h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I got the active alesis, err can't quite rmemeber waht they were called; but they've got an 8 inch driver, which is kevlar impregnated and I think a 1 or 2 inch silk tweeter, and maan, I loved their sound... but one of them just kept dieing, I had it repaired three times, by an electrition guy who basically replaced all the individual componants and built a new circuit boared, for the power side of the transofmrer bit I think... but it just kep going I looked round on the net, and saw a few people had simular problems, but didn't find any solutions So I think I'll have to cut my losses at some point, rip out all the active electronics, figure out what kind of cross-over would be vaguely right, and turn em into passive units, and maybe then looking at buying a proper* 'monitor' amp, rather than just using a HiFi amp as I do now, with the old KLH speakers
I've a friend, who's got a very old pair of Goodmans (from wehn they still made them in Wembley England), and they're just amazing... I've never heard a set of speakers like them, not even the stuff that is so* utterly* overpriced one sees in the HiFi shops... seriously they out perform speakers I've heard costing thousands of pounds... way too big for his flat mind, but he uses them anyhow There is something about having a twelve inch bass cone, that all the fancy retoric about amazing cone designs, the manafacturers keep spouting, that means an eight inch, or 7 inch, or even 10 inch cone, just doesn't do... I'm sure its volume of air moved... or something... I do always try keep my eye out for any interesting looking speakers turning up in the second hand charity shops, that is where the real bargins can sometimes be found... I mean, my anchient celestion dittons, I think cost £5 or soemthing silly Mind, I had to do some work and put new binding posts and things on them and rewire but asides that they still work perfectly... cones looking very old and distressed, in both them and the KLH, but I've decided not to replace them, until I really* actually notice sound deteriation, as although they look very worn and a bit knackered, it probably is just natural wear, and forty years worth, or whatever it is, of accumulated dust, just affecting the cones surface and making it look cosmetically ungood
Mind, what with one thing and another, I hardly ever seem to just sit down and listen to music much, these days... its always on in the background, whilst I'm doing something else Or I'm just sitting at the PC with Cakewalk open, messing about, supposidly 'making' music

I only tend to listen properly when I come across something really odd. Or at bed-time. I've only made... er 3 or 4 new tracks in the last year. I seem to spend more time remixing old stuff.

One of my mates is a manager for a richer sounds store and his speakers cost something ridiculous in the order of 5 or 6 thousand, they looked kind of frightening too. Like they were designed by H.R Geiger or H.P Lovecraft or maybe P.G Wodehouse if he was having a kind of 'let's design some disturbing organic looking speakers' kind of a day. I feel I've arrived at some strange point of thing. I probably need beer.

Oh there are some speakers out there that are just cool because* they're a weird shape or design... I have a freaky on the backburner probably won't ever get round to it, kind of poject, to build my own speakers, and cabs, one day... Part of the plan is to try and get sufficient old bits of furnature, to build it out of that... like using old 1950s or 40s or 30s wardrobes, or desks or something, to get big enough bits of wood from to make it... I keep changing my mind about how I'd want to make em though... I was thinking just go over the top on cones, starting with say an 18 inch, at the bottom, then a 12 inch, then maybe a 8 or a 10, followed by an 8 or a 6, etc... and then realised I'd never figure out the wiring to make a crossover work on that sort of silly arrangement anyhow... its not like I need* to build a set of speakers, I'm sure I've got enough... for now

I actually* listened to a bit of music today!

I threw an old King Tubby CD in upstiars, and listened to it, admitidly whilst I was drying myself after a shower, but pretty- much actually* concentrating and listneing to it
yeh... dubstep is so* like yesterday, maan.... Old school Dub is where its at again now... maybe
I had to take the last CD I'd listened to out of the CD player to put the King Tubby in... it was a strange colection of sort of 30s musicalhall stuff I'd been listening too... seriously I must get back to recording, I've a tune half way sort of not finished at the moment, if I can just figure out where I'm meant to be going with it

Hee hee hee. I love king tubby. Also, I made an arcade machine, being a child of the 80's; I needed to re-live the heady vibe that can only be conjured up by a massive wooden box filled with dusty old ROMs, a CRT, ninjas and hardcore japanese switches rated for something silly like 4,000,000 uses. Except I had a PC instead of the ROMs... then I got kind of carried away with sound system: I put two 5.1 setups in there, with a little gaming sub inside and a dirty 12" car woofer mounted on the kick-plate. It made some of the games sound mental. R-type puts out some crazy sub you wouldn't even know was there otherwise. Damn pissed off my girlfriend though

Oh.
oh.

OH... I've just had the most aweful... or fabulus... idea....

Think steampunk..... an arcade machine, in some basically really old victorian, or edwardian furnature.... lots of walnut and/or mahogany.... high varnished stuff... loads* of brass... I mean loads* of bras.... and like an arcade machine built into it.... and like two massive bits of matching 'furnature', with the spekaers in... and of course a massive* sub hidden in the bottom fo teh one with the actual arcade machien in.... heck... no... not an arcade machine, a pin ball machine! <wow.
I want! I want!
I should really be concentrating on finishign off some of these tunes I keep starting and never finishing, rahter than dreaming up silly steampunk entertainment systems

I think the whole wall-covering baroque mahogany pinball machine/epic soundsystem concept has really come of age. It should have a small wheel, where, like it's all covered up with loads of carved panelling, but when you crank the wheel it all slowly, slowly unfolds and lots of little wooden people and wooden monkeys go in and out of tiny wooden doors and some kind of, yes, some kind of brass organ plays the national anthem.

Yes. yes. a Thousand times yes.

If you can build that, I@ll pay you to install it in my front room! yeh....

I've given it a great deal of considered thought and have sadly come to the conclusion that I can't build an enormous steam-punk pinball machine/dub sound system/ pipe organ. If primarily for reasons to do with what small reserves of sanity I have left.

I've been listening to loads of what is sometimes called outrun electro. Basically new stuff trying often very successfully to sound like foaming at the mouth 80's electro pop. It's rad. Best group I've found so far is called Miami Nights 1984. Label called rosso corsa.

I was clearing a space ready, for the dubstep retro steampunk walnut disco coin opperated wooden jukebox creation... I had it all planned out!
oo... not heard of that style of music... shall have to go check it out... recently I've mainly been listening to zappa, bonzo dog band, and various 70's reggae stuff oh, and George Formby...

I rarely go a week without listening to Zappa. For some reason when I read you've been listening to george formby I kind of assumed like... listening to his ghost telling you stuff, like somekind of spirit guide.

I've been trying to make some authentically 80's sounding synth stuff. It's kind of tricky, I think I need a Juno 60 or something

I hear George Formby's voice almost constantly... Kind of like my unguardian angle inside my heeeed... His words of wisdom, have provided not only an useful, but I would say, essential guide through all of life... There is nothing that one encounters, that one cannot find a suitable George Formby lyric, or words, to provide a clear insight to the problem or issue; Like a cheeky Northern Budha providing zen-like insights into the inner working (or unworking) of the mind

I have been known to occasionally go one, maybe two days, without listneing to Zappa NOt that I'm obsessed or anything but one entire shelf of my CD collection out of err about five or six shelves, is Zappa
I never seem to get anything finished when I'm recording/sequencing these days... I start off, get some drums or percussion down, maybe sneak in a bit of a bass line, a few FX, or sound effects, occasionally even a few chords or something almost resembling a melady, and then just run out of ideas where to take it... then the next time I try do any music stuff, I inevitably just start afresh with something new, which gets no further than the last attempt
I've too short a concentration span.... maybe I should start writing/recording ring tones instead, they're maybe short enough for me to finish
I probably oughta just pick the guitar and bass guitar up, and get a few blues/rock things of dubious worth recorded, just to prove to myself I can still hang together a song and finish it... oh, and see if I still remember how to play the guitar, I've not picked it up since ... quite possibly last year

I'm sure George Formby.... or maybe Zappa can help me in this quest

I have a similar thing but with the voice of Sean Connery, except he just talks a load of really filthy sex talk to me.

I also can't seem to finish tracks. I've kind of given up on the concept of 'finished' in fact.The nearest I ever get is 'lost the midi files'. A common thing is to decide I like the music I've written but don't like the sounds and solemnly pledge to change all the sounds and make it really slick and just-too-cool and then not do it. Sometimes I decide I like the sounds but don't like the music, that usually turns into somekind of noodling acid-techno odyssey that I give up on, come back to 6 months later and think its a masterpiece for 1 listen and then don't like it again after that and then not go back to it for a year and then sometimes start either of the 2 process above all over again. I have a lot of files with NEW in the title where I have savagely taken out all the bits I don't like and just left these strange little islands of music in between big bits of just hi-hats.

I've written about 500 tracks and I haven't finished any! The huge weight of this is crashing down on me and I need to have a lie down except I already am lying down.

That sounds remarkibly simular to my situation at the moment... I just lack the concentration to ever finish anything, and unless I pretty-much get it finished, in a single session, when I come back to it, I just decide its crap and give up or utterly change it and then come back to it again, later, and decide the changed verision is crap, and rechange it, then give up, then come back to it again, and decide .... etc...