Wedding entrance dance to top all wedding entrance dances

T-Mobile's Royal Wedding Dance celebrates the marriage of William and Kate with the help of a host of royal look alikes and music from East 17! T-Mobile wishes William and Kate a long and happy marriage.

Rosie Vela

Today I got curious about the female singer who is singing with Jeff Lynne in ELO. It turned out to be quite  a story. Roseanne "Rosie" Vela, born in the coastal city of Galveston, Texas,  stayed with her boyfriend Jimmy Roberts, and married him in the hospital before he died of cancer. He sang her a song he wrote on the last night before he slipped into a coma and died. One story says he died in her arms.

Following that tragedy, she landed a modeling job and appeared on the cover of Vogue 14 times before she decided to focus on her music (and a bit of acting).

Her story gives the lyrics to the ELO song "Turn to Stone" (released October 1977)  new meaning.

"Through all I sit here and I wait I TURN TO STONE I TURN TO STONE
You will return again some day TO MY BLUE WORLD"

I had no idea that one of my favorite bands of all times included a red-headed supermodel with heart of gold.

In my band Xenophilia, I had many fun years performing with the super hot and talented Amy Anne, who I'm sure could have been a model if she was so inclined. I believe I took this photo of Amy Anne myself.  I think she'd give Rosie a run for her money, so to speak.  ;-)

Getting an early start on my 2012 New Year's Resolutions: After I finish writing and recording my 100 original songs in 2011 -- I resolve to find my supermodel musician girlfriend, get a fantastic band together, book a bunch of shows, entertain people and enjoy many years of fun!

I like what Rosie said about playing music until you are 100 years old. Yes, I'd like that.

Who can say how long any of us have, really, but I believe in this dream. It feels like what I am supposed to do.  Do you know the feeling?

This is why I've never married.  I'm in love with someone I haven't met yet. I saw her once in a dream. She was at a party on some steps, wearing an over-sized white men's dress shirt.  I'll know her when I see her, or when I hear her sing.

The tragedy--and the comedy--is that I'm one of the most stubborn and idealistic people you'll ever meet and if I can't have what I envision, I will just wait and wait. I'll search forever, passing up so many good things. I already have. Wish me luck.

Brazilian scientists investigate Beethoven's cancer-fighting properties

Research underway at the Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is investigating whether music might be able to fight cancer.

Dr. Márcia Alves Marques Capella and colleagues performed a series of tests in 2010, exposing dish-cultures of both healthy and cancerous cells to audio playbacks of various music genres. In repeated tests, Dr. Capella found that recordings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor destroyed around 20% of cancerous cells within a few days – yet the healthy cells were unharmed. A similar result was obtained with ‘Atmosphères' composed by György Ligeti in 1961. But, curiously perhaps, no measurable changes in cell growth were found for Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major. Possible mechanisms which might have produced the results are as yet entirely unknown – though it's speculated that they could be related to the rhythm, frequency or intensity of the music. The team plans further tests beginning in April 2011 ...

via Brazilian scientists investigate Beethoven's cancer-fighting properties.

I wondered about this ten years ago in my article about Raymond Royal Rife's supposed cancer cure:

Does our Western Musical Scale Encode Lost Healing Arts?

What if ... the major scale was picked by the ancients because they knew the curative powers of certain frequencies in that scale? What if we have drifted off of the correct frequencies in all of these years? Look at the musical scale above, compare it to the frequencies that Rife claimed would vibrate cancer germs to death, and decide for yourself. Can these audio frequencies open some sort of secret door?

Here it is... in the right key...  Some versions on youtube are wrongly pitch shifted so they are no longer in C minor.) I haven't checked it with a tuner,  but this one just feels right and the person who uploaded it says ... " the video was wrong pichted because of it's age or what ever when it was downloaded on youtube.I just re-pitched the sound track into the true C minor!"

Beethoven symphony 5 in the real tune : C minor



Ah, but there is one lingering question... did Dr. Capella use the true C minor or the C# minor recording to kill the cancer? Hmmm...

Well, the true C just feels right.  Here's the other composition that worked:

Hello? ... it's Alan calling, Alan from Earth....

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=UK4ZrWwhIm4]

Yeah, Hello? Uh, if you're there pick up, okay listen it's Alan calling, Alan from Earth. You probably don't remember, it's over in the western spiral of the Milky Way although obviously you might have named it after a completely different brand of chocolate. Basically just find the Oort Cloud and ask for directions from there. Anyway just calling to catch up. We're doing alright with the carbon base lifeform thing. Kids are diversifying nicely, going through a bit of a fad for spines and brains at the minute but it's probably the same where you are. Well, that's about it really, we just hadn't heard from you in a while, like when we killed Michael Rennie or Klaatu, as you knew him in The Day The Earth Stood Still. So if you received this, get in touch, but actually thinking about it, don't bother calling after about, what, 2150, because I'm not expecting anyone to be in. Oh and I'm sending this song along it's called God Song by Robert Wyatt. I hope you like it. And that you don't communicate through perfume or minor variatrions in your sense of balance or something. Okay, you take care and I'll talk to you soon. Love you, Bye.

via The Daily Grail

Lyrics to the God Song. Great stuff!

God Song (Wyatt, Miller)

What on earth are you doing God? is this some sort of joke you're playing?
Is it 'cause we didn't pray?
Well I can't see the point of the words without the action
Are you just hot air breathing over us? and overall
is it fun watching us all?
Where's your son? we want him again
Next time you send your boy down here
Give him a wife and a sexy daughter - someone we can understand
Who's got some ideas we use really relate to
we've all read your rules - tried them. Learned them in school then tried them
They're impossible rules you've made us look fools
Well done God but now please
don't hunt me down for heaven's sake! You know that I'm only joking. Aren't I?
Pardon me - I'm very drunk but I know what I'm trying to say
And It's nearly night time and we're still alone waiting
For something unknown Still waiting
So throw down a stone or something
Give us a sign for Christ's sake

Astro-Lung: Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson to Duet With Astronaut on International Space Station

Jethro Tull lead singer and flutist Ian Anderson has made some out-of-this-world music, but his upcoming collaboration could be his spaciest concert yet.

That's because part of it will be from space itself: The International Space Station, to be specific.

On April 12, Anderson will be taking part in a duet with U.S. astronaut Col. Catherine Coleman, also a flutist, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight in 1961.

Here's the catch: Anderson will be performing on stage in Perm, Russia, while Coleman orbits 250 miles above Earth. Her performance will be screened by video link to the audience.The duo will perform "Bouree," an instrumental reworking of the Johann Sebastian Bach composition "Bouree in E Minor," which originally appeared on Jethro Tull's 1969 album "Stand Up."

Although Coleman has been aboard the space station since December, the gig has been in the works for months. In fact, Anderson helped her get ready by giving her one of his flutes to take on the journey. ...

via Astro-Lung: Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson to Duet With Astronaut on International Space Station.

Bob Dylan, not a folksinger, not a counterculture Czar

... He sang his censored set, took his pile of Communist cash and left.

“The Times They Are Not a-Changin’,” noted The Financial Times under a picture of the grizzled 69-year-old on stage in a Panama hat.

“Imagine if the Tea Party in Idaho said to him, ‘You’re not allowed to play whatever,’ you’d get a very different response,” said an outraged Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch.

A 22-year-old Dylan did walk off “The Ed Sullivan Show” when CBS censors told him he couldn’t sing “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.”

But he’s the first to admit he cashes in.

David Hajdu, the New Republic music critic, says the singer has always shown a tension between “not wanting to be a leader and wanting to be a celebrity.”

In Hajdu’s book, “Positively 4th Street,” Dylan is quoted saying that critics who charged that he’d sold out to rock ’n’ roll had it backward.

“I never saw myself as a folksinger,” he said. “They called me that if they wanted to. I didn’t care. I latched on, when I got to New York City, because I saw (what) a huge audience there was. I knew I wasn’t going to stay there. I knew it wasn’t my thing. ... I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.”

“Folk music,” he concluded, “is a bunch of fat people.”

He can’t really betray the spirit of the ’60s because he never had it. In his memoir, “Chronicles,” he stressed that he had no interest in being an anti-establishment Pied Piper and that all the “cultural mumbo jumbo” imprisoned his soul and made him nauseated.

“I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of,” he said.

He wrote that he wanted to have a house with a white picket fence and pink roses in back, live in East Hampton with his wife and pack of kids, eat Cheerios and go to the Rainbow Room and see Frank Sinatra Jr. perform.

“Whatever the counterculture was, I’d seen enough of it,” he wrote. He complained of being “anointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent.”

Performing his message songs came to feel “like carrying a package of heavy rotting meat,” he wrote.

Hajdu told me that Dylan has distanced himself from his protest songs because “he’s probably aware of the kind of careerism that’s apparent in that work.” Dylan employed propaganda to get successful but knows those songs are “too rigidly polemical” to be his best work.

“Maybe the Chinese bureaucrats are better music critics than we give them credit for,” Hajdu said, adding that Dylan was now “an old-school touring pro” like Frank Sinatra Sr. ...

via Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind - NYTimes.com.

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives - Part I

How to rob me of $10 right now!

I just discovered that you can download my entire CD -- Xenophilia, Cafe of Love, from 2001 -- free on your iPhone.

Go to the App store and get the free app called "MOG".

Use the free 7 day trial then search for "Xenophilia" and tap the arrows to download all my songs to your iPhone.

Listen for free for a week, then you have to pay to keep listening.

I do not believe that I get a cent from people using the free version of this app to listen to my music.

I also do not think I get paid when people are paying $10/month to keep using the app after the trial.

Do not buy my CD on my web site, because you can get the whole thing, the Cafe of Love, at a price all iPhone users will love: FREE.

If nothing else, check out my song "Crop Circles", still one of my favorite weird songs.

Similar Artists feature

Hey neat, there is a feature to find similar artists on the MOG radio. The similar artist software found: "Wild Pack of Family Dogs" by Modest Mouse. Hmm. Nah. I like my stuff better.

But wait, "Big Dipper" by Built to Spill is great. And I really like "Cha Cha Cha" by The Little One's. Oh, and I love "Last Song" by Matt Pond, beautiful!

Okay, this is a freakin' cool app.

But it ain't right.



Related:

A website that sold Beatles songs online for 25 cents apiece before they became legally available has agreed to pay record companies nearly $1 million to settle a federal lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker signed off on the settlement between BlueBeat.com and music companies EMI Group PLC, Capitol Records and Virgin Records America on Friday. The judge ruled in December that the site violated the music labels' copyrights and presented unfair competition.

A trial to determine how much BlueBeat owed the companies was scheduled to begin Tuesday in Santa Ana, Calif.

BlueBeat streamed and sold music by the Fab Four and other top-name acts, including Coldplay and Lily Allen, for several days before music companies sued to shut it down in November 2009. By then, the site had already distributed more than 67,000 songs by The Beatles. - cnbc

Oh wow, I found a song I sang on with Anton Barbeau. I think that's me singing on "Please Sir I've Got A Wooden Leg" ... and at least one other song on Anton's "A Splendid Tray".

Ha, oh yeah, check out "a Robot Tells Jokes" by Doug Powell. Reminds me of good times with the comedy show.

I'm falling asleep to Bill Ives version of the Beatles song Michelle. Nicely done vocal jazz.

Then Nora Jones' "Don't Know Why" pops up and I re-live Maui and the time I almost got married. And I see clearly for a heartbeat or two that I'm a fool hiding from the sick and wicked world, and missing, in my suit of armor, the ability to touch my dream ... I drift asleep... and the iPhone I'm writing this on slips from my fingers and floats to the floor in slow motion.

Johannes Heesters, world's oldest active performing singer at 107

Johan Marius Nicolaas "Johannes" Heesters (born 5 December 1903) is a Dutch actor, singer and entertainer with a 90-year career, almost exclusively in the German-speaking world. In Germany and Austria, Heesters is mainly known for his acting career. As of 2011, aged 107, Heesters is the oldest performer worldwide who is still active, both on the stage and on television.

YouTube - Johannes Heesters - 107. Geburtstag.

Still singing at 107... and smoking. Hmm.

Universal property of music discovered

Researchers at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the University of Amsterdam have discovered a universal property of musical scales. Until now it was assumed that the only thing scales throughout the world have in common is the octave.

The many hundreds of scales, however, seem to possess a deeper commonality: if their tones are compared in a two- or three-dimensional way by means of a coordinate system, they form convex or star-convex structures. Convex structures are patterns without indentations or holes, such as a circle, square or oval.

Almost all music in the world is based on an underlying scale from which compositions are built. In Western music, the major scale (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do) is the best known scale. However, there are many other scales in use, such as the minor and the chromatic scale. Besides these 'traditional' scales there are also artificial scales created by modern composers. At a superficial level, scales consist of an ascending or descending sequence of tones where the initial and final tones are separated by an octave, which means the frequency of the final tone is twice that of the initial tone (the fundamental).

By placing scales in a coordinate system (an 'Euler lattice') they can be studied as multidimensional objects. Dr. Aline Honingh and Prof. Rens Bod from the ILLC did this for nearly 1,000 scales from all over the world, from Japan to Indonesia and from China to Greece. To their surprise, they discovered that all traditional scales produced star-convex patterns. This was also the case with almost 97% of non-traditional, scales conceived by contemporary composers, even though contemporary composers often state they have designed unconventional scales. This percentage is very high, because the probability that a random series of notes will produce a star-convex pattern is very small.

via Universal property of music discovered.

Mustaine: Black magic haunts me

Megadeth rocker Dave Mustaine refuses to play heavy rock anthem The Conjuring live - because the track is laden with black magic imagery and occult spells.

The singer became fascinated in witchcraft as a teen and he's convinced spells he cast have come back to haunt him.

Now a strict Christian, he's keen to distance himself from his dark past - and refuses to play his song The Conjuring from 1986 album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying on tour - because the lyrics about black magic still affect him.

He tells Total Guitar magazine, "Performance wise, The Conjuring is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it's got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn't play it any more, because there's a lot of instructions for hexes in that song.

"Although it seems kinda corny, anybody who's a Wiccan (witch) or a warlock or anything like that will know that all of that stuff is instrumental.

"When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I've had so much torment. People say, 'Goddamn, Dave never gets a break, he's had such a hard life,' and I just think, 'No, Dave didn't - he got into black magic and it ruined his life.'

"Fortunately for me, with all the work and the love of my friends, and not giving up with my guitar playing, I got over it. So I look back now and I think, 'Hmm, I don't wanna play The Conjuring'."

via Mustaine: Black magic haunts me | Music | Entertainment | Toronto Sun.

He has always had an active imagination. Still does. Nice bass sound around 1:25. I have no idea what he is saying. Can't really hear the lyrics.

Musical sweet spot for 3D sound

"It's as if you are in the room with the musicians"

An enhanced way of creating 3D sound using computer software is attracting interest from the TV industry and Hollywood.

I am standing in a foam-clad chamber with my eyes closed, listening to the sound of scissors dancing around my head.

All that is missing from a real visit to the barber is the feel of hair dropping to the floor.

This virtual reality "3D" audio experience is the product of Professor Edgar Choueiri's life-long passion for recorded music.

The Princeton University physics professor's main day job is working on space rocket propellants.

But striving to make his own listening experience as real as possible led him to start designing an audio filter for standard stereo speakers, which goes a step further than conventional surround-sound.

"Surround-sound can give you a sense of an explosion happening at a distance, but it's not accurate," says Professor Choueiri, sitting in his custom-built acoustics lab on campus.

"With 3D audio, I can get a fly to go around your head… or if you want to really scare somebody, you can put a sound inside their head."

His breakthrough is a small one, he is careful to say.

The brain-tricking effect can be created in other ways, and other pioneers have achieved it.

But none of the solutions appear to be as simple - or it seems, commercially viable - as his software filter, based on mathematical algorithms.

By eliminating what is known as "cross-talk" from ordinary stereo systems - when the left and right ears hear sounds that they do not in real life - his unique filter relies on the listener being in a small "sweet spot" between two speakers.

"Right now, I'm the only one who can design the filters, until we train somebody," he adds.

The 3D effect is most pronounced inside the anechoic (echo-less) chamber at Princeton Sound Lab, but the professor shows it can also work on a small wireless speaker linked to a simple laptop.

"3D vision goes back to 1895, people cracked it then. 3D audio turned out to be a much more difficult problem," he says, with just a whiff of the mad-professor, bubbling over with excitement at a new discovery.

Princeton University has patented his technique, and recently teamed up with the British-based technology company, Cambridge Mechatronics, to design a 3D sound system for 3D televisions.

The next step is to create multiple sweet-spots in a single room for family viewing. ...

via BBC News - Today - Musical sweet spot for 3D sound.

Sounds great... how does it sound? Find out in 2012:

DynaSonix™ is similar to CML’s commercially successful Digital Sound Projector™ 5.1 surround sound technology, in that it delivers sound from a single array of tiny transducers integrated into the FPTV or placed in a soundbar unit, which sits under the TV’s screen. This means that DynaSonix™ can deliver a theatrical 3-D audio experience without the need to wire the room for multiple speaker units. However unlike Digital Sound Projector™, DynaSonix™ is not dependent on reflections off the walls and ceiling to create its desired audio effect, which means that it can work in any room, regardless of dimensions. The addition of CBAS™ to the system means that the user merely has to turn the television on for the 3-D sound delivery to be optimised for both room and audience.

DynaSonix™ is quite different from 5.1 surround sound, which provides some degree of sound envelopment for the listener but does not attempt to reconstruct a 3D sound-field. Instead, DynaSonix™ provides an accurate reconstruction of a fully 3D soundstage, where sound can be perceived accurately to be located anywhere in 3D space including at the ears, immediately above, behind, or even inside the head of the listener.

CML is working with a leading audio processor provider to integrate the various elements of firmware into a single code base, which will be licensed to FPTV manufacturers by CML. CML expects to announce the details of this partnership in the Spring of 2011, and to be able to offer a fully mass-production ready solution in time for the consumer electronics industry’s 2012 model releases.

via CM

Swedish police seize musical deadly weapon

When police raided a home in Luleå in northern Sweden last November they discovered a small arsenal of weapons, including a shot-gun built into a guitar.The police had received a tip off that the 54-year-old man was hoarding a bevy of unlicensed firearms in his house and performed a raid.

"They are therapy to keep off the drink," the man told police interrogators, according to the local Norrländska Demokraten (NSD).

Aside from the six more conventional weapons found in the apartment and a quantity of ammunition, police discovered that a wall-mounted guitar was not quite as it first appeared.

The neck of the guitar has been hollowed out and equipped with two shotgun barrels, while the body of the string instrument contained the beginnings of trigger mechanism.

In police interviews the man described the home made musical weapon as "a fun thing that was not finished".

Police found a further six weapons including a sawn off shotgun, a home made sub-machine gun, a Mauser rifle, two revolvers and a walking stick adapted to function as a rifle.

Stickers belonging to three known gangs in the Luleå area were also found at the man's house and led to police suspicions that the 54-year-old was buying and selling stolen weapons.

The man is now set to face charges concerning aggravated weapons crimes and receiving stolen goods, the newspaper reported.

via Swedish police seize musical deadly weapon - The Local.

Toyota Robots Play Trumpet and Violin In Tokyo (video)

There are many things that make humans unique, but apparently a love of music isn’t one of them. Toyota had its violin and trumpet playing robots on display recently during several public performances at their AMLUX building in Tokyo. Visitors got to see the humanoid bots play their instruments alongside real human violinists and pianists in an interesting blend of man and machine musicianship. It’s a little recursively surreal to watch humans try to match their playing to machines that are (ostensibly) designed to mimic human playing themselves. Check it out in the videos below. These ‘Partner Robots‘ may be putting on a good show, but Toyota’s final goal is anything but music. Part of their longterm vision, the automotive company hopes these bots will play major roles in its ventures in healthcare, housework, and manufacturing.

First, a quick rendition of Pomp and Circumstance. It’s a piece the robot violinist has performed many times in the past, including at its debut. It sounds better here with a few humans to back it up.

via Toyota Robots Play Trumpet and Violin In Tokyo (video) | Singularity Hub.

How do I do that in Cubase 5? And other home recording questions...

New for 2011:  I'm not much posting strange news on the weekends this year because I'm busy recording the 88 songs I've written. (*If any of you would like to find and post interesting strange news on this site during the weekends, email me: xeno735@yahoo.com. )

To record, I'm using software called Cubase 5.5.2 (64-bit Windows Vista version). This is a post where I'll  keep notes about how to do things and hopefully help and hear from others.

My home recording studio questions

1. How can I use my iPhone as a controller to start and stop recording?

A. get the Cubase IC app (FREE) from the App store for your iPhone

B. On your home studio computer, get the Steinberg SKI Remote remote control extension.

C. Install the latest iTunes for Windows on your home recording system. Be sure the Bonjour service is running.

D. Start Cubase and under the Devices, click the [+] to add a new device.  You should see "Steinberg SKI Remote" in the drop down list.

When you don't see it there, go read this lame note (again after reading the same note more than a year ago )... and give up:  "Please note that the SKI Remote extension does not support 64-bit Cubase."

Alternatives: Get a wireless mouse or keyboard.

Or, try this: Keep Cubase 64-bit installed and install Cubase 32 bit as well. You may notice that you can do the same work in either program and that the 32 bit version of Cubase on your 64-bit OS takes much less CPU to do the same thing. Not sure if this would mess up my license... haven't tried it.

2. How can I get my computer which is in the same room to be silent during recordings?

Enclosing it in a cardboard box, placing the mic so the computer sits in the quiet part of the polar pattern, and keeping my mic gain way down works okay... but is not ideal.

I looked at some ways to throttle down my fans and also at a quiet computer case specially built to reduce sound, but I'm thinking there must be a fairly cheap solution.

Perhaps long cables to get the computer into the next room, or I could build my own enclosure. This often turns out to be as expensive as just buying a special quiet case once you add up all the parts, but may give you better results. Even the quiet case has fan noise from the back.

Here is what I did: I have a case with three noisy fans. I unplugged the two case fans. So far after an hour I'm running Vista 64 bit and using a free program called SpeedFan 4.4.2, I can see on this fairly cool day with the side of the case open that my temperatures are in the range of 49 to 55 c.

3. Is there any noticeable difference between a $3,000 Neumann U87 mic and a $200  AT3035?

- Surprisingly, so far, not so much. Still investigating, and I may need some expert ears to tell me what I'm hearing or not, but so far head to head, the AT3035 is warmer and sounds just as nice through a quality Focusrite ISA428 pre-amp with an Apogee Rosetta AD stereo 24-bit A/D converter feeding the Motu 828 via SPDIF.

4. Record Shortcut: How do I set up my key shortcuts so the * key on the keyboard key pad starts play and record at the same time?

The asterisk key on the key pad is set to trigger record by default, and if not you can set it under File | Key Commands ... | Transport | Record. In my case, clicking it would trigger record, but not play as well. The fix is on the transport panel, the precount/click  button (to the left of CLICK, looks like this: [||*] had to be off to start right away. Actually with the metronome on the precount is very useful to give you time to get ready to record after you press the record button. In another case, this did not work, so this is unsolved.

[ --- Items below are solved --- ]

Q. Why does something I previously recorded sound high speed now?!

The project switched its sample rate back to 44.1 kHz from the 96kHz at which I thought I'd recorded it. Under Project | Project Setup | Sample rate, change to 96.000 kHz , then say Yes to convert audio files and you may have to NOT keep them at their locations when prompted to keep them from getting all jumbled up.

Q. Cycle Record: Why with the purple Cycle button clicked does Cubase not loop between the cue points?

Under File | Preferences | Editing | Musical, make sure this is checked [x] Cycle Follows Range Selection

One time, I had this selected and I had my range selected and it STILL did not loop, until I added a temp track. Then the cycle worked even after I removed the tempo track. Weird.

Q. Multiple Takes: How can I create a loop that lets me record the same part over and over automatically, keeping every take?

Cubase will do this automatically if you loop a part that you are recording. To see the various versions, click the button on the track controls to turn the Lane Display Type to "Lanes Fixed" The latest version at the bottom of the stack highlighted in a different color is the one you will hear during playback. If you mute one lane, another will automatically be the one played. You can move any take to the top to hear it. On the transport control, be sure you set the Linear Record Mode to normal. Note that it will look like it is just recording over what you just did, but the various takes in lanes will show up when you stop the recording. .

Q. Headphone Mix: How can I get separate headphone and main speaker outs?

- My headphones are plugged in to a Motu 828mkII firewire which is connected to my computer. With the Motu firewire driver installed from the maker web site, Cubase now recognizes the Motu ASIO (Audio Streaming In/Out) which I now use instead of the ASIO For All driver. With this connected, when I add a new output bus and rename it to "headphones" then I can independently assign each track to the headphone output (Click the (e) button and add headphones under sends, click  the power button for the send and turn up the send volume with the slider.

- Update: I'm now using the RME Babyface interface and the "AISO Fireface USB" driver. The idea is the same. I'm using Device Port "Analog 1 & 2" for stereo in with 2 microphones connected, Device Port "Analog 1 (1)" and "Analog 2 (1)" for stereo out  and  "Analog 3 (1)" and "Analog 4 (1)" for the headphone out. Then in each track, under  the Sends, click to get the "outputs" menu, then select "Stereo out", then click the power button so it turns blue, and then drag the horizontal volume slider for up from left to right. Do the same to add a headphone out. There may be a better way to do this, globally instead of for each channel as I do, but I save my set up as template then I only have to do it once.

Q: Click Track: How do I get the click track just in the headphones and just during record?

In Devices | VST Connections | Outputs, you can click on the word "Click" to turn it on and off for different outputs. Under Transport | Metronome set up, you can set metronome for play or record with check boxes.

Q: WTF: I somehow got into a mode where I record, see the recording happening, hit stop, and what I recorded vanishes(!) with no undo and no history to bring it back!

No idea. Restart Cubase and try again?

Worthless website awards: safemanuals.com and manualnguide.com, etc.

I went looking for a .pdf manual for a Motu 828 mkII firewire rack mount device because I can't get the front mic inputs to stop feeding into the SPDIF channels. The manual for the MK3 didn't help due to differences between the old and new versions and no PDF version of the 828mkii manual seems to exist.

While searching, I found some truly annoying web sites. They returns high on Google rank if you do a search for manuals, but they are 100% worthless! The links and text seem to lead to what you are searching for, but they lead only to advertising. I'd like to slap the creator of these lame sites with a salmon for wasting my time.

Avoid all of the following worthless web sites that come up in a google search for manuals:

 

diggipdf.com
diplofix.com
deltamanual.com
download.wareseeker.com
headkeys.com
idownloadunlimited.com
safemanuals.com
manualnguide.com
html-pdf-converter.com
pdf2me.com
uploadcity.com
wareseeker.com
www.accuratefiles.com
www.bookmarks2.com
www.find-docs.com
www.general-search.com
www.general-search.net
www.instantdownloads.net
www.pdf-engine.net

 

 

You can remove any site from a google search by typing "search terms -site:example.com". Replace "example.com" with the site you want to avoid in your results. Using this technique, I've made a filter. Click my link here to do a google search avoiding these crap sites: Google Manual Search Minus Crap Sites.

Just add your search terms such as "Motu 828mkII pdf" before the first "-site:" after you click the link and then search.

With this filter I at least get some real pdfs about the device I have ... but not the manual since one doesn't seem to exist.

Top 20 Songwriters, who is #20?

If I had to name the top 20 songwriters who have had the biggest influence on me, I can only come up with 19 for sure ...

1. Paul McCartney (the Beatles)


2. John Lennon (the Beatles)


3. Paul Simon (Simon and Garfunkel)


4. Cat Stevens


5. John McCrea (Cake)


6. Jeff Lynne (ELO)


7. Andy Partridge (XTC)


8. Sting (the Police)


9. Jason Mraz


10. Bernie Taupin (Elton John)


11. Mark Zemple (Folkenstein)


12. Tom Scholz (Boston)


13. David Bowie


14. Freddie Mercury (Queen)


15. Kerry Livgren (Kansas)


16. Neil Peart (Rush)


17. Jeff Davis (the Balancing Act)


18. John Woloschuk (Klaatu)


19. Anton Barbeau


20. ?

Not sure who would be #20. People put in on the top of their lists, but Bob Dylan never had a big influence on me. John Fogerty (CCR), Scott Warren (America), Joachim Krauledat (Steppenwolf), Edward Van Halen and George Harrison (the Beatles), Sonia Rutstein (Disappear Fear), Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) all did. I can't decide.

Free Music MP3 - Major Tom Saves The Earth

There are several songs I like about a character named Major Tom, the first was by David Bowie and then the one by Peter Schilling, called Major Tom Returns.

[Major Tom Returns by Schilling] is ...  a follow-up to David Bowie's 1969 song "Space Oddity," and continues the story of Major Tom, an astronaut who cuts off communication with Earth and floats into space.  ...

Bowie released his own sequel to "Space Oddity" in 1980 called "Ashes To Ashes," where Major Tom reestablishes communication with Earth.  - songfacts

My song "Home to You" is another adventure of Major Tom.

It is the year 3066. The Major has survived in top health as part of a human regeneration experiment.  As the most experienced person for the job, he is sent in an experimental ship to divert a solar flare which is about to destroy the earth. While on the mission, he is virtually projected at the same time so he is with his wife in the underground bunker waiting for the end. He saves the earth, but there is a problem and he gets thrown back in time to an earth with dinosaurs.

Download: Home to You (Major Tom Saves The Earth) by Xeno.

Another weird reason I wanted to write this song is that David Bowie and I share the same birthday with Elvis (Jan 8th).

If anyone can reach David Bowie, I'd love to thank him for the inspiration have him hear the song. I couldn't find his email address. Perhaps one of you who is already a premium member of his site could pass on a link to this blog entry.

First Beatles graduate is announced

A Canadian singer has become the first person in the world to graduate with a Masters degree in The Beatles.

Former Miss Canada finalist Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy, 53, was one of the first students to sign up for the course on the Fab Four when it launched at Liverpool Hope University in March 2009.

Twelve full-time students joined the Master of Arts course in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society that year and Mary-Lu is the first from her class to graduate.

She said: "I am so proud of my achievement. The course was challenging, enjoyable and it provided a great insight into the impact The Beatles had and still have to this day across all aspects of life.

"The faculty and students at Liverpool Hope University were crucial in providing an unforgettable experience and their support was invaluable." ...

via First Beatles graduate is announced - Telegraph.

Chopin's hallucinations caused by epilepsy: scientists

In the great Polish composer, Frederic Chopin, towering genius combined with a wasted frame and a pallid face behind which lurked melancholy, a brooding over death, a disconnection from ordinary life and sometimes horrifying hallucinations.

A force that created this image was the French novelist George Sand, who described lyrically how her lover, cursed by prodigy and doomed by frailty to an early grave, would be shaken by ghostly visions.

"The phantoms called him, clasped him, and instead of seeing his father and his friend smile at him in the ray of faith, he repelled their fleshless faces from his own and struggled under the grasp of their icy hands," wrote Sand.

But a study by a pair of Spanish neurologists tarnishes this compelling gothic tableau.

Chopin's alienation and hallucinations probably had more to do with a medical condition than the burden of the Romantic artist, it suggests.

... one big suspect: epilepsy of the temporal lobes, whose seizures can unleash brief, stereotyped visions of the kind experienced by Chopin and a condition called "jamais vu," or a dream-like disconnection from one's surroundings. ...

via Chopin's hallucinations caused by epilepsy: scientists - Yahoo! News.