As soon as I get back from Quebec, I'm off to see Grandaddy at the Opera House. I have to confess I like Sumday. Songs like "The Group Who Couldn't Say" sound raw and unprocessed, yet manage to also sound sophisticated, at least for this type of rock. And I especially liked "The Final Push To The Sum" and "The Warming Sun," both cute ballads with some interesting effects and synths.
I guess I'd heard enough about Sumday to be a bit careful. "Nothing like Radiohead. Sometimes like the Flaming Lips." But making comparisons won't do justice to this cool album. Unless we compare them to themselves...
And Sumday sounds far more upbeat, at least the lyrics do, than The Sophtware Slump. Not that depressing isn't good. It's just that they do the (sorta) happy thing so well. And it seems that Grandaddy's mix of organic and electronic has changed as well, now featuring some fake sounding (sampled?) strings once in a while, with the synths doing little blippy things here and there. The drums sound like they were done in small rooms throughout. Which is all good by me.
Maybe that's why I scored high on the geek test. Yes, I have been playing here in Toronto, and having a great time. This is the gang.
And right next to them is Carlos' new minivan, a very hip Grand Caravan. In the very near future, we'll be going up to Quebec in the GC, and hopefully I'll be able to post from my hotel room.
With what will probably be the largest online catalog available, Napster is poised to make a comeback. Too bad it's only going to be a reworked embodiment of Pressplay. And I'm willing to bet it’ll be as unappealing as the rest of the pack.
Does it sound good? I don't know. Is it really ugly? Yes.
Mackie, makers of my favorite monitors, will start relying on outsource manufacturing. Yes, they won't be directly assembling some of their products. And some 200 people will lose their jobs as well.
Blue, one of my favorite mic manufacturers, is making a cool mic called the Ball. If this phantom-powered dynamic sounds as good as it looks, I want one.
And since we're on the subject of good looks, let's not forget just about everything made by Analogue Solutions...
Most upright residential pianos I've heard sound horrible. It's been a mixture of bad room placement, bad rooms, lack of tuning and sometimes just poor maintenance.
So I was amazed and delighted when we set up for today's session in Neil's living room. His Chicago made Schaff Bros. piano sounded warmer than I've come to expect of uprights. In fact, it sounds just beautiful. The room worked very well, and of course, our musician proved to be as skilled a pianist as he is a trombone player.
They may have more songs than some, and cheaper rates than most, but they still suffer from too many copy protection shemes and the totally unhip Windows Media format. BuyMusic.com, in fact, has the most unattractive name I've yet heard in this business. They apparently want to emphasize the fact that you're spending money.
BuyMusic's founder seems to love Steve Jobs. So much so that he even released commercials that look just like Apple's... Well, but they suck.
From the French Culture Ministry: "Evocative, with a very French sound, the word 'courriel' is broadly used in the press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English."
What's so fun about watching car racing events? For example, today's Indy events here in Toronto? On TV, you can see the entire track, so you follow the details of the competition. But if you actually go to the track, you just sit at a curve and go "Yay!" every time a few cars speed by. To understand the action, you rely on the dismembered voice yelping from the the sound system.
So I'm not ashamed of not actually going to the event. I just took this Indy photo from the expressway as I crossed over the race.
Blues! BBQ! What could be better on a Sunday afternoon? Although one of those pics is displaying an American flag, make no mistake, this is Toronto. But the bbq "experts" all seemed to be American.
I have no bones to pick with the music, however. Perfect soundtrack for feeling cool on a hot summer day. Great guitar and harp playing.
Adobe has just launched an audio application called Audition, which should be in stores by late August.
Back in May, Adobe announced they had bought "technology assets" from Syntrillium, makers of Cool Edit Pro.
So, Audition is Cool Edit Pro.
On a (slightly) more positive note, there's a cool little hardware gadget called Red Rover on Syntrillium's site. Intended as a remote for your recording setup, it could just as easily have been a tiny control surface for mixing. However, at this price point , the lack of features becomes a serious problem.
If it only had:
A fader. Just one. For goodness sake.
Data control for plugins accessible from the already-present knobs.
Panning.
So, for about twice the cost of the Red Rover, a person could get the horrid looking, yet practical, Peavey PC1600.
...but more importantly, it's priced like a workstation. They
say it's the "world's first personal computer with a 64 bit
processor." Yeah, and maybe it's the world's first
Cosmic Canoli. Because they can call it whatever they want, and
it still doesn't beat the
performance of an
Opteron. Although it's priced like an Opteron.
Brian's trombone idea for one of the songs worked out very nicely... Which
song? eheheh. Neil played exceptionally well, as did Ross, who did bass
on Film Crew.
Porto Alegre bassist Albo joined the project a couple of weeks back,
sending us some great bass parts for three songs. Via Internet, of
course.
Today my daily routine of checking interesting sites led me to a very cool article. It's an interview on ProSoundWeb with, yes, Rupert Neve, the individual whose name is synonymous with excellence in the design of audio gear. The interviewer, Fletcher of Mercenary Audio, is a well known audio guy who has been helpful to the "audio community" for many years.
Neve briefly comments on his investigation into the human perception of high (over 20k) frequency content, which is something I've always found interesting. It's a great piece. Ok, go read...
There was a serious attempt at celebrating Canada day like Canadians do. Which, is... well, just like the 4th of July. There were tons of food things packed into the trunk of the car. But we only left home near noon. And the parks were packed like I've never seen in the US.
So the food's going to be here at home, and later we'll go out to soak-in some sun. And then, Fireworks...
Does it sound good? I don't know. Is it really ugly? 
Ever listen to the 
