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The Sound of Christmas

I could consider my Genelec system an [early] christmas gift for myself. It’s a pair of 8030A monitors matched with a 7050B subwoofer.

Actually, I already had the 8030s since late October and didn’t plan on getting a sub as the 8030s could stand on their own. But since the stocks for the sub were arriving December, I had time to think about 1 And more importantly, save up for considering getting the sub. So I guess the sub is really the Christmas gift in that context

However, there is one more toy arriving which will complement the system, and which I’m most excited about. It’s the JBL MSC-1 monitor system controller.

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Notes

Notes
⇡1 And more importantly, save up for
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How stupid do they think we are!?

So Denon’s selling digital interconnects at 500 dollars a pop. Cable is 5 feet btw in case anyone’s interested.

It’s basically an ethernet cable, which could be had at $3 at that same length. Yeah, it’s the same shit you use to connect your computer to broadband internetz.

I had tears in my eyes (from laughing) after reading one of the comments/reviews:

If I could use a rusty boxcutter to carve a new orifice in my body that’s compatible with this link cable, I would already be doing it. I can just imagine the pure musical goodness that would flow through this cable into the wound and fill me completely – like white, holy light. Holding this cable in my hands actually makes me feel that much closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I only make $6.25/hr at Jack in the Box, but I saved up for three months so I could have this cable. It sits in a shrine I constructed next to my futon in Mother’s basement.

I only gave it four stars in my review because I can’t find music that is worthy enough to flow through this utterly perfect interconnect.

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

I remember the time when I asked myself where all the men have gone after watching 300. It seems the world today has become so scrupulous that everyone has been “pussy-fied” that they don’t stand up for their beliefs without having a overall idea of the repercussions first.

I’ve seen many people who have become so inconsistent with their principles that they only stick to their guns if they know they can win – other than that, they’d rather play it safe and kiss some ass if need be just to stay in the game. Those people make me sick.

The Spartans on the other hand, put up a good show of sticking to their guns regardless of what fate awaited them.

But today, one of the most popular news sites in the internet, Digg; which has been recently under attack by its very users – for compromising their democratic principles – has finally made a decision.

Founder Kevin Rose had this to say:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on, Kevin

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A [not so] definitive guide to common audio interconnects

Here’s a very useful post for the travelling audio person.

In BukasPalad, whenever we have performances we usually are dependent on whatever soundsystem the venue has. Knowing how 3rd-world countries work, most of these soundsystems’ equipment and technicians are far from professional. But we’re broke so we just have to live with it I guess.

Aside from worrying about what microphones we have available, the next most important thing was always to make sure their system can play our minus-ones (if need be). This usually meant we had to conenct our iPods (cuz were high tech hahahaha joke) to the PA – and that’s were everything can get lost in translation. I remember the trouble we had in finding the correct plugs and jacks to connect whatever we had, to whatever they had. There were times I would say “yung malaki” (the big one) when I referred to the 1/4″ plug, or “pang-headphones” (for headphones) when referring to a 2.5mm plug; just so I could make them understand the type of adaptor I wanted.

So with that, I’ve taken the liberty of distilling the long text from wikipedia articles and explain what you need to know to communicate what you need to whichever venue sound-technician you talk to. There are a lot of alternative names for these common audio interconnects, and I will attempt to consolidate in one post, the different names used – which I’ve come across over time.

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Some audio mumbo jumbo

After much research on the safety of trying to connect an unbalanced 1/4″ jack (TS) to a balanced, phantom power enabled XLR input on my mixer using a simple interconnect adaptor, I decided that I should just invest in a DI (Direct Injection) box – which will solve the problem beyond any reasonable doubt.

Considering mixers have 1/4″ jacks (which support both balanced or unbalanced inputs) anyway, you may be thinking why go through all the trouble of trying to connect a naturally unbalanced instrument cable to a balanced input? Read More