The big box goes down
Comp USA is closing 105 stores. Gee I wonder why?
If you are in the need of some terrible products and the worst customer service on the planet, you’d better get down there soon. Better hurry so you can take advantage of your final opportunity to be ignored on the sales floor.
The little box
The big box of computer stores is going down. Hmmm… This is a chance for the little box to gain some ground, which is good.
mediaguru Rants
I’ve added a new category: “Why ProTools Sucks.”
This section will be where I voice my opinion about Digidesign’s ProTools digital audio recording hardware/software. ProTools has become the industry standard in the recording world. It’s the buzz word everyone always knows.
But in my opinion there are many systems out there which can do what ProTools does, even better. Add that to the fact that you can get these systems for a fraction of what ProTools costs… Customer service? Yeah well i remember calling a 900 number for my ProTools questions, paying $3/minute, being on hold for 47 minutes and then getting asked “did you plug it in?” There goes $150 bucks… But if you have thousands of extra dollars to waste on an overpriced recording system, I guess you can pay $150 bucks to be on hold for 47 minutes.
CAN’T SELECT MULTIPLE MARKERS
I’m editing this book on CD. It’s a 350 page book where the author has read the entire thing. The author has a speech impediment and screws up constantly. So there are over 3000 markers in this ProTools project, each is an edit or fix that needs to be done.
I’ve got the book edited and now I need to get rid of most of the 3000 markers and put new ones in. So about 2800 of the markers need to be deleted. Should be easy, right? Just select a marker, hold down the shift key, then select the end of the group you want to delete….right? WRONG. You can’t select multiple markers in ProTools. You can delete ALL the markers, but you can’t say select 30 of them and delete them, leaving the rest.
I have the choice of deleting all 3000 markers, and losing the 200 I want to keep. Or I can delete 2800 markers, one at a time. Oh you can’t just hit the delete key when you have a marker selected either. You have to select the marker, then use a pull down menu to select “clear marker.” This process would take me close to 10,000 mouse clicks on this project. Is digidesign willing to pay my doctor bill for ligament damage which I’ll incur from clicking my mouse so many times?
mediaguru Rants, Recording, Why ProTools Sucks
I’ve had a very busy few days. I’m beat. I was finally had a chance to relax for about an hour and a half and have some dinner before I had to go play a gig at a really crappy club. I dragged myself away and got to the gig to find that there was an opening act. If I’d have known this nugget in advance I could have stayed home for another hour and a half rather than sitting in a damn smoke filled bar which only had people that were all tatt’d out (lots of tattoos).
I can think of many things I’d rather do than sit there breathing cigarette smoke looking at ugly chicks covered in tattoos…
The club sucks. My singer apologized for booking the gig and I took the opportunity to let him know that I don’t want to play there again…
mediaguru Gigs, Rants
So I’m working into the rotation at the big studio. Right now I’m not getting the most “prestigious” gigs.
I’m working with a hack acoustic guitar player and I just can’t get his guitar to sound very crisp. I’ve got a friggin’ $8000 Neumann microphone on this guy’s guitar and it sounds terrible. No crispness at all. It sounds like the mic is across the room pointing the other direction.
I go in the sound booth to see what is up. Maybe the guy took his shoes off and hung his shoe on the mic?
All thumbs
As it turns out, this guy is paying $100/hour to record his acoustic tracks and he’s playing the guitar with the meat of his thumb. DOH! I asked “where’s your guitar pick?” and he says “I don’ t use one.” Hmm… I say “that’s probably why it doesn’t sound very crisp.”
Later in the session when I go to set up an auto-tuner on his vocals I ask the same guy what key the song is in. “I don’t know” is his answer. So I ask “what chord are you playing on the last note of the song?” “I don’t know” again. The guy is self taught, doesn’t use a guitar pick, and doesn’t know what a chord is. He was playing a bastardized G chord…
Normally I’d say “kill me” in this situation, but I’m glad to have a gig at this point so no worries. Just get a friggin’ guitar lesson before the next session please…
mediaguru Musicians, Rants, Recording
Man there are a lot of poor musicians. Even the famous jazz musicians don’t make a lot of money. Yet “JayZ” (or however you spell it) made $34 million last year and is the richest rapper. For those of you rappers out that that mean he’s “stackin’ bank.”
Terrific news. Now all the hip hop losers out there who don’t know how to speak English, don’t know how to wear a hat straight and don’t know how to keep their damn pants above their ass crack will all be thinking they can be a millionaire. Boy are they in for a shock. Unfortunately we’ll all have to put up with their shiznit.
mediaguru Rants
A record company forced YouTube to remove about 100 videos of the web’s most popular guitar teacher. They said that the teacher was violating copyright laws. How? He was teaching people how to play a Rolling Stones song.
WTF?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11778602
Next thing you know the RIAA will be shutting down all the music instruction places in the country for violation of copyright when they teach drummers how to play Neil Peart or guitar players how to play Van Halen.
I’ve got an idea for the music companies. Stop producing crap albums with one hit wonders. Stop price fixing and charging us 17 bucks for a CD that cost you .40 to make. Don’t get me started. They have themselves to blame, not the internet. People download music because they don’t want to buy nine shitty songs just to get one good one…
mediaguru Rants
I don’t know if it was the back pain last night which made me start thinking of quitting the band… I had this a couple of years ago and took six months off and that refreshed me last time. I don’t think this is the same issue though.
Limited set list
During the last set of the gig last night I was wondering what the hell I was doing there. Ever since we got our new bass player the gigs have been all the same. She has only learned about 1/3 of our set list and that 1/3 she only knows enough to pass through the tunes. There are still lots of notes she’s missing and she just isn’t as solid and aggressive on the bass as my old bass player and great friend. Her tone and playing is wimpy.
Same old same old
We’ve been playing the same damn gig at an “ok” club forever. We’ve been getting decent crowds and making a few bucks at this place so that’s not the problem. The problem is the gig is getting very boring. When you only have a small number of tunes to pick from, which aren’t played as well as they could be, and you combine that with playing at the same damn place for the same damn crowd of drunk smokers it gets pretty monotonous.
Right now I’m thinking if the new bass player doesn’t learn the current tunes better and learn the rest of the set list by the end of the Summer, and if we don’t find a new place or two to gig, I’m out. I may not make it that far but that’s my plan. Maybe it’s my time to go find a different gig anyway. Maybe a jazz group…
mediaguru Gigs, Random, Rants
Man there are times when you just need to bail. This is one of them. This client is the pickiest pain in the ass I’ve had all year and for what? So I can try to make this junk play? You gotta be kidding.
I should have bailed when she brought in the 8 track with BUILT IN SPEAKERS and no line outs.
Gig description
Fix 8 track tapes. Break open the shells and then splice together tape more frail than Karen Carpenter’s remains in the hopes it doesn’t just fall apart again.
Transfer fixed 8 track tapes via player with no outputs to CD. Oh what just put a mic in front of the speakers on the 8 track? Oh man.
For good measure transfer an old 78 from 1963 which has creases in it and only plays about 3 seconds before it goes haywire.
All this while the picky client is asking millions of stupid questions…
Kill me.
mediaguru Random, Rants, Recording
Yo. Wutup G?
I’ve managed to keep myself away from the rap scene lately. No rap recording projects. But my latest video gig with this rapper just reminds me how old and tired the whole baggy pants and hat on sideways thing is.
Memo to rappers
If you think you are cool because you say “nigga” and “motha fucka” you’re not.
If you think you’re cool because you say “biotch” and “bust a cap in yo ass” you’re not.
If you think you’re cool because you say “bust a nut in a biotch’s ass” you’re not. I’ve seen your “biotch” and I wouldn’t do her with someone else’s dick…
Let’s try something new shall we? That shit is old.
mediaguru Rants
I guess I have a price. I can be bought. I’m a media slut.
I started the shooting of a rap video today…
mediaguru Gigs, Rants