Thursday, 29 January 2004

Round and round.... What's on my iPod? At the moment it's "Lone Rider B," a grooving remix from Ottmar Liebert's Euphoria album. So I idly Google the guy and what do I find? Ottmar has a blog, and he linked to me last year. Ottmar also has 8 kids, a solar-powered house, and an iPod of his own. Mine is plugged into a pair of Mackie studio monitors behind my chair instead of headphones. Working from home has its advantages. It's a small world...and as far as mobile listening goes, give these guys a try - they sound pretty amazing for their size. 8:13:25 PM    comment []; The Mountain and the Clock What's new at Long Now? It's been nearly 10 years since Stewart Brand picked up on Danny Hillis' idea to build a 10,000 year clock. Brand co-founded The Long Now Foundation to help Danny build the clock, wrote a book, The Clock of the Long Now. These were initial steps in beginning to address the bigger issue involved: how to get people to think in a longer term, how to stretch out their sense of time Via Another World is Here 3:31:42 PM    comment []; David Hasselhoff defeated communism David Hasselhoff has claimed partial responsibility for the fall of the Berlin Wall Speaking to German magazine TV Spielfilm, Hasselhoff said in 1989, the year the wall fell, he had helped reunite the country by singing his song 'Looking for Freedom' among millions of German fans at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin...."I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Check-Point Charlie. [BoingBoing] That is hilarious! Give the man a Nobel Price at once. And somebody should invent a drink in his name. Call it a Hassel or maybe a Mr. Baywatch. Something icky with melon liquor... The sad truth is that that man used to fill stadiums in Germany as a singer. 2:53:02 PM    comment []; Greatest musician tool..... Why do I think that the iPod is one of the best tools for musicians? Let me be specific - you want the 40GB model and here is what you can do with it: 1. Access to thousands of songs in AAC or mp3 format. 2. Listen to your work-mixes in AIFF format (16bit/44.1khz - no compression). 3. Carry sound files between different studios by using the iPod as a HD. 4. Put an OS X system on your iPod's HD and thus make it bootable. If the studio's computer has crashed, you can start up from your iPod and can still get to the files you have been working on... 5. I hear that in a pinch you can use the iPod as an extra HD for your recording session - in case you are running out of tracks since at higher sample rates you need a separate drive for every 8 tracks of music. 6. Record rhythm loops and store them in AAC or mp3 format. You can use them instead of a metronome. Use one of the iPod earphones instead of both so you can hear your instrument. Classical musicians have special "half-headphones" so they can hear a click or rhythm trackk in one ear and their violin in the other 7. Keep notes on your iPod about the pieces you are working on. 8. Store phone numbers and addresses of musicians you might need to hire for your recording. Now if you could only make your calls with iPod or use it to pay for your drinks or take a picture of the drummer dancing... 9:02:33 AM    comment []; Surround Sound Room for Hire As I have said before, I am not sold on DVD Audio. Primarily because it necessitates a special room in which one or two people have to sit in the "sweet spot" in order to hear all of the beauty of the DVD Audio surround sound delivery of music... I don't see people building houses with an extra "Surround Sound Music" room, except for a crazy few. Yes, I have a window-less room with a B&W THX 5.1 system with Dual Sub-woofers. But, I was lucky, because when I bought the house it had a rather large darkroom, which I converted to a Surround Sound room. Anyway, I think most people will most certainly not build a room or buy all of the equipment. So, is DVD Audio dead in the water? I had an idea the other day. Movie theaters suck, right? The projectionist doesn't focus properly, the sound is too loud or too soft, the floor is sticky from spilled sodas, the seat is full of popcorn and if the movie is rather long you can't pause for a moment to go to the bathroom, stretch your legs or get refreshments. Well, here is where my idea comes in: small surround sound rooms for rent. You pay by the hour, you bring a movie or music on DVD or CD and you sit down by yourself or with your date and you enjoy pristine sound, as loud as you like or as soft as you like. You can pause the movie, if you want a break. Maybe you can order refreshments or drinks..... 8:19:19 AM    comment []; Recording vs Performing When I work on music for a new album I do not consider how the piece would be performed. In fact some of my favorite songs have not been performed, either because they can't be arranged for a touring-size group, or because they are just not songs that I feel would work in front of a live audience. I feel that recording is entirely different from performing. Different process, different approach. Ah, but then there is LIVE recording of a performance which to me is documentation, as it does not follow the same creative process of a studio recording. In other words a LIVE recording is not about recording, rather it is about performing. Let's look at an early example, Barcelona Nights from NF: I recorded 3 or 4 rhythm guitar parts, a melody and a harmony - that's 5 or 6 guitar parts going on at the same time. It would be impossible to perform that song as it was conceived, because although the parts are simple, they do have to mesh perfectly and they have to groove in order for them to work. In other words, a live performance of that song is always going to be something rather different from the recorded version and that's fine by me. In fact, as I mentioned above, I do not feel that the performed version has to be the same as the recorded version. Yes, I could limit my writing to pieces that can be played on one or two guitars, but why should I do that, when it is so much fun to come up with multi guitar-orchestrations... 8:01:29 AM    comment [];

© Copyright 2004 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 01.02.04; 6:31:41.