Audiophile

stuff for sale (09/05/07 11:00 PM PDT)

So I've been needing to unload my pedalboard thats been wasting space under my bed for the last year or even two counting being gone at school and since I haven't been able to get back into playing guitar I'm going to let all, or most of those go.
Heres a link to the list
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?p=23888282#post23888282

That and for my birthday I got a Canon 400D xti for my first foray into digital SLRs and am loving it. Not sure why I didn't get into it earlier. It came with the kit lense but thats pretty worthless for anything indoors and I picked up a 50mm prime 1.8 canon for indoor shooting. Its first outing was 15 minutes after I bought it at the beach at avila. Superfast lense. I'd like to get a superwide one for landscapes and nightshots as well as a zoom, maybe the 70-300 IS since shooting the planes that were flying over my house for the airshow with the kitlense didn't go so well. Looking forward to vacation in a few months in Oregon with it. And hopefully a trip to monterey or up the coast to seattle it could definitely get some use.
Was looking at tripods and was shocked just how much you can pay for a light one to hike with.

I'm kinda frustrated with music right now since I have a few ideas I'd like to get down but my gear and recording setup isn't very solid right now. I tried, or actually I did, record a guy doing an RnB thing and the guitar amp died on me near the end and we were constantly redoing vocal tracks because of random clicks and pops which it hasn't ever done before.
And since I've been trained by everyone I work with to get the best possible sound right from the getgo, and I can't get it with what I have, i've contemplated selling everything and picking up a little radio shack mic and going with that "yes it sounds shitty but that was actually the sound we were going for!" indie music style.

Friday, February 9 2007 6:19 AM PST

Damn that online traffic school was pretty damn annoying. maybe a total of 4 hours give or take the stopping to play a round or 2 of Gears of War on the xbox live to break the monotony. I actually thought I had missed the deadline for traffic school but by getting it done before i go to work today and paying extra to overnight the paperwork I should be ok. Am I the ultimate procrastinator or what. Its almost 6:30am have to be at work at 1:30.. plenty of time to sleep :)

Tuesday, January 23 2007 9:03 PM PST

I've been battling carpul tunnel for quite a while and the apple mouse that resembles a hockey puck that came with my G5 was probably not helping the situation so after talking to quite a few engineers the consensus was that a trackball is much easier on the wrists and hands. A wacom tablet would be even better but i don't feel like drawing and I always hated trackballs. So I ran out tonight and acquired one. Hopefully it won't take too long to get used to.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2150,CONTENTID=5003

pretty darn cheap. Though i'm used to clicking with one of my pointer fingers and not my thumb so its a little odd. They've got some where u use your thumb for the ball and that just looked to be painfull.

When M-16s are on you, you know its not a normal traffic stop... (12/05/06 3:15 AM PST)

So one of my really good friends just came back yesterday from iraq on leave. He was up at pismo beach at the billiards with another guy on leave and some girls that had taken them there but ditched them. So I hadn't seen the guy in a year and told him I'd pick them up and we'd hang out. We talked out front for a short while and then decide to go back to santa maria and as we turn around the corner near the billiards a cop that I had seen sitting at the side of the street decides to start following me. I figure its going to be one of those not so random DUI checks since we passed by the bar there but he doesn't pull me over and I get on the freeway. I'm driving maybe 3 miles maybe and he finally turns his lights on and i get off right before grand by the cemetery and pull over to the side and roll the windows down and start to get my license out of my wallet, and Chris starts to mention "wow they are going all out on this one" (Meanwhile his bestfriend in the backseat is mexican, has had a bit to drink, and can't stop saying its because u've got a mexican in your backseat and I'm telling him to please keep his mouth shut).

So I'm expecting them to come to the window and they start screaming to through my keys out of the car and put our hands up in the air. Then they tell me to open the door with the left hand from the outside and to not look back. Then they got me lifting my jacket and shirt and tell me to spin around and as i'm turning around they tell me to not friggin look at them (WHICH WAS OBVIOUSLY A MISTAKE SINCE THEIRS ATLEAST 4 OR 5 SQUAD CARS, 2 UNMARKED VEHICLES, AND A SUBURBAN OR 2 AND A COUPLE GUYS HAVE THE M16S OUT AND EVERYONE ELSE HAS THEIR GUNS DRAWN, MAYBE 10 OR 12 COPS IN ALL). So they get me on the ground and cuff me and put me against my trunk and start patting me down, a good 4 or 5 times and throw me in the back of the squad car and i'm back there thinkin this has to be a bad joke of some kind. They do the same to the other 2 guys in my car and then 3 or 4 approach the trunk of my car with guns drawn while another pops the trunk like they are gonna unload on someone. The only things back there are a roadside repair kit and 3 of my hubbcaps that a friend had stolen the previous weekend as a retarded and annoying joke.

So then they send in the sniffer dogs and a couple guys start tearing apart everything in my car and trunk and i hear something about guns and them havin to be somewhere. So after sitting in the car maybe 15 minutes they come over askin why i don't have an id and whats my name. I tell them my id and wallet should be on my seat where i had it waiting for them to come to the window...I sit another 5 minutes. : )

Turns out there was an armed robbery by 3 guys up in Paso that got into a green 4 door sedan missing hubbcaps (Thank you joseph and priar for swipin the hubcaps you bastards!)
I half chuckle as they finally let me out of the car for the 3rd or 4th time that I'm gonna kill my friends for stealin those this weekend and they half life. They tell me that "they hope I don't get pulled over again on the way home" half laughing but serious since my car still fits the report. What an exciting evening.... Not really.

A bit excessive is what I say but I guess theres nothing better to do around here for them so thats probably the most excitement they've had in a while.

They want to pay me to do what? (10/30/06 6:27 PM PST)

So I vowed to never go down to Los Angeles ever again, though it appears I'l be driving through their tomorrow as I drive down to Garden Grove for a "Wine" seminar.
Apparent one from every costco warehouse needs to attend to be better "educated" on helping customers with their wine questions and decisions. Plus we will be sampling a lot of wines and since I've been wanting to go winetasting since I became of age, and my company is paying me more then 2 whole days of work to not be at work and to go down and spend time with some friends I had to jump at the chance.

I've been trying to find ways to reorganize my room as far as layout and lighting to help with the music creation process. I'm in search of a few lavalamps since every studio I've worked in has a few and when ur listening to the same kick drum sample for hundreds of times over and over, those lamps become kinda entertaining and amusing (and no i was not nor ever am high)

I've aquired a few more boxes of blue christmas lights to cover my ceiling for ambient lighting since having my 4 bulb ceiling fan on at 3 or 4 am is a waste of energy and heats up the room way too much.

Copeland's new album is out tomorrow. That band has gotten better with every release though I'm not sure how to classify their music as anything other then Indie or Alternative.

Crank out the solder (10/10/06 11:02 PM PDT)

Let the burning begin!
So after plenty of research I'm putting in an order at www.seventhcircleaudio.com for 2 pairs of preamps, the neve style n72s and the api style A12s.

Which means i need to buy a few more tools like a soldering station and a multimeter and a few other toys but after the initial big cost the extra preamp slots shouldn't cost much to fill up. That and i'm putting together a parts list to build a UA LA-2A (hmmm pay 3 or 4 grand for a reissue or build one for a fraction of the cost).

So any of my friends that are on here and into this stuff and interested in getting a couple of these units let me know before i've burned off all my fingers or gouged out my eyeballs in frustration :)

new tunes (10/04/06 1:41 AM PDT)

So today was a good day for music. Not my own but with the new cds I've heard today I've been challenged to work on my guitar/piano/ and orchestral scores playing.

Skillet: Comatose. Their best album to date. They've matured a lot over the last 2 albums and this one rips.

Pillar: The Reckoning. Again, a major maturing in the song writing and the heavy songs...are heavier then ever. Lyrically the guys really reached a new level.

Evanescence: The open door. Ok so i'm kinda creaped out by the artwork and the song titles and just the tone of the album in general. But other then that its amazing! Exactly the stuff I want to work on producing and mixing. The scoring of the orchestras are top notch, and all the layering of the vocal work just sounds great. That and the guitar tone and playing on this one blows the last one away. This one really suprised me how good it was.

The Killers: Sam's Town. I love the single, but i guess i have to give the album a chance since i'm really not feeling the rest of it. Then again, I haven't listened to it a full time through and only skipped through it since the other ones have gotten so much play. Definitely like how they went for the vintage vibe and tone on the album.

Its always a good feeling when you spend a ton of money on music and theres not a single dud in the pile. now I got to wait til after Christmas for Switchfoot's new one which I don't know how they'l top the last one.

Tuesday, September 19 2006 4:14 AM PDT

Here I was worried coming back to the santa maria costco that I wouldn't get a lot of hours. But I worked 45 hours the first week, 50 plus hours this last week and i've got another 40 some hours this week. I'm looking forward to a fatty check, and possibly buying some new toys on top of paying the bills just to reward myself for dealing with way too much crap lately.

I still want a bass guitar and I need a new cellphone because this one has been crapping out on me lately and the battery only lasts about 8 hours with no talking.

Musically I've been in a rut and don't really want to mix anything or even touch an instrument....my co-workers thought it was kinda funny that inbetween stalking stuf in my 40 degree cooler I had a bunch of lyrics scribbled across our cardboard slip sheets that the milk comes stacked on so it doesn't collapse. perhaps i'l get the desire to touch a guitar or piano again soon and put some music to some of this stupid dribble.

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