I was gonna comment on the audio issues of Zoom conference calls -- but damn, that sounds super prescient, Kim!
― sarahell, Saturday, 28 March 2020 17:38 (four years ago) link
I’m half waiting for the call in coming months that my car needs a software update. Actually heck, I’m not sure the car even needs to physically go in for these things anymore.
― Manitobiloba (Kim), Sunday, 29 March 2020 02:44 (four years ago) link
My car can access the home WiFi from the driveway. Oh brave new world etc
― I met a strange baby, she made me nervous (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:06 (four years ago) link
new br / dvd player is half the size of the previous one but has no display and no way of seeing where you are within the film whilst watching the film. (also, no audio out for connection to amp, despite having cd playing options)
(the last one suddenly started saying 'blocked' last time i went to use it. no eject, nothing. it was 75% air inside, just two small pcbs, the drive and the led display)
― koogs, Friday, 9 October 2020 11:40 (three years ago) link
Yeah, mine did the 'blocked' thing, I found a way to unblock it on the ternet.
― Mark G, Friday, 9 October 2020 11:43 (three years ago) link
when recording music on a laptop (or even a phone), using any bluetooth device will throw the recording out of sync due to the latency, requiring you to manually fix the syncing.
so you wind up going back to wired devices anyway
― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Friday, 9 October 2020 11:52 (three years ago) link
Ha, yeah, we tried to do home karaoke using an iPhone mic app and bluetooth speakers. That lasted all of about 45 seconds.
― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Friday, 9 October 2020 12:00 (three years ago) link
when I used to do elaborate vocal harmony recordings in 2002-2006, I used an old vintage wired mic, my desktop, etc, and CoolEditPro, and it was fairly easy.
now I give up in 5 minutes cos there's the syncing problem and about a million others.
― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Friday, 9 October 2020 12:01 (three years ago) link
all of my happiest audio editing experiences took place in CoolEdit 96 and a circa 2001 version of Sonic Foundry ACID. bought a recent ACID license a couple years back to be able to play all my old tracks and the interface was so overstuffed with tools and junk that i couldn't even get comfortable doing really basic stuff. IIRC i could still get CE96.exe to sorta run up through Windows 7 or so. beautiful little program.
― Doctor Casino, Friday, 9 October 2020 12:15 (three years ago) link
rip Deck II
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 9 October 2020 12:39 (three years ago) link
whoa there was a Deck III!https://www.macintoshrepository.org/14077-bias-deck-3
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 9 October 2020 12:56 (three years ago) link
Wanna talk history, Deck was developed out of an old sequencer called Dr T’s Beyond which I used on my Mac plus, back when Vision and Performer (non audio versions) were too expensive. So it was always wild seeing elements of the beyond interface show up in Deck.
― dan selzer, Friday, 9 October 2020 13:37 (three years ago) link
I loved that world. Here's another one:
Soundedit 16.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 9 October 2020 14:06 (three years ago) link
I did a lot of audio recording and editing on a Windows 95 PC with Cakewalk Pro back in the day. Also, playing keyboards through a MIDI to serial port cable using softsynths. I imagine the latency on modern PCs would be excruciating.
― o. nate, Friday, 9 October 2020 20:17 (three years ago) link
ooooh I remember Soundedit 16! ... also, recently explaining to someone why crossfade edit icons look the way they do because they are signifying the angle you would splice actual tape to achieve the fade effect ... because I learned audio editing on an Otari 1/4" reel to reel.
― sarahell, Friday, 9 October 2020 20:21 (three years ago) link
MX 5050?
― dan selzer, Friday, 9 October 2020 21:27 (three years ago) link
IIRC i could still get CE96.exe to sorta run up through Windows 7 or so. beautiful little program.
I've sat fucking around with the Windows backwards-compatibility settings so many times trying to get this to run again. There's never been a better straight audio editor. Would pay £20-30 no problem for a 2020 rerelease as long as it was exactly the same in every detail including the name.
― Eyeball Kicks, Friday, 9 October 2020 23:21 (three years ago) link
same. absolutely. anything else i've ever used to try and clip and clean up .wavs, or get shit to loop nicely, or whatever, the interface itself is so in the way, the way you click and select things is never quite right, etc.
― Doctor Casino, Friday, 9 October 2020 23:27 (three years ago) link
we've mentioned it upthread but USB ports vanishing from laptops is the bane of fucking existence
― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Friday, 9 October 2020 23:51 (three years ago) link
my laptop purchased earlier this year has a USB port ... though previous one had 3.
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:03 (three years ago) link
though the fact that most laptops don't have 10 key number pads is absurd to me
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:04 (three years ago) link
yeah modern laptops basically require an additional $50+ multi-port USB-C adapter widget if you want to connect them to anything else besides the charging cable
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:06 (three years ago) link
oh i take it back, mine has 2 usb ports, an hdmi port, a headphone jack, and a couple other things ... I purchased it new in January ... what is this definition of "modern"?
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:08 (three years ago) link
― kinder, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:10 (three years ago) link
<3 you!
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:11 (three years ago) link
― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Friday, October 9, 2020 6:51 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Apple are terrorists against functional interfaces
Also ditching breakaway magnetic power adapter plugs for flimsy usb-c power adapters
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:13 (three years ago) link
true, but how much of the market for laptops does Apple have? (just out of curiosity, i have no clue)
I'm a Windows person because of work software, though the fact they are approx. $1000 cheaper is also a huge factor
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:17 (three years ago) link
windows laptops are $100?
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:18 (three years ago) link
lol @ you comparing a 17" PC laptop with a decent graphics card to a baby mac with a screen so small you can't really do much on it
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:20 (three years ago) link
― sarahell, Saturday, October 10, 2020 1:17 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Think probably 10%ish?
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:21 (three years ago) link
yeah ... I mean, I get that Apple tends to predict design changes to the PC market that come later tho, just that there are large segments of users that are very very very set in their ways in terms of design and functionality and ... maybe I overestimate the market share of those users
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:23 (three years ago) link
like maybe if Covid eradicates the majority of baby boomers, then Apple's anti interface posse will win?
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:24 (three years ago) link
give a few more minutes and I will become old man yells at cloud computing
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:25 (three years ago) link
xpost yeah that's what I was getting at - apple ditching something usually portends an eventual fall from grace for ports
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:28 (three years ago) link
Other brands already following. Dell apparently makes a recommended USB c hub for just that purpose.
― dan selzer, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:36 (three years ago) link
i have a 2015 macbook which still thankfully has 2 usbs and the magnetic charger thingy. the small screen is a feature 4 me bc it's easy af to move around/carry.
a future with no ports is one where i go off-grid probably
― cointelamateur (m bison), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:36 (three years ago) link
I do appreciate the invention of the wireless printer
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:39 (three years ago) link
thousandth post
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:42 (three years ago) link
1001 posts
― sarahell, Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:45 (three years ago) link
xpost yeah the 2015 and 2016 Macbook pros that still had all the ports can can be easily outfitted with bigger SSDs and more RAM before they changed to the new body style hold their value I have a 2011 that I just upgraded to 16gb ram and a 1tb SSD and it's been working great, better than my newer work Macbook Air
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 10 October 2020 18:51 (three years ago) link
i got some sennheiser bluetooth headphones the other day and was kind of shocked to see that its charging socket was USB-C. my first non-apple sighting of it.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 10 October 2020 19:04 (three years ago) link
I think all Samsung phones switched to USB-C a little while ago
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 19:08 (three years ago) link
When we upgraded my daughter's Gizmowatch (children's watch with limited calls, texting, and GPS), they had switched the charger from USB to some sort of magnetic thing. It keeps falling off the charger when the cat hops up on her desk or whatever.
― 📺👁️ (peace, man), Saturday, 10 October 2020 19:36 (three years ago) link
USB c is the first fully functional version of USB connectors. Fuck messing around with directional cables, mini and micro versions. I love that my monitor powers my laptop and that I can plug it into any USB c power supply anywhere.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Saturday, 10 October 2020 20:38 (three years ago) link
those memes about plugging usb-a cables in the wrong way will be historic novelties in a decade when the youth only remember a usb-c worldor we’ll backslide and end up with some other godforsaken standard that is worse than anything heretofore imagined
― mh, Saturday, 10 October 2020 20:58 (three years ago) link
Eventually everything will just be a 3.5mm stereo TRS jack and Apple is going to feel very silly
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 21:13 (three years ago) link
that reminds me: Sony uses a proprietary version of a 3.5mm stereo TRS jack, so that you have to buy their cables. all it is is something about the sculpting of the socket in your headphones, so that most plugs won't sink all the way in. you gotta buy the Sony ones. whaaaaat the fuck.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 10 October 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
What Sony device has that? I have Sony headphones and the 3.5mm jack seems to work fine with every device I've ever tried to use them with.
― o. nate, Saturday, 10 October 2020 22:26 (three years ago) link
My Sony studio monitor headphones are 3.5mm but have a thicker threaded base that’s meant to accommodate a screw-on 1/4” jack so you can plug it into pro gear. This butts up against the case on my iPad so the jack won’t seat properly. It is infuriating.
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 10 October 2020 22:49 (three years ago) link
use a screw-on 1/8-to-1/4 adaptor, then a 1/4-to-1/8 adaptor
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/d6a/dc7/4a5001b7beea096457f480c8808572428b-09-roll-safe.rsquare.w700.jpg
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 10 October 2020 23:34 (three years ago) link