A question in the comments about a microphone coincides with a video chat I watched yesterday. Noted recording engineer, musician, and author Brian Kehew discusses his work in the studio, and how the Beatles worked in the studio. Somewhat ironically, Kevin is apparently using the mic in his laptop computer.
Category: Tech
Needle Tracks
A very nerdy thing I’ve enjoyed doing is listening to the many different combinations of inexpensive phono preamps and cartridges presented on YouTube. Here is how the setup in my home office sounds. Listen quick, in case YouTube decides to yank it, despite many other unofficial copies of the song already being there.
The cartridge is a Grado Black ($75), the preamp a Behringer PP400 ($25), and the turntable is a Technics SL-BD20D. The Technics was the last of the P-Mount (T4P) models, and it was purchased new for $99 from J&R Music World, an outstanding retailer and mail-order service that is gone, but not forgotten.
Ribbon Record Cutting
Robert Crumb has long praised the sound that is characteristic of records from the early 1930’s. The appeal of some of them is likely due to the RCA PB-31 ribbon microphone that, as its name implies, was introduced in 1931.
Expert audio engineer and producer Steve Hoffman cites these recordings on YouTube as examples of the excellent sound quality that was possible using a single RCA ribbon mic.
Tech Note
This link works for standard HTTP on TCP port 80:
https://dograt.com
But now this one also works for encrypted HTTP on port 443:
https://dograt.com
With SSL working, I am contemplating forcing all sessions to use an encrypted connection, but there are many other things to attend to first, including the RSS feed apparently being broken.
Follow-up: The RSS feeds have moved to the https link.
Downtime
Please note this site will most likely be down for a while. I don’t know when it will go offline, but it may last for days, depending on how much work will be needed behind the scenes.
Why?
This site is hosted by Bluehost, which updated the HTTP service, called Apache. It’s the thing that dishes out Web pages. The new version of Apache screwed up the updated PHP interpreter, and WordPress is written in PHP. So I had to revert to an old version of PHP, but PHP must be updated in order to update WordPress.
But wait, there’s more. Running on old PHP prevents CloudFlare, a security feature, from working. Also you will notice this site comes up as “Not secure” in browsers, and that’s because my SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to support encryption is also broken. And now Bluehost sent a message saying they want to charge me for three certificates(??).
So despite external appearances, everything is a total mess. Knowing that making any changes at all will break everything is the reason why I am expecting downtime. You have been warned.
Listen Up!
The BBC has posted podcasts with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, on the history of music and the technology that records and plays sound.