Bad Penny

[Dillinger]

http://www.execpc.com/MrShannon/rc-mp3/ - free program for batch converting WAVs to MP3's or vice versa...

Acid is a great program - I travel a lot and have it on my laptop when I can't have my whole studio with me - I can use it on the plan. Its a blast. I believe it will let you save MP3's as well - if you've got the pro version. Sonic Foundry also makes a program called Sound Forge which is an excellent audio processor - if you get the CD Architect Plug-In you can use it to burn cd's to red book specs from within Sound Forge and it does all the converting for you. Plus - Since all 3 programs are by Sonic Foundry they also interact and link with each other.

 

[Dillinger]

Re: Back at ya Dill......

My interest is semi-pro and major hobby - though it doesn't sound like I have quite the investment in time, knowledge or money as you currently have.

Yes.. I've converted form all analog to mostly all digital over the past few years - though I've got a Mark of the Unicorn 1224 analog to digital converter which works in conjunction with a card in the computer that lets me convert and record any analog source (synth, mike, guitar, etc) right ontot he hard drive. You need a FAST process, lots of RAM and lots of hard drive space.

Ah... the knowledge - my first career - two degrees in music composition actually - but sure didn't bring in much money in the long run...

I've got a Fostex FD-8, a few pretty good mics, a couple of processors (old Korg Digiverb, BBE, dbx163) a bunch of guitars and a bass, working all off cans at home. Oh Acid on the lap-top here. I run the guitars direct through a new Pod Line-6.

Nice set up! The great thing is once you have everything set up you just play and record when inspiration strikes... I'm constantly tweating the computer, settings everything - I hope to get to the plug and play point...

Down in our VA condo I keep all the old stuff set-up - old (but still amazingly good) Tascam 246, Yamaha piano, a bass amp etc..

Sounds great for live jams. I haven't played in a band - or with anyone in years - and I really miss that!

...but the lure of Corporate beneies was too strong - a good thing too. In the end that road is way rough for most who choose it.

I know exactly how you feel!

Due to my schedule - my learning curve regarding my audio eneavors is never where I'd like it to be. I just recently ripped my first MP3's. I would like to build a joke-like, Sparky Kronkite website and have my MP3's on it - you got any good advise or places to visit on the web for such info?

My schedule doesn't allow too much time either for music - that's why I love the programs I can run on my laptop and use on the plane or in the evenings back at my hotel... except it seems that in the evenings all I do is spend my time here on the BB!

Check out http://www.garageband.com - great place - my stuff is there and doing very well... the site explains itself - but if you want I can tell you more...

 

[R Nitelight]

Mornin', Sparky.





Sorry. I was feeling nostalgic.

 

[Cheri]

Spark, visiting this thread is like coming over to your casa for dinner (you are cooking, right?) and then like sitting round and listening to everyone afterward. Oddly enough, I'm usually the quite one sitting in the middle of everyone listening to the conversations and seeing how everyone hold their bodies as they move around and chat. It's like some secret riddle to figure out, how they really feel and what kind of interest they have in the person they're talking to. So fascinating....

As for the shooting, I have to disagree with you there dude, morals are not institualized and they can't be. Sure schools can say, treat everyone with respect but they sure as hell can't enforce it like the no smoking rules, can they? And you know what, they shouldn't have to. Morality, humanity, empathy need to be things we discover for ourselves not memorize for a pop quiz. Now just now that is done, is not something I know. I do think that mainstreaming disabled children is a good step. Kids need to see that everyone isn't exactly the fucking same. Maybe another would be volunteerism. It's hard to harden your heart to the pain of others when you're working for them.

Honestly though, I just don't know. It saddens me for those victim's families and even that poor kid. Was life really so bad, that this was the only choice he had? Why wasn't there someone he could talk to? Damn.

 

[Flagg]

Flagg sent me a request for my CD by the way.

To which response there was none.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Flagg?

I actually typed a reply saying simply - you send it you got it - hit send and crashed out of hotmail. Fuck! I had crashed out 3 times and I got frustrated and decided to reply today from work. So now you know. Send it on.

By the way this morining I discovered I had both 4.0 and 5.0 on this lap-top and figure they were what might have been the problem - I booted 4.0 and things seem better for now.

Sometimes I just don't understand the intermintent stability of this shit. Why? I want it like my phone - or ATM's.

Morning R - how's Jersey after the big storm? And hey I was thinkin' - you got a thick Joyzee accent? I thought that if you did I would insert that into my brain when I read your words.

Dill - do have all that Sonic Foundry stuff but still figuring it all out. Let me know of your favorite Loop disks. Maybe we can (in a whisper) "you know - copy and trade" some. Where are you? In the deeper snow (we got nothing) up in Boston?

Cheri - I think semantics are getting in the way of us agreeing for the most part. Institutions, to me anyway are very flexible, they have to be to allow growth - if they aren't flexible then they are not an institution - they are a prison. Memorization is never learning. Teaching, true teaching is always from the heart and to the heart. Teacing is feeling. Learning is feeling. And all that is best of course.

Good morning everyone. Cocktale? Coffe? Tea? V-8?

 

[Purple Haze]

Of course I play bass with the fingers, I use a pick once in a while but the fingers produce a thicker, woodier tone. I've never been one to do acrobatics on the bass, I prefer a supporting role, filling the holes, simple bass. I hate fancy bass players, get a guitar or a sax I say.

Great bass player? Give me Dee Murray (he's dead now), he used to play with the Elton John Band in the old days.

Now I find out you're a soundman, oh god I've been haunted by soundmen most of my playing days, as a matter of fact there were a total of five sound men fucking with the mix at this last gig I played. One of the reasons I quit playing regularily, soundmen have overcomplicated the whole thing, removed the purity of the tones, sticking a mike on everything in sight and getting buzzes and noises from unknown sources.

Good soundmen? I've met one or two.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

PH? Not me bubba......

Too much work - that's recording studio, live recording or large venue shit. In clubland you just don't have to go too fucking nuts - and you shouldn't.

It's hard enough to get a single/solo vocalist sounding right - here are my rules on club dates.

1) The KISS method, for everything on the gig is always best. Have the drummer down size his/her kit. Keep guitar changes down. Always, always, always - the simpler the group the easier and most often better will the sound be.
2) Use as few mikes as possible - which all depends on the size of the club, stage area, the designated listening/audience area, the sonic medium of the band (rock, punk, accoustic, jazz, country) - the club manager's preferences (read here the neighbors) - and the sophistication of the house system (if there is one) or your road system.
3) Try you damnedest to keep the stage level down and controllable. This means dealing with performers with bad ears from years of sonic abuse on stage (I did Bobby Bare's monitors for the Smithsonian once and he was damn near deaf, the monitor mix was so god damn fucking loud it could cut hair, it blasted the back wall of the stage and flew back into the first half of the house - the time delay between the house speakers and the monitor back-wash fucked everything.) And performer ego's (I've had bassist that "need to feel my chest cave in man!" I've had guitarist who want to blast-out to impress some chick in the front row. And worst is the drummer who has no self control - I had a Keith Moon type, he was great but, but, but - he was an uncontrollable emotional basher - he went through 8/10 pairs of sticks a night, his snare rim needed replacement every few gigs. Emotion is good but not all the time, not if you loose control in small clubs. This particular drummer "drove the band" - sure he did - right into sonic fucking oblivion! The bass player had to turn up to match the drum bashing, then the guitarist had to turn up - so the stage level "just from the non-reinforced (all musical mics down) drums and the guitar amps" was way too huge. The club was too small to handle it, the stage was small too - and in the end? Lost vocals. "What vocals? I see my guy moving his lips but..." Totally fucking out of control. If musicans can't play for the room - they aren't musicians.)

[Quick story - I did the surviving members of Bob Wills Texas Playboys once - oh about '77/'78 or so. Guys who have played some of the worst God Awful road houses in the country. They told me they had played places where you had to hang your gun-belts on a hook by the door. They had played millions of times behind chicken-wire. All sizes and shapes of stages and venues. This was a pretty fancy gig - again for the Smithsonian (they were attempting to capture, for the record, any and all American musical styles whose originators where dieing off - before they left us) and I naturally put monitors in front of them. Elden Shamblim and Leon McCallife said, "what are those?" They had never played on a stage with monitors before. They told me they "simply listen to each other play" and had me remove the monitors from the stage. To me - "these guys are/were great musicians," because they listened to the room and they listend to the stage and they listened to each other - "they made" the adjustments. And they made my job easy. They sounded great.]

4) You're paid for your ears and your ears alone - mandate and dictate - take control - most musicians in local bands have egos that only allow caring about "their own" musical voice - most "friends of the band" have one particular thing/voice (their brother) they want to hear in the mix. You, as the sound man - should know the priorties (in a club, live, it's a rare venue/space where everything comes together perfectley, that perfect shit's for the studio) - the sound man should know the matierial, this pop song "needs the words heard" or "this song has a meaningful guitar solo," etc.. No guests in the booth (unless they are silent babes) and always keep a "guest mixer adjustment tool" (mine was a ball-pean hammer) on hand, for the occasional insistant asshole who knows better. No girl friend, no wife, no agent, no studio mixer/producer - knows better than you. They all have an agenda contrary to yours - which is getting a realistic, practical (considering everything that's against you) sound to the audience.
5) If singing's involved, the priorty is articulation and level in the stage monitors (if the club has them) and then, the same in the house - EQ always, always, always comes last. You can fuck around, fuck around with a kick drum EQ for fucking ever. No! Don't waste time. Which brings us to the next to the last last one.
6) Tone on individual instruments is iceing on the cake - if all the other priorities have been met - you can then play with the tone - other wise run the sucker (the board) flat and let the guy play with the EQ on his amp.
7) Get as much sound check/rehearsal time as you can with as many band members as possible. Try to have the drummer show up first if you can, before the others, then the bass player, etc.. If the assholes show up late and don't get a real sound check - ask for your cut (cha'ching $$$'s) up front and remind them that they are scum musicians who only give a shit about hoving blow before the gig and getting their dicks sucked after the gig.

Yes - I was Uber sound man - once upon a time. Did school with Wally Heider, met Doctor Bose (hated him), even did time behind the board with Dan Healey and the Dead, only all I did was drink Heinekin with him and listen.

In the end - not a pretty life. Not good for the family.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

This is a true story and it won the 1999 Criminal Darwin Award!

This is why attorneys (including judges) and insurance companies are ever so popular.

A Charlotte, NC man, having purchased a box of very rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against fire, among other things. Within a month of having smoked his entire stockpile of cigars, and without having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the man stated the cigars were lost “in a series of small fires.” The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The man sued … and won!

In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed that the claim was frivolous. He stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire, without defining what is considered to be “unacceptable fire”, and was obliged to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he had lost in the “fires”.

HERE COMES THE GOOD PART!!

After the man cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON.

With his insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning insured property and sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Raymond Burr, life-long closeted gay and shit eater.

http://members.es.tripod.de/VanesaVN2/rb5.jpg

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

For my personal perspective on Ray......

See this old thread. (for Newbies only.)

http://www.literotica.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=15280

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

What happens when?

Like for instance - on Lil'Brandi's thread - the "counter digits" on the "views" get to large to fit? Not enough space?

What happens then?

 

[*bratcat*]

sorry spark...

 

[Todd]

Re: What happens when?

Like for instance - on Lil'Brandi's thread - the "counter digits" on the "views" get to large to fit? Not enough space?

What happens then?

The sopace will stretch as it does with to long titles or user names

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Thanks Todd.

bratcat? Your difficulty is my ease. Sorry you don't like. But I am here to stay. Unless I run out of my room and yell and then run right back in.

It's scary out there.

 

[TN_Vixen]

sparky spark spark

heyya dollface, howzit going here in your l'il excluded world? seems not so good since I've seen you out and about playing on the board.. yeah, those DO count there darlin' so you've already gone against your self-imposed prison-dom and have obliterated this little challenge you set up for yourself. So now what? I came here to read this most important question... where is it? hmmm? ~looking around and spying nothing of importance~ I thought you had some serious words of wisdom to bestow. ;-)

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

It's a "guys night" at my place tonight.....

The Shebabe's in DC takin' care O business....

I love guys nights (but of course I do miss the my adult baby) I grew up in nearly an all male household. No sisters. Don't shoot me - wasn't my fault. But man, when I get the rare opportunity to get my sons, and maybe a few of thier buddies together and watch Texas Chain Saw Massacre or The Matrix and eat ice cream and Slim Jims..... man I just love it.

I'm still somewhere between 12 and 17. Just can't get any older. It's not fun.

 

[TN_Vixen]

not fun?

oh yeah, who the hell are you foolin' there baby?

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Yeah Vix.....

Yes it was a trick. But I will maintain(?)- (you tell oh great spell wizard how do you spell that?

You been readin' any stories on the board? What's good. Please reccommend, I'm home alone.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Whoops! Gotta go change a major pooper!

Be back in a few.

 

[TN_Vixen]

maintain is right darling

and damn, of course I've been reading the stories!!! What kind of girl do you take me for anyway? You should read KillerMuffin's newest story "Blue Eyes" or something like that.. made me just about Diiiieeeee to masturbate and I was reading it at work. hehe

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Thanks Vix, you are a Queen....

No I have not been reading the stories - part of this whole - "I got my own thread" thing - is work and time. I just don't have the time I did this past summer.

No stories for this kid - not lately. And you know I like the group grope stuff. Thanks for the advize. Will check it out KM is brilliant.

As for the diaper change? Thought you all might want to know - big, light golden brown and very clay-like. Don't you just love kids?

 

[TN_Vixen]

sparky, darling, honeypie, sugar

giving up the stories is like giving up icing on a cake! I can't believe you! Poor Shebabe has been suffering for your lack of attention at the story page.

To keep up you have to check the new story section every day or you'll miss out on some fabulous finds!

What ARE you thinking son? Am I gonna have to come up there and hold your..... *ahem* hand?

grins~

 

[Purple Haze]

Ok Spark, you are hired as my soundman, but you have to let me run my fifty watt combo nice and loud so that the tubes bark, spit and snarl. Other than that we'll get along just fine.

I saw you run out of here, your pledge means nothing anymore. You might as well start a few threads,

Got some poetry, man?

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Ah, I just had to put the most punkster to bed....

Went down like a pro-dive worth thousands. Man! I can't keep him away from the puter - it's his thing. I let him do almost everything else - I let him play my guitars (hell, he's too young to hurt them and he love it) I let him have all the remote controls (what a pain) he changes the channel, goes into cable modes that I don't know about, etc.. But the puter's got him nuts. He's touched it but..... I don't need baby slime fucking up a $3K lap-top.

Vix.... as for not taking care of the Shebabe? Talk to her. Believe me, she ain't complaining.

PH - there's these things - I'm sure you know - "power soaker's" - Tom Scholtz of Boston had one our for a while but there's other's - they are basically pre-gain/post-gain devices but "for real" - allowing full blown tube distortion at lower volume levels. Still, bass players tend to like "moving air" like I mentioned with the guy I had to work with, he said, "I want to feel it in my chest," or some such shit. Fact is, nothing's going to move the speaker paper except voltage - and that's cranked shit - and that's loud. I often thought - shit, I'll just have some drunk fucker punch the bassist in the chest - you know - give him the feel. The thing about sound - especially in small venues is - you just can't have it all - and it's easiest for the musicians on stage to adapt. Sound ain't that fucking controllable.

That's why I like sound so much by the way - because it's relatively down in the spectrum of things - much more human - it's much more weird/unpredictable and un-mathmatical. The real spooky techs/brains in this world are all audiofiles (on dope) - everything else is much more predictable math-like. Audio is still undiscoverd to a large degree. Audio still has magic shit a happenin'.

That may be why I have trouble with puters - nearly all math. And light too (you know this) light is very finite. Not audio. Audio's weird.

Audio is a feel, a sence, it's taste - it's emotion.

Example: Explain why people dance. Explain it in some mathmatical way. A logical way. Sound, relative to it's enviornment - is still a mystery upon the human psyche.

Hey - Uber Spark has spoken.