Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    The heat/humidity makes one of the buttons on my Xpander tend to
    stick in the "down" position. 
    
    It's not just you that They're out to get... :-)
    
    	-Bill
    

    BOTH my Nakamichi decks, the 1000 and the 600, got sick this week.

    Weeeell, you all heard about my MVII probs last week. My car's 
    been running crappy too. And Aja, my cat, urped up a big hairball...
    
    Edd

    Hmm my cassette died this week too...it's taken to eating eveyrthing...
    
    time for that dual drive that I wanted for so long...
    
    anybody know any sources of cheap credit?
    
    dbII

    Hey, remember that VCR problem I had?  ditto ...
    
    But, a good head cleaning helps ...
    
    Steve (ouch, these scabs on my head keep cracking ...)

    My guitar neck damn near melted.
    
    I had to turn the truss rod 2 and a half turns (for you non-guitarists
    that's considered pretty radical) just to get the strings off the
    fretboard!
    
    I have since bought a dehumidifier for the room where I keep my stuff.
    
    No, the dehumidifier is not MIDI'd.   ;-)
    
    	db

If your Mac does not have a fan, get one for it.

    Various components of my stereo died this week too.  (Amp and tape
    deck).
    
    Gotta love this green-house.  Buy property at 250 feet above sea-level
    if you want to get a line on the new ocean front.
    
    Steph

>    < Note 1592.8 by DFLAT::DICKSON "Ask me about network performance" >
>If your Mac does not have a fan, get one for it.

    I've been a MAC fan for years.. 

    
    My studio has air conditioning, so most everything there is working.
    
    Of course, the piano in my non-air-conditioned living room is not
    liking this at all.
    
    I played a large gig on Saturday (14,000 people). It was 95 on stage,
    about 115 out in the sun. My Mono/Poly wouldn't keep it's tuning.
    Other than that, surprisingly, everything else worked fine.
    
    /pjh

    14,000?  Where and what?  (care to report?)
    	
    	-Bill
    

    Well, before yesterday, I only had problems with my guitar.
    
    Last night, I was demo-ing my (brand new) S-550 to Chad Leigh.   I was
    demonstrating making a sample and all of a sudden the thing would not
    play back what I had just sampled.
    
    I turned the unit off and on again, and THEN it wouldn't boot!
    
    Eventually, I got everything to work so I'm hoping it was just a glitch
    caused by the weather.
    
    I'm hoping my dehumidifier arrives soon.
    
    	db

    My C64 died, my musicman died, I have two cassette decks down, my
    dryer is acting up and all my strings rusted in less than a week...
    
    sigh...
    
    dbII

    
    re: .-2
    
      The 3rd Annual Vermont Reggae Festival. Quite a time. 
    
      Sure, I'll report. This was the second year in a row I played
    in it. This particular band I play in (one of three at this point)
    plays reggae, with the following personnel/equipment:
    
    1) Drums by Al Lesis (the HR-16)
    2) Bass by Mr. MidiBass
    3) Boring backbeat piano, brass hits, occasional organ holds by
       whatever I'm not playing
    4) Keys by moi, also backup vocals
    5) Guitar by my partner
    6) vocals/electric violin
    
    This is the fourth sequenced gig I have done with this band. Also,
    by far, the smoothest gig I have played using sequenced material,
    or in any case the smoothest gig I have played with this much
    equipment. I took four keyboards, my rack (4' tall, and full), the
    Atari, and that was about it.
    
    The Vermont Reggae Festival was held in OakLedge Park in Burlington
    VT. Last year it drew about 8000 over the course of the day, and
    8 bands played. This year we had 10 bands, four of which were local
    bands. This year's bands which were very well received were Bop
    Harley (from East Lansing MI), a band from Florida called Winston
    Thurman (which, incidentally, was almost ENTIRELY sequenced/MIDI),
    and Ini Kimoze from Jamaica. We expected over 10000 this year, but
    we hit that figure about 1:00 in the afternoon. The gig ran from
    10:00 am to 10:00 pm. I don't think I can say enough good things
    about the stage manager. I originally felt like it was going to
    be tough; we had 50 minutes each to get on stage/play/get off stage.
    But with a stage crew of 7, it turned out to be no problem! 
    
    The worst thing that happened was that half the sound system got
    fried about 9:15 am. I'm not sure how it happened but a whole rack
    full of active crossovers started spewing smoke out the cracks in
    the rack. Definitely sound-persons nightmare. They rewired and got
    up by 10:15. The stage sound was excellent, at least as good as
    any I have ever been in.
    
    My band (High Society) was third, so we were on at about 12:00.
    From 8:30 to 10:30 I spent my time pre-cabling whatever I could;
    for instance, I taped my power strips to my keyboard racks and
    pre-plugged all the electrical lines. All the MIDI was labeled and
    each pair was coiled (actually "bunched") so that it wouldn't kink
    when we went for it on stage. All audio lines that weren't preconnected
    within the rack were also labeled and bunched. We were on stage
    at 11:55 and were playing by 12:00. Our first tune was our sound
    check. With reggae that's pretty easy to do, you just play a dub
    tune and go through every piece of equipment...! We got 'em dancing
    though, there's definitely a feeling when you have over 500 people
    jumping up and down in front of you, and you look out and all you
    can see are people behind them. We were well received. Our set was
    set up to minimize downtime between songs; the EPS takes about a
    minute to reload samples so I have spent lots of time trying to
    standardize channels/voices. It pays to plan. Our longest wait was
    about 40 seconds because of a glitch in the Atari. (You have to
    load the environment separately from the songs/sequences). 
    
    We were off stage within three minutes of our last song. 
    
    As I said earlier, it was 95 on stage. The sun was bright, hot,
    and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It pays to be in the band;
    I was one of the few who got to bring a car into the park (Parking
    was prohibited within a half-mile of the event), and I got a spot
    in the shade, and a backstage pass (free beer/fruit/water/etc for
    bands). 
    
    For the record, out of 14000 people who came, there were no riots,
    only three serious injuries (Oak Ledge Park is on Lake Champlain;
    people do foolish things like jumping from rocks into the lake,
    occasionally some bonehead cracks his/her bone head open). Oh, and
    one birth. These reggae events are quite mellow. Kind of like a
    Grateful Dead concert, only the music is different. 
    
    Like I said, it was very successful. I was glad to participate in
    it. We even got paid, too, and it made the rent on the studio for
    another month. Yee-haw.
    
    /pjh

    Good stuff, congrats!
    
    Edd

    
    Sounds like a load of fun.  Too bad it was so far away...
    
    I guess after that, you can add to your liner notes:
    
    	Use by pregnant women: Use of this music by pregnant women
    	may induce contractions.  Use only under the close supervision
    	of a physician.
    
    
    		:-)
    
    -Bill
    

    Yup!  Lost a 10000 (ten-thousand) volt power supply in a
    radio transmitter last week.  Power transmitter shorted
    to ground!  Argh!.  Too much water in the air.
    
    		Regards,
    			Steve Cloutier
    

    re .15
    	Are there other REGGAE lovers out there?  Sounds like one I
    should have gone to, Paul.  I didn't even know Vermont had a Reggae
    Festival.  
    
    	Do other noters have an interest in Jah music?  I only have
    the COMMUSIC III tape and don't remember any on there.  I'd be inter-
    ested in any pointers you might have on developing credible lines
    and ideas for sequencing.  (Maybe we could even start a note).
    
    re Base Note
     	Some folks reading over my shoulder are trying to figure out
    what all the fuss about heat out there is about.  "Don't they have
    air conditioning?", they ask contemptously.  You know how non-musi-
    cians can be.
    
    Peace and Love and Coolth,
    Bill Allen
    
    PS You have to realize, we are in the middle of a drought, here in 
       the Twin Cities.

    There was a submission on Commusic II (or maybe I) that was clearly
    influenced by reggae.
    
    It was by Jamaican Vacation which included Stevie Klosterman on bass,
    and Bill Buckley was the recording engineer (he now plays guitar with
    the band, which is and on-and-off-again thing).   They played at the
    recent DEC Springjam.
    
    I seem to recall that they are playing (or have just played) a gig
    at "Chet's Diner", a popular DEC-band venue.
    
    	db

   The rash of equipment problems could be caused by power-line hash.

   WBUR (a Boston NPR station) this morning interviewed someone
   from the electric company.  Demand peaks have been more than capacity
   for the past several days.  They've already had to reduce voltage 5%
   (a deliberate brownout), and expect they'll need a few selective
   blackouts to muddle through today and tomorrow.

   Consumer electronics, especially digital stuff, can be very sensitive
   to farkles on the AC line.

   Get some surge-protected power strips or "Good luck",
   Dave

    
    re: .16 to .19/20
    
      Well, I would have said something but I haven't had much luck
    getting people up to Vermont lately. There's always next year. We're
    not sure if they're going to let us have one next year but if we
    do I'll advertise it better.
    
      Thanks Edd/Bill/Bill/etc. I have made it a point to try to at
    least understand as many types of music as I could. Reggae is fun,
    to a point. I'm glad this project is done for now, since I can get
    back to production of other (aka MY) stuff. It's interesting learning
    how to get this little studio (studilette?) moved around and back
    in the same number of pieces. I like the influence.
    
      re: .22
    
      Article in Vermont said we're not having brownouts at least. There's
    only 100,000 people in this county and this is the biggest one;
    we get our power from the nuke (Vt Yankee) and Hydro Quebec. In
    fact, we're selling power to the rest of the NE grid. We're set
    until 1997 at least which is when they say Yankee gets shut off.
    
      I'm really glad I rent an air-conditioned space.
    
    /pjh

    
    Reggae lover here.
    
    There may be a reggae submit on COMMUSIC VI (maybe) from JV.
    
    

    When do CM-VI submissions have to be in?  If I get up the courage,
    this might be a good place to to debut.
    
    Bill A.
    

    FWIW, at least one of my two planned submissions for COMMUSIC-whatever
    (at about 5 hours/week, it takes a while) will be reggae.  The other
    will be a Newagetechnofunk gospel tune.
     
    Can't wait for the reviews. :-)
    
    Rodney M.

    Interestingly enough, In Colorado Springs, its very dry & humidity
    is rarely a problem, however, I recently was able to find a cold solder
    joint in my Porta-Studio when the humidity was up. When ever it got
    humid (the thunderstorm is usually a mile or less above the house &
    quite active & loud), I would lose channel 3 (input C) on the tape
    deck. Banging on the Portastudio would often bring it back, but not
    always. One it dried up (like the next morning), all was well again.

    So, during our last big storm I ripped the whole thing apart (these
    have 3 circuit boards that unfold like a flip out page in a magazine),
    and went thru the channel 3 section - it's marked on the various
    boards. I found the bad joint & now the problem is gone. Fun stuff.

    Oxidation in hardware is a big problem, often caused by humidity.
    (what, your DX7 doesn't work under water??)

							Jens

    Well I had a big scare on Sunday.
    
    I had spent about 4 hours editing samples for something I hope to
    submit to the Commusic tapes.  I went upstairs for a little while
    and left everything on as I hadn't yet saved the samples to disk.
    
    All of a sudden, there comes this tremendous howling from downstairs.
    I jump two flights of stairs in seconds flat and madly dash towards
    the equipment.
    
    The lights on my mixer are all lit up, all the meters pegged in the
    red, so I just start cutting the power on everything.
    
    Yes, I lost all that sampling editing I had done.  In fact, I even
    lost the samples themselves.
    
    I had thought that perhaps I had left the microphone on and that I
    was getting feedback (sampler -> mixer -> amp -> sound -> microphone
    -> sampler), but I noticed that I had switch the mic off and wasn't
    even in the sampling menu (where this could occur).
    
    As far as I can tell, some humidity formed on the sampler and caused
    it to start feeding voltage to the outputs.
    
    It was an intense combination of amazement and relief when I discoverd
    later that (apparently) nothing had been damaged.   Especially amazing
    because I had previously blown channels in the mixer just by turning
    off the ESQ-1 before the mixer (the ESQ-1 sometimes sends a loud spike
    when you power it off).
    
    Anyway, I'll sure feel a lot better when that dehumidifier arrives.
    
    I'm gonna take the S-550 back for an exchange if it glitches even just
    one more time before next Monday (my next trip to Daddy's).
    
    	db

    Oh yeah,
    
    Please!  No lectures on the value of periodic saving to disk.
    
    It's just that when you're having fun, you sometimes get carried
    away and forget the normal routine y'know?
    
    	db