Pro Sound Blog

I had some pretty hard comcast ranting earlier this year when I had problems with their customer service (or lack thereof). Here we go again.

I moved about 2 months ago into a new place. I needed to transfer my Comcast internet and TV service so I called them. They told me I’d have to get my account up to date before the move. No problem, until the told me the amount…

When I inquired about signing up for their service I told them I was using DirecTV and another company for DSL. My DTV bill was about $75/month and my DSL was only $15/month. The Comcast salesman said they had a package that would blow both of those away at $69/month for digital cable and high speed internet. Wow, sign me up!

But when I moved they informed me that my bill for the last two months was in the $300 range. How the hell can it be $300 when you’re paying $69/month for two months? $69×2=$300? It was at that time (about a month ago) that they informed me my comcast bill was close to $150/month. I nearly lost my mind. They just doubled my price with no notification?

I’m happy with the speed of the internet on comcast, but the digital cable frankly sucks compared to DTV. So there’s no way I’d want to pay MORE for an inferior product. I argued with the billing department for about a hour about what my price should have been. They agreed that they’d switch me back to the $69 as long as I paid about $250 to get my account up to date. They wouldn’t retroactively fix my pricing. They’d only agree to sign me up on a special rate for the next 3 months IF I paid the $250.

Ok, fine… I agreed to do that for the next three months, at which time I’d most likely switch to a different provider.

So I talk to Comcast on the phone today about my service not working. They inform me that my current balance is $245? HOW THE HELL can my balance be $245 when a month ago I got it all squared up and I’m paying $69 bucks a month???

Turns out that they never implemented the f’ing special rate last time I talked to them on the phone. So I’m STILL being billed close to $150/month for services they told me I’d be getting for $69. I explain this to the current billing person and he checks the notes in the computer. Sure enough he finds the notes from the last phone call and confirms that yes, my rate SHOULD have been $69.

I say ok, then knock my charges from last month down to where they should be. He says he can’t go back and change it because the database wouldn’t let him. But he’s willing to sign me up at the special rate of $69/month for the next three months. Is this a broken record?

I raise hell with this guy but he won’t budge. He says I can get the new rate starting TODAY but have to pay the other rate for last month. This is bullshit. I’m sick of these ass holes doing this. And the nerve of the guy on the phone who said “well, you’ll be paying the higher rate in 3 months anyway so what’s the difference?” What’s the difference? About $75/month. I told him that in 3 months I didn’t know if I’d be dead or living in Panama….

Comcast sucks. Their TV quality sucks. Their customer service sucks. Comcast are bait and switch ass holes.

mediaguru Rants

I do a little “consulting” now and then for people who can’t figure out why their recordings suck. This is one of those occasions:

This guy has a home studio and he’s got a TON of killer equipment. His gear is top of the line, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. But for the amount of gear he has, he can’t make a decent sounding recording. (Most crappy studio engineers think buying more gear is the answer, but it’s not)…

He has me listen to one of his recordings and sure enough, it sucks. It takes me about 7 or 8 seconds to figure out what his problem is. I reach down to his console and “do my magic.” BOOM! His mix opens up and all the sudden you can hear everything much more clearly!

He starts to freak out. “Wow! What did you do? That sounds so much better! You’re amazing!” I then inform him what a frigging PAN KNOB is. He had all of his channels panned dead center. $50,000 worth of gear and he doesn’t know what a pan knob is.

Someone shoot me now.

mediaguru Boneheads, Recording

One of my buddies is having hum problems in his home studio. He asked some advice on getting rid of hums in the studio. He is Q, I am A:

Q: First of all the outlet I have isn’t grounded, and there is only one in the room. So I know I need to get the electricity grounded.

A: You should have all the gear on the same circuit, and only ONE piece of gear grounded to the wall. Use those little orange lifters on everything else. If you ground to multiple locations that’s where the hum comes from.

Q: It’s still humming a bit if I run an extension from a grounded outlet, so I think that my next course of action would be to replace all the dimmer switches. But would this need to be by the circuit they are on? By vicinity if they are not in the same area?

A: The dimmers may cause a problem if they’re on the same circuit, or if you have guitars and other items which pick up the RF. Turn the lights off and see if the hum goes away.

Q: Route power cables separate from audio cables, and if they have to cross, do it at right angles?

A: If you have shitty cable I guess. I never needed to worry about that. I just had to worry about power supplies getting too close to each other so their magnetic fields interfered with each other. Get rid of the Radio Shack cable and get some Mogami or Canare cable.

Q: Any other suggestions? Have any of you had luck with power conditioners and such? Replace the Alesis RA-100 with a better amp? Run only balanced cable? Add isolation transformers? Buy new cable? Buy cases for the computers that are isolated? Buy LCD displays instead of CRT’s?

A: Maybe the CRTs might cause some problems. Turn them off and see if the hum goes away. That’s a similar situation to the dimmers. I’ve never had to go the power conditioner route. The RA-100 wouldn’t be the problem. Balanced cable can’t hurt, but I’ve had hundreds of unbalanced connections at my place with no hum problems. GET RID OF ALL BAD CABLE, GROUND CORRECTLY AND START FROM THERE.

mediaguru Recording

Sadly, my bass player of 20 years has informed me that he’s moving. I just played my first gig with him since this bummer news. This guy is one of the most genuine, nicest, most sincere people I’ve ever known.

The gig itself last night was nothing to write home about. There were the usual drunk ass holes whole spill their beer in your shoe and burn you with their cigarette. I hadn’t played in a club for a while and I realized how much I HATE cigarette smoke.

The only moderately interesting happening at the gig was a chick who jumped up on stage to sing a song and blew the audience and the band away.

While sitting back there on the drum kit playing rock & roll I often go into my own little mental world. I check the chicks out. I look at the strange people.. I see the tattoos and the piercings, the drunks. I think about my business, my world.

Last night I didn’t think about any of those things (the chicks were all dykes). I came to the conclusion that playing gigs without my bass player, and breathing in all the cigarette smoke is not worth it. It just won’t be the same without my buddy…. When he leaves I’m going to call it quits with this band.

mediaguru Gigs

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mediaguru Gear

mediaguru Gear, Random