of mourning

Usally I don't have very personal things to write about but yesterday my grandmother passed away. Not expected but not a shock either. We will be heading to the funeral in Louisiana tomorrow. An unfortunate thing about the timing is my daughter's 13th birthday is tomorrow, and definitely not something you want looming over a celebration.

Needless to say The Superlatives open mic performance on Monday at Smiths Olde Bar is cancelled.


Monday, August 09, 2004

Being one with the MIx

This weekend was a weekend of mixing. Or at least learning how. Now that we've finished tracking for 2 of the 3 songs we are currently demoing I decided to invest a little time in the mixing process to see what I could come away with.

After 2 1/2 hours Saturday night I thought I had a rough mix that could use a little work but was a good start. Not being familiar with the monitors at the studio I ended up creating the deadest, dullest mix one could imagine. I listened to the track on several different stereos including my home system with my reference quality NHT speakers. I took quite a few notes on what needed to change and headed back to the studio.

But first a quick trip to Guitar Center to see what books they had that might be able to help. I ran into Ryan, who has helped me quite a bit this past year with my DW drums, and he recommeded I speak to Skip in pro audio. We chatted for a bit, and the guy had some great experience working in the original Capricorn studios and seeing members of the Allman Brothers pass through. He helped me pick several books and then I was back to the studio.

I spent about an hour flipping through the books reading what I could and then thought lets give this a quick run and see what I come up with. Once I again I learned that nothing about mixing is quick. I spent another 3 hours or so and ended up getting 2 mixes that sound fairly nice. I'm also getting to where one mix sounds better in the car and the other at home. I've got a few more tweaks to make but will have a demo mix I'm proud of after the next session.

If anyone in wants to give some tips on mixing please send me an email dhoward@gmail.com


Thursday, August 05, 2004

CNN.com - Space race contender sets launch date - Aug 5, 2004

And the race is on. I have a strange feeling about this second contendor. Hopefully they are truly prepared, but with a recent injection of $500,000 and a bit of a sudden approach I hope they don't put anyone in jeorpardy with an accelerated launch.

CNN.com - Space race contender sets launch date - Aug 5, 2004

CNN.com - Cincinnati lifts 1979�ban prompted by deadly Who concert - Aug 5, 2004

Too me this is big news. Considering the impact it had on The Who and the recent Rockslide incident with Peal Jam I know some of those bands will be torn by this decision. Clearly festival seating needs to be a fun safe environment, however with heavier bands like Metallica, and many of the acts on Ozzfest the fun agression of the pit can quickly turn dangerous for the unprepared.

CNN.com - Cincinnati lifts 1979�ban prompted by deadly Who concert - Aug 5, 2004: "and security personnel also will have to be in place before the doors are opened, and a written evacuation plan will be required"

Sunday, August 01, 2004

The week of concerts

A couple of days ago I saw one of my favorite bands W.A.S.P. Play at the Cotton Club in Atlanta. I decided to go last minute due to the bands notoriety of canceling shows and even tours.

I did a drive by of the venue and could tell the show wouldn't be packed so I parked and went in.
The opening band was over before I walked in which was fine by me. Checking out new metal bands live isn't at the top of the fun things to do list for me.

I noticed the PA was extremely bad, very muddy and no clarity in any of the tunes playing. I figured no big deal. The roadies kept playing with the mics and looked as though they were going through a soundcheck. Evidently the sound on the stage was not any better.

Blackie and band finally came and played a medley of tunes. You could barely hear the vocals but the band seemed into it. After the medley Blackie proceeds to tell everyone the club is ripping people off with the sound and that the band can't hear a thing on stage. The threat was if it wasn't fixed the band was leaving.

They proceeded to play through their largest hits back to back including Wild Child, Animal, The Real Me, I Wanna Be Somebody, Blind In Texas. Almost too good to be true, especially since these are the staples of their set. And then it was over. 7 tunes 35 minutes and 20 bucks later it was over.

Rather disappointing. Turns out after reading their website this tour has been pretty hit or miss. I felt better after reading the longest set of the tour was 12 songs and about 60 minutes. I guess I should only try to get 10 of my dollars back.

Now I'm sitting at hifi buys amphitheater waiting for Rush to go on stage. Rush and KISS are the shows this week. I'm sure they won't disappoint.

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from EarthLink.

Kiss Me over and over again

Yesterday Mike and Katie recorded guitars and vocals most of the day. I thought I was going to run by the studio and re-cut a drum track but that didn't happen. Jacki and Darian tagged along for my quick one hour drum re-tracking and ended up spending the better part of 8 hours at the studio as Katie and Mike recorded.

The good news is we are getting the hang of the ProTools gear and were able to start experimenting with microphone placement. We used a condensor mic from the drum set and were able to get a large full sound out of Katie's Ovation. We also started double mic'ing vocals and the amp for the electric guitar. One mic was close range and used the condensor about 3 feet back to capture the sound of the room. All in all we are getting some great sounds recorded.

We will be tracking background vocals next and should be done with the preproduction tracking for Kiss Me. We may add an electric bass track to complement the acoustic but that will be it for this tune.

The goal is to complete tracking for the preproduction tracks by mid August and perform mix and mastering of these demo tracks the following week. This will allow us to fully familiarize ourselves with ProTools, getting decent sounds, as well as arrangements for the songs. Once we have these three demos we will start the true recording of our cd.

Oh, and when this all said and done I will likely get an engineering credit and possible production credit on the cd :-)


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