mydigitalethos

Talkin' headphones today.

For recording I have some Sennheiser HD280s, closed-cans which do a fantastic job. But they really aren't all that great for mixing or just listening to music. So I started looking around...

I'm not a millionaire so that leaves out Grado PS1000s, Edition 8s, or Sennheiser HD800s. So it came down to the HD650s and Beyerdynamic DT880 Pros. Pictured at right is what I finally went with, just couldn't abide the HD650's pricetag right now.

Am I happy with my choice? Very. The Beyerdynamic cans are a joy to listen with so far. In breaking them in the past week or two, I found they are mostly flat or neutral on the mids and other frequencies. Highs are very clear too. Exactly the analytical style you need if monitoring a mix on the cans now and then. I can also detect bass more accurately than with my near-fields too, since I'm in a largely-untreated room.


And it just-so-happens my work earbuds died around this time, so I needed to get some unobtrusive buds for listening @ work. Using large on-ear headphones in a corporate desk-job is not only impractical, but also tends to annoy coworkers. But since I'm enjoying modest audiophile quality at home, I wanted something close to get by with while at work. I looked at high-end Shure SE in-ear monitors and Etymotic E4's all in the $299-$399 range. No way, no-can-do. So I researched and found the closest thing to that quality, for a fraction of the price, are Klipsch S4s. They sound just great. For the price & sound-quality, you can't beat these anywhere. They are a tad bass-heavy for my tastes, but I just rolled that off via my iPod's EQ, and they are 1000x better than cheap earbuds that come with an iPod.

Even if you're on a budget like I am, life is just too damn short to listen to any recorded music on $20 headphones. And, unlike what some gear snobs might tell you, you CAN enjoy decent audiophile quality without breaking the bank. So if you love music, get good cans and music will love you back.

One last note. It's well-known that introducing very basic crossfeed to your headphone soundstage gives you a more "speaker-like" listening experience, and reduces ear fatigue too. So I've started using a using a really good $10 crossfeed plug-in called Canz3D on long headphone listening forays. Great for mix-auditioning too, though NO substitute for mixing on decent monitors of course. But for Christmas, for my work headphones, I might just snag this headphone amp which sits in between your MP3 player & headphones, giving you a nice crossfeed.

Until next time. Happy listening...

Wow, it's been forever since I posted anything remotely related to my IT job. But here you go.

Issue: Microsoft retired the "WebDAV" prot from Exchange 2010.
What it breaks: when you move your corporate Mac Entourage users to Exchange 2010, they can no longer access mail.

Fix: Buy Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, coming out in a couple months.

Workaround until the fix comes: Mac users can use OWA or OSX's own native "Mail" app.

Yep, as far as Mac's go Apple beat Microsoft to Exchange 2010 mailbox-access compatibility. Heck, Mac folks may even prefer accessing their mailbox via Mac Mail.

Personal note: this was for a our upcoming Exchange 2010 migrations, and NOT for my home studio Mac. As a rule I NEVER check work mail when grooving.

Later this month my friend Joe Gilder, who runs the awesome blog Home Studio Corner, is releasing his new solo album called "Out Of Indiana". You can get a pre-release sampler here, or go on over to Noisetrade.com where it was #1 album and is still rocking the landing page. Pretty cool considering it ain't out just yet.

I enjoyed early listenings of the tracks when Joe generously allowed this album to be used for mixing exercises for subscribers to MixWithUs.com. I can tell you it's a really great album and I enjoyed each song on it, but you should snag the sampler to see for yourself or pick it up later this month. If you like good music, I promise you will dig it.

Joe plays just about all the instruments including some awesome acoustic/electric, mandolin, and a host of other things. His bro-in-law Joel was on deck with some great bass guitar as well. In addition to being an awesome performer, Joe is one hell of an engineer: he tracked & mixed this thing at home, in keeping with his HSC blog's mission, but you'd practically never know it.
So check out the free sampler @ joegildermusic.com and watch that space for upcoming release info.

Spied this TV-shoot beneath my office recently...


Watched them stage a couple of stunts in between work breaks, '81 Trans-Am taking off with tire-screeching echoing through uptown. Nice diversion from the workday grind.

TV show is called "The Good Guys" and it basically re-casts Dallas as LA....except this time the show openly says it's IN Dallas...which is kinda nice since they're shooting here.

Yeah my penmanship isn't quite the best - but I started taking notes this week on the iPad and learned a few things. For example, zero iPad apps can do OCR with handwriting yet, but the one I'm using can e-mail contents to Evernote...which can then OCR your text (but you have to be an Evernote subscriber, and it's not 100% accurate -- like anything else using OCR).

The guy who wrote this handwriting iPad app, Note Taker HD, invented the spreadsheet way back in the late 1970s: Dan Bricklin. When he brought us VisiCalc, it begat Lotus 1-2-3 which begat Excel. Dan doesn't have to develop software anymore, but the iPad potential drove him to do this very interesting app. It is not as "pretty" as the bevy of other note-taking apps out there for iPad, but it's the most usable in real-world note-taking for meetings where you need to jot down things fast. Bricklin plans to add some pretty iPad design features soon, but in terms of pure functionality it's the best one I've seen yet.

Below is a demo of Note Taker HD, and another link to an Interview with Dan Bricklin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62GiZu70TOw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUy0fg6yj8

Wow.
One of my best friends, Chris Cannon, just finished up a new solo album: "vine street". It sounds just crazy-good to me, a great addition to my summer jams playlist. You can get can it absolutely free from here.

If you're familiar with the local dfw indie music scene, you may know Cannon as one-half of "Gentlemen Losers" (the north TX band, not the Finnish similarly-named guys who came later). Regular visitors to this site may remember Cannon from a couple appearances on my old podcast from 5 yrs ago as well.

The production Cannon managed is further proof that location, time, and having 3 young kids are not a barrier to your creative outlets. I'm not saying it was easy recording an album with the schedule he's pulling, I'm sure a few late nights were put in to make it happen...but happen it did, and the result is just great. Gives me some motivation to get off my arse and get moving and finish my own songs. If Chris can do it with his schedule, I have no excuse.

Go take a stroll down "vine street" -- you'll enjoy it. Some really great songs and performances await, and Chris is giving it away free. Hello? Free! Do you get me? Free as in: why are you still reading this? Clicky clicky and go put these songs in your ears...

Apparently today Steve Jobs is speechin' about new stuff coming from Apple. Like everybody else in the industry, I'll be reading up later today on what's coming down the pike

If it's like last summer, and the summer before that, a new iPhone generation is surely on tap. Since Gizmodo bought a stolen one and all, it may be we know everything there is to know. Still, I have a feeling Jobs will have a "one more thing" to throw around. Always interesting to see whatever these guys have to announce.

Update: Yep it was pretty much what we expected, and a few things we didn't. I like the "Face Time" chat feature thing, but I wouldn't see myself using it a ton, especially when I probably can't talk w/ iChat or Skype people -- maybe that's something that the 3rd party folks will develop.

Used to swear I would never own one of those damn overpriced Macintoshes...

Even though everyone I knew who worked in graphics or marketing used a Mac.

Even when my first wife preferred the Mac.

Even if half of my creative friends used it, and I always told them they were using expensive yuppie toys.

I'm an IT admin & designer of networks, shouldn't I be happy with my Wintel & Linux boxes? Maybe, but it happened anyway: after nearly 20 years of Windows as my primary OS, and another 8 before that using DOS, OS/2, etc...I've added a Mac. Sometime later this week a 27" iMac will share the desk with my Dell Win7 box. How the mighty fall, or something...

...and I love it. It started when I built a Hackintosh last year out of spare equipment, on a lark just to see if it could be done. Tons of sites talk about how to do build one, and there's actually a book on it, believe it or not. Before Win7 a ton of Vista-burned folks were doing it.

I was amazed: if OSX is this fast, stable, and efficient on hardware it's not supported on it must be good. After my brief OSX Leopard fun-run, I wanted the real thing.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Windows 7. It's the best OS MS ever released. Me 'n PC go way back, so we're cool. For my music shenanigans and video editing, however, this is the OS I want to use.

If you, like me, primarily use Wintel PCs then I know what you're probably thinking. I hear the same disdains from Wintel folks with every Apple product released. Just keep your mind open - it really is an amazing product and I ain't disappointed or looking back. Another geek goes multi-platform, no big deal.

So I haven't posted in a month, but that's for good reason. I'm writin' songs and learnin' craft and recording pops and glitches which are slowly becoming smooth like buttah...

More to come!

This guy has a unique name and interesting story...
Nashville's Ben Gortmaker recorded every-single-track on his new album at home, using only 2 microphones and Garageband. No automation or fancy plug-ins here, just Garageband and it's stock EQs (that's right, no Logic or Pro Tools etc).

Note: The above statement has FAR more emphasis if you will go to Ben's site & sample a couple of the tracks.

Ben's signal-chain was no more than 2 mics at-a-time going into an M-Audio MobilePre USB interface for most of the tracking. That's USB folks: so he couldn't even live-monitor himself while tracking for most of the project!! Just Ridonkulously cool.

Proof-positive that people, not gear, can creatively make great albums happen even when limiting themselves. I learned that lesson from my buddy Chris Cannon a long time ago -- whether you are using a Tascam 4-track Portastudio, Garageband, or Pro Tools HD in a high-dollar studio: good musicianship & good songwriting are the biggest foundations to engineering a great recording. Gear and location should NEVER stand in the way of getting a decent recording and mix.

Check out Ben's album here, and listen to an interview he did over @ my buddy Joe Gilder's Home Studio Corner.