DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Apple made a big splash with its iPod Shuffle, the primary feature of which is that it allows users to listen to a playlist in random order:

Random is the New Order

Welcome to a life less orderly. As official soundtrack to the random revolution, the iPod Shuffle Songs setting takes you on a unique journey through your music collection — you never know what’s around the next tune. Meet your new ride. More roadster than Rolls, iPod shuffle rejects routine by serving up your favorite songs in a different order every time.

But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: random order can suck. Sure, your collection of Matchbox 20 or Prince songs can be played back-to-front, in alphabetical order, sorted by length, randomly, or, my favorite, not at all. It scarcely matters.

But if your CD collection looks like this:

…then you’re going to want to listen to songs in album order, the way God and progressive rock musicians intended. (Yes, I grew up with vinyl.)

Fortunately, iTunes can reveal the dark neglected corners of your iTunes Music Library without forcing you to suffer indignities like listening to “Thick as a Brick (pt. 2)” before “Thick as a Brick (pt. 1).” It’s a feature called “Smart Playlists,” which is a way to make a playlist whose contents change moment-to-moment based on criteria you define. In this particular case, the important criteria is to called “Least Recently Played.”

Because iTunes keeps track of the time you’ve most recently played each song in the library, it’s a simple matter to find the ones you haven’t heard in a long time, or more to the point, in the longest time.

So, for the past couple days I’ve been enjoying many hours of music I ripped in 2003-2004 but haven’t listened to since. It’s an equal-opportunity playlist. And it’s a nice break from the stuff I seem to listen to every two days.

Tags: itunes, random, playlist, progressiverock
posted to channel: Music
updated: 2006-04-04 23:50:37

So, I feel like a shill for Office Depot, but I really think this is a great promotion. Office Depot is solving two problems for me at once: they’re recycling my used inkjet cartridges, and they’re giving me free printer paper.

Hmm, is it safe to assume Office Depot is really recycling these cartridges? I hope so.

Update, 2007-02-06: Never mind; Office Depot’s inkjet cartridge recycling program has begun to suck.

Tags: recycling, inkjet, officedepot
posted to channel: Conservation
updated: 2007-02-07 06:15:23

I now know way more than I ever thought I would about chopping and sectioning a 1956 Studebaker pickup truck, courtesy the instructional DVD my brother made with metalworking expert Ron Covell.

Who knew there’s such a thing as welding geeks?

(Yes, this is the same brother that built my custom longboard foot pedals, and my Camaro.)

Tags: covell, metalworking, chopping, sectioning, custom, studebaker
posted to channel: Automotive
updated: 2006-04-02 16:36:24

I need more input channels. My DAW, a Digidesign 002-Rack, has 4 mic pres, 4 line ins, and a bunch of digital inputs I’ve never tried to use because I had no other digital gear.

I’ve been able to maximize the inputs on the 002 via an external analog mixing board, a Mackie 1604, which has 16 of Mackie’s VLZ Pro mic pre’s. In a nutshell, I can use the mixer to combine multiple mics into fewer channels, e.g.: mic 4 toms individually via the Mackie, mix them to stereo, and therefore only consume two of the 8 analog inputs on the 002-Rack. I can effectively mic my kit this way, e.g.: two kick mics (mixed to mono), two snare mics, hi-hat, stereo overheads, stereo room mics. Or: kick, snare, hi-hat, stereo overheads, stereo toms, mono room mic.

Both these approaches, and their varations, are adequate. But for better control, and more options at mixdown, I’d rather capture two kick mics, two snare mics, individual tom mics, plus all the other stereo stuff, and maybe a mic in the stairwell too. You know how it goes.

There are a number of new products that are designed with me in mind: lots of mic pre’s, digital output. After surveying the market I narrowed my choices to two:

• Mackie Onyx 800R
• Focusrite Octopre LE

Feature-wise, they’re very similar:

 +------------+------+------+--------+----------+--------+--------+--------------+
 |                   | Line | Direct | Line     | Phase  | High   |   Phantom    |
 |            | Pres | Ins  |  Ins   | Outs     |Reverse | Pass   |    Power     |
 +------------+------+------+--------+----------+--------+--------+--------------+
 |  Onyx 800R |  8   |  2/8 |   2    | Via DB25 |   8    |   8    |    Indiv.    |
 | Octopre LE |  8   |   8  |   2    |    8     |   1    |   8    | All or none  |
 +------------+------+------+--------+----------+--------+--------+--------------+
 +------------+-------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------+--------------+----------+
 |            |  Word Clock   |           |   Sample  | ADAT Lightpipe| AES/EBU/SPDIF| Mid/Side |
 |            |  In   |  Out  | Bit Depth |   Rates   |  In   |  Out  |    Outputs   |  Decoder |
 +------------+-------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------+--------------+----------+
 |  Onyx 800R |  BNC  |  n/a  |   16/24   | Up to 192 |  n/a  |  Yes  |      Yes     |    Yes   |
 | Octopre LE |  BNC  |  BNC  |     24    |  44.1/48  |  Yes  |  Yes  |      n/a     |    n/a   |
 +------------+-------+-------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------+--------------+----------+

The main difference, according to both manufacturers, is the quality of the pre’s. Of course, both makers claim their pre’s are superior. But that’s always the case.

The price difference is nontrivial — the 800R streets for $1000, whereas the Octopre costs $800 (including the ADAT card).

None of the feature differences seemed compelling. I love the idea of having a mid-side decoder (as on the 800R) because I’ve had issues with phase problems in stereo recording. However, I own only one figure-of-8 mic, a Beyer M-380, and it’s probably not suitable for the sorts of things I’d like to record via mid-side, e.g. my dulcimer.

I believe the Octopre is limited to 24-bit output, which I’d like to be able to use, but if my host or firewire drive can’t manage 13 channels @ 24 bit, I’d need to run at 16 bit. Or buy expensive new computer gear.

So, unable to decide, I bought one of each.

I’ve read positive reviews of both units, but I haven’t seen a head-to-head comparison, which is what I really wanted: sure, both pre’s sound great… but which sounds better?

Tune in for Part II…

Tags: octopre, 800r, daw, protools, shootout, onyx, mackie, focusrite
posted to channel: Music
updated: 2006-04-01 06:32:40

Turns out the source of my hardware problems was a bad stick of RAM — a ~$100 memory module cost me a couple days’ worth of time. Argh.

When the symptoms first started appearing, I had the idea to run memtest, but that requires burning a CD and booting from it — and I don’t have physical access to the machine. Sucks.

This was the beginning of the end:

Message from syslogd@nsb at Sun Mar 19 03:39:23 2006 ...
nsb kernel: journal commit I/O error

After that, the filesystem became read-only:

[root@nsb tmp]# cat /proc/mounts 
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/dev/root / ext3 ro 0 0

which meant logging failed, inbound mail was lost or rejected, and all sorts of other badness.

There’s a fix for the read-only problem, but it didn’t work:

[root@nsb tmp]# mount -o remount,rw /
mount: block device /dev/md1 is write-protected, mounting read-only

The good news is that the Ops guys at the hosting facility transplanted the disk drives into a new host, allowing me to grab the files I didn’t have good backups of.

Anyway, if you read this after having searched Google for one of the error messages above, my advice is to make backups immediately, but be aware that they’ll probably be corrupt. Some component of your hardware is about to make an ugly exit, and it may take your data along for the ride.

Tags: hardware, failure, server, ram
posted to channel: Personal
updated: 2006-03-22 08:11:19