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Fishpond.co.nz : ZEN and the Art of Mixing, Mixerman - Shop Online for Books in NZ

2010-12-10T12:14:00.001+13:00

Books » Music » Recording & Reproduction
ZEN and the Art of Mixinghttp://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Music/Recording_Reproduction/9781423491507?sms_ss=posterous&at_xt=4d01626530ce2a48%2C0
By Mixerman

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RRP Hal Leonard Corporation

ISBN: 1423491505

EAN: 9781423491507
Dimensions: 19.61 x 14.4 x 2.18 centimeters (0.35 kg)
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via fishpond.co.nz

I thoroughly recommend this book for anyone in the audio industry - it's a great read and full of helpful approaches and advice.

Posted via email from Deadly Zedley

dBzee: Relieving Temporary Hearing Loss with Acupressure

2010-10-18T00:08:00.001+13:00

via dbzeebee.blogspot.com

Posted via email from Deadly Zedley

2010-10-04T16:23:00.001+13:00

Ah summer is on it's way at last!

Relieving temporary hearing loss with acupressure

2010-06-30T09:04:00.001+12:00

http://dbzeebee.blogspot.com/2010/06/relieving-threshold-shift-with.html

Posted via email from Deadly Zedley

dBzee: Relieving Threshold Shift (Temporary Hearing Loss) with Acupressure

2010-06-13T21:00:00.001+12:00

Posted via web from Deadly Zedley

Momentum broken

2010-04-06T17:17:00.001+12:00

The last few months have been a bit of a write-off musically for me - I had to send off my MacBook Pro to get the keyboard replaced.
The number 7 key stopped working - you can't imagine how much that actually became a pain in the ass - the amount of times I had to click "7" in Calculator and then copy and paste into a document was surpisingly high.

Whilst my laptop was off being repaired, I was given a replacement one from work, and decided it was a great time to do a clean install of Snow Leopard and all my audio apps.

My updated Snow Leopard version of OSX on my old lappie was never quite right, even though I downloaded and used the Combo Updater rather than the ol' Software Update, and apart from just being generally sluggish it did some odd things at times - including some corrupted graphics in file menus that obscured the file list, and some other random audio oddnessess amongst other things.

As you can guess, installing everything from scratch turned out to be an extremely lengthy process, in the order of a few months, with having to install all my work applications as well as my own music ones, plus all my music libraries etc.
Suffice to say that I'm STILL opening songs and occasionally finding either sample/loop libraries or plug-ins missing and then having to track down the installers.

Part of the problem is finding out the actual name of the missing files - the error message that Logic gives you about plug-ins for example doesn't have the whole name, only a truncated version.
And missing custom-made Apple Loops - don't get me started on THAT!
I'm also now regretting all the freeware audio plug-ins I added over the past couple of years and then used only once in my new songs.
The trouble is, the songs don't sound quite the same without the missing plug-ins, so it's easy to become distracted trying to recover the original vibe.
Once I have the plug-in back I can usually find something else in the standard set that does the same job.

It's completely broken my flow as far as developing and finishing my songs off (although I have to admit it's not the only reason - teenage kids moving in have also been a big influence).

Now I finally have my old laptop back, I've spent yet another annoyingly long couple of days juggling files on hard drives (with never quite enough space) and imaging the new laptop's hard drive back on to my old laptop.
Of course even then it wasn't that simple - lots of my apps needed re-authorising since they were on a different computer - and only today have I managed to get more than a few of my songs finally running the way they used to.
But I'm finally there at last - it's fantastic having my old 17" screen back rather than the limited 13" on the replacement lappie (plus the extra USB and FireWire port).

I'm pretty excited - I finally had a day off without kids and with a mostly-fully-functioning computer that I could actually carry on doing some music with.
Time to get that ball rolling again.

Posted via email from Deadly Zedley

New Media Player - wahoo!

2010-01-08T13:36:00.012+13:00

In our tradition of buying ourselves a combined gift for Xmas, we have been thinking (for months!) about getting ourselves a media player so that we can listen to music and watch downloaded TV programmes from the computer alongside the usual watching the telly. We had been using a USB flash drive to play files through our DVD player, but the streaming was sometimes really slow giving jerky playback, not all file formats and codecs would play (eg Matroska/MKV), and the file browser was limited to first 8 characters - inconvenient when the episode number is at the end of the file name.

Our local computer shop PB Tech was selling Western Digital brands for a sale price over Xmas/New Year and we looked quite carefully at buying one of those. However - since we don't have a flat-screen TV with HDMI (yes we just have a decade-old Sony Trinitron), the WD unit was slightly unsuitable.

I spotted another box behind all the WD units in the cabinet and asked to have a look at it. This was the AC Ryan unit. "Playon! HD" I'd heard the AC Ryan name before, and I vaguely remembered that it was a reputable brand, plus this unit had everything we needed on it for a similar price (including being able to play all the codecs and file formats we needed), so I bought it.

As it turns out - it's a great unit. We already had a 1TB SATA hard-drive to put in it - it had been sitting in our computer for a while, so it was 5 mins to pull it out and plug it into the AC Ryan through the removable bottom plate.

2 mins plugging it into the telly (there's three lots of video outs on it - HDMI, component and composite) and it was working!
Almost too easy.

One minor niggle is that because the HD was formatted NTFS in the computer, the AC Ryan wants to format it with its own file structure every time you start the unit, meaning you have to select "cancel".
We upgraded the firmware to see if that would fix it (it didn't) - took 5 mins to download and update via a USB flash drive. By the way, the unit has two regular USB ports, a USB host port and smartcard slot. When I get some time I'll transfer all the files off the existing hard drive and reformat it.

I had a spare long network cable to plug into the computer and we could easily browse the computer and stream files directly from it. In some ways - a smaller internal hard-drive would be fine, and you could just stream files directly from your own computer.

I guess for people without a computer you could just have the media player as a standalone unit. It has it's own bittorrent client, can listen to internet radio etc as well, although we haven't tried those yet.

We might look at getting wireless - you can just plug a wireless USB dongle into one of the ports and it will work, apparently. That would make it easier to drag the thing into the bedroom for late-night viewing.

This product apparently won the HME Best Media Streamer 2009 Award so it's not too shabby and I'd definitely recommend it. It's Linux-based with great support on the AC Ryan forums - there are various customisations that can be done so it looks fairly future-proof.

dBzee: Digital Recording Levels - a rule of thumb

2009-10-25T22:18:00.001+13:00

via dbzeebee.blogspot.com

A blog article on the ideal levels to set for recording into digital recording systems.

Posted via web from Deadly Zedley

dBzee: Transferring MIDI and Audio sessions from Logic to Pro Tools in about 5 minutes.

2009-09-30T23:21:00.001+13:00

via dbzeebee.blogspot.com

Quickest and easiest way of getting audio files out of Logic and into Pro Tools.

Posted via web from Deadly Zedley

dBzee: Logic 9 - using Pedalboard in parallel mode for fat Bass and Guitar sounds

2009-09-23T10:23:00.002+12:00

via dbzeebee.blogspot.com

My blog post about getting some fat distorted bass sounds through Logic 9's new Pedalboard plug-in by using it's built-in parallel effects chains.

Posted via web from Deadly Zedley

Computers save time

2009-04-15T21:42:00.002+12:00

They stash it somewhere at the end of the universe. With the missing socks etc.
I know this cos I've seen them - millions of socks orbiting around a gigantic black hole. Made of lint.

This week I have a strong suspicion I've offended the god of computers. Every computer I touch seems to have errors and issues, which stresses me out so much I actually hyperventilate. I deal with all computer problems like it's a battle of wills, and I hate losing. A lot. It doesn't happen very often, as I will spend as long as it takes hunting the problem down, tracking it as it tries to escape, then BAM! I nail that sucker.

But this past week has seen the computers taking the upper hand. I blame it partly on my use of Macs. My MacBook Pro has only had a couple of minor issues, and I've only had to turn it off or on a dozen times since I got it, so I've become weak in the battle against computers.

And in all the "ra-ra-ra!" of how Windows XP is so much better than Vista, I've forgotten how much of a dog XP still is. Have you ever tried repairing Windows XP with a hacked bios that allows your computer to boot off your SATA drive? Fiddly is not the word. I started the installation over 30 times in the weekend, with NTFS errors that wouldn't even allow me to access, never mind reformat the drive. (Translation for non-tech heads: blah blah blah computer shit blah won't work gargh I want to smash you!)

Now fair enough that it's not quite your nicey-nice hardware setup that would make it extremely easy, but how stupid is an operating system that crashes completely when it accesses a corrupted hard drive, rather than give a polite error, like say MacOS or Linux? Yes, thanks Microsoft for such a shitty installer.

Okay - so I was beaten by this, despite reformatting the drive on a Mac at work. In FAT32 format instead of NTFS - thanks again MS for not letting other people use your precious file system.

As if this was not bad enough, my sons' PC was infested with five different trojans/worms. These had infected very single executable in the system. Nice. Trying to repair this was like trying to plug a collander with your finger. Luckily Microsoft had some easily-understandable instructions for stopping the spread of worms in the operating system. Not.

A whole day of researching MS info sheets/battling worms left me depressed and tired. Eventually I gave up and made one of my boys reformat the entire computer and reinstall Windows. So it was a good learning experience at least.

Now i'm just waiting for the chipset fan to expire on my own computer - it's chuckling away like a midget clown as I write, eventually to go the way of the last three fans on my graphics cards - dangling melted from their power leads.

Nothing to see here

2009-03-26T20:00:00.000+13:00

Ah yeah, the trouble with these darn blogs is that unless you have a real focus, they rely on outrage.

The trouble is, most of my outrage is directed at work - with workmates and students and all that. Stuff I can't really talk about, although I would love to. Insane students - check. Crazy staff - check.

Oh well, you'll have to settle for second-best. My non-work life, which unfortunately is a lot happier. And a bit more boring.

I have a fantastic wife that makes me happy. Extremely happy.
She's younger than me - by quite a bit. One of my students interrupted in the middle of a class and said "There's a rumour that you have a girlfriend half your age". I said "she's my wife". He said "Awesome!". See?
And a cat. And kids who are, so far, relatively normal. An ex-wife. Oh better not go there - too many things could go wrong if she read this as she's only just talking to me again. It all went a bit odd after I got married to my new wife in Las Vegas by Elvis.

I have a 900cc motorbike to get around on, I write songs to vent my frustrations and any remaining angst. I play tambourine on Thursday nights (and sometimes Friday and Saturday nights too), so that gets any remaining anger out of my system.

This is not to say my life is without it's share of problems. There's drama every week.
But to be honest, there's so much good stuff that it makes it hard to get a decent "whine" on.
Still - I promise I'll make a better effort next week ;o)

Sick again!

2009-03-11T10:38:00.002+13:00

I've noticed that I get a nasty cold this time every year - I think it's probably down to two things;

The first month of school term - very stressful and tiring getting everything and everyone up to speed. Early starts and late finishes and not a lot of sleep over this month - and everything is urgent. Gargh!

Close contact with hundreds of students - fresh germs everywhere! I guess we'll all eventually get used to each other.

I has a new Pack-Rack

2009-02-22T12:16:00.004+13:00

I finally went out and bought a pack-rack and bag for my bike - thank goodness no more hauling 10kgs of laptop and various other junk to work on my back. I have to admit it wasn't cheap for the the rack and the bag - NZ$380 for both - but I've been wanting them for a couple of years now.

The quality of the Ventura rack itself looks quite good - although the little foam pads to fill the gaps around the mounting bolts were pretty cheap and nasty (and not sticky on one side like the manual claimed). A bit of silicon seal did the job of stopping water getting under the rear panel - at the expense of not looking quite so tidy.

The Sanremo rack bag is huge - it has more zippers than I've ever seen on any bag ever.
Some of the zips go round and round in spirals! That's so you can expand the bag out to an enormous size. I can fit my entire existing backpack with laptop inside the new rack bag!

It has some other cool features - zip-off day bag (kinda like a huge bum-bag - eeeew won't be using that) and a permanently-connected rain cover that pulls out of a special pocket and goes over the whole thing. The bag is shower-proof anyway, but I guess for torrential downpours this would be a good option.

Looking forward to trying it out for real on Monday!

Ah whiskies, my good friends

2009-02-16T22:18:00.008+13:00

I must admit to a penchant for fine Scottish single malts. At the moment I prefer the Laphroaig when I'm in a peat-y mood, and the Double Wood is rich and sweet, nice for those midnight snacks - er nightcaps.

Insomnia - I fight you with the power of the mighty double wood!

LAN Game Face

2009-02-15T20:04:00.005+13:00

Every fortnight or so, I get together with my buddies for a LAN-game session. We're all on Macs, so the choice is a little more limited than PCs, but after trying various different games over the last few years, we've settled on UT2004 with some tasty mods - it's fast and there's lots of choices over the evening for various gameplay types.

It seems like gaming is a bit like the modern equivalent of the ol' poker game for our generation of geeks - the gaming is just a set-up for various "burns" and set-up jokes, and after most sessions our ribs are just as sore from laughing as the trigger fingers on our mousing hands. It's also about just catching up and spinning yarns, comparing audio recording software, listening to the latest tracks, and griping about our respective jobs.

So it's chips and dip rather than cigars. There's beer and wine and then eventually a nice cup of tea and a choccy bikky to finish up with, before everyone heads off home sometime after midnight. It's a good night in.

TV ads suck

2009-02-09T20:46:00.005+13:00

I understand that TV broadcasters have to make money from ads to survive - I totally get it!

But, as a viewer, I've reached my breaking point - I can't bear to watch TV because the ad breaks are so disruptive. Movies are the worst.

Don't get me going on how much gets edited out of a typical TV program to make space for ads - which you don't always notice until you see the series on DVD and there's a bit that was obviously missing - sometimes even affecting the plot!

And while I'm at it - turn down volume on the flippin' ads! People shouldn't HAVE to ride the volume on the remote during ad breaks.

I'd rather watch DVDs or browse the interweb now anyway, so it's your loss, TV companies.

Man-Friend

2009-02-07T17:20:00.007+13:00

It's odd being a man-friend.

I went and helped my friend pick up a set of drawers today that she'd bought online - she wasn't sure they'd fit in her car. I don't mind doing that sort of thing - it forces me away from the computer for a change.

I packed tools just in case we had to take the legs off or something.
Apparently that's a typical guy thing.

It's funny how guys have their own special role with female friends.

We're not usually the one that's there to be the shoulder to cry on when things go wrong.
It tends to be the more supportive and practical roles - like helping move furniture, fixing things when they break, and being the moral support person when purchasing items or going anywhere remotely scary.

Although I have to say that I draw the line at holding handbags when they go to the toilet, though.