The Power of Digital Audio

June 28, 2006

So, my band has been recording an E.P. and we did all the tracking ourselves. Before taking things into a studio for mixing, I went through and did all the editing. I guess in the old days of actual tape, things would be done differently while tracking, because editing tape involves razors, scotch tape and rulers. With something like Pro Tools, a lot of things can just be handled after the fact. I dunno, maybe that makes us crappy musicians, but in my mind, it's just something that enables us to get our musical ideas recorded with a minima of hassle. I had figured that editing the vocals together would be the biggest task. Basically taking the best phrase from multiple vocal takes and creating a final "comped" take for the vocals. It turns out that a much trickier part involved the drums. We didn't use a click track or metronome, as Michelle keeps reasonably steady time and we just didn't have time to rehearse to the click. The tricky part about this is that anywhere in a song where she's not playing, she has to click her sticks so we have a time reference. See, Tony, Devon and I would be recording our tracks later when she wasn't there, so we need a beat at all times during the song. We've got a couple songs with some multiple-measure stops in them, where Michelle hits a big cymbal crash, the band plays and then she comes back in. The first thing I noticed was that her stick clicks are in the middle of the decay of the cymal crash, like so:

Now, I could just fade out right before the first click, but that would be highly awkward sounding. I could simply remove the click, but then there would be a noticable gap in the cymbal decay. So, Time Expansion to the rescue! First step, cut out the portion with the click sound:

Next step, select an area of the cymbal decay adjacent and previous to the area I just removed, and use the time expansion/compression plug in to stretch it to fill the remaining space, without modifying the pitch:

Note that I had to calculate the amount of space to fill via samples, and ensure that the "Sound vs. Rhythm" slider was all the way on Sound, or you get a noticable flanging effect. Once that's done, we get this:

which works OK, but there's noticeable clicks when we pass from the edited audio to the unedited audio. A quick crossfade of both sections gives us

and then we do it about 11 more times. The result

is a smooth cymbal decay without any sound of stick clicks! I guess if we'd been doing this with tape, we would either have had to use a click track or have someone else click the missing rhythm in Michelle's headphones. Either way, I didn't even think about this problem at the time and thank God I was able to fix it. Go Pro Tools!

Wikipedia and the speed of eBusiness

June 20, 2006

So, I've authored a few Wikipedia entries, and have done large edits to some other, so usually a few times a week, I'll check the watchlist and keep an eye on things. I'll also periodically fix typos or reword things in articles if I'm reading. Usually I'll only bother for articles about old school video games, wrestling or music. I was reading the entry on amateur wrestler-turned-sports-entertainer Brock Lesna and notice some pretty poorly worded passages. A big problem with pro-wrestling entires is that they don't clearly distinguish wrestling storylines from real-world happenings and they come off a bit markish. So, I edited a big part of the entry about his time in WWE. I try to preview before saving, but whenever I edit a lot of text, I end up making several follow-up edits. After a couple of these, I notice a missing comma, so I click "Edit" and I get a blank page. Figuring wikipedia just barfed or something, I try it again. Nothing. I had been just editing the section, so I go back and try to edit the entire article. It has been replace with this (possibly NSFW) entry. Right under my nose! So, I reverted the edit and went to the user's talk page. I then had to get searching through the Wikipedia help section to find out how to flag this guy as a vandal. Meanwhile, he reverted my reversion to his vandalized page again! Another wikipedia user (possibly someone who was watching his talk page) undid his edits. I finally figured out a) how to put a vandal tag on his talk page (he's got a ton there already) and then b) how to inform the Wikipedia admins that he was a repeat offender and needed banning. Within a few minutes of that, I got a message that he was banned for one week and that this was the third time he'd been banned. The entire thing from start to finish was about 5 minutes. Kudos to the openness of wikipedia! Now the world can be more accurately informed about how Brock Lesnar almost broke his neck at Wrestlemania only to get buried by Stone Cold Steve Austin on his way out the door!

Acquisition of a USB cable

June 14, 2006

So, in an effort to bring my parents into the 21st century, I ordered my Mom a new computer. They, unfortunately, use Windows, so a PC it was. I had previously suggested using Dell or Gateway, but it seems that both companies insist on installing massive amounts of bloatware, and neither provides the actual install disks for re-installing your machine. So, I went to a budget computer builder, had them build it, install Windows XP and ship it to me. I then completed the setup, installed patches and all that. Having never used XP, I was pleasantly surprised that it just doesn't suck as much as Windows 2000, but still utterly baffled at the amount of reading and bizarre decision making required of the average user. Plus, I have no idea why the fuck I have to have a puppy dog talking to me when I do a search of the hard drive.

At any rate, I got the computer installed on their "network" without any problems. Their network consists of a dying Windows 2000 box, with the main printer connected to it, a wireless router and the new computer. It was rather inconvienient to move the main printer to connect directly to the XP box, so I used the magical power of networking to connect the printer. In Windows 2000, it's amazingly simple (though not remotely as simple as on OS X). The previous computer pretty much stayed connected to it all the time, even during the myriad of reboots required to keep the computers up and running. I figured with teh awesomz0rz pwnage of XP, it would be even simpler. Right off the bat, you cannot browse to the computer. It just churns and churns and churns, presumably checking every single port of every single possible IP address and asking "Hey! You there! Yes, you, Mr. Port! Do you have any Microsoft products connected to you?".

So, I just go to the computer directly, via the good ole \\COMPUTER_NAME notation. It asks me to login, which I do (why the fuck do I have to log in?!?!!?), indicating I would like the credentials to be remembered, and then I see a list of shared "stuff". The printer is top of the list, right-click, "Connect" and viola, I've now accomplished (hopefully), in six steps what requires one on OS X. But, whatever.

Of course, a few days later, my Mom calls and can't print. Windows has just dropped the connection to the printer. I instruct her to do as above, and, of course, she used forward slashes instead of backslashes (thus searching google for the other computer's name) and, once I'd corrected her, Windows did not remember any part of the login credentials, despite being told to do so. Of course, the printer connected fine and worked. Every 4-5 days, XP just drops the printer, and my Mom has to call me up and we go through this rigamaroll again.

Now, eventually, the Windows 2000 box the printer is connected to will be put out to pasture, and the printer would have to be plugged into the XP box. So, I figure I can save myself some tech support calls if I just connect the printer to the new box and screw the networking crap that Microsoft still can't seem to get right. The printer is about 12 feet away from the computer, so I figure a 15-foot USB cable should be plenty for connecting without having to rearrange anything in my mom's office.

Best Buy's price for a 12 foot cable (the longest they had): $39.99
CompUSA's price for same (again, the longest): $32.99 For a fucking USB cable.

So, to the Internets. I'd heard good things about NewEgg, so I figured this would be a good way to try them out. 15 foot USB cable retails for a measly $3.99. Brief perusal of other online dealers yielded a similar price. What the fuck are the BigBoxes thinking?. I guess that every consumer is a completely uninformed idiot who likes being cheated. Seriously, I can see paying twice as much for the "instant gratification" thing (even though THAT is ridiculous in and of itself), but 10 times as much?!?!?! Wow.

So, the shipping on a $4 USB cable is about $5, so I figure while I'm buying, I'll throw in a few other things I need. Put in a 7-port USB hub for myself, a spindle of CD-Rs for my Mom (who never buys them and therefore never backs up anything ever), and some DVD-R DLs for me (having recently exhausted the majority of my supply backing up the demo for my band), and some CD-Rs for myself as well. All said and done, I've got a good $150 in my shopping cart.

Now, this is ultimately stuff for my Mom, and since I live in the city (and therefore both UPS and FedEx actively hate me), I figured I'll just have it shipped to my Mom's house in Manassas. I create my NewEgg account, enter the shipping address and then am told that if my shipping address and billing address are different:

Contact your card issuer and have the alternate Ship-to Address added as an authorized shipping location in your account records or in the memo field. If you choose to ship to an address other than your billing address that has not been specified as an alternate Ship-to Address with your card-issuer, your order may be delayed by up to several days as we complete verification.

What. The. Fuck.

It seems to me that as of 19 fucking 99, the collective online portion of the human race has solved the difficult problem of shipping to an address other than your billing address. I can't even reacll the last time I was on a website where this feature was not seamless. Yet, these assclowns want me to call my credit card company?!?!?!?! From their own FAQ:

Why must Newegg.com verify my shipping address?
For fraud prevention purposes, if your billing and shipping addresses are different, we must verify your shipping address. Please contact the bank that issued your credit card and have your shipping address listed as an alternate address in that bank's memo field. Please make sure your credit card issuer bank's phone number is correctly listed in your Newegg.com account information.

What kind of fraud might happen if the legal credit card holder charges something on his card and has it shipped to whatever fucking address he wants? I guess NewEgg thinks they are smarter than the entire rest of the Internet, because they are the only place I've been to that has this idiotic requirement. What, do they hate me or something? They sure seem to be treating me as such.

A quick trip to Directron and the same items are now en-route to my Mom's house (I actually saved $10 on the USB hub, to boot). I usually use them for my online computer junk needs, but figured I'd try someone new. I won't be making that mistake again. Right after, I emailed NewEgg informing them that their stupid policy cost them today's sale, and any future sales. I guess if it prevents $150 worth of fraud it was worth it to them.

Update: Received the following message from them regarding my email that they lost a sale:

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

We humbly apologize if this safety precaution has inconvenienced you in anyway but please understand that our intent is only to ensure your satisfaction. <? xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The weird xml crap was left as-is, with incorrect spacing. WTF is that anyway? So, basically what they are saying is that something that I said specifically dissastified me is there only to ensure my satisfaction. Go figure.

naildrivin5.com