Fantasma Astounding Magic Set with DVD - AlleyMagic.com - the best magic tricks, sets, books, DVDs, and more - Detailed item view

Fantasma Astounding Magic Set with DVD - AlleyMagic.com - the best magic tricks, sets, books, DVDs, and more - Detailed item view: "This huge magic kit has the equipment and instructions for over 150 cool tricks! Magically make a die penetrate through a solid board! Astound your friends as their ring passes through a very small hole! Once you place your arm in the magic box, you will be able to twist your arm 360 degrees many times! Also included with this set is a 60 minute DVD. Watch Houdini and other great magicians perform...then learn to be a master magician yourself! Ages 5 and up."

Amazon.com: The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer: Jim Steinmeyer: Books

Amazon.com: The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer: Jim Steinmeyer: Books: "I've always been a fan of magic, and had heard of just about every magician in this book except for William Robinson. This amazing story touches on the lives of all the greats and gives you a peek into the world of turn of the century entertainment and magic. With detailed descriptions of the theaters, costumes, the magic tricks (even some of the secrets behind them) and the colorful personalities of the time, this book sets the stage for the amazing tale of William Robinson and his evolution into Chung Ling Soo. If you have any interest in magic, or just want to learn more about vaudeville and the rough and tumble world of live entertainment in the late 1800s and early 1900s, this book takes you on an amazing journey. Highly recommended."

Amazon.com: Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson (IX), Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor (II), Carrie Finklea, Nicole George (II), Brittany Mountain, Alicia Miles, Kristen Hicks, Bennie Dixon, Nathan Tyson, Timothy Bottoms

Amazon.com: Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson (IX), Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor (II), Carrie Finklea, Nicole George (II), Brittany Mountain, Alicia Miles, Kristen Hicks, Bennie Dixon, Nathan Tyson, Timothy Bottoms: "Elephant, the elegant and unsettling movie from Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting), depicts students at a high school before and during a harrowing, Columbine-style shooting. The movie follows one young boy who takes over the wheel from his drunken dad while returning from lunch, then loops back in time and follows another student who crosses paths with the first, then loops back and follows another--all captured in long, unedited tracking shots that are serene and unhurried, even when two boys in camouflage gear, carrying heavy bags, arrive at the school and begin shooting. Elephant doesn't attempt to explain their behavior; it simply places the audience back in the brief yet interminable window of adolescence, when life is trivial and painfully important at the same time. Your reaction to Elephant will depend as much on your life experiences as anything in the movie itself."

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, by Geoff Emerick (with Howard Massey)

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, by Geoff Emerick (with Howard Massey).
Because of the legendary status of the Beatles in the pop world, it's hard to see them as just four guys making music. This book strips away the legend and takes you inside the studio for the recording of some great (and some not so great) songs. Emerick was there from the start, at first as an assistant, and soon being promoted to "balance engineer" or "knob twiddler". Those titles don't do justice to the amount of creative input he had, taking the basic song ideas that Lennon and McCartney brought to the studio and turning them into the hits we all know.

I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but I grew up with the music, and I've heard most of their albums many times. Still, as I relistened to them after reading the chapters devoted to their creation, I was hearing a lot in these songs I hadn't noticed before. I also understood for the first time how they managed to get so many of the great sounds they were getting.

For music recording fans, this book is a great treat and a true inside look at how it was all done. For Beatles fans, it's a very honest look at the four lads and how over time the tensions between them grew to the point that they had to split up.

Emerick's personality and voice comes through, making the book a quick read. I also enjoyed the additional (though too brief) chapter that dealt with his work on Elvis Costello's "Imperial Bedroom". From the introduction by Elvis it's clear both men have a lot of respect for each other.

For those interested in recording, even if you have no interest in the Beatles, this book is well worth a read.

Video for song Rock n Roll Bitch!

Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones

I've been looking a long time for good earphones to wear while riding the subway. Most of the noise canceling earphones I looked at were too expensive. Then I started looking at sound isolating earphones. The best for the money are the Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator Earphones at about $87.50. That's a lot for a pair of earphones, but how much is your hearing worth? Before I had these I either had to crank the volume all the way up to listen on the train, or just sit and listen to the train rattling along. Now I can have the volume very low and hear everything fine, with almost no background noise. I even keep them in when I'm not listening to music, just to block out the train sounds. The earphones come with several different tips so you can fit them snugly in your ear canal. This reduces environmental sound levels by 30 to 35 dB. The sound quality is quite good. While I wouldn't advise wearing them for biking or driving, since you really can't hear what's going on around you, they're great for trains and planes.

Killing Bono by Neil McCormick

I just read Killing Bono by Neil McCormick. This is a great book, so I thought I’d do a mini review in hopes that some of you will pick it up. First the basics. McCormick grew up with this guy named Paul. They both formed bands and played the circuits, making connections with the music industry big wigs and recording their songs. Paul is now better known as Bono. McCormick is now better known as the music critic for the Telegraph. So what happened? What makes one person become a star and another fail to break through the maze of the music industry? Talent? Fate? Luck? This book takes you on the whole journey, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, but always interesting. I blazed through its 384 pages in four days, and wish there were still more of it to read. Along the way I was treated to deep discussions of fame, fortune, misfortune, music, the music industry, religion, and life in general. McCormick weaves together several themes and keeps them all relevant and alive. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a rock star, read this book.

Guerrilla Home Recording : How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio

“Guerrilla Home Recording : How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio (no matter how weird and cheap your gear is)” by Karl Coryat
$14.92 at Amazon

I’ve seen this book advertised on the Amazon ad at the left of this blog(am I the only one looking at that thing?) and finally gave in and bought it. Here’s a quick review in case anyone else was wondering about the book.

Some of the main concepts that Coryat hits upon are:
1) Mix as you go. Make some decisions as you track regarding effects, level, panning, etc.
2) Use drum samples, not live drums. Live drums are just too hard to record well in a home studio. He has tips on making drum samples sound more “human.”
3) Pay attention to dynamics, frequency, and panning for each track/instrument.

Beyond these basic themes, each of which he explores in detail, there’s a lot of step by step practical advice for getting the tools you’ll need to make good home recordings, and how to use them. Rather than focus on specific brands or pieces of gear, he gives a broader idea of what you need. For example, he discusses the plusses and minuses of various types of EQs, and what type to get if you don’t have one.

The first part of the book is very very basic. I wish I’d had this book when I first started with my 4-track back in the 80’s, it would have saved me a lot of learning the hard way. Although much of what he discusses applies regardless what type of set up you currently have, some of it is focused on analog recording. I think most home recordists at this point are using some sort of digital solution. Fortunately, he spends a good deal of time on digital recording basics as well.

Many of the concepts he goes over are treated in a very practical way, even though he’s explaining fairly technical stuff. In particular, I thought he did a good job of explaining gain staging, an important concept that many home recordists either aren’t aware of or don’t understand. His treatment of other technical concepts is equally clear. He does a good job explaining bit rate and sampling rate in digital recording, and how compression and expansion can be used and how they affect the sound. Again, this is stuff I’ve read in many other books, but I think this is the simplest explanation I’ve seen.

Although much of the book was a little too basic for where I’m at right now after 20 years of home recording, I think anyone relatively new to it would benefit greatly from reading Guerrilla Home Recording. He takes you from the very beginning of the recording process to the end, including basic mastering. Even an old goat like me picked up a few helpful ideas I hadn’t thought about before. It was also a good review of the basics of recording sound well under less than optimal circumstances. All in all, I’m glad I read it and hope to put some of Coryat’s ideas into practice on my next recording.

Feel free to post your questions here. If anyone else has read the book, what did you think. Finally, feel free to post your own guerrilla home recording tips.

Line 6 Toneport UX1 (and UX2)

Well, I finally got my hands on a Line 6 Toneport to review. I asked them to send me the UX1 since that’s the cheaper model. Zzounds has it for $130, which is pretty cheap for what you get. More on that later. [Zzounds also has the UX2, which includes VU meters and phantom power.]

I’ll be reviewing this in several installments, primarily because I only have so much time each night to play around with it. I know many of you are in the same boat, so the time constraints I’m under might make the review even more relevant.

First Impressions:
The Toneport comes packed with two cd-roms discs and a USB cable. The Toneport itself is plastic and slightly larger than I expected from the pictures I’d seen. It’s light and while it’s sturdy enough for home use you would not want to use it live or in a situation where it might get dropped. It comes with LRF support [that’s Little Rubber Feet] so it won’t go skidding off your desk.

Installation: The CDs are clearly marked, the first says “Install this software before connection your hardware!” Well ok then. I did. This installed Gear Box. The installation software told me when to do what. The only confusion was that when I tried to “upgrade and configure Line 6 Monkey” it asked what hardware I had but didn’t give me Toneport as an option. So I skipped that step. It didn’t seem to make any difference. Everything worked fine. I then installed the second disc, which has a “lite” version of Ableton Live 4. This is multi-track software that also allows looping of wave or midi files, sort of like Acid or Garageband.

Gear Box:
The Gear Box software is where you change the sounds coming through the Line 6. So far I only tried it with an electric guitar plugged into the Instrument jack. This gave me many amps, cabs, and effects to play around with. When I got a combination I liked, I could save it with a descriptive name. The really nice thing about this software is that there’s a little help window on the bottom. Whatever you hover over with your mouse, the help window will give you useful info regarding that knob, setting, or whatever. This made playing around with it very fast and intuitive. I had no trouble figuring out the software without looking at a manual. [Note: there is no paper manual, it’s all in the software and help menus.]

You monitor with headphones plugged into the front of the Toneport. Volume is controlled with the Output knob on top. This does not effect the record level, which can be viewed on the VU meters in Gear Box. There’s also a built in guitar tuner.

Once I’d saved a few amb/cab/effect combinations, I was anxious to try out Live.

Ableton Live:
Live is a program I’ve heard mentioned a lot, but never used. Although I’m a diehard N-track user, I’m always ready to try something new. Unfortunately, I only had time to go through the first tutorial in Live before it was time to close up shop for the night. Tomorrow night I’ll continue from where I left off. I will say however that within a few minutes I was recording a guitar track to the installed backing tracks and the whole thing sounded great.

= = =

So as I mentioned above, I got in a little time this morning to play more. I actually started reading the Help file for Gear Box to see if I’m missing anything important. Yup. I didn’t realize I could use a mic and guitar at the same time. Very cool. As pointed out above, there’s no phantom power for the mic; for that you need to get the more expensive UX2 rather than the UX1. I already have a preamp with phantom power, so this isn’t a big deal to me, but it obviously makes more sense to just plug into one unit.
Here’s what the UX1 looks like:

I should mention there’s a lot of info on their website at http://line6.com/toneport/ , including videos showing it in action.

Anyway, setting up a preamp and effects for the mic was easy, and I had a little jam session with the guitar effects and mic sounding great through headphones. I then explored the presets for guitar and vocals. As with the PS-04, some presets are completely over the top, but do a good job of demonstrating what’s available. Other presets are very usable without tweaking. But you will want to tweak, and it’s very easy to do so. Your changes happen in real time as you “twist” knobs in Gear Box. Playing with the sounds was inspiring a lot of musical ideas and I had so much fun playing around I was a little late leaving for work. Tonight I hope to dig in deeper into Ableton Live 4 Lite. Or is it Lite Live 4? 4 Live Lite? Anyway, it’s limited to 4 tracks, which obviously isn’t practical for long term use, but is good for getting started. It has built in tutorials and the first one I did was very easy.

And that gets to my overall impression so far. Line6 wants you to dive in and play with this thing. They walk you through each step from installation to playing around with the software. I think they do a great job of making it very easy to start playing and start learning at the same time. They also do a fair share of selling along the way. There are upgrade packs for the Toneport they would love for you to buy, and an upgrade to Ableton Live too. I noticed some of the negative reviews on Zzounds related to this issue. From my perspective it’s not a big deal. Out of the box this thing is loaded with 6 amps, 24 speaker cabinet models, and 24 effects, which should be enough to keep you busy and happy for a long time. If you want more, they’ve got them for sale, but I don’t think I’d ever need more than what’s already there.

As for the Lite version of Live, I didn’t really expect any multi-track software at all, so a free demo is fine by me.

Here are the specs on the UX1 from their website:
· 6 classic and modern amp models based on POD®xt
· 24 speaker cabinet models based on POD®xt
· 5 must-have bass amp & cab models based on Bass POD®xt
· 24 studio and stompbox effects
· 1 Mic Input
· 1 Guitar/Bass Input
· Stereo Line Inputs for your line out level gear
· Stereo Line Outputs via two 1/4-inch jacks
· Stereo Monitor Input via stereo 1/4-inch jack
· Headphone Output
· Pro Audio performance with over 100dB signal-to-noise & dynamic range
· ToneDirect monitoring unique, full tone low latency monitoring regardless of recording software's buffer size
· 44.1 & 48KHz, 16 & 24 bit recording
· 96KHz mode with built-in sample rate conversion for simultaneous input and output
· USB-powered
· Rock-solid Drivers: ASIO, WDM, Mac OS X
· Includes Ableton Live Lite - Line 6 Edition recording software
· Mac OS X and PC compatible!

= = =

N-track; my first problem – pops and clicks; fixing the problem:

Well, playing around with Live was fun, but as mentioned, it’s basically a demo since you’re limited to 4 tracks. So it was time to use the Toneport with my multi-track software of choice, N-track. I changed the settings in n-track so that instead of my Soundblaster Live! card the Toneport was now the audio hardware for recording and playback. That caused N-track’s record VU meters to now show four tracks. Four? Yes, and here’s why. Toneport’s effects are in stereo, so that’s track 1 and 2. Track 3 and 4 allow you to record without effects. For each effect you have the option of placing it before or after the track 3-4 send. So, for example, let’s say you want to record a vocal, and you want tons of reverb in your headphones to inspire you, but you know that later when you’re mixing you might decide the Grand Hall reverb is a bit much. No problem. Put the reverb after the 3-4 send in Gear Box. Record all four tracks. Track 1-2 will be the stereo recording of what you heard in your headphones, reverb and all. Track 3-4 will just be the preamp but no reverb, so you can add different reverb with a plug-in later or leave it dry. This is very very handy.

But now we get to the first problem I encountered with the Toneport. I recorded a little guitar track (well, four actually) and it was stuttering and popping and cracking. It sounded like N-track just couldn’t keep up. I futzed with the latency and buffering settings, both in N-track and in the ASIO settings. Same problem. I tried just recording track 1 and 2. Same problem. I recorded 1 and 2 to one stereo track. Same problem. More futzing around failed to solve the problem. Finally, I decided to switch from using my D drive to my C drive as the one that holds the temp files. Magic! Now I could undo all my previous futzing and record with no pops and cracks. So the real problem was just that my D drive was too darned slow. My C drive is a brand new Western Digital EIDE 250 gig hard drive I got at Best Buy for $90. Grab them while they still have this deal. It’s much faster than the D drive. So, it wasn’t really a Toneport issue after all.

Ok, sorry for that sidetrack. Anyway, I got everything working fine and recorded all four tracks simultaneously without any problem. It was cool having the choice of listening to the take with and without effects.

Summary:

That’s pretty much it for the review. I’m going to try to record some demos this weekend so you can hear some of the things this box can do. I’ll post them in this thread if I get them done.

I originally wanted to try out the Toneport when I saw the ad in Tape Op and checked out the website. I’ve been looking for a better way to plug in to my computer than my current setup, which is a bunch of cords patched together in back of the computer, all going through a stereo mini-jack. The Toneport promised to replace that mess with a cleaner interface, and add some valuable new tools to my existing set up. So did it fulfill the promise? Yes. I’d say it actually went beyond my expectations in one area, and that’s user friendliness. I’m becoming a broken record on this point, but it does bear repeating. This thing was designed by people who want you to make music, not bang your head against your monitor wondering why there’s no sound. As someone who has spent many hours figuring out hardware and software, I genuinely appreciated the time Line6 had put into saving me time. All software should be as easy to learn and use as Gear Box. As for sound, to my ears it sounds great. It’s very easy to dial up a sound that inspires you musically and gets you off on a new creative path. That’s also something I love about the PS-02 and PS-04, but they definitely take much more learning time before you get to the creative playing around time. For anyone who wants an interface that's hard wired to the computer for recording straight in and quickly capturing ideas you get when you’re in your home studio, this is a great solution at a very fair price.

[Note: this review was originally published at the 2090 Zoom forum]

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