Hello! I actually got a comment a while back, which in a way proves that I have at least one reader. So, mister-one-reader, and potentially any others I've picked up along the way, I've have a message. I've realized that writing isn't really as fun or expressive for me as music is.
I've played piano for about 8 years and have been writing songs for the last 3. In the past few months I've been learning guitar, but don't ask how that's going. Anyways, I'm moving my blogging efforts over to YouTube, where I'll be posting videos and such. So far, this one's been the most popular:
Yeah, yeah, URLs, here you go: http://www.youtube.com/user/ultrafishmaniac
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
My First CD
Way back when I was a little kid and first got into music. I had my sister help me burn a CD out of her library of Dave Matthews songs. Today, I dug up the case of that CD, onto which I'd written the names of the songs. Below, the first 11 songs I ever liked.
The CD is gone, but the list goes:
Grey Street - Creepily enough, I liked this song because it reminded me of my babysitter.
Warehouse - My all-time fave.
When the World Ends - I really loved this song for some reason which escapes me now.
Stay or Leave - I'm pretty sure my sister made me put this on. Possibly the live bonus disc version.
The Space Between
Dreams of our Fathers - This was basically my emo jam.
If I Had it All - I would listen to this while building Legos.
Angel - When I had a crush on a girl in 2nd grade, this song reminded me of her.
Mother Father
Gravedigger (acoustic) - This was probably my sister's idea as well.
7 from "Everyday," 2 from "Some Devil," one from "Busted Stuff," and Warehouse, which was from some live release that I can't remember. Likely "Listener Supported."
The reason the label is all torn up is because I didn't realize how to insert it, so I just glue-sticked it in. Then tore off the edges.
Grey Street - Creepily enough, I liked this song because it reminded me of my babysitter.
Warehouse - My all-time fave.
When the World Ends - I really loved this song for some reason which escapes me now.
Stay or Leave - I'm pretty sure my sister made me put this on. Possibly the live bonus disc version.
The Space Between
Dreams of our Fathers - This was basically my emo jam.
If I Had it All - I would listen to this while building Legos.
Angel - When I had a crush on a girl in 2nd grade, this song reminded me of her.
Mother Father
Gravedigger (acoustic) - This was probably my sister's idea as well.
7 from "Everyday," 2 from "Some Devil," one from "Busted Stuff," and Warehouse, which was from some live release that I can't remember. Likely "Listener Supported."
The reason the label is all torn up is because I didn't realize how to insert it, so I just glue-sticked it in. Then tore off the edges.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Dave & Tim Vinyl is MINE
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sokoband Review
The third release by Charlottesville-based Sokoband, entitled Sokoband, is a step in a new direction from their previously mellow origins. The band took the songs from their debut album, In November Sunlight, and re-recorded and mastered them for what is overall a huge improvement over already great songs.
Music
In November Sunlight was a very jazzy, smooth album that could be described as "easy listening." The new versions of these songs really pick up the pace.
"Jiriki," somewhat of a classic song from this band which features Dave Matthews on vocals, used to be a light, vaguely tropical 5/4 jam with chords similar to "Take Five." The redone version of this adds rock 'n' roll flair, with electric guitar spicing it up and much more lively drums. Over the past years, Dave's voice has declined in some areas and improved in others, and I have to admit, on this track I prefer him in 1996. Still, it's wonderful, and would be fine if I hadn't been spoiled by the old version.
"Energy Change" went through an energy change, and was thoughtfully renamed to "Energy Changed" on the new album. Just like "Jiriki," it gets a heavy dose of electric guitar to bring it closer to rock. In the middle of the song, it even borders on techno. The new recording has a revised baseline which opens up the "sound space" for these new instruments. In addition to this we also find a new transition into the double-time section which makes it seem like a segue into a new song rather than the continuation. This could be either a pro or con, but I like it. Note: The band recently tweeted me mentioning that this is actually the old (1979) version of the song. So it changed back, not forth.
Added to "Coast to Coast" are horns or saxophones (I don't know how to tell the difference). The old version of this song was somewhat repetitive; the melody didn't really "pick up." In its new slot on the album, as opener, it gets it going with solid horns/sax, then mellows down to become like the In November Sunlight version. The sax solo on this track gives the listener a real feeling of adventure. It's exciting.
"And Yet Your Smile" is one of two all-new songs on this album. It's very percussion based. Perhaps I'm just impatient, but I feel like this is a bit drawn out. I would love to see it as a 1-2 minute intro to "Jiriki" or maybe "Body Home."
The other new track, "Nightfall," is also a percussion song. This song, while not particularly outstanding as-is, is a perfect finisher for the album that really cools down the ears well.
There are 5 more tracks on this album that I didn't get to, but trust me, they're all great. This album is one of the better ones I've purchased in a while. It has more guests than band members (17 vs 3), but this gives the songs somewhat of a "communal" feel that is nice to hear. All in all, it's a solid album and is a great introduction to this band.
Sound
Because I'm reposting this at anythingbutipod, I have to add this section.
Non-tech folks, you can skip this paragraph. Let me start off by saying that I listened to this through on my RE0s, which are considered to be fairly revealing headphones, along with mt Cowon S9. I ripped the CD to LAME VBR V0 mp3, which is considered the best setting for mp3. It averages about 230 kbps, but it is VBR, meaning on complicating sections it will jump up to 320k so as low as 32k for silence. To 99% of the population, this sounds exactly like the CD. The CD itself, according to the back, was "manufactured from a solid glass master." I'm not entirely sure was this means, but I presume that a glass master is like a vinyl record, but made from glass, thus overcoming the various problems with vinyl. In addition, I ordered the limited edition copy, which is numbered and signed and costs $2 more. I did this more to support the band than for any other reason, but I think that because mine is numbered 15/25 it is the 15th one made. If my logic is correct, we assume that, like vinyl, glass will degrade with playing, just at a slower rate. Which leads me to believe that I have the 15th best version of this CD. Sweet.
OK, laymen, you can start reading now. The music is mastered, well...masterfully. I usually have problems with the way bass guitar/upright is handled in production, but they nailed it. Just the right amount of twang, and the right amount. (that was a period). With as much brass as they have on "Coast to Coast," one would think that instrument separation would be an issue. In my opinion, the RE0s don't have very good instrument separation, but on this album, the instruments are synchronized so well that I can't distinguish them very easily, despite being channel-split. So, uh, kudos to the musicians for playing in such perfect time that you fooled my ears/headphones.
Dynamic compression is a big issue in music today. This album has a bit of it, whether intentionally or not. It could just be that they didn't choose to have anything stand out that much. I wouldn't know. The compression isn't that bad; you can easily forget about it. Thankfully, the volume isn't jacked up too much; Replaygain tells it to do about -3.5. So yes, it's twice as loud as standard, but a lot of stuff today is as much as 32 times too loud at -15. (15/3=5, 2^5=32). So, good job. Could be better, but as long as your above average, I can't complain. Yet.
So that's that. You can buy the CD as well as download at Amazon and CDBaby, just search for "sokoband." However, to maximize the band's profits, I recommend buying direct from their website, sokoband.com. From their website you can also subscribe to the emailing list and stream the entire album for free. That's also the only place to get the limited edition copy, which is still available at the moment. Thanks for supporting independent music.
MusicIn November Sunlight was a very jazzy, smooth album that could be described as "easy listening." The new versions of these songs really pick up the pace.
"Jiriki," somewhat of a classic song from this band which features Dave Matthews on vocals, used to be a light, vaguely tropical 5/4 jam with chords similar to "Take Five." The redone version of this adds rock 'n' roll flair, with electric guitar spicing it up and much more lively drums. Over the past years, Dave's voice has declined in some areas and improved in others, and I have to admit, on this track I prefer him in 1996. Still, it's wonderful, and would be fine if I hadn't been spoiled by the old version.
"Energy Change" went through an energy change, and was thoughtfully renamed to "Energy Changed" on the new album. Just like "Jiriki," it gets a heavy dose of electric guitar to bring it closer to rock. In the middle of the song, it even borders on techno. The new recording has a revised baseline which opens up the "sound space" for these new instruments. In addition to this we also find a new transition into the double-time section which makes it seem like a segue into a new song rather than the continuation. This could be either a pro or con, but I like it. Note: The band recently tweeted me mentioning that this is actually the old (1979) version of the song. So it changed back, not forth.
Added to "Coast to Coast" are horns or saxophones (I don't know how to tell the difference). The old version of this song was somewhat repetitive; the melody didn't really "pick up." In its new slot on the album, as opener, it gets it going with solid horns/sax, then mellows down to become like the In November Sunlight version. The sax solo on this track gives the listener a real feeling of adventure. It's exciting.
"And Yet Your Smile" is one of two all-new songs on this album. It's very percussion based. Perhaps I'm just impatient, but I feel like this is a bit drawn out. I would love to see it as a 1-2 minute intro to "Jiriki" or maybe "Body Home."
The other new track, "Nightfall," is also a percussion song. This song, while not particularly outstanding as-is, is a perfect finisher for the album that really cools down the ears well.
There are 5 more tracks on this album that I didn't get to, but trust me, they're all great. This album is one of the better ones I've purchased in a while. It has more guests than band members (17 vs 3), but this gives the songs somewhat of a "communal" feel that is nice to hear. All in all, it's a solid album and is a great introduction to this band.
Sound
Because I'm reposting this at anythingbutipod, I have to add this section.
Non-tech folks, you can skip this paragraph. Let me start off by saying that I listened to this through on my RE0s, which are considered to be fairly revealing headphones, along with mt Cowon S9. I ripped the CD to LAME VBR V0 mp3, which is considered the best setting for mp3. It averages about 230 kbps, but it is VBR, meaning on complicating sections it will jump up to 320k so as low as 32k for silence. To 99% of the population, this sounds exactly like the CD. The CD itself, according to the back, was "manufactured from a solid glass master." I'm not entirely sure was this means, but I presume that a glass master is like a vinyl record, but made from glass, thus overcoming the various problems with vinyl. In addition, I ordered the limited edition copy, which is numbered and signed and costs $2 more. I did this more to support the band than for any other reason, but I think that because mine is numbered 15/25 it is the 15th one made. If my logic is correct, we assume that, like vinyl, glass will degrade with playing, just at a slower rate. Which leads me to believe that I have the 15th best version of this CD. Sweet.
OK, laymen, you can start reading now. The music is mastered, well...masterfully. I usually have problems with the way bass guitar/upright is handled in production, but they nailed it. Just the right amount of twang, and the right amount. (that was a period). With as much brass as they have on "Coast to Coast," one would think that instrument separation would be an issue. In my opinion, the RE0s don't have very good instrument separation, but on this album, the instruments are synchronized so well that I can't distinguish them very easily, despite being channel-split. So, uh, kudos to the musicians for playing in such perfect time that you fooled my ears/headphones.
Dynamic compression is a big issue in music today. This album has a bit of it, whether intentionally or not. It could just be that they didn't choose to have anything stand out that much. I wouldn't know. The compression isn't that bad; you can easily forget about it. Thankfully, the volume isn't jacked up too much; Replaygain tells it to do about -3.5. So yes, it's twice as loud as standard, but a lot of stuff today is as much as 32 times too loud at -15. (15/3=5, 2^5=32). So, good job. Could be better, but as long as your above average, I can't complain. Yet.
So that's that. You can buy the CD as well as download at Amazon and CDBaby, just search for "sokoband." However, to maximize the band's profits, I recommend buying direct from their website, sokoband.com. From their website you can also subscribe to the emailing list and stream the entire album for free. That's also the only place to get the limited edition copy, which is still available at the moment. Thanks for supporting independent music.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Famous People
Have you ever met a famous person? It's a blast. About a month ago I met Bill Gates. He's pretty cool.
Anyways, today I met a guy who had met Dave Matthews. (in case you haven't figured it out already, I'm a huge Dave Matthews fan). This guy was one of the main guys from Chickenfoot, which, as you may have guessed, is a band. And he gave me guitar picks. He just took a wad of them out of his pocket and gave me six, from Sammy Hagan, Dave Matthews, and Eddie Van Halen. Yes, you read that right. So, that's what made my day awesome.
In other news, Saturday the 17th is Record Store Day. I'm going to go to a record store and buy a record. Preferably this one.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
foobar2000 review
Foobar2000 is the best piece of software since the launch of Apple Lisa. In short, it's a music player. In longer-than-short, it's the Firefox of media players. I know, that's what Songbird is supposed to be, but, let's face it, Songbird is the biggest failure since the invention of the steam turbine. Foobar offers the ultimate in customization, sound quality (gapless ftw) and equalizability. The 18 (?) band EQ is pretty kickass, allowing even amazing-er sound quality. Customizable hotkeys, with the ability to set them as global, rounds out the experience.
That said, Foobar is not easy to use. It is, in fact, very difficult to use and even harder to customize. It doesn't do syncing for MTP devices, but the library feature works great. For brevity's sake, I will truncate this review and say that it's a definite thing to try and see if you like it. If you need device syncing, get something else.* Overall rating: 936/987 stars. Could be easier to use for the old folks, but otherwise has solid features, great codec support, and customizability aplenty. Awesome software. Bookmark http://www.foobar2000.org/ now.
*Do not get MediaMonkey. MediaMonkey see, MediaMonkey bog down system resources and crash.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
LilyPond Rant
I love ranting. The other night, I was looking for some kind of free musical notation program, like Finale Notepad, but free. I googled it and came across LilyPond. It advertises itself with a warm (and false) slogan: "LilyPond...music notation for everyone." There are two things wrong it this statement. The first one is that it is music notation software. In reality, it is a program that allows one to print out sheet music which can be downloaded from their library. And by the way: "There are now 313 pieces of music avaliable!" In case you didn't catch it, that's nothing. That's only 28% of everything Bach ever wrote or half of all of Mozart's songs. But all that is naught compared to the true lie: "...music notation for everyone." After I downloaded it, it took well over 20 minutes just to install. This must be a nice application, or very graphically based, I think. So I open the folder I installed it to and I can't even find the app itself! I had to look online to find out that it was is ...usr\bin, buried amongst 50 or so .dll files. I open it up and...no GUI! The f***ing app that advertises itself as "...for everyone" has a command line interface! I promptly uninstalled it, a process which took 15-20 minutes. And even still, it didn't even delete anything. I deleted the folder myself, which took more like 15 or 20 seconds.
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