First off, I never really thought about what the bitrate of the mp3s I was listening to were, I’m a little surprised they were that high. Higher than iTunes or Amazon sells them at. There is some serious digital distortion in the music and now I understand that it’s meant to be there, artifacts from the processing and the samplers used. I don’t have a problem with this, just noting. That distortion is easier on the ears from the vinyl than it is from the mp3s. While I don’t have an audiophile setup, music from my turntable and computer essentially follow the same path to the speakers, so I feel it’s a fair comparison for me to make. In a blind test I honestly think I could hear the difference between the two easily.

So, why the eff do I need to write a blog entry about this specific record, when I bring home one or two records a week? Good question, jackass. Let me explain to you what hearing this record caused me to think about.

Records need to be mastered differently than digital delivery methods (CDs, mp3s). If they pressed a record with music mastered as loudly as a CD, the needle would jump right out of the groove. To keep that from happening, they don’t just turn down the volume on it, they apply a RIAA approved equalizer setting to it that is then reversed when it passes through your preamp or phono input on your amplifier. It’s my belief that because a master for vinyl requires more finessing to make it work in the medium, a good portion of why it sounds better is as much attributable to the careful processing that happens to it before it gets pressed into wax as it is to the medium itself. These have been my thoughts for years, and I’m sure I’ve written this paragraph at least once before.

What makes this interesting to me is the aforementioned digital distortion. There is a TON of it on this album. So much that I thought it was a problem with the download. I know nothing of what gear Kanye used in this album, and I’m ignorant to his production process. In the Runaway video he uses an Akai MPC-2000XL first made in 1997, which, looking at the stats, could easily offer up the sort of distortion that I hear. Ok, so “big deal”, right? Well, maybe. I honestly don’t listen to a lot of hip hop albums, but it would seem to me that a lot of the excitement I feel for this album comes directly from how raw the production is. I can already hear people arguing with me, “But this album is so slickly produced you dumbass.” I don’t think “slick” is the right word though. “Carefully” yes, but there is a specific LACK of slickness where it counts. Timbaland is a slick producer, Dre too. I think this album has more of Afrika Bambaataa’s DNA in it than either of those guys, and I’d call that guy precise, but not slick. Examples of so-called raw production: Ghostface’s lyrics are cut off before he finishes words, which makes them sound like they are a sample cut from another song, the crazy treble distortion on vocals (especially female vocals) and samples, these all make this album sound positively OLD SCHOOL. All of this, when pressed onto vinyl sounds very special to my ears. The harshness gets rounded out, makes it more musical, while keeping the lo-fi fun of it.

Anyway, back to the actual album. It’s on three records, which annoys me. I understand the reasoning behind it. Hip hop artists like doing splitting their albums up over many sides because it essentially makes their album a bunch of 12″s, which are much more DJ and scratch friendly. The reason I like this album so much is the seamless way the songs flow into each other, and this way of pressing it breaks it up. Who knows, maybe this will be my preferred method of hearing it. The songs do make for 6 good combinations. Monster has side 3 all to itself and I think it’s a possibility that the bass on that song was so fierce they needed to cut the grooves exceptionally far apart, which would make that the primary reason for the decision to press the album on three records.

Ok. Enough writing about this, I have my doubts that there is anyone out there that got this far in this post. I’m pretty much the only one who cares about this shit. Although, I’m sure there are others that care that the Phoenix artwork that was meant for the cover was pixelated even in the insert. Totally pissed about that.

This.

Is supposed to look like this.

Ping. Apple’s new musical social media experiment. It would be an interesting add-on to iTunes, but it falls far short of actually being useful. It reminds me a ton of Facebook, with it’s hard to read timeline and the vague “Like” function, and reminds me not-at-all of Last.fm, who got this exact idea exactly right. Apple has utterly ignored what Last.fm got right because of their desire to use Ping primarily as a way to sell songs through the iTunes Music Store and not as a fun and cool place for their customers to find new music.

How does Ping fail in both usability and in usefulness? Let me count the ways.

1: If it’s not int the iTMS, it’s not allowed. Ridiculous. Some of my favourite albums are not available there. Major label albums. Suede have zero songs there. Pulp’s final album? Like it never existed. All of the 12″ and bootleg remixes I find on mp3 blogs? Won’t find them here. Apple’s little network is so embarassingly MOR that it’s primary goal “To help people find new music” is laughably unobtainable.
2: No real-time display of what’s being listened to.
3: Can’t right click a song in my music library and add to Ping (have to add in iTMS).
4: No easy way to find friends.
5: The genres are too broad. (“Alternative”? REALLY?) / No sub-genres.
6:The “Music I Like” area isn’t self explanatory. At first I didn’t know it only pertained to that bit in the top right corner of my profile, I thought it managed all the info that went through my profile. How about calling it: “My Favourite Songs”?
7: No explicit notification when someone comments on one of your Posts.
8: What the heck is the difference between a Like and a Post anyway? A Post lets you comment, so why would I just Like something then?
9: Once I Like something, either an album or someone’s activity, there is no way for me to find it again, it just goes into the ether. If it’s meant to be a bookmark for later reference, it fails miserably at it.

What the hell is this?:

Where do you suppose the logic is in being able to Like the fact that I Liked an album? I’m amazed I can’t Like me Liking my Like. I can’t believe that sentence was something I felt I needed to write. I can even Like me Liking someone else’s Like of a song. The ability to do THAT is exactly what the internet has been waiting for!

Ping will probably to be something I play around for maybe the next week or so and then forget about. The first two items I mention are reason enough for me to not care about it. So, if you want, you can friend me there under Mason Hastie. Or if you want to ACTUALLY trade info about what we ACTUALLY listen to, you can go to my Last.fm profile.

So I’m the friend mentioned in the blog post found here. I suggest you read that before you continue with this. Trust me, Tyler is a better writer than I am and he has similar opinions to mine regarding the whole analogue v. digital debate.

Ok, so let me set the record straight on a couple of points. (pun mostly intended) First off, these records will not be melted down. Not only is it my intention to keep the records intact during the production of the furniture I’d like to create, but also consider that melting a record down is tantamount to burning a book — in my opinion. In fact, if you considered the amount of time I’ve spent listening to music and more so, TALKING about listening to music vs. reading, it would be fair to say melting down a record may be even more evil in my eyes. Yes, even UK hardhouse (progressive house? this old house?) 12″ singles, or whatever subgenre it was that Tyler spun when he was a vinyl DJ. The fact is, that no matter how you cut it, 300LB of vinyl is a valuable resource, whatever’s on it.

Secondly, I’m a vinyl lover. I’d be willing to say that ¾ of the music I listen to lately is from vinyl. If whatever musical itch I’m feeling can be satisfied by a record, I’ll go to it before anything. The reasons for this I could write hundreds of words on. I’ll spare you at the moment and just say I’m a huge fan of listening to records.

You may ask, “Well then, what do you have planned if you aren’t melting it down?” That’s for another blog entry, probably after I’ve tried, failed, tried again and hopefully, finally succeeded at creating something out of these records that both preserves their dignity and transfers their usefulness from medium to raw material. I just wanted it on record what was going on here. NOT a wholesale discard of music, just a re-appropriation of the material it was on — temporarily, at that.

So, if you are curious, stay tuned. Both to Lo-Fi Hi-Fi Me, and here. I’m hoping the results will be at least worth a glance. I gotta say, I’m feeling the pressure because my original plan wasn’t very impressive. I’m hoping that I can take it up a notch to make the whole thing worth keeping tabs on. Like I said, stay tuned.

Buy this book:

And then for shits and giggles attempt to download each piece of music recommended and listen to them in order.

I’ve spent the past two days attempting to find and download music from The Medieval, Renaissance, and Elizabethan Ages (chapter 1) on Bittorrent. It is as easy to find as you might expect. Short term goal: I’m hoping that when I’m done this chapter, Enigma won’t be my only point of reference when I hear a Latin mass being sung.

It’s a 700 page book, it seems to average about five recommendations per page. At the rate of — at most — three pieces per week… well, this isn’t a project I expect to finish anytime soon.

Now, though, they’ve switched to a pay model, just at the time most places are upgrading to CS4. They’ve cancelled their support for the old version (although you can still get it from the website, which is a good thing) I know I’m not locked in, and I know they don’t owe me anything, but the whole business seems shady and it makes me angry. I don’t often feel a sense of entitlement for things that are free, but when the original “selling” point of the software was that it’s free, it makes it seem like we were using a “trial” version without knowing it.

I wrote a letter to the FontExplorer X people, and submitted it to their Support page.

My problem is that you create a piece of software which you shout about how great it is (rightfully), give it away for free, and then as soon as people are dependent on it, halt support for it. Now that we have to upgrade to CS4, and you are not making plugins for the free version to interact with it, you expect us to pay for it.

Shove it, you “bait and switch” jerks.

Incendiary? Yeah. A little aggressive? Totally. Somewhat warranted? You might not think so, I believe it is.

I asked people on Twitter,

“If you had to make me listen to one song, what would it be? I’m making a #grooveshark playlist.”

I was pretty dogmatic about only letting one song per person in, I didn’t want any one person to influence it more than another. The resulting playlist which is, unfortunately, a little shorter than I’d hoped, actually turned out quite listenable.

I’m now posting iPhone pictures on my Tumblr account. I’ve started using Photo FX and Cool FX by the amazing Tiffen to edit my on-the-go photos; and I’ve been liking the results. If you want to stay updated, follow my Tumblr, Twitter, or check the Tumblr sidebar on the main page.

holy crap!

Here’s a little map outlining the interactions I have going on with various online tools. The Tumblr integration is still imperfect and changed from this, but the idea is there. The idea being, I need to get a life.

I bought myself a copy of Delicious Library because (a) I found myself not remembering what I had and what I had got rid of and (b) it was ten dollars off today. Delicious Library is the best way to get all this crap into a database because it lets you just scan the barcode with the iSight camera and it automagically gets the info and cover art. Version 2.0 is way better than the first one because it gets imported stuff better (it even got most of my Japanese CDs!) and the barcode recognition is much improved. And I guess I figured I needed to help Shipley buy ANOTHER Tesla. Good god. If I think that my money is going to @curvyboom and @majah‘s paycheques, I’ll feel better about it.

So, why do you care, dear friend? Not sure. But if you do, you can check out all my stuff at:

myownbiggestfan.org/library/

24″ iMac
2.4GHZ Intel Core 2 DUO
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM – 1x1GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive
SuperDrive 8X(DVD+R DL/DVD+RW)
Wireless Mighty Mouse
Wireless Keyboard

I am so digging the Facebook app, Scrabulous. I love a good game of Scrabble, and being able to play a casual game over a few hours, or days really appeals to me. What also appeals to me is sitting and playing a game non-stop, not having to refresh the board or my “notifications” over and over just to see if it’s my turn yet.

The same people that made the Facebook app also have a website at Scrabulous.com. There people can play Scrabble in real time. Unfortunately I don’t think any of my friends are on that site, so I end up playing with grumpy old men and ten year old girls. The games are pleasant enough, but I am more interested in playing with my friends. So if any of you are interested, drop me a line.

Of course, the offer is always open for you to come down to my place if you are able. I do have a board.

Photo by Paul Goyette.

Here is a link to see my “Flickr DNA” on the Big Huge Labs website, which tells me if my photos are in Explore.

Also, I have a set that keeps track of my most “interesting” photos according to some sort of algorithm.

UPDATE: Speaking of “close to home”:

But Paper Magazine is not writing about me.

Click on it to make it readable.