Greetings Beat Readers,

This past week in CSI110 we learned a great deal more about web page design coding using the Dreamweaver application by Adobe. It is one amazing application that makes coding a web page far easier then doing it yourself the old fashion way. The design view allows you to drag and drop text and images right into the application and allows you to work on designing a web page by it’s physical appearance rather then just viewing the html code. Creating a style sheet is a fast and effective way for utilizing CSS to manage the look of all pages associated with your website. I suggest that anyone reading this who is interested in web page design take a look at this software. If I had expendable income that I didn’t need to use on gear for my recording studio then I would go out and purchase the CS4 Master Collection straight away. I may in fact do so one day before I graduate college so that I can take advantage of my student discount.

Even though Dreamweaver is so incredibly cool you still have options in utilizing a Content Management System such as Drupal or Joomla. It is open source and free to use and works in a similar fashion to Dreamweaver. I’m going to dive into one of these in the upcoming weeks to start creating my own professional web page dedicated to my disc jockey business, production company, and songwriting endeavors. I look forward to doing this as I have wanted to create my own web page for some time to help advertise my business and professional abilities. I think I’ll take advantage of Pixlr, an open source free online photo editor, to create content for my site. I’m going to take a look at Inkscape, and Vectorart which are free Adobe Illustrator alternatives utilized for creating images, logos, artwork, etc.

If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that most applications these days have a free open source alternative and if you’re creative and willing to put in the time then you can accomplish your objectives without breaking the bank. I still believe in owning licenses to software and utilizing them to there full potential and purchasing upgrades, and so on. However, if you can achieve the same goal using free tools then why not, it’s a no brainer.

So, until next time, sweet dreams from audio land…

Our CSI110 class presented our webquest on computer networking last week. It was a fun little project and I was very impressed with a few of my classmates creativity in producing videos rather then the good old power point presentation. As for my group, well, we did the later, given our time constraints, it still got the point across and I am pleased with the results.

I was sitting here thinking back on the past week and pondering what to write about when I checked the WordPress dashboard. It is interesting on how many hits this blog has received from those searching for mac related issues concerning external hard drives and itunes. I did write a lengthy blog on my experience and I hope that the information I shared here was able to help someone looking for answers. It’s cool that WordPress tells you the top searches and what your top post is.

Excited to learn more about web design and work on my Wikipedia article for the second half of the semester.

Until next time, sweet dreams from audio land…

Just checking in here to post a quick blog. We learned more regarding web page design and basic XHTML by furthering our knowledge of CSS. I like how CSS works, it certainly saves more time when editing multiple webpages associated w/your url.

Not too much else to report on the front of CSI101 except that it is mid-term and our class is to present a webquest on networks during our next meeting. Our group is has a good handle on the presentation which we created in power point and look forward to presenting our findings to the class.

Furthermore, our final project in this class is to compose a new, or edit, an existing Wikipedia entry. Choosing a topic has been a daunting task as there is so much that I’m interested in, although finding the right stub on Wikipedia or a topic that has yet to be created has been a challenge I have decided to write a proposal to warrant a new entry into Wikipedia for the monthly nationwide disco event ‘Baby Loves Disco’ that I am associated with. I can’t believe that there has yet to be an entry pertaining to ‘BLD.’

Well then, I off to finish writing my proposal and focus on my remaining mid-terms and weekly work load

Sweet Dreams from Audio Land…

Greetings Beat Reader,

This is a big week for my music production partners of Long Distance Analog and myself. Our first EP was released for exclusive digital download on Juno.com this Tuesday October 27th 2009 by our record label Mullet Records. Check out the links below to hear and purchase the music.

Purchase Long Distance Analog – Plecked Medium EP exclusively @ juno.com

Long Distance Analog Myspace Page
Mullet Records Myspace Page

Needless to say I am so very lucky to have the opportunity to create music with such talented individuals and that we have been fortunate enough to find like minded people to support our music.

In the realm of computer science this past week we began learning the basics of XHTML. This is topic of study that I have been looking forward to the most in this area of my studies. I have had some experience, mostly with myspace HTML page coding, although my knowledge of web design is very limited. Gaining a thorough knowledge of XHTML coding will be a valuable tool for me in designing a web page and marketing my mobile dj business as well as helping to develop our band image and further our fan base.

I can’t wait to get to started designing my own web page and utilizing SEO techniques to further my brand awareness. Keep posted, before you know it I’ll finally have my own legitimate Beat Connection Recordings website.

Sweet Dreams from Audio Land…

Please press play and listen while you read to: “Computer Game” by Yellow Magic Orchestra

Check the groove of this INSANELY epic track. Originally released as “Firecracker” and later released as
“Computer Games” on Horizon Records and I’ll love my 12inch vinyl copy of this track as long as I live,,,
((…you can find it and give a listen on your own if interested…))

Welcome to this weeks installment of computer science discovery and wonder. Since my last communication I’ve been hard at work rebuilding and upgrading my own system, and discovering this wonderful wordpress dashboard. I like the posting view stats and links to the other blogs. Nicely done.

I just recently purchased Serato Scratch Live SL3 to interface my Turntable Dj Setup w/my laptop and digital music files (most of which are recorded from vinyl records, or imported from purchased cds.) It uses coded vinyl and is amazing in and of its own right for allowing the access of Dj style hands-on manipulation of digital audio hosted on a hard drive and connecting to your laptop. It basically turns your laptop into a record bag. Although you will never quite reach the sonic quality of your precious vinyl, even if you do your own a/d conversion. Given that I have been quoted saying, I would never use such a product, and that I would always play vinyl, it has come time to hip myself to the this amazing and versatile Dj tool.

My theory is that now I can continue to record my vinyl and cd collection and playback the high quality .wav files. from the a/d conversion processed by myself from my analog playback source (turnatables, phono preamp, dj mixer, outboard mixer.) We’re talking about transduction here, and that’s a whole other rant folks…

In preparation of installing Serato and allowing it to run smoothly on my 1.5 GHz Power PC G4 w/2GB RAM along with Logic 8 I have had to do the following which has been an arduous and time consuming process to say the least.

I’ve gone ahead and finished an erase and install of my OSX and what a difference. Everything is running smooth except for my precious iTunes 4 Music folder, Library, and iTunes Music Library.xml files that were copied to my external drive are not working w/the iTunes application itself. Yes, for those of you not already hip to this method of storage and playback of all digital audio file formats accepted by iTunes especially in my case the excess of large .wav, .aiff files, etc. The majority of my digital music is not in mp3 file format (unless only available as such.) I have gone into iTunes PREFERENCE ADVANCED TAB to the iTunes Media folder Location window and selected the 200GB iTunes Music folder on my external drive.

Now this causes a big problem. Prior to this erase and install my entire iTunes Music folder, properly labeled w/playlists and track info, stored on a lacie external drive, would communicate properly. What I had learned years ago is that the iTunes Library.xml file and Library Files of iTunes contain info on playlist settings and the likes so it needs that information on your startup disc to talk to the iTunes music folder stored off site on the external hard drive.

I thought I could simply copy over the old .xml file to iTunes on the new OSX and redirect iTunes, however it is not that simple. You need to actually go to ADD TO LIBRARY then select the iTunes Music folder to create the communication link between the iTunes application and the iTunes Music folder (as it no longer exists in the new system and user profile on my startup disc.) It will then add all the track and routing info to the iTunes Music folder hosted on the start up disc and create an updated .xml file that points to the individual tracks stacked on the external hard drive. This is a pain, takes up valuable time, and wipes out any existing playlist info (if existing in your current user profile.) Since I have no playlist info this would be an adequate solution. I may then be able to add the old .xml file and Lbrary folder that i saved onto my external drive to repopulate the communication link and my old playlist info. If not, I’d be happy to just have the music files play with out taking up any room on my startup disk, as they used to, and although it would be nice to have my playlists back and not have to spend time rebuilding them, it is ever so important to have the system functioning properly.

I guess i should export my future playlists and save it for back up. In the event that my current situation were to happen again, or that I was to use my iTunes restore dvds, in the worst case senario, I would simply be able to import the play list into iTunes.

I’ve learned the hard way that wasting time doesn’t pay off and given the opportunity you need always be prepared for what life presents you. A little forethought and action will save you trouble in the end. This solution will be well appreciated once I have everything running smoothly with iTunes and Serato.

It’s off to figure out my dilemma and install software……..

Sweet Dreams from Audio Land…

Oh yeah….. be sure to check this one too… (much more raw live version recorded in NYC in ’79)

Sorry for the delay… One busy week for me and my family. Installed Logic 8 after clearing up 60GB of hard drive space from my start-up disc to account for the software’s processing. Recording all music to a Lacie 1TP external hard drive. Everything looks good except when I record I get DAE errors and session crashes every time, happens in Pro Tools too. Other applications are also running slow. I must do the inevitable which I have put off for some time with the fix of archive and install that I performed when I upgraded to OS last to 10.4.11

So with that being said I’m going to have to sign off till tomorrow and erase and install the OSX to start fresh. Don’t worry, I have back up and a disc image that I can boot from if need be. It’s just an inconvenience.

Sweet Dreams from Audioland…

So here we are back at it again. For a final project in my Computer Science class at The New England Institute of Art I must compose a Wikipedia entry or edit, add, update an existing entry. Wikipedia has been a fantastic online encyclopedia resource that I have referenced quite often in the past. I never actually gave much thought to the meaning of the word wiki. Every time I hear or think about the word wiki it conjures up childhood memories of one of my all time favorite old school hip-hop track “Jam On It” by Newcleus. Wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki… The actual meaning of the word wiki is “crowd sourcing.” That is exactly what Wikipedia does, and it’s brilliant. It is going to be a challenge to find a relevant topic of interest to create a new topic so I may find myself editing and adding more pertinent info to an existing Wikipedia topic for this assignment. Bidding you a lovely rainy New England day from audio land…

Check the embedded video: (listen to 1:03)

This week in my Computer Science class I learned about the Exaflood, which subsequently I had never heard of.  You can watch an interesting video on the subject here:

This is a scary possibility that we may even see in our lifetime.  Basically as far as I understand it an exabyte of data is an extremely large amount of data.  We are using and generating so much content on the net in these times that according to the video on the exaflood that i gave you the link to above, 20 U.S. households use as much internet capacity as the whole world used back in the mid nineties.  The greater percentage of this usage is generated through HD video content and streaming video which takes up a vast amount of bandwidth.  With users these days watching movies and television shows on their laptops or even connecting their computers to their HD televisions to do so you can see how much this usage is going up.  It is said that the overload of the bandwidth by this extreme usage could in fact overload the networks and drastically slow down the internet.

It’s pretty crazy how many people are connected to the net and how much growth there is.  I can remember having a dial up internet connection when I was younger and how long it took just to connect to the net.  Imagine that we overload the net with all of our new technology and our need for faster connections and instant gratification wind up leading us back to that ever so slow place.  Now I doubt that will happen if the advertising service providers continue to upgrade their fiber optics that are the backbone of the internet as discussed in the video.  The service providers really need to see what the future holds and I think they have a good grasp on it.  Technology is always going to get faster and less expensive so one day we may end us using the internet as our one and only resource.  If this were to happen we would need an extremely vast network that could handle all this exadata.  It’s something that most people really don’t think about and I found it interesting.

If you get a chance be sure to check out the youtube link.

I learned quite a bit more in the past week in my other classes and daily life as well.  I think that I’ve learned something new every day since I was born and that is one of the beauties in life.  Having attended the Boston Area Definitive Audio Student Summit at NEAI this past Saturday I had the opportunity to meet a few industry heavyweights.  The 9 time Grammy winning producer/engineer Jim Anderson blow my mind when he took an analog tape two mix recording converted through the best possible A/D converters and rendered the file to a high quality mp3  then brought that mp3 back into the original mix.  He then was able to use some phasing techniques to line up the mp3 track with the original tape master to allow the listener the ability to only hear the distortion that is added to each and ever mp3 we hear.  This is just one other reason why convenient mp3 audio is inferior to that of cd quality 16 bit 44.1khz sample rate music formats or even better vinyl.

I also had the privilege of attending a discussion on music copyrighting, licensing, publishing, and synchronization with Jordan Tishler .  If you read my last posting you’s know that this stuff really is where the rubber meets the pavement as far as achieving a somewhat sustainable income with your recorded works and songs.  I received some great advice from Jordan concerning my current endeavors with Long Distance Analog and Absolutely and I’m educating myself further and looking at other opportunities for us that I had not thought of previously.  I look forward to meeting up with Jordan in the near future to check out his studio and get his feedback on our music.

We’ll that’s all I’ve got for now.  Sweet dreams from audio land…

So this has been yet another action packed week for me.  I’ve been working hard over the years to discover the 25th hour in the day so we could all achieve a little bit more with our lives.  Haven’t found it yet but I’ll be sure to let you know when I do as it would surely help me out with my hectic schedule.

Back to the task at hand.  In the past week I have learned several useful things that I will indefinitely carry with me on my quest fin this life.  We watched an informative film on the inception and creation of the Internet, Networks, and the World Wide Web in my CSI101 class that was interesting.  I thought it was really cool how in the begining of greating the ARPA Net the computer scientists had to create a device called IMP to interface with various machines so that they could share information with other machines.  Being a vintage analog synth buff I found this IMP machine with it’s blinking lights and switches reminiscent of an old synth or something you’d find in a Star Trek episode.  I liked how when presenting the newly devised network technology to the commication giants at AT&T the network compleatly crashed and the executive at AT&T laughed at this technology.  Just take a look around these days.  You know these guys anr’t laughing anymore,  well maybe they are now with the invention of the iphone.

I also learned a great deal copyright law, publishing, and licencing as it pertains to music in my BUS101 (Music Business) class.  It couldn’t have come a better time as my production partners and I are currently copyrighting our materiel to sell the sound recording license to a newer independent dance music record label out of the UK.  I have much better understanding of this subject matter and have been able to guide us in making educated decisions concerning our art.  Can’t beet that right.

That’s the update for now, off to my AMT101 (Audio Tech 1) class to plot some complex wave forms.  Until next time, good night and good luck from audio land.