I can put Jar of Flies in the CD player on a late summer night and sit on the deck and drink and reflect upon the day.

Believe it or not but this track always spoke to me. Not necessarily because I enjoy it, though I do. But because the first few sentences of the track are familiar to me.

You see about a mile from where I grew up, in the hills south of Ithaca, NY by a small lake called Cayuta Lake there is a grave yard that has some very old graves. Most of them are tied to the mansion that was built about two hundred years ago. I'm talking graves from the early 19th century. Many of them have unusual sayings on them or old prayers. Several are large statues of angels.

On in particular as I remember was from a man who died in the 1860s. He had what appeared to be a stylized Jewish star in brass on the grave stone. Under that was a very dark poem. I always remembered it because it was so unusual.

Years later I got this album and on my CD player I found this track. It struck me immediately, that the first two sentences are EXACTLY the same as was written on that grave. Used to hang out with a friend in that old graveyard and had several odd experiences there. When I played this track for him he about fell over.

I don't know if part of this track is some old and oft unused prayer or from some other writing. But to this day the track brings back that memory.

Techno music, other electronic music is terrible.

With a few notable exceptions. http://www.myspace.com/venetiansnares

Music is made by people, with instruments, and can be played live.

Electronic music is programmed by a person, yes, but the sounds come from computers. The snare hit in an electronic song is made by the computer, and there is no snare. You can't eat wax food, no matter how real it looks. You extract zero nutrients.

You can play an electronic song for hours, days, years, without getting tired, without any soul or effort. This runs against everything I believe in as a musician (i'm the lead singer of The Shillelaghs www.myspace.com/theshillelaghs)

Music should be from your hands, not from your fingertips. Music should be made standing up, in front of people, not sitting in your boxers in front of a screen. Music shouldn't be easy. You can fuck around with an electronic song for months until you have every single note perfectly right, in it's correct place. Do you know how much time I have to get my music right? Within the three and a half minuets that I am on stage, singing that particular song. Asshole DJ can perfect his crap on the computer, and bring it out, and hit play, and everyone cheers like that is a fucking accomplishment. Sure, you add this and that, alter it with more machines in your safe little booth. At what point does the artist shine through the technology?

I wish I could just bring a CD player on stage, connect it to the PA, and hit play. Would save my boys a lot of effort in hauling gear on and off stage, keeping everything sounding good. Why? All i need is my bands recording, come out, put it on the PA, and everything is the same, correct?

Not particularly bashing the energy that the audience brings to the music. People like to dance, i get it. But it's not "music". You'll never convince me of that fact. To me, music is another beast entirely.

$10 plug? IIRC this show is shot near SF, which means he could have headed over to 16th/Mission (it's even got a BART station) and picked up stereo-miniplug jumpers (two plugs) for $1 at no fewer than 2 dollar stores that sit at that intersection. So I've got problems with their information to start.

Secondly, this myth is bustable on paper. A cone speaker requires, at minimum, three things: coil, cone, magnet. If we assume that the penny is somehow functioning as a coil (major stretch) and that the foil is acting as a cone (it lacks sufficient rigidity), we still need something for the coil to resist against, and their is nothing else magnetically reactive in the "speaker".

If this was an attempt to "prove" that it didn't work, then they need to pull out an amp (that they don't mind destroying) and run some juice through it, battery powered CD player, not even a real test.

>> ^westy:
what a stupendously inconvenient instrument to learn far better off learning a keyboard

Unless, of course, you want to be a harpist. Or maybe he just gets an extra rush from playing an instrument that could kill him if it fell over on him.

why bother learning other peoples music when u can use a CD player for that , if u can play an instrument u might as well make u own music.

That might be the stupidest thing I've ever seen someone write on VS.

what a stupendously inconvenient instrument to learn far better off learning a keyboard ore something that can then be used to control Manny instruments/sounds . also why bother learning other peoples music when u can use a CD player for that , if u can play an instrument u might as well make u own music.

My cd player broke! Now I'm even more depressed! Thanks MG!

I like how she's sitting in her minivan.

I'm guessing for 1 of 3 reasons;

1. She doesn't have a stereo at home because she sold it for bingo money.
2. Her husband thinks CD players are the devil.
3. She missed her morning prayer, and bought this audiobook to make up for it. She is recording it to prove to God she really did listen to it (and she only bought it because she read "God" in the title).

It sounds much better on FLAC or, better yet, on the CD player hooked up to the amp and speakers.

If he hits 88 mph...the car explodes.

And I don't remember the car in the movie having a CD player. Although it should have, if it was traveling in the year 2015. Actually, it should have an mp3 player, GPS, computer and Dr. Emmett Brown. Great scott!

stopped listening when someone said they let their kids go out and listen to music in the car unattended. fucking hell, buy a fucking cd player and speakers for like $50 already.

>> ^swampgirl:
Yeah yeah fusion reactor, ion thruster, 6 disc cd player whatever, as long as it has a nice bathroom.


Or maybe just piss in the corn fields

You'll be accelerating all the time, which will feel like weak gravity.

Yeah yeah fusion reactor, ion thruster, 6 disc cd player whatever, as long as it has a nice bathroom.

Oh you big sentimental pussycat, my15. I bet you have this song queued up and ready to play on your CD player whenever you think you're going to get a girl back to your place. Tell me I'm wrong.
.
.
.
.
Yeah, that's what I thought.

I wanted to thank you for posting your comment about the loudness wars. It cut through the crap and made a lot of sense. I was upset when I first saw the vid, as I didn't know such remastering was done. I do see how some rock albums, like greenday, wouldn't suffer much from having a brickwall of sound.

One thing, though: given a more ideal audio listening situation (a decent home theater system or monitors, instead of a portable CD player or walkman radio), wouldn't the song always be better off with less normalization and processing? In terms of releasing a song to consumer CD's, is normalization and all that really just meant to compensate for poor sound systems, and improve SNR?

Thank you!
-Ryan

In reply to your comment:
“To Add my .02 worth:

I'm a professional Mastering Engineer, this is the most asked question I get these days from people who notice such things. They usually ask how I stand on the idea of all this, and I usually say that it has its place. The last Green Day Album would be a perfect example of an album that having a "brickwall" or "2x4" waveform is fine, but put that same kind compression on re-mastered CSN or Grateful Dead and we have a problem.

I was saying just today at lunch when this question was raised that it's a shame that more of today's young engineers haven't had to deal with analogue tape. Tape was on it's way out as I got my start in the biz, but at my first job the fellas there MADE me work in analogue to get used to the care that it takes when it comes to levels and compression. Much like learning to draft, you have to learn with paper and pencil first to get a "feel" for it.

Great vid! Thanks for sifting it.”