Saturday, May 27, 2017

RIP Greg Allman

Gregg Allman - Wikipedia



PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 Digital Mixer Reviews

  • Computer issues.

    Using the board hands on is pretty simple and I like the quality of sound from the on board sound effects. My issues is PreSonus the company that makes the board is not very customer friendly. They will send you emails on how to try and fix the problems, even have you load programs on your computer to evaluated your situation.But they will not call or talk to you. I have called several times. But with all that said I received 6 emails from them. After I emailed them twice and then a Sweetwater tech had to call them for me it had already been 72 hours before I called the sweetwater tech. Who was very helpful and took remote control of my computer to help. As Sweetwater goes they are a five star, Tech support line, but as far as PreSonus. I give them a 2 star. But I have never and still to this date 10/13/2016 received a call from presonus.

  • from Albany, NYFebruary 24, 2015Music Background:
    Producer, musician, songwriter, video director

    Great board but beware of software bug

    Had this board for a few months now, obviously it has a lot of great things going for it. But I contacted Presonus Tech Support regarding some issues when backing up, and they confirmed that one of the issues is a software bug. After backing up all of your scenes and settings thru their VSL software, when you restore those scenes back onto the board, all of your Aux system settings are lost... they all revert back to "Post". Since I have them all set to "Pre2" (pre fader yet retains all EQ and Fat Channels), this means when restoring you have to go back through each scene and reset it. If you use all 80 scenes, that takes an hour or so. Not a deal breaker, since hopefully you only need to restore your backups if there's a catastrophic board failure, and in that case an hour or 2 is worth it. But if you're in the middle of a show and you rely on your saved scenes, that's a problem. They didn't give me a timetable on the bug fix, but the board has been out there a while and you'd think it would have been fixed by now if they plan on really doing it. And I also had a problem when restoring backed up scenes where i was only getting sound out of the L side, until I went into Locate mode and re-saved the scene on the board itself. But the cause of that is still TBD, and Tech Support said my scenes were fine, so it could be an issue with my OS or drivers, according to them. Given the bug, I haven't bothered to track that down since it's irrelevant until the bug is fixed. Still, it's a nice board, but if I'd known about these issues I would have gone with another company.

  • from Perrysburg, OHDecember 14, 2014Music Background:
    Pro musician, recording engineer, live sound engineer

    troubled mixer

    I purchased this board in 2012. It seemed to have most of the features I needed for live gigs with the exception of a simple effects foot switch port for the 2 effects channels. A midi pedal was a royal pain in the neck to configure for a simple on off reverb switch [which never worked]. But I worked around that by eventually using outboard effects that had foot switch capabilities. So everything went well until 4 weeks before the warranty ran out. At a gig, I went to fire my rack up and the board just gave me a blinking light show on the display and no signal. We were able to grab another mixer and started the gig 2 hours late. The warranty covered the repair; no problem there. Thank goodness for warranties.
    My next complaint is more annoying. A handful of times when turning the board on at a gig, I'll get a massive feedback loop with all faders down. Anyone that has gigged out a lot knows that will tick off a club owner faster than anything. We haven't lost any work yet, but I am wary about using this board anymore; or purchasing another Presonus product.

    Having registered a rather negative review on Presonus, Sweetwater has been stellar about addressing my issues over the years; even stretching the boundaries a bit here and there.
    Sweetwater will continue to be my first source for gear. But I will think twice about buying the Presonus brand again. In Presonus's defense, I realize I may have gotten a lemon.

  • from TXMay 5, 2017

    Poor quality

    Biggest piece of Crap I owned. After 18 months the firewire quit working. Presonus wants $200.00 + to fix it. Over 1/4 of the price I paid originally. Lousy quality from them thieves is what I'm sayin'. KMA Presonus!

  • fromJanuary 25, 2017

    Eehhhh

    I'm on my second board within the year the firewire was messed up on the other board so they went ahead and replaced it which was cool but this board is a little bit noisy. The preamps are ehhh and what can I say about all of their other products I have the e66 monitors one of them came DOA so they replace that right away and the second one blew three days later they replaced that then the third one went. That's when I called it quits and bought a pair of JBLs. I also bought a refurbished PreSonus Channel strip right from the factory and that came DOA as well. I got my money back and I will never deal with this company again. I'm going with an avid controller and Antelope interface pretty soon

  • fromFebruary 15, 2016

    Buyer Beware

    I liked my 16.0.2, I really did. But after 2.5 years in service, in a smoke free, clean, air conditioned studio, my 16.0.2 failed. Internal inspection showed the +5V power supply rail lost regulation, and went high. This burned up areas on the power supply board, and exploded capacitors (contaminating large areas inside) and damaged logic components on all three peripheral circuit boards. One capacitor that blew was rated 65V, so that give you an idea how high the +5V rail went. The mixer is a total loss, all apparently because a fan was not included in the design, leading to degradation and eventual thermal runaway in the power supply.

    A digital mixer is a computer, with audio interfaces. Any computer power supply of this size requires active cooling. The 16.0.2 not only lacks a fan, but the vents are very small and located on the sides where they cannot do much good for passive cooling. Very poor design. Restoring this one would be throwing good money after bad.


    Problems with Presonus Firebox in Windows - Cycling '74

Saturday, May 6, 2017

The Politics of Music

Image result for this machine kills fascists

I think we can all agree that most music to which the masses are exposed to, sucks. IMO music today is being used to dumb down the masses. Music today is fraud. Here's why. Kanye West sucks as does, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Nikki Minaj, that fat whiny cow Adele, Britney Spears etc.. etc... etc.. But how are these wastes of protoplasm get BILLION of views on Youtube? They're not. The views are fake and Youtube knows this. 




For decades America has been descending into an ever deepening abyss of fascism.  "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Benito Mousilini

Today America is being run by fascists/corporatists and now we have a Whitehouse full of them and a congress and senate owned by them.

There was a time when artists and musicians made political statements... Beethoven did it with the Eroica.  

Beethoven Symphony No3 Eroica (Muti-Philadelphia Orchestra ...


Image result for guernica picasso
Picasso did it with the painting Guernica.

Minstrels for ages wrote and performed protest songs. In the colonies the broadside ballad became popular and an American tradition of protest songs continued until recently. Today, meaningful protest songs are few and far between but now we need protest songs more than ever but sadly the numbers of political songs have dwindled. 


Classic Labor Songs from Smithsonian Folkways - Smithsonian ...



The 10 Best Protest Songs of the Civil Rights Movement | Spinditty


Take the time you pathetic millennials and Gen Xers and listen to some songs that have a meaning a purpose other than entertaining your feeble brains.  Google greats like Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, John Forgerty, Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, Pete Seger etc..

You no longer need a recording studio to record or a record company to sell your songs. You have sites like Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube on which to post your songs. No matter how good your song is, don't expect to get a record deal. The record companies are run by fascists who need a trip to the guillotine. 

Pull your head out of your materialistic ass, put you filthy fucking ego in check, and go out on a limb, leave your vomitous EDM comfort zone or your fuck dem hos gansta rap mentality and start writing for people with more than a few brain cells to rub together where your music can do some good. 

Be warned. I know a lot of patriotic Americans today are really pissed off and they would like to see a lot of the gangsters and traitors who have hijacked America dead but until there is a military coup we are stuck with these pigs. Be clever and be careful with what you write. You are now living in Trumpistan.



The first thing fascists do is to censor and control the media. Hitler did it and now Trump and his fascists are trying to do it.

Get your work out there. Busk! Post! Perform on independent radio and at open mic nights.



Friday, March 31, 2017

Grow Up Jeff Berlin and Shut Up and Play Your Bass

Image result for jeff berlin
Jeff Berlin is Fat Guy on the Right

Jeff Berlin was a bassist, teacher and musician but now he's a big fucking crybaby. Victor Wooten is a bassist, musician, innovator, artist and one of the most respected musicians on the planet. Jeff likes running his mouth to make up for the fact that he can't hold a candle to guys like Victor and the slew of young bass players who are pushing the musical envelope and expanding the function and possibilities of the bass.

There are a lot of things that make Victor a great bass player beyond his technical gifts. I think most of it is the fact that Victor sees music as an art and not a competitive sport. The music inside Victor is liberating, soulful, important, inspiring, adventurous, joyful, considerate, loving, thoughtful, generous. And if Victor could only play whole notes his playing and music would still be liberating, soulful, important, inspiring, adventurous, joyful, considerate, loving, thoughtful, generous.

I play bass guitar and from a chops point of view I have always played catch-up with other musicians.  My music theory chops are also nothing special but I figure that since there are only 12 notes in Western music I really don't need the chord scales as a crutch for what note to play and when to play them like Jeff Berlin does. I guess I feel that way because I don't care if my music of playing impresses anyone. I grew up and even before that Jeff it knew that music was not a competitive sport. I knew that the function of the bass in the music I was playing was the same as every other instrument. It was to serve and add important musical words aka notes to the conversation.

Victor Wooten had enough of Jeff's mouth after Jeff started a bunch of shit talk. Victor posted an open letter to Jeff Berlin.

Victor writes:

Another comment of yours (posted below) was brought to my attention and I feel the need to respond. Please read and consider my thoughts before becoming resentful. I am writing as a friend who loves you and wants to see you succeed.

First: I love many of your ideas and actually love the fact that we appear to disagree at times. I welcome that. I often invite educators to my camps who express conflicting views in order to help students realize that there is more than just "my way" of approaching music. Disagreeing is not a problem for me. I know that we learn and grow because of it. Feeling the need to prove that "I am right and everyone else is wrong" is a dangerous way to live or teach. 

Proud FA's Comment: I think Jeff needs to fire his shrink and hire Victor. Demolish your ego Jeff and accept the fact that Victor Wooten's playing appeals to more people than does yours. You may not think it is fair but that would be your fragile ego talking. What is boils down to the music in your heart and Victor's heart and the contrived "play it safe" music in your brain.

Believe me when I say that there are many of us successful musicians and educators who really want you to succeed. We believe that you do have a lot of good to offer. That was why I originally invited you to my camp. But, it is your toxic attitude that keeps you from being invited back. It is also why you continue to be excluded from many other places including, ironically, The Players School, which you founded.

Proud FA's Comment: Jeff you are stinking up the place and you are pissed that the new young players are surpassing you so shut up and play your bass.

Please keep reading.

Second: I'll remind you again since you seem to have forgotten. During your visit to my camp, you went on a rant about there being NO good female bass players. (A totally ridiculous statement, I will add.) Ariane Capp, another successful bassist/educator, asked you about Carol Kaye. You responded with a horrible, degrading, and inappropriate comment about Carol Kaye's sexual preference and body parts, as well as what you would or wouldn't do with her. You said all of this in front of students, which included underage kids. (I think my mother was also present.) That was bad enough, but to make things worse, you never answered Ariane's question. You never mentioned Carol Kaye's bass playing, musicianship, or accomplishments.

Proud FA's Comment: Your shit talking about Carol Kaye tells me that you are a bigot and perhaps that bigotry goes beyond gender and sexual preference. I got news for you Jeff, the two most critically acclaimed string players today are Victor Wooten and Eric Gales. In fact, Joe Bonamassa easily acknowledges that Eric is the best guitar player living today and BTW you may want to check out Eric's bass player; he's in the same league as Victor. I seriously doubt whether Joe or Eric would hire a sterile player like you. You know what they say Jeff? Those who can do, those who can't teach, and those who can't teach...bitch about their students.

Please understand, it is not totally because of your ideas alone, but how you deliver them that is hurting you. Your misguided rhetoric coupled with your bullying tactics are the main reasons you are having trouble getting the work you desire. As much as you want people to accept you and your approach, and I know you do want that, become accepting of others and their approaches. That's what we should be teaching our students. Please accept these pieces of advice from me. Acceptance is healing!

Jeff, you are taking a "boxing" approach, and that is not a good way if you want to be accepted, respected, or hired. That brutality mentality is exactly why many musicians, educators, and institutions choose to keep our distance from you. (You can't box with us if we don't allow you in the ring.)

Proud FA's Comment: Jeff, it sounds like when you do box, you have blocked too many punches with your head.

Please continue reading.

Third: Once again, you are telling an inaccurate account of what happened at my camp years ago when you called a student (Denson Angulo) up to play. In your recent post (see below), you stated that "he was livid" when you pointed out that he couldn't play. That's absolutely not true, Jeff. THE TRUTH IS: at camp, you actually "praised" Denson for being able to accurately execute everything you asked him to do.

The first time you posted this lie, I sent you the recording of what actually happened just in case your memory was failing. (I would rather think that your memory is failing than think that you are purposefully lying.) I even posted it on your page to make sure that you got it. But as usual, you removed my post and chose not to correct yourself or apologize to Denson. I'm happy to resend or repost the recording if that will help you.

To remind you: Denson Angulo is an accomplished musician and educator in Utah. He plays and performs on both electric and acoustic basses. He is also a double bassist in the symphony. He's an accomplished martial artist and martial arts teacher who uses it to help others. He's not a bully. He's definitely an amazing father and human being! Denson has accomplished things you and I will never accomplish. You should be praising him on your page like you did at my camp, not falsely criticizing him like you routinely do to people who have achieved things you have not.
In closing:

Jeff, I understand why you are bitter, but there are better ways of dealing with it. Until you can figure that out, things will continue to get worse for you. You can change your location and try to make a new start, but you can't run from yourself. And I doubt you will find the counseling you truly need by posting your troubles on Facebook. Hopefully, Nashville will rub off on you, because your approach will have to change in order for you to make it here.

Proud FA's Comment: You had a good run Jeff and it is time for you has beens to move over and let the young masters like Victor and Cody Wright take over and carry the torch. 

Your shit talk about Carol Kaye is beyond the pale. Jealous much? Here are some other influential bass players to whom you cannot hold a candle when it comes to advancing the art of music.

Larry Johnston... In your dreams Jeff

Geddy Lee... His artistry is something you never had

Charles Mingus.... Always played the perfect notes

Cody Wright... Too good for words!

Jaco Pastorious... Not even close

Les Claypool... Never took himself to seriously and his playing rocks.

Flea... The don't call him Flea for nothing

Will Lee... Total package

John Entwistle... Feel, style, grace, taste

P-Nut... Not full of himself

Bobby Vega... Beautiful playing

Tina Weymouth... Her playing tells has-beens to go funk themselves.

I long to know the Jeff Berlin I grew up admiring, and I am not alone. There are many who would happily welcome that Jeff back into our circles. Trust me, when you stop alienating the community you so desire to be a part of, your world will be a much better place. Until then... well... I'll just continue being hopeful and patient.
With Love and Hope,
VLW
-----------

Here's a comment from Jeff's Facebook page. 
Jeff wrote: "The same thing happened to me at Victor Wooten's bass camp, admittedly before I went into therapy. I angered people there, one guy in particular who told me that he could play. He couldn't, and I used musical examples for him to play to show him this. He was livid, but I wanted to show him and everyone else that day that what they believed about their ability to play wasn't necessarily true and that music itself instantly exposes our musical capabilities for what they really are. I made it possible for him and everyone else that day to see the truth which could have been the best musical day of their lives. But they rejected my views outright, even the fellow that couldn't play but didn't like that this was pointed out to him."

Proud FA's Comment: Jeff you can play the bass and if you were not so wrapped up in yourself you Could be in the same league as some of the greats but your musical ideas are clever but in many ways musical nonsequiturs as evidenced by B-3 where Stu Hamm and Billy Sheehan smoked you. That should be the least thing that should bother you. The fact that you are a liar is your major malfunction and why you never reached your potential.

https://soundcloud.com/cg-instrumental/malmsteen-on-bass
Since you think music is a competitive sport hot shot, cop this. 


Thursday, March 30, 2017

Write Protest Songs

Get off your lazy shallow asses GenXers and Millenials. If there was ever a time and a reason to write meaningful music living in Trumpistan is that reason.

The Face Of Treason - Demotivational Poster


Friday, January 27, 2017

Time to Beat The Shit Out of Presonus Some More

I beat the shit out of Acoustica when they first released Mixcraft 6 and as bad as it was is was still better than most to the DAWs out there. Acoustica got their shit together and 6.1 is very very good DAW and the Mixcraft tutorials are the best by far. Presonus are such false Christian cocksuckers that they force buyers to purchase very expensive tutorials for their shitty software and hardware.

Presonus must be run by Trump supporters because they ban people for telling the truth on their bullshit shill filled forum. Check out this thread on Gear Slutz

Presonus customer serves SUCKS!

Presonus customer service? - Home Recording forums


I this experience on another forum Presonus trolls attack the OP.

Presonus Audio Box SUCKS


Presonus FUCKS its associates. They must be Trump supporters.


MISCELLANEOUS PRESONUS FUCKERY


Amazon.com: BlueGuitar13's review of

https://www.amazon.com/review/R3D1SP0E86TNSV

1.0 out of 5 stars PreSonus Sucks, April 20, 2012. By. BlueGuitar13. I bought a 44VSL, I am sorry I did. I called around trying to find something to suite my needs:



Mixcraft 8 and Odd Instruments

I have not tested it yet but by all accounts, it's a very good DAW.  Please leave comments if you are a Mixcraft 8 user.

Thanks.

In other news:

I like unique musical instruments. I play with a guy who is a brass player. He plays trumpet and cornet. For the past year of so he's been playing a melodica at our gigs. I love it! For those of you who don't know what a melodica is....




This is a melodica.  Melodicas sound like something between an accordion and a harmonica. You can play chords and single notes on them. The are inexpensive. He found one on Amazon for $27 and while there are more expensive ones this one is the best IMO.  A lot of the more expensive ones have annoying key click and intonation issues.

BANJO-TAM-BANJO-LIMITED-TIME-FREE-SHIPPING-SALE-MODEL-CHOICE-BANJO
Banjo Tam inventor Frank Abrams playing the Banjo Tam at the 2016 Nashville NAMM
Check out the Banjo Tam <---------Click here.

I own a Banjo Tam. When I first heard about the Banjo Tam I thought it was gimmicky but when I played one I was pleasantly surprised. It sounded like a high-end banjo but what makes the Banjo Tam unique is that the head uses a tambourine and for some reason this makes it sound better than many high-end banjos. Once you get the hang of it you can use the percussive effects of the tambourine. This instrument is considered so innovative that it made the Museum of Modern Art catalog.

BANJO-TAM-BANJO-LIMITED-TIME-FREE-SHIPPING-SALE-MODEL-CHOICE-BANJO

Banjo-Tams come in open and closes back models.