OH MAN!

Combine multiple audio inputs for use in GarageBand - Mac OS X Hints

I was looking for a way to have multiple audio inputs into GarageBand, say using my Digital Line in, two iMics, and anything else that will get audio, but GarageBand only lets you choose one input at a time. But with a tip from the guys at Rogue Amoeba, there is a way!

Using the Audio MIDI Setup application (in Utilities), choose "Open Aggregate Device Editor" in the Audio menu. Here you can create a virtual device that combines all your other inputs. Click the + sign to create a new device, then check "Use" off on the devices in the list that you want in your virtual device. If you like, double-click "Aggregate Device" to change the name to something of your choosing.

In GarageBand, choose your new device from the input list and there you go! Theoretically, you can buy four iMics and an USB hub and you can have eight inputs -- but I don't know the maximum number of audio streams that can be used simultaneously over one USB channel. But, this is a lot cheaper than buying an eight-input device which can run up to $800. Enjoy!

This made my day!

Jets To Brazil - Sea Anemone

the curtain's a sea anemone in the way it sways to the slow breeze i lie spread out on the floor looking at these things and most of them are yours

and it's so nice sitting very still without those old shoes i could never fill

starfish with its arms out in a daze staring at the stars through an ocean haze was i one you wished upon burned out like a lightbulb when you turned on me

and it's so nice sleeping here all alone with my ashtray and white courtesy telephone now i'm making out the shapes like the shower rod - can it take my weight? i will tell you i am fine i got some news, friend, feels like i'm dying

turtle on its back in the desert sea and you *look* like a cool drink just slightly out of reach draw myself into the shell waiting on a sign from god or a nod from hell

and it's so nice sitting very still without those old shoes i could never fill now we're turing on the lights it's the first day of my second life take my name off of the lease you can even keep the name it never suited me

goodbye sir.

Jay Bennett, Former Member of Rock Band Wilco, Dies at 45 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Mr. Bennett joined Wilco in 1994, shortly after the recording of the band’s first album, “A.M.,” which was released the next year. Beginning with “Being There” in 1996, he played keyboards, guitar and various other instruments, and gradually his role grew. With “Summerteeth” in 1999 and “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” released in 2002, Mr. Bennett became a key part of the band’s songwriting, often as a darker foil to the more fragile style of the lead singer, Jeff Tweedy. A perfectionist in the studio, Mr. Bennett took an active hand in the recording process.

I have to say, he did add a lot to the music and the newer Wilco albums are unlistenable dentist office music to me. Bland crap.

A Ghost is Born is quite good. But the last two... wow. Amazingly horrid. I compare them to the music in the background on the Weather Channel. Someone mail Jeff Tweedy a bag of Heroin ASAP please.

Low

So I took my guitar
And I threw down some chords
And some words I could sing without shame

And I soon had a song
I played it around
For some friends but they all said the same

They said music's for fools
You should go back to school
The future is prisms and math
So I did what they said
Now my children are fed
'Cause they pay me to do what I'm asked

I forgot all my songs
The words now are wrong
And I burned my guitar in a rage

But the fire came to rest
In your white velvet breast
So somehow I just know that it's safe

Low, Death of a Saleman

addicted to information

The Quietus | Features | Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny On Why Downloading Music Is An Addiction

"And I do believe we are becoming addicted to information. You only need to look at those people who have hard drives filled with songs that they have never even listened to. They are not even collecting music. They are collecting information. And the more people become addicted to information and the faster they can obtain that information, the less they will be able to contemplate that information, and it is the contemplation of the information which makes it art."

An argument I've heard advanced is that there's been a general devaluing of music in recent years - not merely in economic terms and expectations, but as a more central role or defining marker of what makes a person and who they are. What would be your take on this assertion?

BC: "I do believe that music is generally being devalued because of this addiction to information that I was speaking of. I like to compare it to a drive through the countryside. If you are driving at a comfortable pace then you are able to enjoy the sights of the countryside for yourself; the trees and the color of the sky and the sad-eyed cows, etc. If you are driving 100 miles per hour, there is no way you will be able to enjoy what the countryside has to offer. You will be too busy reacting to contemplate; the potholes, the corners, the lone farmer's truck.

Robert Freakin Pollard

Vice Magazine - ROBERT POLLARD -

Was it difficult when things took off for you, to juggle family and a band? You were a schoolteacher and you had two kids.

Yeah, it was extremely difficult, but I was somehow able to do it. Much to the chagrin of some of my relatives, I just couldn’t give up fucking around with music and art ideas. And we didn’t put as much time into it as people thought we did. We would meet on a Saturday or Sunday, get fucked up and record everything we did, and then sit back and laugh at it. And we could barely play. We would make noise, play acoustic guitars, act out skits, experiment with feedback, break things, create radio talk shows, DJ, all sorts of things. And always record it all. Then on Monday I would go back to being a dad, a coach, a teacher, a husband, and an amateur athlete. Too many irons.

Though it may not be cool to link to a Vice article, I dunno. The hipster police may track me down over this one.

In search of the click track « Music Machinery

I’ve always been curious about which drummers use a click track and which don’t, so I thought it might be fun to try to build a click track detector using the Echo Nest remix SDK ( remix is a Python library that allows you to analyze and manipulate music). In my first attempt, I used remix to analyze a track and then I just printed out the duration of each beat in a song and used gnuplot to plot the data. The results weren’t so good - the plot was rather noisy. It turns out there’s quite a bit of variation from beat to beat. In my second attempt I averaged the beat durations over a short window, and the resulting plot was quite good.

Between Takes: The 'Kind Of Blue' Sessions : NPR Music

Morning Edition, January 29, 2009 - These days, an official request to review the reel-to-reel tapes from a typical Columbia Records recording session in the late '50s — say Johnny Mathis, Duke Ellington or Doris Day — brings up boxes upon boxes of reels. But Miles Davis' Kind of Blue sessions hardly dented the tape budget. Three reels of Scotch 190, at the time a workhorse product of the recording industry, hold all that was recorded at those two historic dates in 1959.

Well, we live in a trailerat the edge of town You never see us 'cause we don't come around. We got twenty five rifles just to keep the population down. But we need you now, and that's why I'm hangin' 'round. So you be good to me and I'll be good to you, And in this land of conditions I'm not above suspicion I won't attack you, but I won't back you.

Well, it's so good to be here, asleep on your lawn. Remember your guard dog? Well, I'm afraid that he's gone. It was such a drag to hear him whining all night long. Yes, that was me with the doves, setting them free near the factory Where you built your computer, love. I hope you get the connection, 'cause I can't take the rejection I won't deceive you, I just don't believe you.

Well, I'm a barrel of laughs, with my carbine on I keep 'em hoppin', till my ammunition's gone. But I'm still not happy, I feel like there's something wrong. I got the revolution blues, I see bloody fountains, And ten million dune buggies comin' down the mountains. Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars, But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars.

Revolution blues, Neil Young.