Music

Check ‘em out on Amazon Listmania!.

Bulletin from Koufax’ via myspace:

02/04/08 1:45PM
New Album “Strugglers” Out Soon
Koufax recently completed the tracking of its fourth full length player “Strugglers.” The 11 song album was tracked in Eudora, KS by Nick Day at the Black Lodge. Mixing by Michael Krassner in Phoenix, AZ begins this week, so a new song or two will be uploaded on this site toward the end of the month. Release dates are yet to be confirmed, however it appears summer is most likely for Europe and USA with touring in the respective areas to follow. Other details will surface, as they come in. Stay smart / look sharp!

My Xtra exhibits a “playback error” when trying to play certain mp3s. The resolution is to use foobar2000 to re-encode these mp3s. Specifically, click “File / Open” and open the respective mp3. Before you get started, you’ll need lame.exe. Extract the contents of the .zip file anywhere on your hard drive, then copy/paste lame.exe anywhere, for example in the foobar2000 folder. In the following steps, when prompted for lame.exe, browse to where you pasted it.

In the two versions of foobar2000 I’ve used, the track starts playing automatically, so stop playback if that’s also the case for you. Right-click on the file (the item in the playlist), click “Convert” from the menu, then click “Convert to Same Folder”. Choose “MP3 (LAME), 190 kbps, V2, fast” from the dropbox then click OK. Click “Yes” in the warning window that tells you there will be quality loss. Your newly-created mp3 will have a different filename and a newer timestamp than the older one. This newer one is (obviously) the one that should be copied to the Xtra.

The only problem I’ve observed is that sometimes, not always, the converted mp3 isn’t able to be fastforwarded or rewound, if those words still apply in the digital world. In other words, once you start playing the track, if you try to fastforward or rewind it, you’ll have to start over, so be cautious. I haven’t looked into that problem – I’m leaving good enough alone, or whatever the saying is.

Myspace can be useful. I just came across this bulletin:

It’s official! The Joel Plaskett Emergency will be touring with the Tragically Hip in the United States. From San Francisco to New York, the Joel Plaskett Emergency will be rocking venues with the always fantastic Tragically Hip. These shows are going to sell out fast, so check the show dates (link to tourdates ) and get your tickets ASAP! This is one tour that you don’t want to miss!

No worries for our Canadian fans either. While the Can-Americans get their fill of Emergency Rock, we’ll be putting together dates for our fans North of the Border. See you soon!

The JPE Team

From the upcoming shows section of the Joel Plaskett profile:

Oct 18 2007 8:00P
La Zona Rosa Austin, Texas

Who’s coming to the show?

Last week I spent some time writing a post about a new “car mp3 player” project that I had started working on. After running into some minor roadblocks I realized it might be easier to just get a portable mp3 player and use that instead of the old laptop I was originally planning on using. The main reason I wanted to use the laptop was to make use of existing resources and save a few bucks. The laptop wasn’t being used, nor was the 20 GB hard drive pulled from Erin P’s broken Rio Karma. Portable mp3 players are generally not upgradeable and the inexpensive models offer small storage, which are both deal breakers for me

One night I was browsing through austin.craigslist electronics and came across a 30 GB Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX for $50. The buyer reported it as being used for just 4 months, and in working order. I did a little research and the reviews were overall favorable. Plus, the battery and hard drive were both removable. The only potential issue was the fact that the unit did not offer a line out. It only had a headphone output, so my concern was that the pre-amplified output might sound distorted when connected to the line in of the EQ in my car. Oh well, I thought. Worst case, I could use a cassette adapter or resell the thing.

The seller was nice enough to drive down to Austin, from Cedar Park IIRC, and meet me in the smoothie area of Whole Foods on 360 & 183. It turned out that the model was the “Xtra”, not the “NX”, which was both good and bad. You see, from the small amount of research I did on these Zens, I had read of a known issue regarding the headphone jack. The plus side of the Xtra models, however, is that they have a larger display, buffer, and a blue backlight (instead of green). Want to guess what my favourite colour is? I asked him if he ever encountered issues with the headphone jack and took his word that he didn’t, so I took a chance and forked up the cash. Once back in my car, I connected it to the cable already in place and it sounded fine, as far as I could tell. Cool beans.

Mine is a 30 GB, not 60 GB, although I can put a bigger HDD in there once the warranty is void.

Later that night, Nora was over to drink beer and play video games (does it get any better than that?). While taking turns playing WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii and talking with brother while he was playing with his new Power Mac G4, we played miscellaneous songs that were left on the Zen. Or should I call it NOMAD, Jukebox or Xtra? He had a mixture of Vietnamese songs, mostly from a particular artist that sounded 80s-ish, as well as the most typical music you can think of. Think The Beatles, Elvis, Depeche Mode, Two Doors Down, 10,000 Maniacs (which I only remember because it was the first artist listed), 50 cent, etc. At that time, it was connected to the hifi in the living room, which was a better test for audio quality than my car. And, once again, it sounded pretty good. The thing to keep in mind is that, of course, the quality depends on the characteristics of the songs themself, so the best test would be to put something high quality on there. At any rate, it will be in my car and the mp3s that will be on it will be either ripped from yours truly or from others’ “album rips” (NOT INDIVIDUAL TRACKS!), so rest assured that the quality will be sufficient.

I also read that the bundled software from Creative sucked, and that 3rd party software applications were recommended, so I didn’t even try Creative’s offering. I ended up getting Notmad (not a typo) Explorer from Red Chair Software, which increased my investment $25. Still, I think $75 is a very reasonable amount of dough required to play 30 GB worth of high quality mp3s in my car. I tried moving the existing songs to the file servere, where I would later go through them to delete the crap and keep the interesting things, but I kept getting error messages and would have to start the process over (from what appeared to be the very beginning) each time. This rubbed me the wrong way, as it wasn’t a nice introduction to this new software, but at least Red Chair had information related to the error message on their website. Although there wasn’t a workaround to the issue, at least I knew that it was related to the mp3s being somehow corrupt. After I found that out, I just deleted all of his stuff because I was anxious to get my stuff on there. Since then I haven’t had any errors, so I’ll give Red Chair the benefit of the doubt and point the finger at the previous user or, more specifically, the source of his purportedly corrupt mp3s.

As far as looks are concerned, I think it’s made of adonized metal. All of the buttons are on the sides and the jacks (AC, USB, headphone) are on the top. I don’t think a docking station option is available because there’s no interface on the bottom of the unit. It came with the AC adapter and a car charger, the later of which I was both glad to hear, considering the application. It’s basically as tall and wide as a 12 oz soda can and about an inch deep. It also has a black (faux leather?) case. Since there’s a hard drive inside instead of flash memory, it’s not ideal to carry around, i.e. jog with, but, again, that’s perfectly fine for what I’m using it for. Brother thinks the “Smart Volume Management (SVM)” EAX setting will normalize/compress the audio, resulting in all tracks being played at the same volume. I hope that’s indeed the case, so I don’t have to adjust the volume depending on the album, while in shuffle mode. I haven’t yet experimented with that feature enough to determine if he’s correct. The user’s guide says it “intelligently controls the dynamic range of audio, providing a superior audio experience in difficult listening environments such as in a plane or car”. WTF does that mean? Layman’s terms are great but only when bundled with technical details alongside.

It would be super if it had a remote, something I haven’t researched yet, because it’s a small nuisance to control it while driving, i.e. adjusing the volume, skipping tracks and toggling shuffle. “Right now I’ll take what I can get.” -Joel Plaskett

Thanks to brother for giving me this link.

Guitar Scales – Dr. Stephen Sque

According to a myspace bulletin from a music friend, The National, their new album “Boxer” will be released Tuesday, May 22nd in the USA. As I’m a fan of their previous release “Alligator”, brought to my attention from DIF Allen, I was glad to read this and I look forward to getting my hands on it. I guess myspace bulletins can be useful, if used sparingly and appropriately. Also brought to my attention, this time on Benji’s behalf, The National will be performing at ACL Fest in September.

From their myspace page:

Some Words About Boxer

by Alec Hanley Bemis

The National are a band of New Yorkers transplanted from Cincinnati, Ohio: Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Scott Devendorf. What each member of the band does is not that important, but what they do together seems increasingly more so…

When last we heard from The National, they’d released and toured behind their Beggars Banquet debut, Alligator, an album whose reception closely mirrored the kind of sounds they made on record—it started out quiet, and ended up very, very loud. Alligator became one of the most widely discussed and critically acclaimed independent albums of 2005—“album of the year” to one Los Angeles Times critic. It also earned top marks in a poll of America’s bloggeratti and rapturous reviews throughout the U.S. and Europe. (Uncut, selecting it as an album of the month, called the record “their first masterpiece.”) More importantly, The National became an object of growing obsession among a thriving community of fans—strands of their lyrics decorated MySpaces; during shows, audience members sang along in unison, echoing through concert halls; news of celebrity admirers like Bruce Springsteen shot across the interwebs. The National became famous in an alternate universe—one where the gossip rags talk about the people you actually care about.

Boxer is better.

Gothic in its detailing but jaunty in its execution, Boxer is something far richer than orch-pop (translation: rock ‘n’ roll topped with violins). Rather, the band find ways to combine the expressive depth of composed music with the urgency of pop. It’s a sound built with guitar, bass, piano and drums and festooned with brass, woodwinds, backing vocals, strings, and organs. A product of dedicated labor, happenstance, and alchemical reactions, the music reveals new layers with each successive listen.

There are nods toward a host of iconic Americans—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, composer Steve Reich, Bob Dylan and the Band, Jonathan Ames (especially Wake Up, Sir!), even a bit of Grateful Dead. There are sketchy suggestions of Leonard Cohen, Grace Paley, Nick Cave, John Ashbery, The Smiths and Tom Waits. But The National’s pedigree is becoming harder and harder to trace. They may remind you of distinguished ancestors but, now, The National sound like no one so much as themselves: a meditative rumble that starts in the heart, gets caught in the brain, and resonates outward.

Australian composer Padma Newsome of Clogs coordinates the fleet of orchestral details—he’s one vital part of an extended family that has expanded in recent years to include producer Peter Katis; beloved live engineer Brandon Reid; writer and guest lyricist Carin Besser; and French artist Mathieu Saura (a.k.a. Vincent Moon). New contributors include Thomas Bartlett (a.k.a. Doveman), Brooklyn singer Marla Hansen, and neighborhood friend Sufjan Stevens.

***

When asked to describe Boxer, The National makes reference to “a euphoric disconnection,” the lovely delusion that sets in after too much dulling reality, too much time away, and losing touch with friends.

As usual, the lyrics eschew narrative in favor of associative images, bits of overheard conversation, or slivers of interior monologue re-arranged into a new language unique to the band. There are diamond slippers and ballets on ice, G.I. blood and fake empires, blue blazers and white-shirted professionals. The band sings about the kind of dreams that ruin lives, and they make of those dreams the kind of music that saves them. A glowing young ruffian retires from his dream life, shoots up the corporate ladder, develops womanly hands…

What exactly is The National going on about? Why are songs about love and war intertwined with songs about money and office life? Are these songs about all those topics at once? The only certain thing is that, like boxers, The National are making their way in a rough trade—a sport, a pastime, a violent thing. They get cut up and caught up in the ropes. They rip out the stitches though friends urge them not to.

I won’t lie. The National’s music is not easy to describe, but it’s very easy to listen to. It’s an antidote for uneasy times. Spend an hour with Boxer, and you’ll end up spending many more.

Alec Hanley Bemis is a writer and band friend who operates the Brassland music label.

This guide is primarily intended in case I have to format my daily driver. Still, I felt it would be worthwhile to make it public knowledge for those new to this kind of stuff. I consider the end result to be a high sound quality mp3 with a reasonable file size.

The instructions are a mixture of verbatim and cropped information from Übernet (inaccessible as of 04-17-2007) and the Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase, plus some personal configuration settings.

Notes:

·o· Feedback is greatly appreciated.

·o· Do let me know if any of the links below die.

·o· If you have Daemon Tools installed, I recommend uninstalling it, then rebooting the PC, before following the steps below. I’ve experienced a problem where EAC only detects the Daemon Tools virtual drive, instead of the physical drive. Re-installing Daemon Tools afterwards shouldn’t cause problems.

·o· This article is intended to get EAC installed/configured quickly, so we’ll skip EACs test mechanisms that (inaccurately) determine what CD/DVD drive is the best to use and what features it supports. Start off by using what you think is your best drive. If it works fine, stick with it. If you find the extraction process to be slow and think another drive would be faster, try another drive by selecting it from the drop-box at the top-left. If you do end up using another drive, you may need to tweak options in step 12!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Download Adaptec ASPI driver and extract the contents to the default location (c:\adaptec\aspi).

·o· Open a command prompt, navigate to c:\adaptec\aspi, then issue ONE of the following commands, depending on your OS:

Windows 98/ME/NT/2000: install x86
Windows XP 32-bit: install xp32
Windows XP 64-bit: install xp64

(I’m running XP 32-bit.)

·o· REBOOT THE PC!

2. Download EAC v0.95 beta 4 (without CDRDAO package), and extract the contents to “C:\eac-0.95b4″. I’ll reference this as the EAC main directory, in the rest of this article.

3. Download LAME 3.97 final, extract the contents anywhere on your hard drive, then copy “lame.exe” and paste it in the EAC main directory.

4. Remove all CDs/DVDs from all CD/DVD drives of the PC that you want to use for ripping.

5. If you’ve previously run EAC on this PC (even just once), clean the registry of all things EAC-related following the instructions immediately below. Otherwise, proceed to step 6.

·o· … click ‘Start | Run’, type regedit, and hit Enter.

·o· Go to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AWSoftware\EAC, and delete it…

6. Run EAC.exe from the EAC main directory.

·o· Upon running EAC for the first time, a setup wizard will appear. Close it by clicking Cancel, and close and restart EAC.

·o· After restarting, re-run the config wizard by clicking EAC -> Configuration Wizard then click Next.

·o· EAC will now list all CD drives it found in your system. Check which drive you feel is best (i.e. the newest, fastest, name brand) then click Next.

·o· At the “Extraction Preferences” window, select I prefer to have accurate results then click Next.

·o· At the “Feature Database” window, select Use these values to configure this drive then click Next.

·o· At the “Drive Rating” window, click Next.

·o· At the “Encoder Configuration” window, uncheck Install and configure… and click Next.

·o· At the “freedb Configuration” window, type “.@.”. In fact, you can leave the field blank. Click Next.

·o· Finally, select I am an expert, let me use the full potential of EAC and click Finish to close the wizard.

8. EAC / EAC options:

Extraction tab

“Error recovery quality”: High

General tab

“On unknown CDs,”: CHECK (then change the radio value to “automatically access online freedb database”)
“Beep after extraction finished”: UNCHECK
“Eject CD after extraction finished”: CHECK

Tools tab

“Automatically write status report after extraction”: CHECK

Filename tab

“Naming scheme”: %A – %Y – %C\%A – %N – %T

Directories tab

“Use this directory”: “c:\eac rips” (or any other directory you’d like – just make sure it’s a local drive). I’ll reference this as the EAC rips directory in the rest of this article. If the directory doesn’t already exist, you’ll be prompted to create it when you click the Interface tab in the next step.

Interface tab

Confirm that “Installed external ASPI interface” is selected and grayed out.

Click OK to close the EAC Options window.

—

9. EAC / Drive options:

Information window

“Show this information next time”: UNCHECK

Extraction Method tab

“Drive has ‘Accurate Stream’ feature”: CHECK (this may already be checked and grayed out, which is fine)
“Drive caches audio data”: CHECK
“Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error information”: UNCHECK

Note: The way I understand it, it’s difficult to determine if a drive truly supports these features, so it’s generally recommended to use these settings initially, and change them if needed (based on the results of the log file). See step 12 for more detailed information.

Drive tab

“Spin up drive before extraction”: CHECK

Note: Enabling this makes sense to me, to get the drive “warmed up”, but if you observe that the beginning of a song is missing (or corrupt, or has glitches), uncheck this option to see if that helps.

Offset / Speed tab

“Allow speed reduction during extraction”: UNCHECK

Note: This should make a significant difference during the extraction (audio CD -> .wav file) phase.

Click OK to close the Drive Options window.

10. Look at the top-left of EAC and note which drive is selected. Insert a pristine, factory pressed audio CD (NOT a burned disc) in that drive. A freedb window should briefly appear then disappear. If not, you may have the CD in the wrong drive, so try another. If the tracks are listed in the main window, then you’re using the correct drive.

11. Solely for testing purposes, click the first track then press Shift+F5 to rip it to a .wav file (which will be in the EAC rips directory). After the CD ejects, click OK and confirm that “No errors occured” is displayed.

12. Click OK again then go to your EAC rips directory, open the log file, and note the “Read mode”. If it’s “Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache” you’re good to go. Otherwise, return to EAC / Drive Options / Extraction Method tab and check or uncheck the respective incorrect options(s), then rip the first track again the same way. Check the newly-created log file and confirm the “Read mode” is “Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache”.

13. EAC / Compression Options

External Compression tab

“Use external program for compression”: CHECK

“Parameter passing scheme”: User Defined Encoder (far bottom choice)

“Program, including path, used for compression”: Browse to your EAC main directory, then double-click “lame.exe”. The field should then read “C:\eac-0.95b4\lame.exe”.

“Additional command line options: -V2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

“Use CRC check”: UNCHECK

“Add ID3 tag”: UNCHECK

Note: IDE tags are handled via the LAME command line options above. It’s better to let LAME handle this instead of EAC.

“Check for external programs return code”: CHECK

Click OK to close the Compression Options window.

14. Download/install AccurateRip, carefully following the post-installation instructions.

More information is available here.

In conclusion, note that the online freedb database is helpful, but don’t trust the submissions. You’ll see that there are plenty of tpyos to be found! As far as capitalization is concerned, I recommend following the format of whatever is on the CD itself (i.e. if the tracks are all UPPERCASE, lowercase, Or a Mixture). Double check the spelling of the CD Title, CD Artist, and Titles (track names). If you’ve made changes to an existing database entry, or if there was no previous database entry, be sure to submit your changes to the freedb by pressing Alt+U.

The calendar is now at the bottom, out of the way, and letter abbreviations are now full words.

If this isn’t the cutest shit.

Not on a related note, but while I’m here, I’m considering making some sort of weekly contest to draw readers in (and for fun, of course). Haven’t thought about it very much, suggestions are welcome.

Also, note related, The Stills latest album “Without Feathers” is purdy gewd.