Pro Sound Blog

Go to the iTunes music store, or your local music store right now. BUY THIS ALBUM. The Bad Plus is the coolest jazz group to drop in at least 15 years.

mediaguru Musicians

Some asshole from Turkey of all countries has hacked into the forum section of Pro Sound Blog and put his stupid ass “hacked by….” shit in there. He has nuked all the users and posts. He has also nuked my administrator info so I can’t even login to try to fix the site. I can try to find a backup from as recent as I can and restore it but I’m thinking of bailing on the forums. The real action here has always been the blog. In the 11 months or so I’ve done PSB forums there hasn’t been any substantial growth or new users. So unless I find an easy way of restoring the forum section, it is gone.

Sorry.

mediaguru Random

I was doing a post on another one of my blogs and I had to refer to the Loch Ness Monster. So I was googling (is that a word?) trying to find a picture of Nessie. It struck me funny that in the sponsor links on the right of the google search page that I could actually find great deals on Loch Ness Monster on eBay.

mediaguru Random

The rock & roll band I’ve been in for about 20 years was originally a 4 piece band. We had the guitar player/singer, bass player, me on drums and a female vocalist/keyboard player. We had this configuration for a few years, until one day.

We had a gig in Sun Valley. We met at the singer’s house to pack the gear and car pool to the gig. One problem: The female singer was nowhere to be found. We tried to contact her and waited as long as we could. But eventually we just took off for the gig without her.

The gig in Sun Valley was one of the most kick ass gigs we’d had to that point. We found that we weren’t dependent on this chick whatsoever. We were tighter too. And the last great positive of doing the gig without her…we split her share of the dough up.

Let’s see here… Tighter band, less headaches, more dough. No brainer.

We came back into town from Sun Valley and played at one of our regular spots in town which was the premier live music venue. That night we kicked ass and clicked better than any gig we’d done to that point. That show confirmed what we’d expected would be the case: She was out of the band.

For about the next 10 years or so, my band would be the hottest band in the state. Playing as many as 30 gigs per month and sometimes playing two gigs in one day. We performed for hundreds of thousands of people and made tons of dough. All of this without the female singer.

The lesson here? Don’t bail on your band mates or it may end up being your last gig.

mediaguru Gigs, Musicians

“Sennheiser Electronics Corporation introduced a new applications hotline service as the first point of contact for end-users, dealers, reps or internal staff seeking product support, application assistance or technical advice.

Sennheiser’s audio expert, Scott Houston, is the go-to person at the newly created applications hotline. He can be reached by calling (877) 736-6434 extension 182 or e-mailing him directly, at shouston@sennheiserusa.com. Should any of the inquiries need further clarification or sales support, Scott will forward the question to the appropriate product manager or sales associate.”

You mean I can talk to a human? Wow. What a concept in customer service! Perhaps other companies might adopt this policy?

mediaguru Gear, Rants

In the pevious newegg.com posts I was PO’d about their dragging their feet and charging me $27.44 for overnight shipping. I bitched and moaned with their customer service and they agreed to credit me $15.00. I still bitched and moaned and they agreed to refund the entire $27.44.

SO I just got two email invoices from them. One is a credit for $15, and one for $27.44. I’m sure they didn’t mean to do both but what the hell do I care?

In the end they did make it right. End of story (I hope).

By the way, the camera I bought kicks ass.

mediaguru Rants

Space Axe: Theremin like guitar with the same sound chip used in Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Pong, and Asteroids.

“It produces those awesome sounds of the UFO and the approaching aliens as well as other synth sounds . . . It also has a new type of fretboard that contains metal sensors arranged like the frets on a guitar.”

Sounds cool to me.

mediaguru Gear

The Lunar Module from ElectroKraft

mediaguru Gear

My studio world has been all messed up with moving a couple of times and having 75% of my gear in a storage unit. I’ve been operating out of home office setups for a while which is a pain in the ass. Soon I’ll be out of that situation and in my new place….soon.

A client called me and wanted me to do some work on her project. I let her know her master was in my storage unit and I’d get to it as soon as I went over there and got it.

I got it this morning. Not easy to get to. Move the two bikes, lawnmower, tape machine out of the way to get access to the “master vault.” I found her master, put it on the back of my car, locked up the storage unit and headed back to my office.

I get to my office and for the life of me I can’t find her damn master. Then the horror dawns on me. I left her master on the back bumper of my car. Oh shit!

I drove back (about 2 miles) to the storage unit and there was her master on the round just as you exit the unit. There are probably thousands of cars per hour driving down that street and luckily the master didn’t even have one tiny scratch on it. Talk about a good break.

This is all info she’ll never know…

mediaguru Boneheads, Gigs, Random

So in my previous article I told how my order with newegg was taking too long.

I sent in some emails complaining about their delaying processing of my shipment. I got a reply from their customer service stating that my item did ship Friday (yesterday). They informed me that it is company policy for it to take 24-48 hours to process orders. So what? They took 72 hours to ship anyway. For my inconvenience they’re going to credit me $15. That’s fine and dandy. But I still didn’t have the equipment I wanted to use LAST NIGHT.

The other problem with their shipping yesterday is that this is a 3 day weekend. So my $27.44 overnight shipping will take 4 calendar days to arrive.

Here’s their letter:

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. After reviewing your account, we see that your order # 192XXX42 has been shipped on 9/2 with tracking # 7XXX2714561. Please note for future reference that it does take Newegg 1-2 business days to process an order. We do not guarantee the same day shipping.

However, due to this inconvenience, we would like to offer your a $15 credit to cover partial shipping fee. If the order has been delivered, please let us know, we will issue this credit back to the source of your payment method.

My response:

Your 1-2 business days ended up being 3 business days. And due to the fact that you shipped the day before a weekend which also contains a Monday holiday, the shipping will take 4 days. I paid for overnight shipping $27.44 and since you didn’t ship within YOUR OWN specified 1-2 days, that overnight shipping will take 4 days. That is bullshit. So my order which was placed Tuesday with a premium shipping price for overnight shipping will end up taking 7 total days to get to me. Though I appreciate the $15 credit to my visa card and will accept it, I still did not have the equipment which I intended to use last night. Instead, it will arrive 4 days too late.

These kind of policies and dropping the ball are what causes customers like me to take their business elsewhere. I spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on equipment and supplies for my several businesses, all bought through online retailers. I also have great influence through my industry connections and web presences, which enable me to “endorse” companies which I’m satisfied with. After this experience Newegg.com certainly would not be on my list of endorsements, quite the opposite.

There you have it

Make your own conclusion. newegg.com does have some cheap prices. The question is whether or not the few bucks saved is worth the trouble of waiting longer for your order.

Keep in mind as well that my order hasn’t arrived yet. I have yet to make sure the correct items are in the shipment, and that I’m satisfied with their packaging and product…

mediaguru Rants