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dmitch57

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About dmitch57

  • Birthday 10/23/1957

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  1. I was in the room when that decision was made. It was part of the move from the closed-off old-school OS9 world to UNIX-based OS X. Yeah a resource fork was a good idea in its time, but the problem was, it didn't play well with any other systems...any other systems, anywhere. Try to send a file to someone using any computer other than a Mac, you'd need a special tool at one or both ends. Any data channel anywhere - if it wasn't specifically designed for connecting two Macs, then it didn't handle resource forks well (at all, actually). That made the resource fork mechanism more trouble than it was worth. The move to UNIX-based OS X was a result of the Apple/NeXT merger. Lots of Apple folks were unhappy with the decision to drop resource forks. NeXT folks, who had been using UNIX for years, were more positive about it. 🙂 Filename extensions were and are not the replacement for resource forks. Lots of Mac files don't need or have extensions. Executables of any kind do not need extensions. Magic numbers and file headers are the modern replacement. So I guess I'm saying that this particular decision by Apple to drop an old technology was actually driven by a need for more compatibility with other systems. Quite different from the decision to drop FireWire support (which I certainly find appalling).
  2. I don't think it's storage issues that make movies disappear from streaming platforms. It's licensing.
  3. I agree that general use of compression is less and less useful. One application I'll probably always use it for is certain high-gain lead guitar tones which need a lot of sustain. Compression before the amp is a super-useful way to get those sounds.
  4. Most reliable: Mackie 1402-VLZ mixer. I'm all for digital equipment, amp sims, etc.... But this Mackie, which is the router for all audio in my studio, works as well as the day I got it about 20 years ago; of course it never needs a reboot or a software update; I've never had to open it up to clean the pots or anything else. It's certainly the most reliable piece of gear in my studio. Least reliable: Roku Ultra streaming box. I don't even want to go into everything that was wrong with it; I ditched it for an Apple TV 4K and streaming is just so much easier now.
  5. (I'm allowed to post these because, as you can see from my avatar...) How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb? One to change the bulb, 9 to say "I can do that". How do you make a guitar player stop playing? Put some sheet music in front of him.
  6. Now that it's out there, I hope folks, you know, listen to the song before pontificating further. It sounds like John singing to me...because it is him. It's not AI-generated. It's 4 Beatles performing on a previously unreleased record. The production is pretty nice (though the strings are kinda obviously derivative). Heck, Paul even ceded composer credit entirely to John, which never happened on a Beatles record before. It's not the best rock record of the last twenty years, or anything close. But I'm glad it's out there, and I'm glad I listened to it today.
  7. My personal take is that as long as that number is not 100%, then there is no question: I am going to work at a sampling rate higher than 48K. I'll spend all day working on 4-bar section of music if it's not yet as perfect as I can make it. Even if 99% of the listeners won't know the difference, of course I'll still do the work. If there is a 1% chance that working at 96 is going to sound better, of course I'll work at 96. Why not? Disk space is vanishingly cheap. There is plenty of CPU power these days. I just don't see any reason NOT to work (and listen) in a way that maximizes the chance that my music - or anyone's music that I listen to - will sound better. Even if it's only 1% of the time. (My ears tell me that that number is greater than 1%, but it doesn't matter to me - as long as it's not zero.)
  8. I'd add the whole Apple Silicon (M1, etc.) chip line to the list of revolutionary Apple designs. That was pretty recent - 3 years ago this month - and Apple users are still switching over from Intel to Apple silicon and being amazed. It's not just the technical design which is groundbreaking (unified memory bus; RAM and GPU on the same chip as the CPU, and, let's face it, freaking fantastic performance). It's the idea of one company truly owning and controlling the entire stack from silicon to apps, for all their products. Nobody else has ever done it in the consumer arena. (IBM did it in their space 60 years ago....) We could go 20 years before anyone else does it. That's pretty big. I don't think they're slacking off at all. Sure, I wish there was a M3 27 inch iMac announced the other day; I'd buy one soon. Patience, grasshopper.
  9. Amazon Music has an uncompressed option: https://www.amazon.com/music/unlimited/why-hd So does Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212183 Some other services do as well.
  10. I believe this day will come, but not anytime soon. Just as it is currently not possible to make a CGI film of a synthetic human look actually realistic, you'll be able to detect an AI-created guitar solo for quite some time. There is an uncanny valley effect in both cases; folks with musical ears (and musicians in general) will be able to distinguish AI-generated sounds from human-created sounds for a long time. Call that the Musical Turing Test, if you will. BUT...the day when an AI passes the Musical Turing Test will come. Eventually an AI is going to produce some music that I won't be able to distinguish from human-generated music. You know what? As far as I'm concerned, if the AI-music sounds good, and makes me feel something, it is good. Regardless of its provenance. Being a music geek, I'll want to know how it was created, but if it was created by AI and it sounds good, I'd be cool with that. All that really matters is what comes out of the speakers and how it makes me (the listener) feel.
  11. "Hot Fun in the Summertime", Sly and the Family Stone, is the one for me. It never fails to evoke the feeling of 3 months of freedom to wander and play outside all day and half the night.
  12. The Who - Baba O'Riley Wilco - The Late Greats Pearl Jam - Better Man (sad lyrics but joyful music)
  13. Valhalla Supermassive reverb. Its usefulness and quality are way out of proportion to its cost (which is zero).
  14. Oh sure, there will always be exceptions. Plenty of lefties who play righty were probably influenced by things like the lack of right-handed guitars when they wanted to start learning, or closed-minded teachers who said "This is the way", handing them a right-handed guitar. These exceptions don't address anything about my theory or any other theory about why guitarists fret with their left hand. Come on, surely you admit there is no comparison between the level of activity between the right thumb and the left thumb. My hands aren't big enough for me to fret with my left thumb, so my left thumb is just an anchor. A crucial component, sure, but it would work just as well if it were an immobile stump. Comparing the activity and motion of the left thumb to that of the right thumb...as Jules Winfield would say, "They aren't in the same ballpark. They aren't even the same sport."
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