Key Of Grey

July 17, 2009 - There are a lot of products out there that promise to rid your life of pesky wires. Wires for your headphones, wire for your media server, wires for your speakers; the magic of radio waves eliminates the need for a rat's nest of audio cable. Personally, I do not use wireless methods to listen to my music as I'm not crazy about signals flying all over the place and causing interference when I'm recording music. However, when I'm visiting ... Read More

April 23rd, 2009 - Like many of you who were enjoying music before the rude awakening of the late 90's boy-band, I had a garage band with my high school friends. We thought we rocked hard, and we even practiced in a garage to complete the cliche. My time was grunge, and we played our fair share of Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and even some Doors. The running joke in our band was that, while I had the attitude and fashion (ugh), ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Anirudh Koul April 10th, 2009 - A few days ago, South Park, the animated Comedy Central show, skewered Kanye West. In the episode, Kanye is depicted as an egomaniac who cannot let go of the fact that he can't understand an off-colour joke about him because he's "a genius". Apparently he watches the program and when he saw the unflattering portrayal, he declared on his blog that he would try to "get past himself". First of all, good for you Kanye. ... Read More

Photo courtesy of andedam March 10th, 2009 - As I turned off my work computer today, it occured to me that not everyone turns off their electronics. Some people have servers running constantly at home, downloading movies, music, or whatever else. More importantly to this blog, quite a few music studios I've been in and have worked in, never turn off their gear. I'm not sure if it's because the engineer wants a certain sound that only comes from hours of tube gear warming ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Asus January 2nd, 2009 - Brad Linder produces radio programming. I first discovered his personal blog when I was researching portable audio recorders. His reviews on various devices helped shape my decision to get the Sony PCM-D50 even though he was producing talk radio, and I produce music. About 8 months ago, he bought an Eee PC laptop and started editing audio on it for his radio shows. He even started a website about these cool little computers. I think Mr. ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Tim O'Brien November 24th, 2008 - As a writer that posts daily, and also has a nine to five, I sometimes find it difficult to come up with topics to post about. I'm certainly not at the level of MusicRadar or Engadget, so I don't have manufacturers or PR people beating down my door to write about their products. That being said, maybe it's a good thing. After all, I am able to write about topics that directly relate to my ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Fender August 22nd, 2008 - I've always thought of myself as someone who is not blinded by brand names or fanboy-ism. I am willing to try out anything regardless of the prestige of a company's brand; you'll never know what you're missing if you don't try it all. I know plenty of people who won't touch certain brands because of their perceived "low-class" status. For guitars, brands like Epiphone and Squier don't exactly get a tonne of support in elite ... Read More

Photo courtesy of cfinke June 30th, 2008 - Britain's Musicians' Union has denounced the use of music as torture according to MusicRadar. It has been widely reported that the United States uses music as a form of "torture lite". They play loud music, and music offensive to one's moral values. Do you agree that this is a form of torture? I, for one, cannot take music played excessively loud, but I don't think it's torture to play things that I find offensive. What ... Read More

Photo courtesy of davemc500hats June 28th, 2008 - Video games like Rockband and Guitar Hero have introduced musicianship to a whole new generation of lazy children (and lazy young adults). Sure playing guitar on Guitar Hero is nothing like playing guitar in real life, but they at least get people to think, "I wonder how hard it is to play guitar in real life?". If one person is inspired to really pick up an instrument from fake video game instruments, I think that ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Great Beyond June 17th, 2008 - A new British study has found that the music on the average young person's mp3 player is 50% illegal; that is to say that half the music on there has been downloaded and not paid for (of course excluding free legal downloads by bands such as NIN). P2P software like Napster and Limewire came into existence when I was about 18 or 19 so I had already been buying CD's, MD's, and *gasp* tapes, ... Read More