Archive for the ‘A Guy Called Gerald’ Category

Sulking In Pittsburgh

Friday, June 14th, 2013

Who wants an update in my continuing adventures in audio insanity?

Okay, so when I left off last time, I discovered that my my new computer did not like my previous setup of hooking my turntable up to my computer via my Art USB Phono Plus. It was creating a muddy sound that cut off a lot of high frequencies. I then discovered that if I used my Art USB as a traditional pre-amp, and hooked it up to my computer via my line-in, then I got rid of that problem.

The downfall there was that I was getting increased line noise. A problem that I could then reduce by editing the file using the excellent DeNoise program. It was still there, but not in a way that bothered me significantly.

Well, for at least a week or two.

Anyways, before I figured that out, I went ahead and ordered another stylus to see if that was the problem, picking up an Audio Technica AT 120E/T from Amazon, a decent mid-range cartridge comparable to my Nagaoka MP-110. Even though I had solved the problem, I went ahead and gave that cartridge a go with my new setup. I liked how it sounded, just a little fuller with a little more treble, and decided to keep it.

So tonight, I was having problems recording my Blade Runner vinyl. It’s a great-sounding record, but it’s also very quiet, I was having a hard time getting rid of the line noise in the recording. On a whim, I decided to hook up my Art USB to my computer via USB once more, and see how that sounded with the new cartridge.

Holy shit! The “muddy’ problem was gone! Apparently there was something about my cartridge that was angering either the Art USB or my computer. I don’t know how that works, but whatever, now I got a setup that has the best of both worlds; no muddy sound from my previous USB connection, and no line noise caused from a crummy line-in connection.

I’m sure I’ll find something about it that’ll piss me off in a week or so though.

By the way, these were all recorded a while ago and are not indicative of any audio revelations.

A Guy Called Gerald
Voodoo Ray (Extended Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Gerald’s Rham On Acid Remix)
Voodoo Ray (Paradise Ballroom Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Penthouse Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Voodoo Raydio Mix)
A Guy Called Gerald is Gerald Simpson, who at one point was a member of the legendary dance act 808 state. I do not know who Voodoo Ray is.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know what Voodoo Ray is. Perhaps Voodoo Ray isn’t a person, but a raygun that attacks people with the powerful force of motherfucking voodoo. And I saw Serpent and the Rainbow. That shit is fucked up.

Bran Van 3000
Drinking In L.A. (Dave One Remix)
Thinking In L.A. (Zoobone Remix)
Sinking In L.A. (Dub)
Drinking In L.A. (Who Mix?)
Drinking In L.A. (Fink Mix)
I grew up in Toledo, and we had a Canadian-based alternative station called 89x, so I actually heard this song when it first came out in 1997. Later that year, a 17-year-old me went to L.A. for the very first (and last) time to tag along with my dad for an industry convention. Within about about two days I thought, “yup, that Bran Van song has this city pegged pretty well, Hell A.” This is the Canadian hip-hop version of that one Tool song.

That was a weird sentence.

Anyways, these mixes are from a 12″ single. And if you’ve never heard of Bran Van 3000, check them out, they’re pretty fantastic.

And yo, don’t forget that I’m once again trying to get rid of some records! Check out this post for more info.

Posted in A Guy Called Gerald, Bran Van 3000, remixes | 7 Comments »

I want to set all the preamps on fire

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

Okay, so here’s what happened.

A few days ago I wrote a review for Daft Punk’s totally awesome Random Access Memories. As per usual with my uber-geeky reviews, I also went into some detail about the compression of the digital version of the album compared to the vinyl release. Then I went onto say that the vinyl also sounded slightly different, its drums seemed muted, and the bass seemed louder.

I can see what links people clicked on to get to my blog, and I like to do that everyday. It so happened that this review caught on with some people at an audiophile message board. Somewhere there commented that the album doesn’t actually sound like that on vinyl, and that if I had a certain cartridge on my turntable then it would sound better.

Now, I take audiophile comments with a grain of salt, especially when they’re along the lines of “you need this $500 cartridge to really appreciate your music, man.” But I have been unhappy with the quality of my rips for some time now.

This happens every year or so. I get a setup that I think I ‘ll finally be happy with, but then as I listen to more and more music and rip more and more vinyl, I start to pick out imperfections. In this case, I have long suspected that my rips were too, I don’t know how to describe it, muddy, I guess? Like they were muted and muddled a bit. Nothing horrible. I bet 90% of the people who listen to them think they’re fine, but it was bothering me. So I took a little more interest in what this guy had to say.

So then I went to my audiophile message board of choice, Audiokarma and asked about my problem at hand. I even brought audio samples. The people there suggested that I was looking for a more “aggressive” cartridge, and they steered me towards a couple that were much more in my price range. However, one person also suggested that something else could be at fault, that my setup might not be jiving well with my preamp.

Curious, I dug out an old cheap solid state preamp that I bought years ago and hooked it up to my system. Lo and behold, my audio sounded much crisper, the drums were no longer muted, nothing sounded “underwater.” I was happy. For about 20 seconds.

You see, the problem with this preamp is that it sucks. I guess that’s kind of vague, I’ll explain more. It has lousy shielding. it picks up radio frequencies like a motherfucker. If I crank it on full blast I can hear the classic rock station as well as I can my music. Additionally, it has a wicked hum that just never goes away.

So off to Radio Shack I went (yay) to pick up some grounding cable and a ground loop isolator. I figured if one didn’t do the trick the other would.

Hooked up the ground loop isolator, it made things worse.

Tried to hook up a grounding cable, and that presented itself with a whole other heap of problems. See, my turntable has been modified to not need a ground cable hooked up to it. That’s great, however it leaves me nowhere to hook up the ground cable coming out of my preamp. Feeling MacGuvyerish, I tried wrapping one end around a copper pipe in my bathroom (it was a long cable) but that also just made things worse.

So here’s how I stand right now. I have one preamp that gives me no interference, but it sounds like shit. I have another that sounds great, but it’s muddled with interference.

My head kinda wants to explode. Which is bullshit because I have exploding head syndrome so it does that shit already.

I’m looking into some other pre-amps, but this shouldn’t be that hard. I think that if I were able to properly ground my pre-amp then I would at least be able to eliminate the damn hum, and maybe from there I’d figure out a way to get rid of the RFI. Anyone have any suggestions? I keep reading things like “attach it to a three pin plug” but what the hell does that even mean? Wrap it around a three prong power plug? That doesn’t seem like a wise idea. As much as I love audiophile boards, they sure as hell have a hard time explaining the simplest of concepts. In fact, I still don’t entirely understand what a fucking ground loop is, other than that they’re bad and I don’t want them. Is it really such a complex fucking concept to get across?  Argh.

Anyways, I wrote another big thing at Mostly Retro, a guide to Giorgio Moroder’s music. I suspect that if you’re the kind of person who comes to this blog, you already know all there is to know about Moroder, but if you know someone who doesn’t and might be interested, send them my way. I’d appreciate it.

I also started putting “buy at Amazon” links on MR, and whenever you buy something from an affiliate link I get a cut. So hey, maybe check out that article and buy some motherfucking Donna Summer. (There’s also a Donate button there too, just sayin’).

Sigh, I’m fucking exhausted. And I really have nothing to say about tonight’s music other than “I like it a lot,” so enjoy.

DJ Rap
Bad Girl (BT’s Spoken Progenitor Mix)
Bad Girl (Bad Girl Roller Remix)
Bad Girl (BT’s Titanium Dub)

Psykosonik
Panik Kontrol

A Guy Called Gerald
Voodoo Ray (Extended Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Gerald’s Rham On Acid Remix)
Voodoo Ray (Paradise Ballroom Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Penthouse Mix)
Voodoo Ray (Voodoo Raydio Mix)

UPDATE: HOLY SHIT I FIGURED IT OUT AND NOW MY SHIT SOUNDS DOPE AGAIN. I’LL GO INTO DETAIL LATER.

*HIGH FIVES EVERYONE*

Posted in A Guy Called Gerald, DJ Rap, remixes | 5 Comments »

House Music for Late Night Justice!

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

You’re going to hear me whine about Leno for a while now, so just get used to it.

Conan announced that he’ll quit The Tonight Show if he’s forced to 12:05, and I can’t blame him. NBC is treating him like shit, and for some reason treating Leno, an unfunny baboon with the most poorly rated network TV show since Capitol Critters, as some big-chinned god. Why? Leno left The Tonight Show, tried something different, and it failed. Failed epically! Have you ever watched The Jay Leno Show? No, of course you haven’t NO ONE HAS. And here’s a shocker, when a network’s 10:00 show is a piece of shit no one watches, less people watch their late night program? Who knew? Oh wait, everyone with a fucking brain knew!

Conan’s audience skews young, and it also skews tech-savvy, so it should be no surprise that the internet is all about Team Conan on this one. You, as a connoisseur of good taste (you must be, you’re reading my blog) have to do you part! Check out this article by The Consumerist. They have listed the email addresses of every executive at NBC. Email ALL OF THEM, do it repeatedly, then create multiple e-mail addresses and do it again, and again, and again. Tell them that you refuse to watch a late night show hosted by Jay “My Chin is a weapon of mass destruction” Leno and that if they don’t keep Conan at 11:35 then you’ll never watch another show on NBC ever.

And if you’ve seen their shitty primetime line-up then you know that won’t be a hard promise to keep.

On a related note, if Jay Leno does get The Tonight Show back this should be his fucking theme song. Bitch. (Sorry for the stupid video that goes with the song).

Oh, and if you are for some reason an idiot and think Jay Leno is right to do what he’s doing don’t bother commenting to share your viewpoint, because I won’t approve it. The Lost Turntable is a dictatorship, run by me, so don’t bother complaining about it.

The KLF
The Dogg Bite Mix
This is a weird mix, it’s mostly “What Time Is Love” but some other KLF jams make their way in as well. It’s from one of those subscription-based DJ records services. It’s actually pretty damn good too.

A Guy Called Gerald
Automanikk (Just 4U Gordon Mix)
Automanikk (4Q 808 Mix)
Automanikk (Derrick May The Force Be With You Mix)
Automanikk (Bass Overload Mix)
Voodoo Ray Americans
That is a really stupid alternative spelling. The song is good though. I like the band Gerald is in more though…

808 State
Open Your Mind (Open Mix)
Lift (Lift Up Dub)
Lift (Metro Mix)
Lift (Justin Strauss Mix)
Open Your Mind (Sound Garden Mix)
Lift (12” Mix)
Lift (7” Mix)
Well speak of the devil! I don’t even remember buying this 12”. I was cleaning out my music folders and came across a huge WAV file that had the entire 12” on it. I’m so disorganized that it extends to my virtual belongings! It’s sad really. The last time I cleaned my room (which was…many eons ago) I found 20 socks, two magazines that had articles I wrote, a picture of me from 3rd grade and a copy Purple Rain…on vinyl! God only know what I’ll find if I ever clean out my basement.

Posted in 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, remixes, Team Conan, The KLF | 2 Comments »