…and I haven’t forgotten a thing.  I noticed, out of all the photos, the ones where I’m smiling war to ear always seem to include Charlie in the frame. Thanks to those snapshotters who sent them over.

As some of you long-time readers may have guessed from my 2008 memories, I’ll once again be opting out of the NAMM experience in the cultured paradise of Anaheim, CA this year.  But I have some juicy rumors for you:

MOTU and M-Audio have joined forces to create a soundcard that not only leaves your audio driver’s DLL hanging when crashing your session, forcing a reboot, but now has the feature of permanently burning and embedding the error into the metal of your hard drive, forcing a new computer purchase.

Roland will announce the DT-909, a faithful recreation of the classic TR-909 drum machine. The only difference on the $2599 unit will be that it is a full 81 key workstation with over 5600 unmodifiable sounds and no sequencer. An optional F-beam face controller for the general MIDI pianos will be available in the 3rd quarter.

Native Instruments has some big plans!
Komplete 12 will include 2 new upgrades. Absynth 6 will be a new color, and GuitarRig 5 will have new metronome beep sounds. They boast of a new anti-piracy system that requires a team of armed police officers to search your house for signs of pirated software, music, or movies and destroy anything that you do not have the box and original holographic registration seal for. Unfortunately very few companies recognize this standard and do not have compatible holographic seals. But fortunately AIR and Paradox have already released the next 4 Komplete upgrades without any piracy protection so you can get back to work!

Serato will again set a new standard in DJ gear by releasing CLUB, which is an entire 400lb USB PA system that you bring to your gig and connect to the venue’s PA system. From your laptop or the speaker-less USB PA,  you can control the volume of both the left and right channels. Cool!

Zero-G will be announcing 31 sample libraries flawlessly emulating the best presets from their other sample libraries flawlessly showcasing the flaws in the horrible out of tune and time instrument loops that they’ve distributed. They’ll also be rolling out Vocaloid Claudio, which is a Vocaloid voice of a depressed Italian polar bear for the possibility of a very specific use in a children’s musical.

Behringer will not be at NAMM this year, but will be giving a keynote from outerspace, where the entire company staff is currently searching for a plastic that looks and feels exactly like metal, but has the strength of crackers.

Mackie on the other hand, will be releasing performance series studio monitors that have cloned the circuitry of the highly successful Behringer Truth monitors that illegally cloned and somehow enhanced the circuitry of Mackie’s original flagship product.

Instead of showcasing new products, Fender will be picking  winners to go on their “Rock Out Your Axe Tour”, where 20 lucky individuals will be shipped to the exotic 3rd world locations where Fender has their guitars manufactured, and personally whip the migrant working children with quarter inch cables as they put their sweat and blood into your axe, literally!

Digidesign will be rolling out new Pro Tools versions, but they don’t have much information as they can’t find a translator that understands whatever language is spoken on the fucking planet their developers come from.

Apple will encompass a 3 square mile booth to showcase “Amulet”, which is believed to be an $1,800 white plastic necklace that you wear in the studio to distinguish you from novices and wannabes in the field of professional creative media production.

Finally, word on the street is that the entire bottom 2 floors of NAMM will be a golf course for Guitar Center executives as the economy has unfortunately turned most of the owners of alternative healing pan-flute stores into vagrants and methadone addicts.

Don’t forget your badges!

I think it is time to stop seeking general knowledge from the internet.

Question:

How long could I leave a Guinea Pig?

I am thinking of buying a Guinea Pig, but every summer i go away on a two week vacation w/my family.

Answer:

While i was in the hospital i has someone feeding my guinea pig. They chose to lock it in the cage and not let it have the run of the house as it was use to, the turned of the TV. all the lights and closed the blinds, in 4 days my guinea pig dug a death bed and lied down and died. It thought i had abandon it and life was not worth living so it moaned to death. I still cry when i think of him. There was nothing i could do, i was in the hospital fighting for my own life paralyzed from the waist down with limited use of my left arm.So think very hard about leaving him and the rules of the care he has while you are gone, i inset the music or the TV be left on for them. i prefer the TV as they can see the movement and not feel alone.

Hope that helps you some
________________________

http://soundcloud.com/bennjordan/benn-jordan-christmas-is-spacious

I should take a moment to make note of a cool project my friend (and neighbor) does on a bi-weekly basis called Iron Chef Of Music. He basically drops a sample, and you have 2 hours to make a track using nothing but that sample as the source. Of course you can re-synthesize and effect the sample as much as your heart desires, as long as you’re not using alternative sounds, samples, waveforms, synths, etc.

After somehow always not having the time, I cleared my afternoon today to participate and spent 120 minutes with the sample of a ping pong game, alternating between Reaktor, Metasynth, and Chinese food. Lovely. I hope to do it again sometime, as should those of you who make computer music!

Site: http://ironchefofmusic.protman.com/
My submission: MP3 file

Can you believe it?

My manufacturer not only did not come up with some inept reason why the pressing wouldn’t be ready on time, but it is actually extremely early!

Expect shipping very very soon!