my career’s gonna be correcting teachers

Best regards and forgive my english ….. mother languach is different…

I’ve been looking for that ‘happytown’ track after John (can’t remember last name - Apple Logic Master Trainer) gave a demo and rebuilt the track. I used Logic years ago and it’s become a lot more exciting since then! Anyway, congrats on not having an embarrassing raw vocal track!

Also, Rington’s is better than Yorkshire Gold.

Cheers, and keep up the good work - I’ll be exploring your music more thoroughly soon I think!

Matt

As for America - lets just hope they don’t vote in McCain eh.

I just read this on the BBC, reading the bizarre and exciting news that Congress have voted against the bailout, referring to the pressures on the Members of Congress to vote one way or the other:

“But the second pressure which is much harder to measure came from ordinary voters writing or emailing their own members of Congress angrily demanding that they reject a scheme which is universally perceived here as a bail-out of Wall Street bankers.

They are perceived as greedy, incompetent fat cats who have created this crisis themselves and who are now being allowed to pick the pockets of American voters to fix it.”

I would dearly love to see a deep investigation take place, and the outrageous fortunes amassed by these reprehensible arseholes taken away from them and distributed amongst those who need it, prior to throwing the perpetrators in jail for a bit. Alas, capitalism is a curious and flexible beast and will morph into something potentially even more horrible.

i am looking at getting a mac and running logic/native instruments type software (midi keys in and guitar/bass into audio). The idea is to use the mac as a tool for all my music playing/making/mixing needs..i am looking at 17inch macbook pro.. Everyone seems to use mac in the industry… is the hardware really that bad? is the applecare any good and worth the extra wonga..

look forward to hearing back from you,

Mat
( also look forward to your logic/native instrument master class that I will be attending)

Steve you’ve probably seen this page

“Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

If the high price tag for Apple hardware has kept you from buying a Mac but you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get adventurous, you can build your own “Hackintosh”—a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard.”

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php

I recommend bilocation!

Find yourself dressed as an Icelandic warrior in the very well stocked pantry of Steve Jobs and everything will change! For sure.

from the wilds of Sweden, your old duck lord friend

Mr Solomon

Fretbuzz has an NI focus so it would be great to do an email interview if possible ?

Com

have you ever heard of a bloke called Gerry leonard? EH/Bowie/ Rufus/Vega music director.. love his work.. qualities of his playing remind me of your great experimentation and style.. anyways.. i will leave you in peace…pleasure finding this blog.. i am something of a vintage guitar-pedal-music geek and i love technology.. so if you ever want to chew the fat!! email me..

i play mainly at the moment for a singer/songwriter at the moment ( RFH artist in residence).. not signed as yet.. any tips? any wise words to help me along the route?

i am also a myspace aquiantance of JMJ bass man extrodinaire.. and happened to grow up in St Germain-Versailles..in Nico and co’s neighbourhood.. down and out in paris and london and all that jazz!

peace,

Thew

Not that I’m a snooker fan or anything.

Firstly, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I called this kind of news “entertainment” as such - my point was simply that reporters now feel they have to push the boundaries of graphic detail to get the point across, often beyond what is necessary to convey the sense of horror that prevails in the piece anyway, ultimately leading to desensitisation. It may have been a bit rash of me to claim that “people love it” referring to this kind of journalism, thouugh I do think there is increasingly some kind of addiction to it.

You mentioned activists trying to shock people into the reality of a moral issue by means of graphic footage. In this case, however, there is no alternative - the reality of late-term abortion is horrific whatever way you look at it, so I would think that the use of ANY footage is going to be highly effective in getting the point across in my opinion. I’m quite sure that these same activists would not need to select the most horrendous examples to just hammer the point home. In addition, I also believe that subjection to this kind of material ultimately leads to an increased threshold for tolerance, and a never-ending spiral where those seeking to make a point feel they have to go further because it takes “that much more” to jolt people out of their indifference. You must admit that this has been the case for much of our visual communications over the past few decades - think of the violence in films, for example.

Let me ask you this: suppose the ProLife campaign had made it to air. It would have been shocking, no doubt about that, but what about the next time they wanted to run a campaign - do you think the same content would be as effective? How many times could subjection to the same imagery actually have the desired effect? If the answer is that the viewer responds less strongly over time, then perhaps we can agree that it is not the actual subject matter portrayed in the imagery that is causing the shock or discomfort, but rather the simple fact that they had “never seen anything like it”.

As far as “taking action” versus retreating into one’s comfort zone - this is a difficult area, and I wrestle with it a lot. I don’t deny I do try and keep my family safe within the cocoon afforded to us by the circumstances of our life in suburban London. However, with much of the journalism to which I refer in my post, taking action is not relevant - the Kenyan church-burning for example is so far beyond anything I can actually influence, though my awareness of the situation in east Africa has been heightened (before the piece referred to in my post, may I add) - a case of “taking note” as you say.

I am still not convinced that “extreme reporting” has any bearing on whether or not we will feel compelled to take action, and in most cases, I do not believe that the motive for such journalism is to achieve this aim in the first place - returning to my original argument. I hope not become a “stone hermit”, aware that with a family to protect there is definitely a comfort there. Anon, Doc.

Not quite sure your argument holds here. Why do you presume that news reporting of this sort is just aimed at shocking people for the sake of entertainment? Why might not the aim of this story have been to convey the basic horror of what happened, and to hope that you would have the response that you had. The point may have been that this shit happens, and that you need to take notice - or maybe that’s why you feel you’ve been hijacked? Are you being forced to think about something real, something truly awful, and its disturbing you out of your comfort zone?

The risk that people become inured to this sort of message is very real, and the example you give is one that is most familiar and most terrible. Terrible because what was happening was all around us, but because we lived where we lived it didn’t really affect us (except very occasionally, and normally vicariously). None of us should let it be like that. We have to take note and perhaps to act.

I’ll give you another couple of standard examples familiar in my walk of life. A few years ago an abortion group (styled as a political party) wanted to put stills footage of the aftermath of third stage abortions on TV as a party election broadcast. Not something many people would want to see, and hence the broadcasters refused to air it (there’s a prohibition on ‘offensive’ programming). Irrespective of one’s own view one this, though, its difficult to argue with the underlying logic: (1) the law in the UK allows abortion late in pregnancy, (2) people ‘write’ the laws (or at least tacitly accept them), (3) people can’t really want this - ref to footage (4) people could only accept this law if they didn’t appreciate what they were permitting (5) we - the group - need to ’shock them’ out of their willfully ignorant quiesence (6) people don’t have the right to allow something to happen, and then refuse to acknowledge the consequences. The group - the ProLife Alliance - brought the case to court but lost in the house of Lords. In December ‘07, an animal rights group brought a similar - although much less graphically disturbing - case to court challenging a parallel ban on their right to buy advertising space on tv to convey their message.

SO what’s my point then - even I’m not so sure, and my dinner’s on the table. Stay comfortable - and we can speak anon - let’s not be stone hermits.

BTW, I’ve been loving the tour updates - its a real insight into the life of a touring musician, the highs and lows, the boredom and travelling etc etc. Like the Wizard in Oz, thanks for the peak behind the curtain!

Greetings from Bangor,

Andrew

I was wondering if you would comment on using Guitar Rig 2
live. I am considering using this as my main effect and
preamp for my live rig. I currently use a Roland GT-6 which
is a stand alone dedicated multi-fx pedal which does it all.

I rarely play outside my church where I am the Music Minister.
I lead with vocals, acoustic and electric guitar. We play almost
all contemporary worship style, very guitar based. I like ambient
and unusual sounds though like you use with Air, etc.

Would you mind sharing your experience with the Guitar Rig.
I will be using this with a Windows XP Pro based laptop.
Ironically, as you mentioned here (about owning vs. actually
paying for and owning, software and music) I have a software
version of Guitar Rig 2.0 and if I think it’s going to work well
live, I will invest in the new full Guitar Rig 3 system. Right now
I get alot of latency through my Tascam US-122 / USB audio
interface. I assume with the Guitar Rig interface latency will be
minimal.

Thanks Steve…

Steve M

I also want some of those t-shirts from that site. On my christmas list I think.

Lucy

J

x

Haha, that’s totally like me. Catching a flight from either Gatwick or Heathrow I always had the same problem, one would think I learned from rounding down estimated travel times. Thanks for describing this really familiar situation so nice.

A few days left till the European festival tour. There’s some nice festivals on the list. I went to Oxegen last year, great vibe despite the heavy rain all day. Good luck and enjoy your time on the road.
xT

Sorry to hear you’re feeling low. Everything seems so much worse when you’re tired, so hopefully once you’ve had chance to catch up on some sleep you’ll feel much better. Not long to go now ;)

Sarah x

Keep it up Steve!
xT