gronkyco - just because

I have been a big fan of the band Ra since I first heard of them in the fall of 2000. Their first major release “From One” was a constant in my car stereo for at least a year. The guitar work is tight and heavy, and the riffs have those “hooks” that seem to get stuck in your head for a week. Some highlights off From One are “Do you call my name”, “Rectifier”, “Parole” and “Sky”. I highly recommend this record.

After From One came “Duality”. While not as fundamentally heavy as From One, Duality offered a more refined, produced sound that seemed to blend more into mainstream rock. Personally, I think Duality is outstanding and every song on that record is a hit. The guitars are not “hooky” as From One, but the vocals make up for it. I find my self singing songs off Dually all the time. Tracks like “Take me away”, “I lost everything”, “Got me going”, “Undertaken” and “Tell Me” have lyrics that I can relate to. It confuses as to why this record was not an enormous hit, it’s clearly better than 80% of the crap out there. Needless to say, once again I highly recommend this record.

Now.. enter the latest “Black Sun”

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I recently picked one of these up. I absolutely love it, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a simple way to cut a demo or capture song ideas. The layout is very simple, the quality is good, and for the price you also get a decent mixer to boot! If anyone has any feedback or review, feel free to post about it.

Product Description:

The Korg D888 Digital Recording Studio is an eight-input/eight-output mixer and eight-track hard disk recorder in one easy-to-use unit. Best of all for those used to analog recorders the D888 has a very analog-like look and feel that’s comfortable and very easy to use. The input jacks trim knob three-band EQ controls pan knob and fader are all placed in a straight line for each channel and channel settings are obvious at a glance. A backlit LCD screen provides additional information that’s easy to understand.

Each channel has a high-performance balanced mic preamp with TRS and XLR inputs with 48V phantom power. As a standalone mixer the 1/4″ outputs are configured to provide Monitor Out L & R; Master Out L & R and individual outs for channels 5-8 or you can switch to eight individual outputs.

The D-888 provides 16-bit/44.1kHz uncompressed recording quality with eight tracks simultaneous play and record in WAV format. You also get eight virtual tracks for each track for a total of 64 tracks in addition to a stereo master track. The recording section has easy-to-use tools like punch-in/out copy and swap operations four editing locate points for each song one hundred mark points non-destructive editing Undo and Redo functions eleven types of digital master effects and 3-band EQ on each channel. The D888 also has an assignable metronome two indpendent headphone jacks 40GB hard drive a USB 2.0 connector MIDI Time Code transmit and optical optical S/PDIF outputs.

You also get Cubase LE Recording Software thrown in Free

Korg D888 8-Track Digital Recording Studio Factory B-Stock

If you want an example, I recorded this track using it: Hopelessly Lost - 4.9mb [MP3]

Thing Kicks Ass!
$0.02

We have all seen the “Free unlimited access to millions of mp3 downloads” offers that pop up all over net. I never give them much attention, it’s all just spam to me. But I got to thinking about it the other day while going through my MP3 song collection. If this is real, and the offer stands, why the hell would anyone turn this down!?

I mean honestly, do you really need any more time than a week to download all the music you could possibly want? Seriously, I could probably fill my IPOD in like two hours with a decent connection, let alone an entire week. This has to be the best offer I’ve seen yet when it comes to accessing downloadable media.

Stop and think about it. Get the trial, download all the music you can for seven days, and then just cancel. It’s a complete no-brainer! Take a day off from work even. Is there a catch?

Give it a shot, get Napster - fast, safe and legal. Over 6 million Music MP3s!

Just my $0.02

So I was listening to music at the office today, as I always do, when it occurred to me that my musical preference seems to be changing again. I like all styles of music, so it’s not like it’s a big deal. I mean on any given day I could listen to John Denver, and then pop on Metallica or Static-X, before ending the day on Tori Amos. Put it this way, there is probably material in my ITunes that you really like AND really hate. I dig it all.

Anyways, for the past like five months or so I seem have been in a “mellow acoustic rock” phase. For example Jack Johnson, Howie Day, and Dave Matthews have been high on my play count. Now it looks like I’m leaning towards a little bit of a heavier style. I’m not talking death metal or anything, just heavier rock like Seether, Ra, and Godsmack.

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I’ve wanted to set up a home recording studio for years. Nothing too fancy or expensive, just something I can use during those increasingly rare moments when I get time to sit down and play my guitar. I occasionally find myself playing something catchy, brainstorming up some lyrics, and writing at least the basics of a song. Unfortunately, because I don’t write music with any regularity, I usually completely forget the song by the next time I sit down to work on it. Or, if I scribble it down in a notebook, I find it hard to recall the melody or get the same feel I had when I first wrote it… bah…

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and get things rolling on this studio thing. I’m certainly not new to the concepts of multi-track recording. In fact, over the past 18 years of playing I’ve used a ton of systems including Tascam multi-track cassette recorders, reel-to-reel systems, and computer hardware/software interfaces. I pretty much know what I need get; I’m just a little out of date with the available technology and what falls within my price range.

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