Wow! You must listen to some REALLLLLLLLY stupid artists.
The artists I work for that have major label deals all make between $1 and $2 and album.
The guys that I work for that do their own stuff -- pay for all their studio time out of their pocket, pay their managers completely out of their pocket, do all their own promotion, arrange distribution through the various means -- make considerably more than that.
Funny thing...the two guys that I consider to be equal amongst my clients make almost the same each year. One major, the other independent. One tours with a 12 piece band and puts on KILLER shows...the other puts on an acoustic show with him and MAYBE 2 others if he's feeling like it. Both are friends (I met the one through the other as he'd mentioned his friend needing help on his ProTools system)...and both privately tell me that if they were in the others shoes they would milk the system so bad that they would be mad rich.
So what would you prefer? $1.00 per album on 2 million sales? Or $7 on 30k of albums (and STILL have to split songwriting with Harry Fox doing the accounting and taking their chunk because they bill ya directly because you don't work with a label)?
There are advantages and disadvantages to all of this. I have never read a contract that wasn't clear. I've worked with a few artists that didn't read the contract and then complained about it. I've worked with artists that don't even want to know what's in their contract. Hell, I worked a video shoot a few weekends ago and a few of the artists just signed what was in front of them not realizing that this paid them solely for their work as a hired hand assigning their rights to the lead artist...I mean they would have signed it anyways if they wanted to keep their jobs, but afterwards I heard the same ones that said they were wondering how much they were going to make from DVD sales...ummm...nothing...they got one lump sum and nothing more.
Artists are not ripped off blindly...anyone that cares to know what they will get paid has it in front of them. They took a bet that it would pay off more than the alternative.
Artists are NOT starving because of any $0.00000083 payment. I know its an exaggeration, but hell, I think statutory payments for the song writer end up being something like $0.15 a song as it is (thus its always better for artists to write their own damn songs:-)...10 songs and thats a good chunk even if ya know some of the standard accounting practices...
I don't know why the parent was moded insightful...I hate responding to things like this, but even though the poster is a clueless idiot, enough others need to know this isn't the case and the truth about the industry.
Thats because you don't think like a PHB. Its a skill anyone that wants to get ahead will eventually learn. Not because PHBs are really as stupid as they look, its that they are there for different reasons than you are and their skill sets may not be the same as yours.
Ignoring the fact that every project management class I've ever taken (trying to eventually get certified), I've been told NEVER to schedule anyone more than 80% efficiency because its just never going to happen (without forcing folks to work overtime...just because you are salary doesn't mean that 80 Hour Work Weeks should be the standard...it should STILL average out to a sensible number over the year...what ever that is in your mind).
For instance, why is Project Planning listed in a different category than Projects? Projects and their planning are inseperable. Email? Email about the projects? Organization? For what? Sounds like you do 50% projects, so your organization SHOULD be project related.
When you look at this, you realize (from this small example you gave) that you presented the wrong information to your PHB's PHB and thus they will wonder why you are only at 50% of your time devoted to stuff that can make them money.
Even under projects, you should STILL realize even if you were doing 100% these projects, ya gotta take a shit break now and then and have that in the calculations somewhere:-)
I have no problem keeping a timesheet, but I do with the clocking in.
If your boss or your customer cannot trust that you've worked the hours you've said you've worked, they should find someone else they can trust.
As for specific instances like you've mentioned -- of course. I replied to an AC about the same thing (which is probably under the threshhold for viewing now)...some positions HAVE to be a strict timed basis...but if so, don't expect them to be there for anything outside of those hours.
You know the fact that some folks HAVE to have fixed hours and others don't is something people just have to come to accept.
For instance, support personnel -- like HelpDesk Jockies -- thats a fixed hourly position no matter how you look at it. Folks like secretaries that are there to be available when their staff needs them...thats a fixed time.
Other positions need the flexibility. Folks look at this as a classist type of decision. In a sense, it kinda is. Life sucks sometimes. I have folks all the time complaining about this at work in why can *I* leave when I want and others can't. Honestly, some of those people hold positions equal in rank to mine, but because of their duties can't do this -- so its not entirely classist.
Hmm...its 4:30 now...I need to get home before the rush hour traffic -- I can get home at least 3 minutes earlier if I don't have to sit in the 'rush' when all the pleebs leave:-)
More importantly, why does a professional have to 'Clock In'.
I had a near mini-riot about this at my day job. We are told we are professionals, we are asked to do jobs that OBVIOUSLY require work outside of our normal working hours. We are asked to do management (project and staff supervision) that is outside of the bounds of an hourly worker.
My boss relented in that he said we could WRITE ourselves in...but we'd have to give the administrative assistant the in / out sheet every day and that it would be best that she kept it and we should just go to her desk when we needed to...ok, the mechanical part was out of the equation, but it was still baby sitting.
A few weeks of using our sick time liberally and letting everyone know that when we were on breaks and off work that we were NOT to be contacted or bothered and the situation changed.
Heh! I think the breaking point was that I run the technical operations for a large testing operation (student testing...that sort of stuff) and EVERYTHING is online. The networks went down one Saturday and honestly there was nothing I could do about it anyways because it was a central campus thing...but when I was called to do something about it, I let them know I wasn't busy, but I had no inclination of driving a mile and holding folks hands and that Monday was soon enough and that if I had any other calls, I was going to bill it as if it were one of my clients I contract with at night for support (though thats generally another field as noted by my URL above...and I charge FAR more than the going rate for general technical duties due to the specialization I have in that area).
My boss is cool and he's one of the better ones I've had, but his hands are tied by Human Resources...but he found out quickly that you simply can't expect folks to be strapped down to rules that don't really apply to your particular situation (but make sense when you are looking at 30k of employees as a whole) but then expect everyone to contribute when its in your best effort.
Honestly, I think when we were treated as pros in our field, we all worked between 45 - 60 hours a week depending on the workflow. When we were treated like children, the 40 hours (and honestly probably a lot less) was all we put in...
Again, no offense to my boss (heh! He sometimes reads this stuff)...he was trying to follow the rules, but the rules need to be flexible for specific situation.
"Bush hasn't used his veto much (has he vetoed anything?)"
Well, considering this is the first time that they didn't goosestep his way to giving corporate power everything and anything they've asked for, he's probably not had to do so.
Everyone always says a president is only a figurehead. To a certain extent that is true. But when the president is looked at as the head of the political party, commanding a senate and house of represenatives that are fully in the majority of that party, there isn't generally too much to argue for from that president.
Face it, if the Dems had the same exact power, they would be just as bad...politics only works when enough folks can counteract the other side to only allow that which they both can agree to through.
"I've been using a Microsoft wireless mouse for about two months on the same set of AAs, so I imagine it would be comparable. If I don't use the mouse or keyboard for a couple of minutes, they go into some sort of sleep mode to save the batteries. YMMV."
I've had mine for about 3 now. If the battery life remains consistant, then I could care less. I have rechargeables for my camera and I actually bought another set of the 'cheap' rechargables for this mouse BUT I haven't had to use them yet.
Still, if I wasn't a stickler for my machine looking uniform (I LOVE the M$ White special edition mouse), I'd have picked up that Logitech 750MX with the dock recharger...but it turns out this was the better deal anyways.
"As I said to another slashdotter, if you're mugging someone because you believe they're in the habit of mugging others, or because you think they look like somebody who's mugged you in the past, I don't see where you've established the moral high ground."
Whats wrong with that? If someone is thief, they deserve to be ripped off by each and everyone they come into contact with.
The social penalty should be high enough that ever f'n mugger gets the clue that we take care of our society because if we don't, it won't take care of us. Its morally irresponsible of you to know someone is a thief and NOT take action.
Moral high road? The ONLY moral high road is to do something like this.
Heh! Kinda reminds me of an incident a few friends were involved with a few years back. Guy mugged them armed with a gun. Ran into the street and was hit by a car...not dead...but the car did the standard hit and run as was common in that area of town...i.e., the area of town where muggers walk freely. Guys gun was in the street. One of them grabbed it, and the other rolled him as he's bleeding screaming he's gonna kill the mf's. He had MUCH more cash on him than he had taken from the guys...and they took his wallet.
Never called the police. Kept checking for the obits to see if he died (after all, they had his ID)...nope...probably layed there for a few hours before someone called.
Anyone willing to treat you as solely a means to an end isn't human and you shouldn't be treated as inhuman for acting accordingly.
I'm not saying that this is the case with telemarketters...but I wouldn't be at all upset if someone were to ruin their businesses with any means at their hands. Immoral companies deserve to be treated as such (heh! For the record I was totally for folks DDOS'ing your company Darl...please don't sue me. I think it was immoral of folks like RMS to tell these folks to stop.)
Anywho, lets collectively mug the muggers...and then work our way up to the telemarketters and SCO.
Heh! Actually, all in all, I was happy to pay for this.
I did shop around and the others that dealt with bankruptcy and collections and things like this did not seem to know what they were talking about. One actually suggested I declare bankruptcy -- that was the whole point of me going through the credit councellors -- I didn't want to do this AND ESPECIALLY AFTER I PAID THIS STUFF OFF.
Most of those actually had free consultancies...which I used. This guy charged me $150 just to talk with him up front and told me if I wasn't satisfied he would return my money, but that the $150 was upfront and expected (and since this was a credit case -- he expected a money order...BASTARD:-)
This guy told me up front what his fees were and told me what to expect out of it. The money would have gone to fighting these guys as well as the letter BUT the extra money would be for mounting an attack in addition to my defense.
I stopped getting any calls or mail after paying this guy. Quit honestly, it would have come out about even for what NCO was looking for, but at this point, it was the principle of this that made me realize I'd rather go to a lawyer on my side than snakes from collections.
Note: The snakes comment WAS entirely intended for the collection agencies...
When I was 18, I got into a LOT of credit card debt. No company in the world should give an 18 year old $30k worth of credit and expect him not to use it. I was an idiot...I fully admit this part.
BUT...I spent about 6 years taking care of that $30k worth of debt, which these guys tried saying that because of past due notices and otherwise was now $60k and all that. I ended up with almost nothing for those 6 years on a credit councelling program getting all of this paid off (the councellors actually were SOME help...they get the debts back to the original pricing, not the inflated pricing).
Every so often, one of these guys would come through and tell me that if I paid them like $700 for the $4k I owed them, they'd write me off. I'd call up the original debtors and make sure this was legit. Why Yes, We Sold Them Your Debt A Long Time Ago...In Fact The Check We Get From The Credit Consellors Goes Directly To Them....blah blah blah.
So, I took several bills and paid them off this way...I was planning on paying the whole thing as I had been doing, but DAMN...if I can sell some crap and get this bill out of the way sooner, I'd be a moron not to.
Sooo...a few years go by...NCO started calling. They'd call night and day, several times a day. They are one of the reasons to this day, I can't seem to answer my home phone -- I've had the ringer off for the last 5 years now.
Apparently, they BOUGHT debts that I had already paid off. I had all my documentation and kept everything and they would tell me that I need to settle that with the other company instead of them, but the fact was I owed them.
I FINALLY had to hire an attorney for $1500 to write a poisonous note to them telling them if they ever called again, they would be sued into the ground. $1500 and all this guy did was write a note. After paying him for his services, he never even had to call. Apparently these snakes are so bad that he had a note already written to them and addressed to as many of their staff and even a few home addresses to make certain that they got the clue.
Those fuckers are snakes.
For another $2k up front, the lawyer promised me the he could have gotten money out of them...but it wasn't guarenteed and I'd have to pay the other court costs and fees if that didn't happen. I left it alone. I wish I would have taken them to task for it.
blah...fuckers...when ever I turn my damn home phone on and it rings I STILL get paranoid thinking someone is going to demand money even though my credit score is now in the mid 700s....
"For shows you need amps, boards, cables, mics, and of course, the musical insturments themselves, all packed in oversized cases to make sure that your equipment survives airports, baggage handlers, and stage hands who have to set up and tear down. If you want to lug all that gear on the road yourself, you need a truck, or a SUV."
Thats bullshit. I use to do gigs with my K2600 fully weighted 88 Note keyboard and an amp strapped on the back of my Goldwing GL1000.
If I felt the need to bring the guitar, I'd drop it out of the case and bungie it in to the front of my handlebars...but I admit, that kinda gives a little more drag on one side of the bike than the other making it a LITTLE unstable...just means ya have to drive faster and hope the idiots in the SUVs see ya.
Anyone that needs a HUGE van to get this stuff into is a damn wuss.
Hmmm...I'm doing a show in Nashville in about two week...I wonder if I could get the 'wing in shape and ready in time. I feel too damn confined in my Saturn these days...open road in front of me and $15k of gear strapped to my ass. Who can ask for a better time!
You know, thats one of the ideas behind this stuff -- tracking growth.
That 80 he received isn't exactly the same 80 as a college student would have. As I mentioned earlier -- these were impromptu essasy. No research. A lot of it is a knee jerk essay. We don't want them to prepare as these are supposed to be a measure of their 'natural' writting skill -- not one that was achieved by writting and rewritting.
Heck, about 45 minutes into the essay, we have a screen come up on the computer asking the student to wrap up the essay and write a paragraph or two about what ya would have done differently if you had the time. That part is not judged as part of the essay, but it might influence the human raters opinion of the writters abilities.
As such, your son had a HUGE advantage over the students that created this model:-) The scores shouldn't mean that much compared to the college kids anyways as for your use -- you ended up using it to track student growth. At some point, we'd like to have a nationally normed instrument that CAN be used for comparative use -- along with adjusted scales for age and other factors. Thats a long ways off though.
Thats the next line of research for me...the other folks are breaking off to other areas. A few years back, we started a 5 year project to measure math skills in students based on adaptive testing. It was done in too few of schools and they would drop out randomly and for no apparent reason (mainly because parents getting pissed off that we were measuring their students and they thought we were going to do nefarious things with this data...quite honestly, its a moronic line of thought, but then again, there have been researchers and gov't entities that used this shit -- I had my student records forwarded to my Army Recruiters along with intelligence tests I took to get into honors programs and those fuckers kept refering to background items that NO ONE should have known except me and my family -- so I guess the paranoia is not entirely warented...and also another reason I would destroy 10 years worth of my data in a heart beat if I thought it would be used that way)....anywho, we started off in the middle schools and jr. highs and were TRYING to measure a students progress through out the years. Being adaptive meant that students couldn't share answers...well they could, but if they wanted to memorize 2000 questions for the 30 questions they actually see, maybe they'd learn a little math in the process. In the program, I had specific training activities for the local communities and for different tutors and mentors. Every test would come up with a diagnostic and it was truely to help these kiddies.
It was hoped by giving students the feedback in math and appropriate resources we could see whom was better served by this technology...but it never panned out. By the end of the 5 year study...none of the originals were in the project and a few had even demanded the data destroyed.
One of these days, we will have this ability to allow students and parents do this anonymously so they don't have to worry about that...but that will require this software to be useful to the masses and a few levels of simplification towards the output -- but retaining essentially the same data -- and will require all the companies involved to realize this ISN'T the hardest software to reverse engineer and to just let it go so as to help others instead of just lining their coffers (you'd be surprised to know how many 'non-profit' organizations involved with these technologies have there directors and project leaders making a LOT of money on the side by licensing this technology as if they actually did the grunt work).
Yeah -- there is a threshold of the number of words that will actually give you a higher score.
In this model, I believe it adds a few extra points into the mix for anything above 500, but those points start to curve downwards around 750. Anything vastly over 1000 should not rate much higher for point processing. I don't have all the specifics on that model as we had this one designed back in '99 and have done quite a few since then. Word number IS a factor in the rating, but so is using the correct words...and only to a certain ammount.
Its *NOT* a content checker...its a writting checker. We don't get into keyword analysis like some folks have.
There is one rating system out there that is based almost entirely on keywords, but they don't tell you that. We've successfully gamed it with an essay like "Queen Elizebeth sailed 1492 ships in the year 3 B.C. to Columbus Ohio yadda yadda yadda" -- actually my collegue referenced in the article above wrote a much longer and more elegant bullshit (err...as he says non-good faith...) essay on this subject and received the highest points possible.
Bullshit detectors are at the human level right now. Considering ya got a 78%, it says that your writting style ain't half bad and gave ya a little more for creativity:-) To write something like that with it reaching to the 90-100 range would mean ya were in a much higher percentile than incoming students choosen to write an impromptu essay (which this particular model was built on). Hopefully if you keep writting gibberish and improving on it, your standard writting style too would improve.
That model that is up there is one based on Impromptu Entering Student Essays.
For this model, we were giving students 1 hour to write an essay that they had no prior knowledge of the prompt. We allowed no research or even simple things like spell checking (we did provide hard dictionarys:-)
As such, anything that was well researched and otherwise would have probably thrown this thing off the charts.
We *DO* have several other models available. The best example of this technology was taken off the site a few weeks ago at the behest of a former partner in this research at Duke University. We DID have several models that could have been compared including one that was appropriate for many types of research papers.
Remember -- folks are afraid this stuff is going to take away humanity *BUT* no one wants to even thing that this stuff is customizable for target groups. With as small as 300 papers that were rated (notice I try to NEVER say graded...though even after 10 years at this stuff its hard not to...) we could set up initial models for an individual school system with their own ruberics and scored according to their skill levels. Of course, the model would HAVE to be refined for later usage, but thats enough to get started.
The great thing about this is at a production level, we actually screen for essays that are rated much higher or much lower than the standard deviations would allow for. It allows us to take a look at whats going on and make adjustments.
It also allows for diagnostic use for educators. For instance, my incoming students all have to write essays when they come in (unless they have taken a honors level writting course in high school and have received college credit). This is all automated (on another system farther behind my line of defenses ya hackers:-) in that they come in, we give them a prompt to write about and they type it in (or if they are afraid of computers, write it in a blue book...we ain't nazis about this technology -- but that will take 3 weeks longer as our raters don't stop by campus too often). Its then transmitted to the student databases and we've provided an interface for the English faculty to rate these things.
*IF* the paper is written at a much higher threshold than is expected for a student of that calibre, I automatically kick off an email to the rater in charge of the honors program asking her to take a look at it. If its much lower, the application tries to make a good first judgement if this is a remedial case (which most of mine show up as:-) or an ESL case (English as a Second Language) and then we kick off the appropriate emails.
This *ALSO* happens with human raters...the first rater to look at the essay has the choice of throwing it one way or another (actually she can alert ALL of the parties if it was necessary) and it does the same thing...but the automated part saves a few days of this initial interaction.
Just as a note: If someone had gotten this far in the college application, we aren't here to make any judgements on their ability to be a college student, we are interested in making the most appropriate assessment in where they should be placed to get the best help so that they can have the best college experience around. This application was a good help with making sure that this was achieved.
We stopped using this in production a while back after protests from folks that didn't know how it worked nor cared to understand that it wasn't out to take their jobs. It was there to help make sure that a SINGLE judgement on the human side was correct (or within a certain scope of correctness) and if not, ask that someone else give it a second look. Back in the day threee raters would have rated any given essay for student placement purposes, but even before this was introduced, it got to the point where depending on the attitudes of those rati
ACTUALLY...I think thats a quote I gave Dr. Shermis a few years back:-) I think he WOULD like to remove the human element...
Its NOT eleminating the human element...its making the human element a little more susceptible to objective means than the old subjective means. Raters still can use what ever they feel is necessary, but in the end, I can see how far from the standard deviation on certain ratings these folks are and 'suggest' to other raters that they might want to take a look at that essay before a final score is placed on it.
Fuck fuck fuck...the one and only time I will ever see any research I had a hand in developing ever end up on the front page of/. and I'm stuck at a concert doing my second line of work -- music tech (though with a wireless connection:-)
I'll have to yell at my friends at FIU and Vantage about this oversight.
If ya'll are interested in seeing a demo of this technology in action (I'm sure the first 20 people will destroy the server), take a look at --
http://testing.tc.iupui.edu/fipsedemo/ (purposely unlinked so that folks will have to cut and paste).
Its an older model, but we are in the midsts of evaluating 2000 more essays with 8 human raters that should make the model a little cleaner...hmmm...probably should run my horrid grammer through it before I post here...nah...I think I broke it last time I used my own text...
Time to get back to work...the guys are probably wondering why I said I needed to check my email and have been gone a half hour.
"That reasonig may have been behind Bill's "investment" of $150 million about 5 years ago"
Apple had like 4 Billion in liquid assets at the time...not including the intellectual properties easily worth that much.
Apple was never in trouble. This was payback in a face saving move to keep Bill from admitting guilt in a long standard lawsuit against him by Apple. In the end, they STILL made money on this deal even though it wasn't supposed to go down that way. More power to M$ on that deal...
Heh! I have yet to meet anyone that can truely hear the difference between 44.1 and 48 either. These were choosen primarily because they were hard to dither cleanly to each other back in the early days of digital. It pretty much ensured that the average person couldn't afford the high end equipment to convert 44.1 digital recordings to a perfect digital copy...this was a way they thought to force the consumer into introducing an analogue stage which would kill the whole idea of wanting digital because it wasn't pure any more. yeah -- they REALLY predicted what folks wanted out of their digital mediums:-)
These days, its easy to find high end software that can do clean dithering between these formats with a variety of psychoacoustic models that will predict what one can hear and can't hear and dither accordingly. Few people can hear anything in this process..and a lot of mastering engineers will listen to the same thing over and over encoded a few different ways trying to decide whats better -- when all in all, its generally a coin flip anyways...its getting that good.
Besides, 44.1 to 48khz is the size of 2 semitones of extra audio information past the range of human hearing anyways.
What do ya get from equipment that is 48Khz? Generally its not built for consumer types. This means more exacting standards that are built into it. Do ya normally get better sound...hell yeah...but its not because of the sampling rates...its because ya get what ya pay for most times...as joto says, go for the expensive equipment but keep it in 44.1 and ya won't have to deal with that crap.
96Khz may give you better recordings, but there are a LOT of reasons why it probably won't -- especially from consumer cards (which are generally 2 clocked sync'd 48khz chips as opposed to one 96khz one...giving DOUBLE the problems you would have had at a lower end...but we are only after specs these days aren't we).
As for the difference between 24 and 16 -- concert stuff? Thats a hard choice...if you are just going to throw it on the internet...16 IS the right choice as Joto says. I would still argue 24 bit because it gives you far greater headroom to deal with before clipping. it could mean the difference between a bad take and one thats easily salvagable. Its not like a recording studio where you can ask these guys to start over again. As before, the dithering software can make almost an invisible transformation from one to the other these says...I have several pieces of software in this range that companies have given me...though most are based on the POW-r algs and thus generally the same as I have built into my DAW...I wouldn't know what to suggest. They all seem to work pretty well these days and engineers all fight over which ones are better (I'm sure you could take the same product and change the name and GUI on it and folks will SWEAR they can absolutely hear the difference).
To me, 44.1 / 24 bit is perfect...I still throw my clients in at 96Khz and I'll probably begrudgingly pick up a 192 card here soon if only so I don't have to hear arguement from idiots that think they are audiophiles telling me that they KNOW they can hear the difference (and STILL record at 96Khz:-)
"Neil Gaiman is a writer. A real writer.. not a journalist or a pulp fiction pimp"
You haven't read his stuff for very long have ya?
A few years back, I was going through all my ancient books from when I was a kid and found two books by him...both in the pulp side of things, one as a 'journalist'. One was a fan book for Duran Duran (yeah...I think that was my sisters...yeah) and I can't remember the other (something about Douglas Adams maybe???)...both HORRIBLE!!!
Then again, I loved the Sandman as well as some of his new novels, so I'm glad I had forgotten how bad we was before:-)
Unfortunately, with the cats -- I'm thinking I either need 2 Roombas or the rapid recharger. They trash one room a day with their fur, and unless I ONLY use the roomba in their favorite room, I don't think I'm going to get much use out of it (though the living room no longer has the white sheen over the red carpet:-)
"You pick it up when it dies and then plug it into the charger. It's very far from worthless though"
Yeah -- but unless you have the rapid 2.5 Hour Recharger -- this is VERY annoying. I think even the new Pro models come without this important piece.
I just picked one up the original this weekend and its VERY cool. But the fact that I can get a single large room and half of my hallway in a day is a problem. It takes 12 hours to recharge otherwise. On weekdays -- this isn't as bad as on the weekend -- on the weekend, I spend a lot more time at home and I know I'm going to kill the battery by doing half charges.
Still a GREAT machine -- I'm just pissed I got caught behind the curve for once exactly how my friends always scream they are going put off buying something because 'a new version is just around the corner' -- with me telling them they are idiots. I've wanted one of these for over a year now and I had a little extra money, so I don't feel bad about the purchase -- but I'm SERIOUSLY thinking of taking the standard back in for a Pro as soon as the local Sharper Image has one in stock.
True -- but when you are playing against most modern instruments, it sound bad to use your own temperment against what is going on. If you are in an acapella barbershop quartet -- hell yeah! Use proper intonation.
For that matter if you are playing against unfretted stringed instruments -- those too can deal with the proper tonality. At least if you find someone that understands there IS a difference between G# and Aflat. Most musicians today would look at you funny for even suggesting there is a difference. Then again, I'm glad that my synth only has 12 notes to the octave instead of 24 or 36 or whatever (I knew a guy that designed a 36 note per octave synth that was set up using accordian buttons in different rows that he was sure to change the world...its a shame he never learned to play the thing with grace...then again, I also know a guy with a guitar with a 19TET scale with removable fretboards that sounds killer -- though he definately doesn't play anything diatonically...I wonder if the Xenharmonic mailing list is still around...I haven't been a member in years).
As for the original posters comparison to the piano...anyone that is using software that is this terraced has it on the hardest of settings. This is USUALLY an effect as opposed to anything else. A friend calls it Oscillator Voice. It was used badly on a Cher song a few years back ad folks loved the effect. Its now a pop staple...one can say distortion in punk is the same sort of effect. I definately wouldn't consider this correction of any sort...just another noise to mix up the sound a little.
Besides -- most of these softwares CAN tune to Just or Equal temperments with a click of a button. Load in a new scale and you are cool. Most of the automatic tuning programs will even allow you to hit a grace note and gives you a chance to correct it yourself before it slides into the correct note -- you adjust that sensativity as you feel the need.
Anyone that doesn't know how to use this stuff either just isn't trying or is an idiot. Used judicasously (??? where is my spell checker?), it can do its job without ever stripping the humanity from a performance. Then again, humans are imperfect and thus its still human in the end:-)
"I can detect an autotune-processed track within seconds of hearing it, due to the utter piano-like lack of pitch sensitivity and expression."
Must be listening to ancient software.
The software I use for fixing tuning issues -- and more to the point for creative avenues of doing something NEW with the sound -- is pretty indistinguishable from the real thing.
Old Autotune would be something folks would be something folks just programmed a tuning and let it go. I still don't like Antaries version of the Autotune but they have make a LOT of improvements in their version of it. The last ProTools studio I was in didn't even use the hard pitching algs -- they penciled in the bad notes. Pull up a grid and ya moused the stuff to what you need.
Better softwares like Melodyne do this MUCH better. Instead of screwing with the pitch of the entire word or otherwise, it finds the center of the pitch and pops it to the right spot. The word still sounds natural. Its smart enough to know how to tie sounds together so you don't have major jumps in the sound and they've got great algs to make sure the timbre is consistant in the move -- of course anything more than a semitone or two is going to be more noticable, but its still better than anything the generic autotune can do.
Its nice enough that you can add or remove vibrato naturally as well as pitch widths...
I've heard several folks who've claimed to be able to hear ANY autotune alg in use and be fooled by this software. The only reason Antares is still in business is because of the name...Melodyne is the software to beat and it just keeps getting better (Version 2.0 was released this week...haven't had a chance to evaluate it yet).
"Where is the judgement here? What if I swerve to miss a deer? What if I have an emergency? Is the maintenance of this thing and calibration my responsibility or the governments?"
Swerve to miss a deer? Cool. Swerve to miss a dozen deer every day even in the city? Not cool.
What if you have an emergency? Even if you have an emergency -- some things are never an excuse...your 'right' to speed in an emergency does not superceede my right to be on a highway without folks trying to run me off the road just because they have their own problems.
Just as though its not legal to break into someone house to retrieve your own belongings that they had in turn broken into your house to get, it is not legal to break the law in order to protect yourself.
Of course, any wise person will say fuck the law and do it anyways...I would. I would also accept the consequences that this particular emergency outweighed any particular punishment I might receive. Of course, quite a few folks are not willing to accept that there are consequences for every act and think life should be a free pass just because something is 'right'. If my wife or girlfriend were in an accident (maybe because they just found out about each other) I would definately break the laws and pay what ever punishment there was to take care of it.
I used a few brands up to a year ago...in my older home, bulbs just don't last more than a 2 month time (I've done SOME rewiring, but all in all, its my landlords house, not mine). The flourescents last a little longer than that -- aproximately 6 months instead of the 2.
As I'm not 'paying' electricity, those $10 bulbs (for ONE) are not as efficient for my needs as a pack of 100 bulbs at Cosco for a little more than I paid for one bulb:P
Of course, I just put an offer on a house of my own, so maybe I should look into these again and maybe my hippy side will want to emerge once again:P
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! You must listen to some REALLLLLLLLY stupid artists.
:-)...10 songs and thats a good chunk even if ya know some of the standard accounting practices...
The artists I work for that have major label deals all make between $1 and $2 and album.
The guys that I work for that do their own stuff -- pay for all their studio time out of their pocket, pay their managers completely out of their pocket, do all their own promotion, arrange distribution through the various means -- make considerably more than that.
Funny thing...the two guys that I consider to be equal amongst my clients make almost the same each year. One major, the other independent. One tours with a 12 piece band and puts on KILLER shows...the other puts on an acoustic show with him and MAYBE 2 others if he's feeling like it. Both are friends (I met the one through the other as he'd mentioned his friend needing help on his ProTools system)...and both privately tell me that if they were in the others shoes they would milk the system so bad that they would be mad rich.
So what would you prefer? $1.00 per album on 2 million sales? Or $7 on 30k of albums (and STILL have to split songwriting with Harry Fox doing the accounting and taking their chunk because they bill ya directly because you don't work with a label)?
There are advantages and disadvantages to all of this. I have never read a contract that wasn't clear. I've worked with a few artists that didn't read the contract and then complained about it. I've worked with artists that don't even want to know what's in their contract. Hell, I worked a video shoot a few weekends ago and a few of the artists just signed what was in front of them not realizing that this paid them solely for their work as a hired hand assigning their rights to the lead artist...I mean they would have signed it anyways if they wanted to keep their jobs, but afterwards I heard the same ones that said they were wondering how much they were going to make from DVD sales...ummm...nothing...they got one lump sum and nothing more.
Artists are not ripped off blindly...anyone that cares to know what they will get paid has it in front of them. They took a bet that it would pay off more than the alternative.
Artists are NOT starving because of any $0.00000083 payment. I know its an exaggeration, but hell, I think statutory payments for the song writer end up being something like $0.15 a song as it is (thus its always better for artists to write their own damn songs
I don't know why the parent was moded insightful...I hate responding to things like this, but even though the poster is a clueless idiot, enough others need to know this isn't the case and the truth about the industry.
Thats because you don't think like a PHB. Its a skill anyone that wants to get ahead will eventually learn. Not because PHBs are really as stupid as they look, its that they are there for different reasons than you are and their skill sets may not be the same as yours.
:-)
Ignoring the fact that every project management class I've ever taken (trying to eventually get certified), I've been told NEVER to schedule anyone more than 80% efficiency because its just never going to happen (without forcing folks to work overtime...just because you are salary doesn't mean that 80 Hour Work Weeks should be the standard...it should STILL average out to a sensible number over the year...what ever that is in your mind).
For instance, why is Project Planning listed in a different category than Projects? Projects and their planning are inseperable. Email? Email about the projects? Organization? For what? Sounds like you do 50% projects, so your organization SHOULD be project related.
When you look at this, you realize (from this small example you gave) that you presented the wrong information to your PHB's PHB and thus they will wonder why you are only at 50% of your time devoted to stuff that can make them money.
Even under projects, you should STILL realize even if you were doing 100% these projects, ya gotta take a shit break now and then and have that in the calculations somewhere
I have no problem keeping a timesheet, but I do with the clocking in.
If your boss or your customer cannot trust that you've worked the hours you've said you've worked, they should find someone else they can trust.
As for specific instances like you've mentioned -- of course. I replied to an AC about the same thing (which is probably under the threshhold for viewing now)...some positions HAVE to be a strict timed basis...but if so, don't expect them to be there for anything outside of those hours.
You know the fact that some folks HAVE to have fixed hours and others don't is something people just have to come to accept.
:-)
For instance, support personnel -- like HelpDesk Jockies -- thats a fixed hourly position no matter how you look at it. Folks like secretaries that are there to be available when their staff needs them...thats a fixed time.
Other positions need the flexibility. Folks look at this as a classist type of decision. In a sense, it kinda is. Life sucks sometimes. I have folks all the time complaining about this at work in why can *I* leave when I want and others can't. Honestly, some of those people hold positions equal in rank to mine, but because of their duties can't do this -- so its not entirely classist.
Hmm...its 4:30 now...I need to get home before the rush hour traffic -- I can get home at least 3 minutes earlier if I don't have to sit in the 'rush' when all the pleebs leave
More importantly, why does a professional have to 'Clock In'.
I had a near mini-riot about this at my day job. We are told we are professionals, we are asked to do jobs that OBVIOUSLY require work outside of our normal working hours. We are asked to do management (project and staff supervision) that is outside of the bounds of an hourly worker.
My boss relented in that he said we could WRITE ourselves in...but we'd have to give the administrative assistant the in / out sheet every day and that it would be best that she kept it and we should just go to her desk when we needed to...ok, the mechanical part was out of the equation, but it was still baby sitting.
A few weeks of using our sick time liberally and letting everyone know that when we were on breaks and off work that we were NOT to be contacted or bothered and the situation changed.
Heh! I think the breaking point was that I run the technical operations for a large testing operation (student testing...that sort of stuff) and EVERYTHING is online. The networks went down one Saturday and honestly there was nothing I could do about it anyways because it was a central campus thing...but when I was called to do something about it, I let them know I wasn't busy, but I had no inclination of driving a mile and holding folks hands and that Monday was soon enough and that if I had any other calls, I was going to bill it as if it were one of my clients I contract with at night for support (though thats generally another field as noted by my URL above...and I charge FAR more than the going rate for general technical duties due to the specialization I have in that area).
My boss is cool and he's one of the better ones I've had, but his hands are tied by Human Resources...but he found out quickly that you simply can't expect folks to be strapped down to rules that don't really apply to your particular situation (but make sense when you are looking at 30k of employees as a whole) but then expect everyone to contribute when its in your best effort.
Honestly, I think when we were treated as pros in our field, we all worked between 45 - 60 hours a week depending on the workflow. When we were treated like children, the 40 hours (and honestly probably a lot less) was all we put in...
Again, no offense to my boss (heh! He sometimes reads this stuff)...he was trying to follow the rules, but the rules need to be flexible for specific situation.
"Bush hasn't used his veto much (has he vetoed anything?)"
Well, considering this is the first time that they didn't goosestep his way to giving corporate power everything and anything they've asked for, he's probably not had to do so.
Everyone always says a president is only a figurehead. To a certain extent that is true. But when the president is looked at as the head of the political party, commanding a senate and house of represenatives that are fully in the majority of that party, there isn't generally too much to argue for from that president.
Face it, if the Dems had the same exact power, they would be just as bad...politics only works when enough folks can counteract the other side to only allow that which they both can agree to through.
"I've been using a Microsoft wireless mouse for about two months on the same set of AAs, so I imagine it would be comparable. If I don't use the mouse or keyboard for a couple of minutes, they go into some sort of sleep mode to save the batteries. YMMV."
I've had mine for about 3 now. If the battery life remains consistant, then I could care less. I have rechargeables for my camera and I actually bought another set of the 'cheap' rechargables for this mouse BUT I haven't had to use them yet.
Still, if I wasn't a stickler for my machine looking uniform (I LOVE the M$ White special edition mouse), I'd have picked up that Logitech 750MX with the dock recharger...but it turns out this was the better deal anyways.
"As I said to another slashdotter, if you're mugging someone because you believe they're in the habit of mugging others, or because you think they look like somebody who's mugged you in the past, I don't see where you've established the moral high ground."
Whats wrong with that? If someone is thief, they deserve to be ripped off by each and everyone they come into contact with.
The social penalty should be high enough that ever f'n mugger gets the clue that we take care of our society because if we don't, it won't take care of us. Its morally irresponsible of you to know someone is a thief and NOT take action.
Moral high road? The ONLY moral high road is to do something like this.
Heh! Kinda reminds me of an incident a few friends were involved with a few years back. Guy mugged them armed with a gun. Ran into the street and was hit by a car...not dead...but the car did the standard hit and run as was common in that area of town...i.e., the area of town where muggers walk freely. Guys gun was in the street. One of them grabbed it, and the other rolled him as he's bleeding screaming he's gonna kill the mf's. He had MUCH more cash on him than he had taken from the guys...and they took his wallet.
Never called the police. Kept checking for the obits to see if he died (after all, they had his ID)...nope...probably layed there for a few hours before someone called.
Anyone willing to treat you as solely a means to an end isn't human and you shouldn't be treated as inhuman for acting accordingly.
I'm not saying that this is the case with telemarketters...but I wouldn't be at all upset if someone were to ruin their businesses with any means at their hands. Immoral companies deserve to be treated as such (heh! For the record I was totally for folks DDOS'ing your company Darl...please don't sue me. I think it was immoral of folks like RMS to tell these folks to stop.)
Anywho, lets collectively mug the muggers...and then work our way up to the telemarketters and SCO.
Heh! Actually, all in all, I was happy to pay for this.
:-)
I did shop around and the others that dealt with bankruptcy and collections and things like this did not seem to know what they were talking about. One actually suggested I declare bankruptcy -- that was the whole point of me going through the credit councellors -- I didn't want to do this AND ESPECIALLY AFTER I PAID THIS STUFF OFF.
Most of those actually had free consultancies...which I used. This guy charged me $150 just to talk with him up front and told me if I wasn't satisfied he would return my money, but that the $150 was upfront and expected (and since this was a credit case -- he expected a money order...BASTARD
This guy told me up front what his fees were and told me what to expect out of it. The money would have gone to fighting these guys as well as the letter BUT the extra money would be for mounting an attack in addition to my defense.
I stopped getting any calls or mail after paying this guy. Quit honestly, it would have come out about even for what NCO was looking for, but at this point, it was the principle of this that made me realize I'd rather go to a lawyer on my side than snakes from collections.
Note: The snakes comment WAS entirely intended for the collection agencies...
Those fuckers are bastards.
When I was 18, I got into a LOT of credit card debt. No company in the world should give an 18 year old $30k worth of credit and expect him not to use it. I was an idiot...I fully admit this part.
BUT...I spent about 6 years taking care of that $30k worth of debt, which these guys tried saying that because of past due notices and otherwise was now $60k and all that. I ended up with almost nothing for those 6 years on a credit councelling program getting all of this paid off (the councellors actually were SOME help...they get the debts back to the original pricing, not the inflated pricing).
Every so often, one of these guys would come through and tell me that if I paid them like $700 for the $4k I owed them, they'd write me off. I'd call up the original debtors and make sure this was legit. Why Yes, We Sold Them Your Debt A Long Time Ago...In Fact The Check We Get From The Credit Consellors Goes Directly To Them....blah blah blah.
So, I took several bills and paid them off this way...I was planning on paying the whole thing as I had been doing, but DAMN...if I can sell some crap and get this bill out of the way sooner, I'd be a moron not to.
Sooo...a few years go by...NCO started calling. They'd call night and day, several times a day. They are one of the reasons to this day, I can't seem to answer my home phone -- I've had the ringer off for the last 5 years now.
Apparently, they BOUGHT debts that I had already paid off. I had all my documentation and kept everything and they would tell me that I need to settle that with the other company instead of them, but the fact was I owed them.
I FINALLY had to hire an attorney for $1500 to write a poisonous note to them telling them if they ever called again, they would be sued into the ground. $1500 and all this guy did was write a note. After paying him for his services, he never even had to call. Apparently these snakes are so bad that he had a note already written to them and addressed to as many of their staff and even a few home addresses to make certain that they got the clue.
Those fuckers are snakes.
For another $2k up front, the lawyer promised me the he could have gotten money out of them...but it wasn't guarenteed and I'd have to pay the other court costs and fees if that didn't happen. I left it alone. I wish I would have taken them to task for it.
blah...fuckers...when ever I turn my damn home phone on and it rings I STILL get paranoid thinking someone is going to demand money even though my credit score is now in the mid 700s....
"For shows you need amps, boards, cables, mics, and of course, the musical insturments themselves, all packed in oversized cases to make sure that your equipment survives airports, baggage handlers, and stage hands who have to set up and tear down. If you want to lug all that gear on the road yourself, you need a truck, or a SUV."
Thats bullshit. I use to do gigs with my K2600 fully weighted 88 Note keyboard and an amp strapped on the back of my Goldwing GL1000.
If I felt the need to bring the guitar, I'd drop it out of the case and bungie it in to the front of my handlebars...but I admit, that kinda gives a little more drag on one side of the bike than the other making it a LITTLE unstable...just means ya have to drive faster and hope the idiots in the SUVs see ya.
Anyone that needs a HUGE van to get this stuff into is a damn wuss.
Hmmm...I'm doing a show in Nashville in about two week...I wonder if I could get the 'wing in shape and ready in time. I feel too damn confined in my Saturn these days...open road in front of me and $15k of gear strapped to my ass. Who can ask for a better time!
You know, thats one of the ideas behind this stuff -- tracking growth.
:-) The scores shouldn't mean that much compared to the college kids anyways as for your use -- you ended up using it to track student growth. At some point, we'd like to have a nationally normed instrument that CAN be used for comparative use -- along with adjusted scales for age and other factors. Thats a long ways off though.
That 80 he received isn't exactly the same 80 as a college student would have. As I mentioned earlier -- these were impromptu essasy. No research. A lot of it is a knee jerk essay. We don't want them to prepare as these are supposed to be a measure of their 'natural' writting skill -- not one that was achieved by writting and rewritting.
Heck, about 45 minutes into the essay, we have a screen come up on the computer asking the student to wrap up the essay and write a paragraph or two about what ya would have done differently if you had the time. That part is not judged as part of the essay, but it might influence the human raters opinion of the writters abilities.
As such, your son had a HUGE advantage over the students that created this model
Thats the next line of research for me...the other folks are breaking off to other areas. A few years back, we started a 5 year project to measure math skills in students based on adaptive testing. It was done in too few of schools and they would drop out randomly and for no apparent reason (mainly because parents getting pissed off that we were measuring their students and they thought we were going to do nefarious things with this data...quite honestly, its a moronic line of thought, but then again, there have been researchers and gov't entities that used this shit -- I had my student records forwarded to my Army Recruiters along with intelligence tests I took to get into honors programs and those fuckers kept refering to background items that NO ONE should have known except me and my family -- so I guess the paranoia is not entirely warented...and also another reason I would destroy 10 years worth of my data in a heart beat if I thought it would be used that way)....anywho, we started off in the middle schools and jr. highs and were TRYING to measure a students progress through out the years. Being adaptive meant that students couldn't share answers...well they could, but if they wanted to memorize 2000 questions for the 30 questions they actually see, maybe they'd learn a little math in the process. In the program, I had specific training activities for the local communities and for different tutors and mentors. Every test would come up with a diagnostic and it was truely to help these kiddies.
It was hoped by giving students the feedback in math and appropriate resources we could see whom was better served by this technology...but it never panned out. By the end of the 5 year study...none of the originals were in the project and a few had even demanded the data destroyed.
One of these days, we will have this ability to allow students and parents do this anonymously so they don't have to worry about that...but that will require this software to be useful to the masses and a few levels of simplification towards the output -- but retaining essentially the same data -- and will require all the companies involved to realize this ISN'T the hardest software to reverse engineer and to just let it go so as to help others instead of just lining their coffers (you'd be surprised to know how many 'non-profit' organizations involved with these technologies have there directors and project leaders making a LOT of money on the side by licensing this technology as if they actually did the grunt work).
Yeah -- there is a threshold of the number of words that will actually give you a higher score.
In this model, I believe it adds a few extra points into the mix for anything above 500, but those points start to curve downwards around 750. Anything vastly over 1000 should not rate much higher for point processing. I don't have all the specifics on that model as we had this one designed back in '99 and have done quite a few since then. Word number IS a factor in the rating, but so is using the correct words...and only to a certain ammount.
blah
clif
Yeah -- ya only got a 78% :-)
:-) To write something like that with it reaching to the 90-100 range would mean ya were in a much higher percentile than incoming students choosen to write an impromptu essay (which this particular model was built on). Hopefully if you keep writting gibberish and improving on it, your standard writting style too would improve.
Its *NOT* a content checker...its a writting checker. We don't get into keyword analysis like some folks have.
There is one rating system out there that is based almost entirely on keywords, but they don't tell you that. We've successfully gamed it with an essay like "Queen Elizebeth sailed 1492 ships in the year 3 B.C. to Columbus Ohio yadda yadda yadda" -- actually my collegue referenced in the article above wrote a much longer and more elegant bullshit (err...as he says non-good faith...) essay on this subject and received the highest points possible.
Bullshit detectors are at the human level right now. Considering ya got a 78%, it says that your writting style ain't half bad and gave ya a little more for creativity
clif
Read what the model is about before complaining :)
:-)
:-) in that they come in, we give them a prompt to write about and they type it in (or if they are afraid of computers, write it in a blue book...we ain't nazis about this technology -- but that will take 3 weeks longer as our raters don't stop by campus too often). Its then transmitted to the student databases and we've provided an interface for the English faculty to rate these things.
:-) or an ESL case (English as a Second Language) and then we kick off the appropriate emails.
That model that is up there is one based on Impromptu Entering Student Essays.
For this model, we were giving students 1 hour to write an essay that they had no prior knowledge of the prompt. We allowed no research or even simple things like spell checking (we did provide hard dictionarys
As such, anything that was well researched and otherwise would have probably thrown this thing off the charts.
We *DO* have several other models available. The best example of this technology was taken off the site a few weeks ago at the behest of a former partner in this research at Duke University. We DID have several models that could have been compared including one that was appropriate for many types of research papers.
Remember -- folks are afraid this stuff is going to take away humanity *BUT* no one wants to even thing that this stuff is customizable for target groups. With as small as 300 papers that were rated (notice I try to NEVER say graded...though even after 10 years at this stuff its hard not to...) we could set up initial models for an individual school system with their own ruberics and scored according to their skill levels. Of course, the model would HAVE to be refined for later usage, but thats enough to get started.
The great thing about this is at a production level, we actually screen for essays that are rated much higher or much lower than the standard deviations would allow for. It allows us to take a look at whats going on and make adjustments.
It also allows for diagnostic use for educators. For instance, my incoming students all have to write essays when they come in (unless they have taken a honors level writting course in high school and have received college credit). This is all automated (on another system farther behind my line of defenses ya hackers
*IF* the paper is written at a much higher threshold than is expected for a student of that calibre, I automatically kick off an email to the rater in charge of the honors program asking her to take a look at it. If its much lower, the application tries to make a good first judgement if this is a remedial case (which most of mine show up as
This *ALSO* happens with human raters...the first rater to look at the essay has the choice of throwing it one way or another (actually she can alert ALL of the parties if it was necessary) and it does the same thing...but the automated part saves a few days of this initial interaction.
Just as a note: If someone had gotten this far in the college application, we aren't here to make any judgements on their ability to be a college student, we are interested in making the most appropriate assessment in where they should be placed to get the best help so that they can have the best college experience around. This application was a good help with making sure that this was achieved.
We stopped using this in production a while back after protests from folks that didn't know how it worked nor cared to understand that it wasn't out to take their jobs. It was there to help make sure that a SINGLE judgement on the human side was correct (or within a certain scope of correctness) and if not, ask that someone else give it a second look. Back in the day threee raters would have rated any given essay for student placement purposes, but even before this was introduced, it got to the point where depending on the attitudes of those rati
ACTUALLY...I think thats a quote I gave Dr. Shermis a few years back :-) I think he WOULD like to remove the human element...
/. and I'm stuck at a concert doing my second line of work -- music tech (though with a wireless connection :-)
Its NOT eleminating the human element...its making the human element a little more susceptible to objective means than the old subjective means. Raters still can use what ever they feel is necessary, but in the end, I can see how far from the standard deviation on certain ratings these folks are and 'suggest' to other raters that they might want to take a look at that essay before a final score is placed on it.
Fuck fuck fuck...the one and only time I will ever see any research I had a hand in developing ever end up on the front page of
I'll have to yell at my friends at FIU and Vantage about this oversight.
If ya'll are interested in seeing a demo of this technology in action (I'm sure the first 20 people will destroy the server), take a look at --
http://testing.tc.iupui.edu/fipsedemo/ (purposely unlinked so that folks will have to cut and paste).
Its an older model, but we are in the midsts of evaluating 2000 more essays with 8 human raters that should make the model a little cleaner...hmmm...probably should run my horrid grammer through it before I post here...nah...I think I broke it last time I used my own text...
Time to get back to work...the guys are probably wondering why I said I needed to check my email and have been gone a half hour.
clif
"That reasonig may have been behind Bill's "investment" of $150 million about 5 years ago"
Apple had like 4 Billion in liquid assets at the time...not including the intellectual properties easily worth that much.
Apple was never in trouble. This was payback in a face saving move to keep Bill from admitting guilt in a long standard lawsuit against him by Apple. In the end, they STILL made money on this deal even though it wasn't supposed to go down that way. More power to M$ on that deal...
Heh! I have yet to meet anyone that can truely hear the difference between 44.1 and 48 either. These were choosen primarily because they were hard to dither cleanly to each other back in the early days of digital. It pretty much ensured that the average person couldn't afford the high end equipment to convert 44.1 digital recordings to a perfect digital copy...this was a way they thought to force the consumer into introducing an analogue stage which would kill the whole idea of wanting digital because it wasn't pure any more. yeah -- they REALLY predicted what folks wanted out of their digital mediums :-)
:-)
These days, its easy to find high end software that can do clean dithering between these formats with a variety of psychoacoustic models that will predict what one can hear and can't hear and dither accordingly. Few people can hear anything in this process..and a lot of mastering engineers will listen to the same thing over and over encoded a few different ways trying to decide whats better -- when all in all, its generally a coin flip anyways...its getting that good.
Besides, 44.1 to 48khz is the size of 2 semitones of extra audio information past the range of human hearing anyways.
What do ya get from equipment that is 48Khz? Generally its not built for consumer types. This means more exacting standards that are built into it. Do ya normally get better sound...hell yeah...but its not because of the sampling rates...its because ya get what ya pay for most times...as joto says, go for the expensive equipment but keep it in 44.1 and ya won't have to deal with that crap.
96Khz may give you better recordings, but there are a LOT of reasons why it probably won't -- especially from consumer cards (which are generally 2 clocked sync'd 48khz chips as opposed to one 96khz one...giving DOUBLE the problems you would have had at a lower end...but we are only after specs these days aren't we).
As for the difference between 24 and 16 -- concert stuff? Thats a hard choice...if you are just going to throw it on the internet...16 IS the right choice as Joto says. I would still argue 24 bit because it gives you far greater headroom to deal with before clipping. it could mean the difference between a bad take and one thats easily salvagable. Its not like a recording studio where you can ask these guys to start over again. As before, the dithering software can make almost an invisible transformation from one to the other these says...I have several pieces of software in this range that companies have given me...though most are based on the POW-r algs and thus generally the same as I have built into my DAW...I wouldn't know what to suggest. They all seem to work pretty well these days and engineers all fight over which ones are better (I'm sure you could take the same product and change the name and GUI on it and folks will SWEAR they can absolutely hear the difference).
To me, 44.1 / 24 bit is perfect...I still throw my clients in at 96Khz and I'll probably begrudgingly pick up a 192 card here soon if only so I don't have to hear arguement from idiots that think they are audiophiles telling me that they KNOW they can hear the difference (and STILL record at 96Khz
"Neil Gaiman is a writer.
:-)
A real writer.. not a journalist or a pulp fiction pimp"
You haven't read his stuff for very long have ya?
A few years back, I was going through all my ancient books from when I was a kid and found two books by him...both in the pulp side of things, one as a 'journalist'. One was a fan book for Duran Duran (yeah...I think that was my sisters...yeah) and I can't remember the other (something about Douglas Adams maybe???)...both HORRIBLE!!!
Then again, I loved the Sandman as well as some of his new novels, so I'm glad I had forgotten how bad we was before
Unfortunately, with the cats -- I'm thinking I either need 2 Roombas or the rapid recharger. They trash one room a day with their fur, and unless I ONLY use the roomba in their favorite room, I don't think I'm going to get much use out of it (though the living room no longer has the white sheen over the red carpet :-)
"You pick it up when it dies and then plug it into the charger. It's very far from worthless though"
Yeah -- but unless you have the rapid 2.5 Hour Recharger -- this is VERY annoying. I think even the new Pro models come without this important piece.
I just picked one up the original this weekend and its VERY cool. But the fact that I can get a single large room and half of my hallway in a day is a problem. It takes 12 hours to recharge otherwise. On weekdays -- this isn't as bad as on the weekend -- on the weekend, I spend a lot more time at home and I know I'm going to kill the battery by doing half charges.
Still a GREAT machine -- I'm just pissed I got caught behind the curve for once exactly how my friends always scream they are going put off buying something because 'a new version is just around the corner' -- with me telling them they are idiots. I've wanted one of these for over a year now and I had a little extra money, so I don't feel bad about the purchase -- but I'm SERIOUSLY thinking of taking the standard back in for a Pro as soon as the local Sharper Image has one in stock.
True -- but when you are playing against most modern instruments, it sound bad to use your own temperment against what is going on. If you are in an acapella barbershop quartet -- hell yeah! Use proper intonation.
:-)
For that matter if you are playing against unfretted stringed instruments -- those too can deal with the proper tonality. At least if you find someone that understands there IS a difference between G# and Aflat. Most musicians today would look at you funny for even suggesting there is a difference. Then again, I'm glad that my synth only has 12 notes to the octave instead of 24 or 36 or whatever (I knew a guy that designed a 36 note per octave synth that was set up using accordian buttons in different rows that he was sure to change the world...its a shame he never learned to play the thing with grace...then again, I also know a guy with a guitar with a 19TET scale with removable fretboards that sounds killer -- though he definately doesn't play anything diatonically...I wonder if the Xenharmonic mailing list is still around...I haven't been a member in years).
As for the original posters comparison to the piano...anyone that is using software that is this terraced has it on the hardest of settings. This is USUALLY an effect as opposed to anything else. A friend calls it Oscillator Voice. It was used badly on a Cher song a few years back ad folks loved the effect. Its now a pop staple...one can say distortion in punk is the same sort of effect. I definately wouldn't consider this correction of any sort...just another noise to mix up the sound a little.
Besides -- most of these softwares CAN tune to Just or Equal temperments with a click of a button. Load in a new scale and you are cool. Most of the automatic tuning programs will even allow you to hit a grace note and gives you a chance to correct it yourself before it slides into the correct note -- you adjust that sensativity as you feel the need.
Anyone that doesn't know how to use this stuff either just isn't trying or is an idiot. Used judicasously (??? where is my spell checker?), it can do its job without ever stripping the humanity from a performance. Then again, humans are imperfect and thus its still human in the end
"I can detect an autotune-processed track within seconds of hearing it, due to the utter piano-like lack of pitch sensitivity and expression."
Must be listening to ancient software.
The software I use for fixing tuning issues -- and more to the point for creative avenues of doing something NEW with the sound -- is pretty indistinguishable from the real thing.
Old Autotune would be something folks would be something folks just programmed a tuning and let it go. I still don't like Antaries version of the Autotune but they have make a LOT of improvements in their version of it. The last ProTools studio I was in didn't even use the hard pitching algs -- they penciled in the bad notes. Pull up a grid and ya moused the stuff to what you need.
Better softwares like Melodyne do this MUCH better. Instead of screwing with the pitch of the entire word or otherwise, it finds the center of the pitch and pops it to the right spot. The word still sounds natural. Its smart enough to know how to tie sounds together so you don't have major jumps in the sound and they've got great algs to make sure the timbre is consistant in the move -- of course anything more than a semitone or two is going to be more noticable, but its still better than anything the generic autotune can do.
Its nice enough that you can add or remove vibrato naturally as well as pitch widths...
I've heard several folks who've claimed to be able to hear ANY autotune alg in use and be fooled by this software. The only reason Antares is still in business is because of the name...Melodyne is the software to beat and it just keeps getting better (Version 2.0 was released this week...haven't had a chance to evaluate it yet).
"Where is the judgement here? What if I swerve to miss a deer? What if I have an emergency? Is the maintenance of this thing and calibration my responsibility or the governments?"
Swerve to miss a deer? Cool. Swerve to miss a dozen deer every day even in the city? Not cool.
What if you have an emergency? Even if you have an emergency -- some things are never an excuse...your 'right' to speed in an emergency does not superceede my right to be on a highway without folks trying to run me off the road just because they have their own problems.
Just as though its not legal to break into someone house to retrieve your own belongings that they had in turn broken into your house to get, it is not legal to break the law in order to protect yourself.
Of course, any wise person will say fuck the law and do it anyways...I would. I would also accept the consequences that this particular emergency outweighed any particular punishment I might receive. Of course, quite a few folks are not willing to accept that there are consequences for every act and think life should be a free pass just because something is 'right'. If my wife or girlfriend were in an accident (maybe because they just found out about each other) I would definately break the laws and pay what ever punishment there was to take care of it.
I used a few brands up to a year ago...in my older home, bulbs just don't last more than a 2 month time (I've done SOME rewiring, but all in all, its my landlords house, not mine). The flourescents last a little longer than that -- aproximately 6 months instead of the 2.
:P
:P
As I'm not 'paying' electricity, those $10 bulbs (for ONE) are not as efficient for my needs as a pack of 100 bulbs at Cosco for a little more than I paid for one bulb
Of course, I just put an offer on a house of my own, so maybe I should look into these again and maybe my hippy side will want to emerge once again