Tag: Music

Still Sad

I’m still pretty upset over the whole laggy GarageBand shit from earlier so here are a couple of leftover Les Paul pics from this morning.

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May your home recording setup fare better than mine, said the sad faced red head.

USB C Hates Me More Than I Knew

I spent my lunch break trying to convince my two USB audio interfaces not to fuck up in GarageBand. I failed miserably.

I guess I must have got the M1 MacBook Pro around the time of my surgery because I haven’t tried to do very much recording since then. I’ve done some, and definitely had lagging issues, but nothing even remotely as bad as it was today.

I tried using different USB adapters and it didn’t help. I tried bypassing my USB hub and it didn’t work. I tried different USB cables and it didn’t work. I tried only using the interface for input and using the Mac’s headphone out of output and that actually made it worse because the input lagged but the output didn’t so the tracks ended up out of time.

I actually have four songs that are a lead guitar track away from being finished. They are bad songs with really bad performances (especially the vocals) and they have timing issues everywhere because of the lagging. I’d still like to finish them off before the end of September, but I’m at the point where my recording setup is basically useless.

I think the solution is a USB interface that outputs directly into USB C. I think the old USB connections are too slow and the MacBook is too fast that the two can’t work together.

I am so fucking pissed off right now.

I guess maybe the next OS update might include a software fix for my issues, but I doubt it. I think my amazing 16 channel interface is now obsolete.

Shit.

USB C Hates Me

I did some music this morning. The infuriating problems I had with my interface yesterday were worse today. I used different cables and adapters and eventually used a different interface all together and it just kept getting worse. I don’t know what I am going to do. I did manage to get through guitars for one song and vocals for two, but it left me so effing mad, and the performances were complete shit.

There’s two pics though, so I guess that’s okay?

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Intermittent Latency

I got up early this morning to ensure I would be able to watch episode four of Andor while doing my walkies, and also sneak in some guitar playing before I had to punch into work. Success. Sort of.

I added two rhythm guitar tracks to one song and one to another. I didn’t use my amp, I plugged directly into the USB interface and used an amp sim. Somehow doing so exacerbated a problem I have been having every now and then and made it almost impossible to get anything done.

I have a newish, M1 Mac. It’s generally lightning fast. When using GarageBand though, every now and then there will be a random, split second of latency that throws off my timing. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s concerning.

Today, while using the amp sims, it was happening 2-3 times every 20 seconds or so. It was fucking infuriating. That plus my terrible rusty playing had me swearing at the screen and feeling generally pissed off. I Googled it to see if it was a thing, and there are a lot of mentions of latency but no clear reason or solution. I expect it has more to do with my USB interface going through a USB hub and an adapter, rather than something with the M1 chip, but who knows. Maybe I’ll mess with the cabling next time.

Anyway, here’s a couple of gitter pics.

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A rare look at the clip on headstock tuner that I am usually embarrassed to let people see.

Music… Finally

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It’s been almost two months since the last time I played guitar. I’ve been so wrapped up in rediscovering my camera obsession that I’ve nearly forgotten about my guitar obsession.

Now that the weather is starting to get cold and I’m running out of places I want to try to take pictures, it’s time to dive back into the music. With five days left in September, I am clearly not going to pull off an album this month. I might pull off a single though. I wrote two really simple song ideas today. Music will happen, if it kills me.

Given the situation though, it might be safe to expect the bombardment of post-playing guitar pictures will be from the DSLR so the image quality (though not the megapixel count) could be improved. Here’s hoping, at least.

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More Bass Royalty

Holy crap! So you thought a couple of pictures of Geddy Lee and Paul McCartney together were amazing? How’s about we add John Paul Effin’ Jones!

I like to be a dick and refer to Mr Jones as John Baldwin, because that’s his given name. I do not, however refer to Geddy Lee as Gary Weinrib. I’m pretty sure Geddy legally changed his name. Not sure about Jonesy.

Rush at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert

I haven’t watched this yet but I will shortly because I believe this is the greatest thing to happen in a long, long time.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson playing at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert. Dave Grohl for two songs, and then with Omar Hakim for a third.

New King’s X

King’s X released a new record for the first time in 14 years today. I’m afraid to listen to it. Their music has never let me down (well… Manic Moonlight and Black Like Sunday and parts of Faith Hope Love just plain suck, but for the most part the statement holds) but lyrically… oh brother. I can handle the christianity, but when the christianity leans into conservative politics well… puke. There was a solo album that came out not long ago that had one song that made me so mad I never listened to the album again. I pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s also that one fucking song on Faith Hope Love… you know the one. I wanted to smack the three of them for that one. Right in their faces.

Now… given the current climate… if they go political on this record it’s going to color everything and I may never give them another listen again. This is one of my all time favorite bands, and I fear I am going to get so pissed off at them that I’ll never listen to them again. That’s how nervous I am about listening to this record.

And yet I am compelled to listen. The three of them together… they are just too insanely good to ignore. I have to at least give them the chance to let me down.

Okay… I’m listening. I have to admit that I am doing my best not to focus on the lyrics. My first listen is just for the killer playing and the insanely good melodies and harmonies. Fingers crossed.

Hey, can I embed an Apple Music album into wordpress.com?

https://music.apple.com/us/album/three-sides-of-one/1627560414

I guess not. Maybe I’ll try again later with Tidal. Not spotify though. Fuck those assholes.

ADDENDUM: I’ve listened through it twice. It’s good. I still haven’t let myself dig into the lyrics, but the grooves on a few songs are sick like you’ve always dreamed of.

My one surprise: Three Jerry songs? There have only been three Jerry songs in the entire catalog, I think, and here we have three more? The first Jerry song is on Faith Hope Love and it’s the worst song on a not very good album, by far. The second is on Ear Candy and it’s the worst song they had recorded to date. Hell, it might still be the worst song they’ve done. The third was on… XV? I think? Or was it on Ogre Tones? It’s a great song. It’s an absolute killer. He did a solo album too, and that album is pretty good. Now we have three more Jerry songs. Two of them are pretty good. The third isn’t bad, it’s just kinda forgettable.

Also, one song has some old fashioned Dug screaming. I think it’s been a long time since Dug just let it rip like that. I bet it hurt. I bet he couldn’t speak for a week after recording that track.

Also, also, there are only a couple of guitar solos that grabbed me. Ty might be backing off a smidge on this one. His playing is great though, as always. His voice… now this is not a criticism, it is only a comment and it’s not meant to be good or bad it’s just something I noticed… I think he’s starting to sound… old? You know how a lot of vocalists hit a certain age and you can kind of hear it? Jerry’s like that. Dug is 150 years old (approximately) and he still sounds like he’s 25. Prior to this I would have said the same about Ty (except maybe he’s 90 years old instead of 150… something like that) but not really anymore. Also, is his accent thicker? Weird. He’s a friggin’ god though, so if he wants to sound his age then more power to him.

And that is my very dumb review on the new King’s X album. Go listen to it… or maybe I should say Go Tell Somebody*.

*Yes, you’ve guessed it. King’s X once recorded a song called Go Tell Somebody. You see what I did there?