I have used the cellar music nook. I put rhythm tracks on two songs, leads on one, and started noodling some changes for one more.
The new wah and vibe pedals are awesome.
I only used the big Fender amp and only on the lower watt channel, but the only thing that wasn’t sounding sweet was the ugly paneling on the walls, babie.
Well… I knew I couldn’t fight it. I punched into work a little before 9:00am and stuck the final nail in this year’s holiday season’s coffin. It’s over, folks.
The kids are still here. I figured they would have left by now so I am pretty happy. They did both sleep really late though so that might be the reason. I don’t care. I love it when they are here. Even when I am working and can’t go hang out with them.
Today has been really quiet overall. Not much to write about. The Bruins played twice over the weekend, finally coming back from the long Covid-19 shut down. I watched a few minutes of Saturday’s game against Buffalo and the little that I saw looked pretty awful. They straightened it out and won in overtime. I didn’t see yesterday’s game against Detroit but they spanked them pretty thoroughly. Here’s hoping that’s a sign of good things to come.
Major League Baseball is still locked out. I keep seeing stories tweeted out from all sorts of sources talking about the things such and such a team needs to do to improve and yadda yadda blah. I haven’t been reading the articles but I am really hoping they all boil down to something along the lines of “don’t be locked out.” Everything else is sort of superfluous* until that happens.
What else, what else… did I mention that all of my workout time that my Apple Watch tracked last week was on the exercise bike? I’m pretty sure that was a first for me. Does it mean anything? No. No, it does not.
I haven’t given much thought to the RPM Challenge this year. The only thing that’s come to me for something different to do is to use two guitars. I always double track my rhythm guitar parts. What if, instead of just tracking everything twice, I use a different guitar for each take? My Les Paul Standard would be playing in one ear, and my SG would be playing in the other. What about that for goofy nerdness? Maybe even use a different amplifier with each guitar. I’m thinking about it.
Okay, 2:00pm approaches. Time to wrap up this lunch break post.
*I had to pay $0.10 to use that word.
I should add a poll asking if readers care about any of this stuff but I won’t so neener neener and stuff.
I haven’t really dug into the Lizardfish gig bag since I packed up after the last gig. When I set up the original recording nook in the bedroom I bought new mics and cables thinking the gig bag would soon go back to Mike the Bass Players house. Here we are 23 months later and I really don’t remember what I have available.
Well, lots. Three guitar cables came out of the bag (one to go from guitar to the board, another to go from board to amp, and one more for luck). Also two mic cables (one for each amp, assuming I go back to a two amp set up) and three microphones. Two Shure SM57’s (one pictured) and one Shure SM58. I think the 58 is dead though. I need to run a test.
In other words, more than enough stuff to have a permanent working space in the cellar without stealing anything from the permanent working space in the bedroom.
Why do I need two working spaces? I have no idea at all. I just feel the need for two right now.
I still haven’t set anything up yet. Tomorrow… maybe.
The new pedals are hooked into the big band pedal board. I haven’t Velcro’d them down yet. I want to play through them first. That might not happen until tomorrow though.
I am itching to take them for a spin. Soon, Robert. Soon.
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
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December:
After reading a little about how much artists make per stream from the various streaming services I started messing with Tidal. Jen and I had an account when they first launched but, despite the focus on audio quality, it wasn’t quite up to speed enough to make us want to switch away from Apple Music.
They have a free account now, and I don’t think they did before. What the hell, let’s play with the free account. Spotify’s free account is obnoxiously add heavy, might this be a little better? I know artists get a bigger cut (though it’s still insultingly small) so let’s try it.
I created a new account through the iPhone app. I played around with UI mostly, not really getting into the music at first. That was two days ago. Yesterday near the end of the work day I started listening through the web app. I picked one artist, Robert Cray, and shuffled the catalog. I got three plays before an add. I guess all of their adds are actually adds for Tidal’s paid services rather than paid commercials, but whatever. It’s still an add. After the first 30 second add I heard two songs before the next add. Then I heard one song before the next add. Oh for crying out loud.
Today I tried changing my password. I used something generic to start with but I wanted to change it to something more random. I opened up my account settings and changed the password to something my password manager generated for me. It seemed to work. I then went into the iPhone app to re-log in and it told me my password was incorrect. Sigh. It then took me about four tries to get my password reset. The web app kept acting like I was actually signed in. It wasn’t kicking me out even though I had changed my password, had the password change fail, and was clearly logged out. The iPhone app kept me logged out fine.
Finally I got through the password reset process and tried to log in and the log in failed. Not because of the password, it just failed and said to try again later. I tried a private browser window and it told me I was blocked. Come on, guys. What the hell. I went back to a normal browser window and it finally worked. What an ordeal.
I picked one of their auto-generated user-specific playlist things and the first song it gave me was Pekin Spring by Mission of Burma, so I guess that was Tidal’s way of appologizing.
So far I have gone three plays, a 29 second add, now another three plays. This time though, the second of the three songs was an artist I don’t like so I clicked the little block icon and it skipped to the third song. Does Tidal have a limit on the number of songs you can skip like some of the others do? I don’t know. Does blocking an artist from an auto-generated playlist count as a skip? Did I just break the internet?
We’ll see.
After the third song I got another 29 second add. I have to go do something else soon, so I’m going to have to stop this dumb experiment, but the next song is Mission of Burma again, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate. Arguably the best 2:05 in rock history.
Another thing to mention for the web app. Coming out of commercials it has a REALLY hard time getting into the next song. It plays the first fraction of a second a few times before righting the ship and fixing itself. When I skipped a track it was even worse. It did the same thing when I was listening yesterday. I think we need to submit a bug for that one, kids.
Okay. Burma’s ending. Time to go find the elusive glass punch bowl that is somewhere in the cellar. Talk to you later, New Years kids.
We are less than 90 minutes away from December 31, 2021. While I am strongly looking forward to telling 2021 to fuck off and die, I’ve also started thinking about how to celebrate the end of this dirtbag year and the start of the next year.
I’ve started thinking, but I got nuttin’.
We are going to have the first ever full family Covid test tomorrow. Nana and Papa are coming over for the delayed Christmas Eve and we need to ensure everyone is safe. Rapid tests for all and for all a negative rapid test!
I am going to set up the alternate music nook in the cellar tomorrow. I want to use my new pedals with my 18 watt amp and my KTR overdrive pedal and the rest of the band pedal board, and I also don’t want to mess with the cool setup I have in the bedroom. So two nooks it is! I’ve got a couple of tunes ready to record so I’ll use them to test drive the set up. I’m not sure I’ll actually get to play tomorrow but it is a long weekend so fingers crossed.
As for traditional stuff like New Years resolutions, I don’t have anything yet. I might not at all, but if I do I’ll share it soon enough.
Until then, happy New Years Eve Eve! What’s left of it.
December 30th. Tomorrow is a holiday from work. That makes today’s telecommuting lunch break the last lunch break of the year. I am so ready to put 2021 behind me. 2020 was a nightmare. 2021 was worse. 2022 (2020 too) is the great unknown, but for once I am thinking the devil I don’t know is preferable to the devil I know… or something like that. What was I saying? Oh yeah, this is the last lunch break blog post of 2021 and that pleases me.
The United Parcel Service paid me a visit. They brought a box with my name on it. Inside the box was two more, smaller boxes. In one box was a Real McCoy Custom RMC10 Wah pedal. In the other was an EarthQuaker Devices The Depths pedal. A new wah pedal and a new uni-vibe pedal. I don’t know when I am going to have a chance to play them. Maybe tonight? Maybe not. I’m looking forward to it. New boutique guitar pedals for this boutique guitar pedal snob.
We missed out on our Christmas Eve festivities this year because of a Covid scare but we are going to give it another try tomorrow for New Years Eve. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am seriously ready for this. New Year, Christmas Eve, both at the same time. Yes. Gimme gimme gimme.
Three hours and one minute left in the work day. I don’t know if I can make it through. I needs me some long weekend and I needs me some long weekend right now.
Earlier today I posted that tweet with the image that listed out how little each music streaming service pays for each play. Tidal was the second highest pay rate on the list (behind Napster? Napster?)
Now, by coincidence, I find that Tidal has just kicked off a free tier? Are the two things related? Will we ever know? Has this been a thing already and I’m just learning about it now?
Free tier.
I have been sharing stuff from Twitter and Instagram pretty regularly lately and I feel kinda icky about it. It feels like cheating. I should stop, but it’s a safe way to share something someone else creates while giving credit where credit is due, you know?
Anyway, this was trending on Twitter earlier. It is probably the only time you will ever see me reference T-Pain, but there you go.
If you subscribe to a music streaming service, prepare to feel guilty…
Q: How much is a stream actually worth to the artist?
A: NOT MUCH.
I don’t know if you can see the whole image, but Spotify is on the list under YouTubeMusic, and it is 315 streams for one dollar.
How is Napster paying the highest rate? How did that happen. Napster, of all companies. Tidal, I can see. That company was started by recording artists, but Napster? The company that almost single handedly ended the recording industry?
I really wish Apple was paying out at more than a penny a stream. Feel that guilt, kids. Feel it just piling on. Gross. I suppose being third best is better than being YouTube Music. Here’s hoping this post leads to YouTube Music making some massive changes. What the hell, Google? Pay the damn artists.
This makes me want to go and buy some merch. That’s pretty much the only way artists can make money off of me in Covid-Land where concerts don’t exist.
Inside the Red Head's Head 