Support Tekzilla and Blue Jeans Cables - BOYCOTT Monster Cables

I'm ready! Let's do it!

Monster can be kinda Apple-like in their use of cease and desist lawsuits, but it looks like they might've bitten off more than they can chew this time.

Several tech/gadget blogs and news sites are reporting on the back and forth legal letters between Monster and Blue Jeans Cable. BJC is a very small company that makes A/V cables, and as far as I can tell they manufacture in the USA (woot). Apparently Monster thinks that only they should be allowed to produce shielded RCA cables. They've sent a C&D letter to BJC over what they claim is patent infringement on their design.

Let's take a look:
Huh?

[sarcasm] Gee, I had a REALLY hard time figuring out which one was the Monster cable (what with the one cable having the BIG MONSTER LABEL on it)[/sarcasm]. Picture courtesy of Gizmodo.

Well the owner of Blue Jeans just happens to be a retired copyright lawyer, and his 3200 WORD response to Monster's letter is both brutal and pants-wettingly hysterical. I wont quote the whole letter here, but this was my favorite bit:

I will also point out to you that if you do choose to undertake litigation, your "upside" is tremendously limited. If you somehow managed, despite the formidable obstacles in your way, to obtain a finding of infringement, and if you were successful at recovering a large licensing fee--say, ten cents per connector--as the measure of damages, your recovery to date would not reach four figures. On the downside, I will advance defenses which, if successful, will substantially undermine your future efforts to use these patents and marks to threaten others with these types of actions; as you are of course aware, it is easier today for your competitors to use collateral estoppel offensively than it ever has been before. Also, there is little doubt that making baseless claims of trade dress infringement and design patent infringement is an improper business tactic, which can give rise to unfair competition claims, and for a company of Monster's size, potential antitrust violations with treble damages and attorneys' fees.

So to wrap up this already WAY too long post. I just started watching today's Tekzilla, and Patrick Norton had quite a bit to say about how he felt about the situation. He says boycott, and who am I to disagree. I've been tired of their price gouging for years, and every time I see gold plated, $60, six foot USB cables, it makes me want to hurt kittens.
As soon as I'm done with this post I will be removing all Monster products from Some Audio Store.

Check out what Patrick had to say (very beginning of the show):


I would highly encourage anyone looking for A/V equipment to seriously consider ANY alternative to Monster. Blue Jeans is fighting the good fight, I've always had very positive experiences with Monoprice, and for you recording folk I think Mogami Microphone cables are some of the best XLR cables you can get your hands on, and George L makes fantastic instrument cables at very reasonable prices.

And if you're really in a tight spot, Monster cables sound about as good as a wire coat hanger (wire coat hangers soon to be really expensive at Best Buy), so there you go...

***UPDATE 4/19/08***
My blogging pal Brandon Drury is joining in on the boycott as well.
He runs the Recording Review, which is an excellent source for recording information, especially those wanting to get into engineering.
You can check out his boycott blog post here:
I Will Never Buy Another Monster Cable
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over voiceover vo demo production animation recording acting producing equipment microphones cables engineering

Creative threatens community modder - are they REFUSING to support Vista?

This is awful.
I've been a BIG creative fan for years. I still use an EMU 1212m from time to time.
One of the main reasons I don't upgrade to Vista is driver support is still lacking for sound cards. This forum post is really disappointing if it's true. That Creative is blocking community driver development is frustrating, but that they might be purposely withholding full functionality from Vista users (something alluded to in Phil O'Shaughnessy's forum post, as apparently these technologies of their's DO work), is almost criminal.

Here's Phil's forum post:

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

Forum Moderator
Creative Labs

read more | digg story


And here's the forum. ANGRY Creative users! ANGRY!!!

I know this wont be a huge deal to them, but I will be removing all Creative and EMU products from my store until this is sorted out...

***UPDATE 3-30-2008***
Here's what one Digg user did with his (link to Digg story):









What's sad is it probably works just as well in Vista now as it did before...
some audio guy someaudioguy store creative recording drivers software asshatery digg support angry bonehead voice over voice acting

*** UPDATE: 4/04/2008***

Gizmodo is reporting that Creative has reversed their ridiculously stupid and arbitrarily arrogant decision to pull Daniel_K's working Vista drivers.
They've made it clear in their response that it was ALL Vista's fault, why they couldn't get working drivers up (though apparently just one guy in their forums could, huh, interesting).

Well Daniel_K's work mught be great, but I'm feeling snarky. Until Creative has released official Vista drivers (with FULL FUNCTIONALITY) for their sound cards, I'm leaving them off my store.

Take THAT Creative!

Olympus Releases LS-10 PCM Stereo Recorder

Gizmodo got the scoop!

Olympus is taking all of their experience in making PCM recorders, and delivering a fairly impressive pocket sized stereo recorder.It even looks cool!

The feature set is pretty impressive, boasting 24bit/96kHz PCM recording, wav/mp3/wma support, 12 hour recording life on 2 AA's, built in stereo mics with a line in, 2GB of built in storage with an SDHC card slot for additional storage, and support for both Mac and PC.

Great sign me up, so what's the down side?

Well it's currently being priced out at $399. That's a lil steep. I can only hope it's sold for less when I look them up on Zzounds. At $399 it's hard not to compare this recorder to kit like the Zoom H4 or Microtrack II (each easily found online for $299).
While the LS-10 handily trumps the Zoom and MT in storage and battery life, it doesn't offer Phantom Power, so no powered mics without a separate 48v power supply.

Sound quality had better be top notch to warrant the premium (I will gladly test this if Olympus would like to send me one, *wink*nudge*wink*)...



Olympus Official Site

***UPDATE 8/19/08***

New Media Gear has a great review of the Olympus LS-10.

More End of the Year Top Ten/Best Of Lists

I'm a SUCKER for top ten lists...

ExtremeTech's List of Ten Worst Technologies and Trends of 2007

Gizmodo's Top Ten list of gadgets that will get you fired from your office job

ExtremeTech's Top Ten Tech Tips of 2007

Consumerist's Top Ten Products of 2007

Kotaku's Most Commented stories of '07

Enjoy!

News Sound Bites - Music Software, MP3 Player busts Cop, Morgan Webb, OpenHulu

Some cool stories to check out around the web.

ExtremeTech has started a series on digital music creation. What's interesting about the read is it's from a gadget blog writer, not a pro-sumer musician, so the advice is a bit more consumer-friendly. [Part1, Part2, via ExtremeTech]

NYTimes has a story up about a kid busting a cop with his MP3 player. Apparently he wasn't read his Miranda, and caught the whole thing on an MP3 player in his pocket. The iPod doesn't have built in recording, hmmmm... [NYT via Gizmodo]

MTV Multiplayer is trying to boost its readership, and it picked a perfect interview to do it. Morgan Webb discusses the challenges and frustrations of being a girl gamer (a little skewed by the fact that she's probably the most recognized girl gamer on the planet right now). I just think it's funny when she says she avoids forums because some jerk always ruins the discussion, and of course the comments on the interview are mostly jerky comments. [MTV Multiplayer]

And lastly, are you bummed that you haven't been invited into Hulu's private beta? Are you dreaming of all that free (ad supported) TV, just waiting to be streamed to your computer monitor (which if you're like me is nicer than your TV anyway)? Well, you can stop bumming out! A kindly web citizen has taken it upon himself to link as much Hulu content as he can to OpenHulu.com. I'm watching TinMan right now. While I type this. I know! [OpenHulu]

News Sound Bites - Wavosaur, Writers, and Hi-Def Transfers

Just a couple cool links for ya'll.

Download Squad has the scoop on Wavosaur, a free tiny portable audio editing suite. Does it have what it takes to compete against products like Audacity?

Gizmodo is looking for writers! If only there were an influx of really good writers, with time on their hands, looking for new projects ... hmmm ... (I kid because I love)

Sound and Vision Magazine has a great article on the challenges of transferring Blade Runner to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. YAY! I get to buy the movie AGAIN once I get an HDTV! I can't wait!

What the HECK is going on with the Music Industry‽‽‽

Yes, THREE interrobangs!

But seriously, what is going on? It seems every day over the last week I've been reading about incredible change, and yet I'm still seeing business as usual.


First off is the whole debacle over Trent Reznor's remix site remix.nin.com. After butting heads with Universal (apparently releasing NIN samples in this manner would impact Universal's lawsuit against Youtube/Google, lol), Reznor just threw the site up anyway. Universal's control is weakened, but not completely absent as Reznor did make some small concessions. From LiveDaily.com:

The head-scratching apparently ended on Monday (11/26), when Reznor unveiled remix.nin.com, where an FAQ explains how the site is dealing with the aforementioned concerns about fans using unauthorized materials in conjunction with their NIN remixes. The site describes unauthorized materials as "samples of songs by other artists, or samples from movies, TV shows, or video games," and says that any remixes containing such elements "will be rejected during the approval process."
"Please understand that it is not our wish to impose these restrictions on your creativity or the functionality of this site, but we have no choice in the matter," the FAQ continues.

So Universal's been hamstrung, and apparently so has Warner. Hot on the heels of Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr's admission of mishandling music's digital conversion (add that to Doug Morris bumbling through his explanation of how these new intarwebs frighten his age-ed soul, via Wired), we're now witnessing an accelerating drop in CD sales. Warner specifically, is reporting a 58% drop in CD sales over this time last year, and a net profit of only five million dollars (as opposed to twelve last year, via Yahoo/Reuters).
Warner's plan is to get more involved in artist "packaging" including image rights, management, advertising, and touring revenue, but for a company that is, admittedly, reactionary and obstinate about change, one has to wonder if they can actually shift gears fast enough to stay relevant. Madonna has already left to pursue more non-traditional distribution, not to mention a whole slew of others like NIN and Radiohead. Will others follow their example, or stay with the current, failing business model?
[Cartoon from HijinksEnsue]


Lastly, EMI is considering pulling funding for the RIAA. One of the Big Four that support the fan-suing organization, it's looking to cut a significant portion of the $132 million it contributes to the RIAA each year. This would be a positive step in my opinion, and right in line with EMI's new radical stance (Idolator), but I can't let go of that number. One HUNDRED and THIRTY TWO MILLION dollars, every year! That's TEN times the profit Warner made LAST year on album sales. You really have to question an industry that will pay ten times what it makes to sue and harass the very customers it's trying to attract. [Story @ Ars Technica]


So, we've got all this news, newsnewsnews, and yet the RIAA is still blackmailing people, artists aren't getting paid any better for their work, and it still costs me $15+ for a new-ish album (unless I go "gray market", or locked DRM crappy low bitrate download). Great.

*sigh*

Enough bitching from me, back to work...

Know your Audio: Van Halen Synth Track Glitch

This was a great submission from a reader:

Hey SomeAudioGuy, Giz has a story up about Van Halen f*cking up their concert. What WAS that...-S.H.

Apparently they decided to pre-record the synth intro to Jump, but on playback the sample rates weren't correct, and it leads to a spectacular train wreck on stage.

Giz has video here (I'd embed here but it's not on Youtube)!

So what happened?

According to the article the the synth was played at 48KHz, instead of 44.1KHz.

But what does that mean AudioGuy?

Well, that's a good question. Ya see Timmy, digital audio is a lot like film.
When you go to a movie what you are actually seeing are individual pictures playing really quickly after each other. To be specific, film travels at 24 frames per second, so every second you're actually seeing 24 pictures. Like a flip book, those pictures become movement as the eye has a hard time adjusting.

Great Guy, but we're talking about sound...

*sigh*

Right, see audio is also stored as slices of information per second, only there are a helluva lot more of them. This is know as the "sample rate". The more samples per second, the more "complete" the sound will be (just like video, the more frames per second the smoother the video). Standard audio CD's have a sample rate of 44.1KHz. Thats 44.1 KILO-Hertz. A "hertz" is a fancy way of saying "cycle per second" (1Hz = 1 cycle per second). A "kilo" of something is a thousand of something, so a KHz is a thousand cycles per second.

That means every second you listen to a cd @ 44.1KHz, you are actually listening to 44,100 slices of sound!

But Van Halen?

Yes yes, so if you record something at one sample rate, but play it back at another, it will change how the music sounds.
Going back to the movie analogy, old movies were shot at 16 frames per second. Well the eye can actually see that flicker between pictures, so over time it evolved to 24 for film (29.97 for DVD, and video games routinely reach 60+ fps). However what happens when you play back an old movie using modern gear?
The modern gear will play back at 24 frames. Thats 8 frames per second, or about 30% faster, than it should. That's why Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies are so jerky and "sped up".

Movies AGAIN AudioGuy?

Geez, a little patience...
So the intro to Jump was audio at 44.1KHz, but being played at 48KHz. This will speed up the tempo, and by increasing the frequency, will also raise the pitch. As this isn't a huge increase, it wont sound like the chipmunks, but it will frak up all of the instrument tuning. As you can hear Diamond Dave, Eddie, Alex, and Wolfgang couldn't quite adjust to the change, as the synthesizer was now just a smidge sharp (prolly about 10%)...

Oh, well why didn't so just say so?

*Sigh*

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Win an iPod from Gizmodo!

Not much to post here on this one.
Just get over to Gizmodo to throw your hat into the ring to win an iPod classic and an energizer Energi to Go Charger.

Here's the link!

Holy Crap! $10,000 tube amp!

I REALLY want one, and I don't even know why!
The specs are of course ridiculous, but $10K?!?!

It prolly makes my 128Kbps MP3's sound AWESOME!



Gizmodo has the scoop!



... Wow! ...

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Be on the Look Out Aug21! Google and Universal Partner up to Fight iTunes

Just read off of Gizmodo.
Google will be teaming up with Universal Music to offer DRM free tracks at .99 cents. This will undercut iTunes on copy protection free tracks, and will give Universal access to Google's advertising might. Just image Google's adwords linking directly to a song at a buck. This could be the first real competition for iTunes, and will work across ALL music players (including the iPod).
I'm all for MORE competition. KEEP THE PRICES LOW!

Here's Gizmodo's write up.

Here's Forbes' story.

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Danger! Music Eating Virus Alert! Danger!

Wow!
This is farggin awful. According to Symantec, there's a worm floating around that chews through MP3's. I'm sure it doesn't differentiate between your "backups" (wink-wink) and your legit back ups.


That's ... bad ...


I blame the RIAA.

Here's a more eloquent write up over at Gizmodo.

Really REALLY Tiny Audio Workstation

Gizmodo has the scoop on an ultra tiny audio "workstation" from the Trinity Audio Group.

It uses a custom touch screen version of Linux called Transmission, and the stats are a little weak (500MHz proc, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive), but when you're focused on ONLY audio, something like this could come in handy.
Anywho, it also comes with wifi, USB, XLR, and 1/4" inputs, nicely done there.

These were the kinds of devices I was hoping to see when UMPC's started coming out. Rather than try and compete against laptops as jack-of-all trades devices, why not go niche? If the pricing isn't insane, I might have found a decent reason to leave the Thinkpad at home...



Here's the Gizmodo story.

someaudioguy some audio guy recording voice over vo voiceover animation acting anime digital microphones daw

WHOA! RIAA OVERLOAD!

Holy CRAP! What's going on?
NYTimes, Digg, Gizmodo, Consumerist, Blogs, University News sites, They're all going crazy with stories on the RIAA, on a variety of sources, and all (oddly) seem universally against the RIAA.

So weird...

For those of you to lazy to source your own news on the future of how you listen, control, use, and own your media, here's today's rundown.

I don't like Consumerist. I don't at all. I think they get too antagonistic when it comes to apathetic employees working McJobs, instead of fighting where the problems actually come from, but one thing they are really good at is tracking down corporate contact info. Ever want to know who actually heads up the RIAA, and how to contact said individuals. Click on the link below.
Faces of the RIAA @ Consumerist


David Byrne (of the talking heads) was at SXSW, and "making sense" according to the NYTimes. Uhh neat ... I guess ... But seriously, I totally disagree with some of his assessments on artists needing labels (I think they'll be totally broken and vestigial in my lifetime at least), but on the whole it's a pretty good read.
Rocker David Byrne Making Sense at SXSW Fest

This one I don't even have a write up for. Here the RIAA just tries to explain why attacking college students with extortion tactics is good for business, and why they are upset that colleges aren't selling their (customers) students out. A fascinating look at ... well ... the main enemy to media property rights and fair use.
From insidehighered.com:
Explaining the Crackdown on Student Downloading

Ok, not directly about the RIAA, but a great blog posting on an actual Pirate (sure capital 'P'). According to the RIAA if you download music from teh intarwebs then you are a "pirate". However, I prefer a more traditional definition of pirate, where one tries to profit from their plundering, and wouldn't you know it, p2p/file sharing is really starting to hurt the people who sell bootlegs. Score a victory point for p2p!
From Torrentfreak:
P2P File-Sharing Ruins Physical Piracy Business


Man that was a lot! And really that's just the tip of the iceberg. There just seems to be a lot discontent with the media market right now. I wonder when people will start doing something about it...
someaudioguy some audio guy music voice over albums copyright riaa piracy p2p record labels