Year: 2020

There is a lot of development using various powerful, low-cost sensors, computers, etc, to augment a musical performance. The idea of taking brain waves and maybe having it start triggering something is very interesting.

Bret Pimentel has a great article about using an EWI as “silent” practice tool for saxophone, clarinet, or other woodwinds.

I agree with his view point.

Following up from the last post, another company to watch is Berglund Instruments. They currently make an EVI (Electric Valve Instrument) that looks and sounds great. If you follow their instagram account, it seems they are working on a EWI version. And I want one. Seriously. I’ve contacted them.

Emeo Music dropped another video of their forthcoming “digital practice horn for saxophone players”. I’m a little confused as to why it is marketed as this. While it does seem to have a rather cool looking body with fully articulating saxophone keys, it doesn’t have a mouthpiece. In fact, it just seems to be some tube you blow into. Which is fine, but…..is that really a “practice horn” then?

I think the better play is to market this as a higher end wind controller with a more “realistic” feel.

We had some downtime yesterday. The computer that has been running the sites, while working fine, was on a dead end path. It was running Ubuntu 18.04 that was 32bit. There is no real upgrade path from there, and moving to 64bit Ubuntu 20.04 proved to be a couple hour endeavor yesterday.

Anyhow, it seems most everything is working fine right now. There are still a couple of backend things that I need to sort out, but the web part seems fine now.

Like 90% of the world, I’ve had to spend a LOT more time on the computer than I want. Don’t get me wrong, I spend a lot of time doing stuff on the computer, but it’s become quite a bit more.

The browser of choice is Chrome. There are plenty of extensions what make the browser more versatile and just better. Chris Betcher has two posts on his favorite extensions. I generally agree. Some good picks in there.

I would add the extension Print Friendly & PDF for making PDFs of webpages. Honey for saving money while shopping Online. And 1Password which is a paid service, but it is so worth it. Have ONE password to rule them all, and it manages all the others. And tells you when you reuse a password. And when a password on a site might be compromised.

Anyone have any extensions they use a lot?

Yes, it’s hard to do the Zoom lesson. However, there is one great program that makes it easier to use two microphones while doing a lesson. Audio Hijack. I have a little complex setup that allows me to use the MacBook’s mic, but when the instrument mic kicks in, Audio Hijack “ducks” the MacBook’s mic down. Meaning it lowers the volume so you get the real mic not the crappy MacBook Mic.

Anyhow, Audio Hijack has been essential in teaching. I love it. Here is my setup.

Pretty cool.

There are three types of microphones you’ll encounter. The dynamic mic such as the the venerable Shure 57 and Shure 58. The condenser mic such as the AKG 451, or the famous Nuemann 87. And the lesser known ribbon mic, such as the Royer 121.

Here is a very interesting video of how a ribbon microphone is made.

Yes I know, yet another Ribbon mic video. I’m sorta fascinated by them at the moment. Please indulge me.

Since a majority of us are locked up at home, we are utilizing out computers a lot. But do you know the history and the differences between audio formats?

Here is a good tutorial on audio file formats.

Yet another EWI instrument. The Emeo.