This Modern Life

My life, in four comic images.

Now is a great time if you like to get music for free. Record Labels and artists finally seem to be waking up to changes in the music industry and realising that giving away albums for free will create far greater buzz (especially for smaller less established bands) than usual promotional channels ever could. This translates into more people coming to see these bands live, which is the only place where the band might actually turn a profit. There also seems to have been a slow realisation that DRM does not work! It only serves to criminalise the legitimate user and restrict the listening enjoyment of the very fans who gave the artists (and labels) any measure of success in the first place. I can only hope that through campaigns like the “Defective By Design”, all the CRAP (Content Remuneration And Protection) is removed from music.

So I’d like to personally thank the likes of The Charlatans (You Cross My Path), The Crimea (Secrets Of The Witching Hour) and Nine Inch Nails (The Slip) for allowing the world to enjoy their music in a less restricted way.

On a technical note, special kudos must go to Nine Inch Nails for releasing their latest album in both 16 bit/44.1 kHz lossless FLAC and 24 bit/96 kHz PCM Wave. My Bittorrent client is chugging away as I type and I can’t wait to listen to NIN in all 24 bits .

[edit] Unfortunately, it now seems that the free Charlatans/XFM offer has now ended [/edit]

Big Buck Bunny Promotional Poster

• Do you like films?
• Do you like free stuff?
• Do you like free films?

For anyone who’s unsure whether open source software can be used in the creative industries, check out the new open source film (released under a Creative Commons license),“Big Buck Bunny” that premiered this week. After the wonderfully surreal Elephants Dream, Big Buck Bunny is an altogether cuddlier affair with all the production values of a big budget blockbuster. The incredible high definition quality of both Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny is phenomenal, and these two short films are the most powerful and accessible advert for open source and creative commons available.

[edit] You can now download Big Buck bunny here, or watch it below. [/edit]

Fedora 9 - 21 Days To Go

Having spent a few days working with the current rawhide snapshot, Fedora 9 seems to be shaping up really nicely. Of all the major distro development branches, Fedora’s rawhide has to be one of the most volatile (Debian’s Sid is a server grade by comparison), but nevertheless the Fedora guys always churn out a solid high quality release and Fedora 9 is going to be a strong contender in the spring round of Linux distro releases.

If you don’t know anything about Fedora then you are living a considerably less fulfilled life, and should read this overview immediately.
In short, Fedora is the best Linux distribution around, and I think it’s pretty cool .

Apparently Wine is nearing that so elusive 1.0 release, which really annoys me considering my recent Wine experiences.

Wherever possible, I try to use a native Linux application, and even in the specialised field of pro audio, this is often possible. I use Ardour as my main DAW, Rosegarden for MIDI sequencing and JAMin for mastering. But there’s one program for which there simply isn’t a suitable open source replacement: Exact Audio Copy (EAC). Now before we go down the road of: “WTF are you talking about you jackass, there are loads of native Linux CD rippers”, and “How can one ripper be better than another, when it’s all digital anyway?”, please accept the following facts:

• EAC is better (see here for a plan English explanation)
• CDDA Paranoia and Rubyripper are not usable for proper secure ripping (See comments below)
• This article is not meant to be about the science of ripping audio CDs, but the ability to run EAC under Wine
• I am always right

Exact Audio Copy Running Under Ubuntu 7.10 (Wine 0.9.46)

I was an EAC user under Windows for some years, and so was pleased to see it was nicely supported under Wine when I switched full time to Linux. Had it not been supported, I don’t think I could have completely switched. However laziness and apathy got the better of me and it wasn’t until the beginning of this year that I finally decided to take on the gargantuan task of securely ripping, converting to FLAC and comprehensively tagging my entire music collection (which is about 96% CD, 1% Vinyl and 3% SACD & DVD-Audio). At The time I was using Ubuntu 7.10, and I duly installed Wine 0.9.46 and the latest copy of EAC, and got to work.

It wasn’t until my switch from Ubuntu to Fedora when the troubles began. Fedora is kept fully up to date during each version’s life cycle (unlike Ubuntu which only receives security updates) and the current version of Wine in Fedora 8 is 0.9.56. Unfortunately, EAC does not work with Wine 0.9.56. It crashes consistently when accessing the CD drive. I have also tried Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9, both of which have Wine 0.9.58 and the bug remains. Therefore I can deduce that somewhere between Wine 0.9.46 and 0.9.56, one or more things changed in the Wine code to completely screw EAC.

Regression is never a good thing in software, in fact it’s unacceptable. It’s even more unacceptable when the Wine project claims to be on course for a 1.0 release in June and entering a period of stabilisation. The wine release schedule is currently as follows:

• 0.9.59 – 4 April 2008
• 0.9.60 – 18 April 2008
• 0.9.61 (1.0.0rc1) – 2 May 2008
• 0.9.62 (1.0.0rc2) – 16 May 2008
• 0.9.63 (1.0.0rc3) / 1.0.0? – 30 May 2008
• 1.0.0 – 13 June 2008

I don’t know if EAC will work again with Wine by version 1.0.0, somehow I doubt it. And yes I have reported this bug, and no this is not the only software to have become less compatible with Wine recently, and yes I realise this article doesn’t really have much of a constructive point (except to warn people that EAC does not work with later versions of Wine) but it’s rather disheartening to have to run Ubuntu 7.04 just to use EAC under Wine when the point of new software releases is to improve the application, not reverse any good work it’s already done.

So that’s why I’m annoyed at the Wine project and will not be sending them a Christmas card this year.

This year’s April fools offerings have been pretty tame, but I think Linux Journal have outdone themselves.

Numerous articles and a video – that’s commitment to the cause

• Go Purple For Pentium Pro!
• Operating Systems Programmers Flock To BeOS
• BeOS Cluster Goes Live
• Sony Rumored To Buy BeOS
• NYC Subways Embed BeOS
• Bloggers Are Bonkers For BeOS

We take the BS out of BeOS

A few months ago I decided that I had lived without a decent Hi-Fi for too long and set about getting one on the cheap.

CD Player: Cambridge Audio D500 SE – £22

First came the CD player courtesy of eBay. The item was advertised as a Cambridge Audio D100 which I was quite happy to pay £22 for. However what arrived was in fact a Cambridge Audio D500 SE! It did start to behave oddly soon after I got it, but a bit of fiddling around inside with a screwdriver seems to have sorted the problem. I think this has to rate as my best ever value eBay purchase.

Amplifier: Cambridge Audio A300 – £77

Next came the amplifier. Originally I purchased a Cambridge Audio A500 for £40, but to my great disappointment it was DOA. So I sold that and bought a B-stock Cambridge Audio A300 from Richer Sounds for £77 complete with 12 month warranty. It doesn’t have a remote control like the A500 did (so I can’t watch the volume wheel move up and down remotely ), but in every other respect it’s an amazing buy.

Speakers: Large 2-Way Celestions – Free

Finally, the speakers came courtesy of a neighbour. A guy three doors down from me had an incredible pair of vintage Celestion speakers gathering dust in the garage so they form the output side of my system.

The Problems

As soon as I put the whole system together a few things became apparent:

1. The speakers were very bass heavy (I prefer a more balanced sound rather than ridiculous overblown bass). Their original position on top of my desk was creating far too much bass energy and a really muddy sound.
2. The CD player output was far too loud for the amp’s input. I could barely turn the amp volume past the 7 o clock position before the sound became too loud. Not only did this give me no real control over level, but because the matching between channels isn’t great that low in the pot’s travel, I often ended up with sound only out of one speaker.

The Solutions

Every problem presents an incredible pain in the ass opportunity:

1. To combat the bass problem I enlisted the help of some regular builders bricks (courtesy of Homebase at £0.40 each). Their mass provides good sturdy stands for the speakers and acoustically decouples the speakers from the floor and table. Adding a blob of Blu-Tac (the original stuff, WHSmith’s own brand isn’t nearly as good), between the underside of the speakers and the bricks tightened up the bass end dramatically. It also helped the stereo imaging too.
2. I considered a number of different approaches to taming the output of the CD player, including various attenuators. Then quite by accident, I stumbled upon this eBay seller who provides a product especially for this purpose. I was a touch sceptical at the quality of his Hi-Fi attenuator plugs when ordering considering they were just £12.50 (and Rothwell make a similar product for £40), but to my delight they’re really very good. They provide 14dB of attenuation and allow the CD player to be used at sensible volumes. They also took away a little of the harshness of the CD player (the D500 SE can be a little bright for some tastes) and mellowed out the sound a little. My only small criticism is that on fast paced rock, the sound isn’t as dynamic as it used to be. This is illustrated by classic hard rock like Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC, as well as newer stuff like My Chemical Romance.
   But that’s nitpicking and for £12.50, these plugs are an incredible buy. The seller is also very communicative and helpful, unlike some other eBay sellers I’ve recently dealt with (eden I’m talking to you!).

The Verdict

Considering my extremely limited budget, I wasn’t expecting a world beating system. I wasn’t worried about the sound being too critical for monitoring purposes, I just wanted a good quality home Hi-Fi system for kicking back and relaxing with. However, I never expected to get such a great sounding system for so little money. The CD player is punchy and dynamic, the amplifier provides a big solid sound and the vintage speakers can provide a vintage “British” sound which reacts well to all types of music without sounding harsh or brittle. This system is capable of a lot of volume without distortion yet is surprisingly un-fatiguing. But where this really shines is with the large soundscapes and dynamic range of classic albums. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall can literally immerse you into a new world of sound and The Beatles’ Love album breathes new life into Beatles’ classics.

The Future

The one area I might consider upgrading in the future is the speakers. The Celestions are great, but their sound can sometimes be just a little sluggish and lacking in definition. They sometimes struggle with modern fast paced music that’s had all the soul compressed out of it with a Waves plugin. Somewhere down the road I might look into some new speakers from the likes of Monitor Audio. I’d also like to revive the days of Vinyl. Not because I particularly prefer the format (give me a well mastered DVD-Audio or SACD disc any day), but just for the warm fuzzy feeling that handling a piece of vinyl gives you . Pro-Ject are the class leaders in turntables right now.
But that’s all some way off, for now this system suits me just fine.

Why Am I Telling You This?

The whole system including bricks, Blu-Tac and cables from Studiospares cost me £112. Compare that to the kind of Hi-Fi system you would get from a major retailer for the same money and the choice is obvious. I guess this goes a little way to prove that:

1. Great Hi-Fi doesn’t have to be expensive
2. The “micro” and “mini” systems sold by major high street retailers are a false economy and should be avoided
3. eBay is still capable of producing great bargains if you’re willing to look for them

So I hope this inspires you to look past that “special deal” at Argos or Currys, and instead get a decent music system on which you can really enjoy sound the way engineers like me intended it to be enjoyed.

Now I’m going to settle down with Cambridge Audio, Celestion and Radiohead’s In Rainbows…

I hate to tease people when we haven’t released the OS X native version yet, but I sometimes get so tired of people complaining about Ardour not supporting real plugins that I thought this screenshot might be interesting. OS X users – we promise to get this functionality into your hands just as soon as its ready to be used by almost all of you without too many annoying minor issues.

ardour.org

I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to sell everything I have and buy a Macintosh (reading Steve Wozniak’s iWoz only encouraged this feeling).

Ardour Does Audio Units

[update] Thankfully the feeling has now passed. I’ve done a fresh install of Debian Sid and that sorted me out [/update]

My latest review is of the new headphone amplifier (based on the popular Chu Moy design) that Santa Claus gave me. There’s a number of these available on eBay from various sellers (usually located in the USA) with modified components and upgrades on the basic CMoy design. For more info on the basic idea behind CMoy and PIMETA headphone amplifiers, check out Tangentsoft. The venerable wikipedia also provides some useful links.

CMoy Based Portable Headphone Amplifier Review

Bob Moog - Genius At Work

There is a great deal of talk about “great” bands, songs, albums and figures in music. Of course it’s mostly crap, there are very few truly great things, but whichever way you look at it, Bob Moog had a more significant and lasting effect on music throughout the last few decades than practically anyone else. His work on synthesis truely revolutionised the music we are able to make, and he’ll be sadly missed.

Here’s a blog article marking 2 years since Bob’s passing.