News: http://soundcentralfestival.com/ is up and running

Great news. I don't know how it was done but they are back. http://soundcentralfestival.com/ is up and they have not been idle. During the recent quiet time they run a contest to write and record a new national anthem. Hold on to your socks. It's a young woman singing a rap song denouncing war. Only in Central Asia.

They say the festival is on. It's usually in October. I would hope for a little more explanation and news but I am just glad to see them back.

Girls and young women shredding guitar

What is going on? If you haven't spent a few hours checking out youtube video's lately you better have a look. There are a lot of girls and young women between five and fifteen years old that can shred guitar like a jaded old rocker. There is a few boys that can do it too but it seems to me the boys are not at the level of the girls.

Here's a couple:
http://youtu.be/P4W4vzDRcY8
http://youtu.be/tgzJ1jCpTZs

There are lots more. I suspect that before the end of the decade the typical age of a working guitar player will be under 21. What are they feeding these children? How can an eight year old play Ozzy Osbourne almost as good as the man himself? Why do girls and young women want to play the most scorching hot classic rock there is? Clearly, they are Rockers. Nobody but a Rocker would risk being that far out of date. I tell people all the time that the only time I have anything to do with trends is when I am setting them. These young ladies are the embodiment of that sentiment.

Time will tell but it looks like interesting times ahead.

Jeff

Disabled list grows, :(

It was a rough year. 8 collaboration sites went down: wemusic.veenue.com, koblo.com, ultimateband.com, trackbeast.com, sawubona-musicjam.com, digitracs.com, thounds.com, fuseboard.com, .

We had a couple of marriages: riffworks.com and sonomawireworks.com tied the knot. Either domain works now. Congrats!

Also, oneloudr.com and notethrower.com made it legal. best wishes! ;)

We got one back, yes! openmusicfactory.com is alive and well. Great to have you back on the main list.

We had 4 domains leave the disabled list for new genres: musicollaborate.com is a blog. nzjams.com is a job search site. rifftrader.com is a professional housewife site. and splicemusic.com is an archive. Farewell and good luck in the new genres.

We have a new listing: studiotraxx.com , good luck. Last but not least we made it back to page 5 on a generic google search. We have a ways to go. say la vee.

http://www.mybeatz.com/

Welcome mybeatz.com

It looks fresh and new. Good luck.

Kompoz.com Relaunch

Hi everyone,

It seems like only days ago this new year started and it's a third done. I haven't even gone through the main list yet. I got a nice email from Kompoz. they have been doing a lot of upgrades and it sounds exciting. Compatibility seems to be order of the day. Lots of file formats. Friendly to many sound editors. Working hard on latency issues worldwide. Keep up the good work.

Music Festival Kabul

I just looked up the website for the sound central music festival in Kabul. The site is down. With the peace keeping forces moving out it gives me cause for concern. Not that there is a thing I can do about it but I has given me a lot of hope for the area. I hope it's a maintenance thing but there is nothing new since last year. If you find anything let us know.

Regrets and the Bucket List

There has been a lot of talk about these so called bucket lists lately. Things that you must include on your bucket list. I think the point has been missed.  Perhaps appropriate and inappropriate regrets makes more sense. I should have nailed that man or woman? A terrible inappropriate regret. How about travel? Must we see every site with our own eyes? I'm not crazy about traveling. For myself, I like to have some reason to go. I want to retire in a place where me and my buddies work on custom cars all day and have rock/blues jam sessions all night. That is a place want to see.

I think a regret for me would be never owning a Gibson Les Paul. I have been shopping for years. I know a lot about them. The finish, the choice of pickups, accessories. If I had $4k-$20k sitting cold in a bank it probably wouldn't be an issue. I know I will probably only have one. So I entertain myself by trying to get the best value I can. It's getting close. 

I saw a youtube video the other day. This eight year old girl was shredding a guitar better than Eddie Van Halen and I almost gave up playing. Then I saw an older youtube of her's and I realized I play about as well as this child when she was about seven. Not a whole lot more encouraging. But this thought of quitting has disturbed me. Why would I do such a thing? Why would I even think of it? I didn't start to play to compete with her. I have done my own thing with music every day since I started. I have been taught almost nothing. I have had little contact with musicians over the years. My interest must literally sustain itself and that's OK. 

I seems to come back to the old expression that says it's not the destination, it's the journey. Now the journey is a big question I will dig into at a future post because there is a lot of places you don't need to go. Put some thought into where you want to go. I believe you will find it's as much of a philosophical journey as physical travel. The Americans call it the pursuit of happiness. 

Hi Everyone,

I was just doing a quick search and I found new collaboration sites.
http://wemusic.veenue.com/ It seems to be full online collaboration.

http://www.ohmstudio.com/ Another fully online collaboration site.

http://www.gigin.com/
http://soundslates-app.com/
http://futucraft.com/ This one says it's for use with an ipad, interesting. :)

This was just a quick update, I'll do spring cleaning in the spring. :)

Multi-effector, alternative hookups.

Hi everyone,

It's been a while but things are moving ahead. I have started working out with a drummer and I am getting the motivation to move forward with new collaboration. My new multi-effector arrived and is working well.

It being ordinarily a rack mount PA device, I found it short of a few accessories in/outs that I require for my digital recording efforts. I tried several combinations of hookups. I tried using the effects loop on an amplifier. Not so good, it was OK for live PA but it was too noisy for recording. So I tried making a loop from a spare output on my board to a input channel on the board. It was quieter but I lost much of the dynamic range. I thought about what to do for a few weeks and it occurred to me that I am always using headphones jacks for line outs, I wonder if I could use two line outs for a headphone jack. I was a little concerned, I didn't want to hurt anything. However, I went forward. I turned everything down planning to turn volumes up gradually. It worked as well as I could have hoped for. Very quiet, good stereo response. using the main/master output on my board I was able to balance left/right and the volume. I put that signal into Peavey headphone distribution system called a PD-4. I have all the clean stereo outputs I can use. The headphones will have the same signal as will be fed to the audio program on the computer. I am able to change the sound 3200 different ways just by turning a knob. It's perfect for jamming.

I'll let you know how it works for recording when I do a little more of it.

Cheers, :)

Central Asia's alternative music festival-year 2-Kabul Afghanistan

Well they did it again. An outfit called Sound Central has produced their second annual music festival in Kabul. Wow! I remember last year it was a little rough around the edges. Not too many bands. Turnout was so-so. Low budget, that sort of thing. This year it seems to be on the map. Over 30 bands. A women's only day. 2600 people attended. They did a live feed. Their FB page had 22,000 results, twitter was over 25,000. People are saying it is something that central Asia needed. I have never heard anyone refer to Afghanistan as "central Asia" before. Safety is still a concern and the festival people confidently say it's safe. Their website looks real downtown as well. It seems to be an October event so put a watch on your calender for next year.
http://soundcentralfestival.com/

The new multi-effector is on it's way, YES!

Hello Everyone,

Well I did it. My next multi-effector is paid for and I await delivery. It's a Behringer Virtualizer Pro 24 bit Dual Engine Effects Processor Model DSP 1000P. I don't know too much about them. I did read a few reviews quickly as I did my bidding. It's not as good as a Lexicon but better than an Alesis or an ART. Both I was looking at. It's a professional quality unit so being a bit older shouldn't be an issue for me. It has midi in/out. Something that my old Yamaha FX500B didn't have. It was only midi in and basically useless. With the DSP 1000P I should be able to hook my keyboard directly to it without using a computer if I want to. It doesn't have the most presets or user spaces that I ever heard of but it has three times what I'm used to so it should be enough.

When you are jammin' at home or at a small venue like buddies house you need to be able to mix up the sound a little or you will get bored because everything will sound the same. It's hard to beat a multi-effector for that. It's quick, easy, one or two cables. The presets are usually well balanced so it's a simple up or down to change the sound. I know a few people will wonder so I will say I got it on ebay. Including shipping it was 101.00 USD. I'm not going to complain about that. I'll let you know how it works when I get it in a few weeks. :)

Equipment

I have been debating with myself my next equipment purchase. Another guitar? A five string bass? A gizmo? You know, the thing that got me back playing lately was my old mixing board. I built a small tabletop stand for it. It sits about 30 degrees off vertical so I can sit right in front of it comfortably reach both the controls and the plugins at the back. The next thing I want is a new multi-effector. I bought a yamaha FX-500B when multi-effectors where in there infancy. It was a small half-rack unit that was intended for Bass frequency impedence. It had 30 presets. It doesn't work properly anymore and I miss it terribly. I ran my whole PA through it. Changed my sound on a whim. It was fun in the extreme. I will keep you posted on this next aquisition.:)

Keep music live

Hi Everyone,

Music collaboration seems to be well under way. I have been looking for a niche for us and I think I have found. Live music collaboration. It was my original reason for the site. My desire to play in a Jam style online. To emmerse myself in playing for 5-6 hours without noticing the passage of time is some of the best times I ever had. It's a bit of trouble. You have to co-ordinate with a few people. Easier said than done these days. Get your equipment there in working order. Have a place were you can turn it up without too much complaint. Once every five or ten years isn't enough. It has to be regularly. Now we have online music collaboration. So technically we can play whenever we want. However, the reality is we end up doing almost nothing but engineering. Not that I have anything against it of course but we end up losing that spontanaity that you get from playing with other people. A music store I used to frequent had a slogan "Keep music live". I don't know how they thought of it so long before computers but it turned out to be quite insightful. We are not stuck in the past and no moss grows on our rock but let's try to actually play once in a while. :)

The World of Rock

You all know I'm a rocker. I don't pretend to be anything else. However, I appreciate most types of music and I believe I try to encourage everyone in their musical pursuits. I have just spent an evening touring the world in Music Festivals. I have, for many years, believed rock to be the ultimate form and this years world wide music scene has not proved me wrong.

I have watched several music videos from the Ukraine. You take a thick traditional Ukrainian folk song. Add Reverb, Bass, some decent drums. pick up the tempo a little and you have something well worth listening too.

Or try this: Take your traditional grotto folk band. Add Reverb, Bass, some decent drums and give them a hot rock song. It might push or pull them out of their comfort zone a little but WOW!

All the news blogs I have looked at in the last two years haven't told me as much about the world as a few hours of international music festivals. Let your fingers do the walking and see the world through music.

Highway to Hell - Ukrainian Folk Version

If you missed this one you have got to see it. I laughed until my eyes started sweating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3YQ24i1wP0&feature=youtu.be

Kabul alternative music festival 'Sound Central'

Kabul Afghanistan? Having an alternative music festival? If you are like me, you don't hear much about Kabul Afghanistan. Aside from the occasional report of a soldier being killed what do we hear? It's in a valley about 120mi/200km west of the Pakistan border, mid-line of the country. For practical purposes, it is at the center of the road system for the country. The continued presents of a strong military has made Kabul relatively safe. So much so it is actually growing, doubled in size in the last 5 years, 5 million and growing. The politics are still spoon down your throat but I will try to be optimistic and say something good seems to be happening.

The Sound Central Music Festival. I don't know where they get the "alternative" from? It's Rock. I don't care if it's slash, thrash, death or hard edged, it's like a breath of fresh air to me:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19825685

The local kids seem to be eating it up. That's nice to see. They promise to keep doing it. I will look forward to keeping an eye on the phenomenon.  

Here's a couple more links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZyWfPNh658&feature=colike
http://soundcentralfestival.com/
https://vimeo.com/51842350
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzyq4yoIfK8

New Collaboration sites

I found a few new ones: crazypellas.net, myonlineband.com, soundcollabs.com, tapegerm.com
I have done something unusual. I put a site that is under construction on the disabled list: onlinemusiccollaboration.com
Hopefully, the site will be up and running soon.

Collaboration sites

I was having a look through the page views over the years. The busiest views have always been announcements of new sites. Talking about new sites and reviews of the sites themselves. That's it! I'll have to do more reviews of the sites.

New Mission

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while. We've been slipping in the ratings, RATS! The primary focus of the site has always been to keep track of and promote Online Music Collaboration sites. I think this component of the site is a complete success. All the best Music Collaboration sites have pasted us in the ratings. That's a backhanded compliment, oh well.

While keeping track of the health and well being of Music Collaboration sites will always be our primary focus. We clearly need a secondary mission. You know we won't be doing actual Music Collaboration right here. It's lots of expensive software and bandwidth and technical know-how that every collaboration site on the main list is better at than us and that's OK.

So what should it be? It needs to be something that can be accomplished with only a few hours a month. In-depth reviews of the sites would take to long. We need some niche that is not presently covered. Suggestions would be welcome.

Jeff

www.trackbeast.com

Someone sent this new site to me. It seems to have facebook app status. It has a live chat function that could support realtime jamming if it's fast enough. It's pretty simple at this time but it qualifies for the main list.
www.trackbeast.com