Moe_Syzlak

I have a Dell desktop PC (originally came with Windows ME, but I upgraded to XP Pro) that I've had for almost 8 years now. It seems to be on its last legs. I basically use this PC for media (I run iTunes through an Airport Express to my home stereo) and surfing the Web. I.E. I don't use it for work (I have a laptop for that) and I am not a gamer. So it seems to me that a Mac might be more suited to my needs. I'd also like to START using this computer for basic home studio use, nothing fancy. My questions are these:

a) if I have all my photos and music stored on an internal hard drive (in MP3 form) on my current Dell, will I be able to just swap that drive into a Mac or would that not work?

If it isn't so simple to swap out, is there a not-so-simple way that would still make moving to Mac the smart thing to do or should I suck it up and stick with a Windows machine?

c) Any suggestions on what models I should look at given my needs?

Lost in Translation is unwatchable and borderline racist.

they dont have enough music videos to use as filler

Than how about an E! True Hollywood Story where they use bad re-enactments in lieu of real footage. Anyone ever see the Jerry Garcia ETHS? Hilarious!

My statement: I have severely overrated this board's collective taste in music.

Seriously though, I must say I'm impressed with the civility of this thread. These sorts of things often spiral into flames. Nice job, VC!

We went to Santa Catalina, Panama for Thanksgiving last year and loved it. It takes a bit to get there from Panama City, but it isn't too expensive, it has great surf and there is terrific diving and snorkeling, particularly out at Isla Coiba. We also loved the fact that is relatively remote. We were there at the tail end of the rainy season so it wasn't crowded. I'm nit sure what it would be like during high season, but there are probably less than 50 hotel rooms in the entire town. I can send you some pics if you're interested.

BTW, I'm assuming you didn't mean to exclude Central America as I am well aware that Panama is in neither Mexico nor S. America.

i saw them last night in nashville and they played at least 90 minutes.

 

the new stuff sounded great live and the bbs material was a blast. very odd and entertaining version of broken boy soldier. was surprised how many of the songs off the new album brendan benson sang.

Cool, well 90 minutes is better than 60, but I still thik they could do a longer show at this point. Any new covers?

My experience was that I had to leave the headliners early to make the late shows. But since I don't care much about the headliners this year, that wouldn't be an issue.

My brother lives in Austin and has a cab driver he knows who he calls on his cell when we are leaving Zilker. He picks us up outside the grounds and we're back downtown for the late shows in plenty of time. I'd bet that even if you're from out of town you could talk to a cabbie when you get to town, tip him well and get his cell #.

ETA: So apparently Brian Eno is touring with David Byrne. I assume he means he'll be with Byrne for his ACL appearance, making what is already my most anticipated show of the festival even MORE anticipated-ier.

Neon Neon - Stainless Style

[Anyone know how long their shows typically run? With that setlist, it looks like 90 minutes tops.

I think it's still too early to say what will be typical for this tour. I have seen them twice (once was one of their first shows and the other was at a festival) and both were just over an hour. But now that they have a whole 'nother album of material, I'm hoping the shows are a bit longer.

P.S. there is a pro-shot DVD up on DIME right now. Pretty good stuff.

I'm going to this as my brother lives in Austin and my brother-in-law is playing the Festival, but I have to admit being a little let down by this line-up. Bands that were rumored to be playing that aren't that I was really looking forward to:

Wilco

Radiohead

Flaming Lips

Super Furry Animals

Bands that ARE playing that I'd be interested to check out:

Foo Fighters

Spiritualized

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

Beck

Manu Chao

Alejandro Escovedo

David Byrne

The Raconteurs

Gnarls Barkley

Man Man

Robert Earl Keen

Jenny Lewis

M. Ward

Iron and Wine

Mason Jennings

Antibalas

Silversun Pickups

Gogol Bordello

Gillian Welch

The Black Keys

Okkervil River

Galactic

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

Vampire Weekend

Yonder Mountain String Band

Any others that I may be less familiar with that I shouldn't miss?

Do you have a finished product yet? If so, please share what you came up with!

Hammered dulcimer is used prominently in the recent Super Furry Animals album Hey Venus, particularly on Into the Night.

Oh that reminds me that this Thursday is the 25th Anniversary of my first Dead show! I will be celebrating by going to my first Sandra Day O'Connor show.

Just to respond here, it's going to take a lot more for me to feel frustrated enough to stop sharing. I don't mind criticism, especially if it's constructive. And I do like feedback on my recordings, as I'm always trying to make them sound better. I think all of the feedback here has been fine. Some people prefer straight soundboard tapes, and that's fine. People disagree about all kinds of things--it's only when people starting attacking each other that it gets problematic.

 

The only time I came close to changing my mind on sharing a recording was when people started getting real nasty, demanding it right away, getting mad when I took a little longer than planned, and being real hostile when I offered my opinions on the performance. I was pretty close to just taking my tape and going home--but I had promised to share it, and most people were being cool. But a few people almost ruined it. So, it does make sense to be nice to us hard-working tapers. But I'm not going to stop sharing because of the type of comments I'm seeing here.

Cool. I feel as though this discussion should have been in its own thread so there was no confusion. I LIKE this matrix and was never complaining about anything (other than, perhaps, the reading comprehension skills of those that insisted otherwise). Your point above about preferences is all this is about for me, and curiosity about those preferences and what exactly people hear. Because, as I have said, my hearing is somewhat unique and I'm sure that influences my preferences for sbd only. Anyway, I listened to that GD sample 3 and I do hear Jerry louder in the mix in the matrix, but I have to say that, to me, none of it sounds "good." It is a poorly mixed sbd recording to begin with and while the aud may even out the sound a bit, it is still something I wouldn't want to listen to (although obviously many DO want to listen to it). That really emphasizes the fact that either the Residency Matrix is just a phenomenal job or the original sbd mix was much much better (or, most likely, both). Keep doing what you're doing and know that even those of us with screwed up hearing think you're doing a great job!

Well, huh. I guess all the disclaimers I posted didn't work. Once again, I think this matrix mix is very well done. I was NEVER criticizing the job that was done with it. My discussion points were merely that I tend to prefer straight sbd over matrix mixes. Period. I concede that I haven't heard this sbd so I have no way to do a straight comparison, but I have heard MANY sbd sources and their matrix mix siblings and, to my admittedly unique ears, I always prefer the sbd. The sbds that exist that have poor mixes are never "fixed" enough with aud mixed in for me. In those cases I simply do without. There is enough good music out there! So, I'm sorry if any of comments offended. They weren't intended to criticize as I think an excellent job was done here. I simply enjoyed the discussion around aud vs. sbd vs. matrix.

It's nice to have the collection and the packaging is great, but there isn't a noticeable increase in sound quality over the DATs I've had for years of this run. I haven't compared the setlists, but there may be some tunes on this that didn't previously circulate. And, although I haven't popped it in yet, the Cincinnati bonus disk is new to me.

My mom has the original vinyl for Sticky Fingers with the working zipper. Is that rare?

Still....

The other thing to point out here is that every professionally done live recording that I know of has included some ambient room sound in the mix. Throw on Kicking Television, Cheap Trick at Budokan, those live Pixies recordings from the reunion tour--they all have the equivalent of an audience recording mixed in.

I think there is a big difference here though (although as previously stated, I generally would prefer no aud mixed in at the SBD either). First, most the time, the audience will be tracked up in between songs and tracked down during the songs. This gives crowd reaction without the crowd cluttering up the sound during the songs. Two, having a mic at the soundboard or on stage facing the crowd is very different from an audience member recording, IMO. In an aud recording you are recording FOR the music and the room/crowd is "in the way" (for lack of a better phrase) of getting the cleanest sound. When an a mic is dedicated to the crowd noise that can be mixed in without as much actual music (recorded from a long distance) muddying up the sound and can be mixed in independently of the clarity of each (sbd-recorded) instrument. The result is what people STRIVE for with matrix mixes (again IMO), but rarely, if ever achieve. I think this particular matrix is very good, but you can still hear the "overtones" (again for lack of a better word) of the distance between the mic and music coming through, particularly in the drums and bass.

I've said this a few times (and even via Private Message to yltfan), but please don't take my enjoyment of this discussion as criticism of this matrix mix. I have listened to it a ton and really enjoy it!

ETA: So, I just listened to the 4/21/07 Sydney sbd (I don't know that recording's history), but while the mix might not be perfect, it is good trade-off for me to have the crispness and presence of the instruments. I'm curious if those of you who have that show prefer this one to it (as far as sound quality goes).

ETA2: Ok, so I did a back-and-forth sound comparison for the woman and SHE prefers the matrix. Maybe it is just my hearing patterns because for me there is no comparison; the Sydney sbd is MUCH better to my ears. Interesting.

I don't know how rare it is, but someone recently told me it is VERY rare and selling on eBay for a mint, but I have in a box in my folk's attic an original cassette of Phish's album Junta that I got from the band way back in the late '80s.

Surely the sound going through the soundboard is the same as what comes out of the speakers!? It's just recorded at source without outside interference.

Yes, but as was mentioned earlier, in smaller rooms you will have a lot of the amps' sound mixing with the PA, so often things like vocals will be high in the mix to compensate. This doesn't happen as much with larger rooms. Also, I know many live bands whose sound guys WILL mix the sbd feed separately (sometimes mixing in crowd noise) for archival purposes. The Dead did this and as a result I think many live bands that have followed the Dead's lead with regard to live recording do too. As I mentioned earlier, I have heard many sbds that are unlistenable due to mix issues, but I'd rather not listen to that mix with aud added. To me, I'd rather not listen to that show at all. Same with straight auds. Well mixed sbds are my preference. From listening to this matrix, I'd say the sbd mix was pretty good to begin with. Maybe not perfect, but I can live with that.

When Water Comes to Life - Cloud Cult

Star

Speaking of Zappa and the SG, The Dweeze was playing an (the?) SG in '06 when I saw ZpZ and his tone was phenomenal.

But when I listen to the live material I DO want quality, and to these ears soundboard recordings best represent that. I personally think the webcasts sound great and couldn't care less that someone's tylling me it's lossy or whatever. You can really hear the band playing in a way you can't quite do from audience recordings.

 

That said, if you want to recapture the atmopshere at the venue etc then the matrix will bring the extra dimension.

 

I know what Moe's saying about the matrix , if you want the pure clarity of the soundboard, then the addition in the mix of the audience recording will take the clarity down a little.

 

I personally think quite often there's enough crowd noise coming back through the onstage mics and I don't need the extra audience mix.

 

Nonetheless yltfan's matrix effort and the one in Oregon last summer are very good.

Again, I was not trying to knock the matrix at all. But it sounds like you and me are on the same page. It seems to me that it isn't improved "sound quality" that the matrix mix provides, it is a different feel. It sounds more like it did in the room. That's fine, but my preference would be for the room to sound better and not for the recording to sound worse. But, maybe it is my unique hearing patterns and I'm just missing out. Also, FWIW, I have been collecting live music since my first Dead show in '83, so I have heard plenty of all types of recordings.