Music

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One of those quips I can blame on my mother is, “They’re coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha / To the happy home / With trees and flowers and chirping birds.” It’s something that I heard often enough growing up, that whenever my warped sense of humor references the idea of being dragged off to the funny farm, it’s likely to pass through my grey matter.

Oddly though, despite it being one of those almost burned in ROM things, I never managed to remember who the bloody hell sang that song.

Of course, most quips like that that ma caused to stick in my brain are some kind of ear worm. Ahh shit, now my mind is thinking of

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In my continued adoption of MiniDisc, I’ve done been experimenting with my N707‘s record function. Dealing with analog sources, it works about the same as I remember cassettes without a deck.

The interesting thing of course is the optical support. Synchro-recording doesn’t really shine without using a mini-TOSLINK connection and S/PDIF for input. I’ve also figured out that, amusing to me, using a USB-C to TOSLINK dongle on my MacBook is far more consistent than using my desktop’s optical port when it comes to controlling the LED. But in the end, I’d say that incorporating intentional silences into the playlist is ideal, at least if you care about track marks.

One of the things that I’ve found rather nice about MD as a format is it combines everything useful about CD in a more compact form, and it avoids the problem of self-contained devices. In the later case, while devices like my Rockbox’ified iPod and H2 offer greater storage capacity, they also have their own sufferings.

In the iPod’s case, it’s simply slow as fuck. Likewise, the SD adapter board inside couldn’t handle 128 GB cards, so it’s rocking a 64. The H2 can easily swap cards, if you account for the firmware and system data being stored on them, but that’s a pain and MicroSD is tiny-as-fuck. Contrasting of course to less purpose built devices, where the storage tends to be both fixed and having to share with all the other data on tablets, phones, etc.

The funny thing of sorts, is I’ve never really minded physical media–so much as I’ve tended to be network centric. My main issue with physical media has usually been the storage requirements, and MDs are nice and compact!

The MiniDisc Experiment

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After discovering that there’s modern software that supports NetMD, I found myself acquiring something few people want anymore. Also, it’s my first Walkman since portability had more in common with books than floppy disk. I was always fascinated by MiniDisc, but they were never really a thing where I grew up–and now they’re basically thrift store material.

In terms of audio quality, at SP, it’s definitely close enough to CD quality that I can’t complain. In LP2 mode, it’s certainly no worse than the older MP3s in my music collection. While I don’t consider LP4 to have enough bits for more than a Bluetooth microphone (and an old crap one at that), I’ll admit that the few samples I’ve encountered sound just fine. Being second hand, several of the discs had music already in various SP/LP2/LP4 combinations.

The battery life is also pretty impressive. Playback time is forget about it off one of my eneloop AA rechargeable, most of which have about 4-years of charge cycles between game controllers and other small peripherals. Only thing that really seems to put a real ding in it is recording, since SP record uses the recorder’s own ATRAC3 codec rather than the PC.

Using LP2 may actually be worth it, since that appears to do the encode on PC, resulting in a lot more write speed. The Walkman’s codec is probably a higher quality than what comes bundled with ElectronWMD, but it is still a twenty year old chip.

Encoding at SP seems to run about 2/3 to 1/2 of real time, which isn’t great since we’re talking about 20-40 minutes an album. Minutes per track. By contrast, throwing my laptop’s processing power at the problem, it’s seconds per track. In terms of disc runtime, 74-80 minutes at SP is on par with CD and the 140-160 minutes or so at LP2 will usually fit longer albums this side of ‘not made for physical release,’ but I’ll admit, encoding time seems to be a bigger factor than audio quality. ATRAC3/LP2 is actually a lot better than I expected.

In any case, I do have to admit, it’s a lot nicer to do File Server -> Laptop -> Walkman than it ever was dubbing to cassette on my mom’s stereo 🙂

An RE3 music parody

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Random find located in the crossing point between “What the frak did I just watch” and “Damn, that was awesome.” But I think I’ve gotta lean in the latter.

Urge to play Resident Evil, rising….

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On a day that’s been filled with tunes I haven’t heard in a while, I was somewhat fortunate, and oddly emotional, hearing this old favorite come on the car radio. While the things I miss aren’t always, or perhaps even often, what I had imagined growing up, I’ve always been fond of this Trace Adkins song.

She was staring out the window of that SUV
Complaining, saying "I can't wait to turn eighteen"
She said "I'll make my own money and I'll make my own rules"
Mama put the car in park out there in front of the school
And she kissed her head and said, "I was just like you"

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

Before she knows it she's a brand new bride
In her one bedroom apartment and her daddy stops by
He tells her, "It's a nice place"
She says, "It'll do for now"
Starts talkin' about babies and buyin' a house
Daddy shakes his head and says, "Baby, just slow down, 'cause"

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

Five years later there's a plumber workin' on the water heater
Dog's barkin', phone's ringin'
One kid's cryin', one kid's screamin'
And she keeps apologizin'
He says, "They don't bother me
I've got two babies of my own
One's thirty-six, one's twenty-three
Huh, it's hard to believe, but"

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

You're gonna' miss this
Yeah
You're gonna' miss this

Thoughts on Home Audio

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In general, I haven’t cared too much about whole home audio, but have had that available long enough to not really care.

The first setup I had for that, was based around Chromecast almost a decade ago. The 5.1 Vizio surround sound system I had in my apartment had Chromecast support, and the Chromecast Audio was very cheap and very effective when paired with the AUX/Line-In on the analog based Logitech 2.1 that was hooked up to my desktop. No real complaints about the multi-room audio support, although the sound system was enough to fill my apartment.

Sadly, those both audio devices went the way of the trash heap over the years. And I haven’t really used the Chromecast audio since the move to Desktop=Games, Laptop=Desktop. The move from Android to iPad tablet made that less of a concern, since the iPad Pro was only secondary to the surround sound system in terms of speaker quality at home, and could fill my entire apartment with music almost as easily.

The second setup, which is still in use, is an Alexa based one. Over a lustrum, things expanded from a simple puck based Dot, to an orb with a clock. Enough to easily have the audio controls over my shit in the bedroom and kitchen/living room space of my apartment. These days, one of those is still on my headboard and the other is in my kitchen/dining area; and I bought a Pop to gain Alexa control in the study.

Because of how good Nerine’s speakers were, I never really cared too much about the whole home audio was, even after losing the surround-sound setup. Doing multi-room audio with Alexa worked well enough in my experience. But in practice, I only tend to need current room audio and at most, briefly next room audio. The kicker however, is that what audio device I’m playing from can vary. It’s usually going to be my tablet, but it might be my laptop, or my phone, or one of the experiment earlier this year, etc, and sometimes my devices change.

That’s kind of what lead to the Roam 2 solution. I was never really impressed with the Echo Dots for music playback, but they were good enough for anything not an iPad Pro. Since Nerine’s retirement, that’s now basically the case for anything, because the Mini can’t beat the Pro on listening to music, lol.

For me, the dots have always been more about whole-home Alexa control than whole-home audio. But really, both have been a pain in the ass in recent years. Generally, I liked Alexa control. As a voice assistant, it worked better than Siri which has always been rather meh for me and unlike Google’s, doesn’t tend to make me rage-monkey. Let’s just say, Google’s voice assistant wasn’t a concern when I left the Android eco-system.

Since Amazon’s cutting up of their Alexa division, I’ve generally found myself going more “Why do I even bother” at how well my Alexa control works, both in terms of voice recognition and third party things. Enough so, that I mostly consider its days numbered at this point. Since discovering that my watch can handle “Hey Siri, turn on the book lights,” I’m even more considering the end of Alexa control. As meh as my relationship with Siri is, when it works, it does actually work.

E.g., if my typical use case is like, “Alexa, turn on the book lights,” as I’m changing my clothes after work–there’s two ways this exchange can end. Either the lights turn on by the time my belt’s off, or I may as well go out of my way to do it by hand. Let’s just say that I’ve become grateful over the last couple years that the controllers for my Nanoleaf lights are easily accessible, and that they use a capacitive button that doesn’t make me worry about straining the adhesives.

That’s how much my relationship with Alexa control has soured in the last two years compared to how well it worked (let’s Alexa all the rooms) ~five years ago.

In terms of a Bluetooth speaker for the current room though, I’m basically calling the Alexa setup a dead stick. Much more than saying “Pair phone” and hoping the current Dot connects to my tablet, and it’s more bother than it’s worth. Pairing new devices typically ended with grumbles like the Dot connecting to my actual phone not the device I’m using, issues in getting it to connect to the device I’ve named, and the joyous fun that is connecting a new device–even if using the Alexa app.

So, a portable speaker is looking to be a good plan. Off sale, the Roam 2 costs a bit less than my surround sound system did, and on sale closer to what replacement for my JBLs were looking like on a purely Bluetooth front.

I think Sonos is too damn expensive for building my next surround sound system, and may be too expensive for my taste in terms of equipping a speaker per major room, even if I exclude the smart home control as a factor. Really, for downstairs it would make more sense to just migrate from Fire TV to Apple TV for being able to use an AirPlay target–when I eventually go surround-sound. Since the Vizio’s demise, I’ve just made due with the TV’s integrated speakers and been glad that they don’t sound like ass.

For the short to medium term plans though, both audio and smart home control are on the agenda. For right now though, AirPlay -> Roam 2 -> take it with me, is looking to be a good plan. Plus in the study, my laptop is usually docked with the Pebbles on, making it a dandy AirPlay target.

Sonos + AirPlay 2 = :)

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For years, a friend’s told me to just buy a damn Sonos. To which, I’ve generally regarded that as the same kind of problem as why I don’t drive a Porsche–to damn expensive 😜.

Recently though, audio has been a minor thorn in my side. Getting bluetooth audio stuff to work with Alexa is mostly a pain in the ass when you have multiple input devices, and picking music in the vain of ‘Alexa, play ….’ is nice but not preferable. I used to have a pair of JBL Bluetooth speakers, one of which I gave a friend and the other, well, I frankly have no idea where the fuck it ended up.

So, flash forward to today: I may be in the study, in my bedroom, or in the kitchen. My iPad Pro’s quadraphonic speakers were great, like really I didn’t give a hoot about it being four channels-the speakers themselves were great, and while it doesn’t fill my entire home with music the way it used to in the apartment, it’s close enough. Nerine was a great machine for music.

Mayumi, the iPad mini that replaced it, on the other hand has more ordinary speakers: not great, not bad, but nothing really to write home about either. I’d say it’s a little worse than Shion’s speakers and most of my Alexas. But to be fair, music from my tablet speakers has always been an auxiliary function not a primary function–that’s what headphones and speakers are for after all.

In practice it works better to AirPlay from my iPad to my laptop when I’m in the study than to use the younger Echo. If Shion is docked, the pair of Pebbles that replaced my desktop’s old 2.1 Logitech system when it died some years back, actually sound pretty damn great and I love the audio output. I forget how much I paid for those Pebble v3s but damn, it was money well spent! In my bedroom, I’ll usually use the old Echo Dot with a clock on my headboard, after the occasional argument over which device to Bluetooth audio from and that sometimes ends with silence from the lack of wanting to beat it into submission. Downstairs the way it typically goes is wanting to use the really-old Echo Dot and ends with using my iPad speakers because the goal is to cook dinner not win battles against technology.

My remaining Bluetooth speaker hasn’t turned up over the past year, and a replacement surround sound system has been on hiatus for other reasons. So, I decided to shop for a suitable speaker for Christmas. Sonos’s Roam 2 being the winner in the end.

Contenders for this plan included Apple’s HomePod Mini, which would provide both an AirPlay target and an avenue for an idea I’ve had on the mind for a while: possible replacements for Alexa. The problem there is unlike Echo Dot’s, they’re expensive to scale and some new hardware is likely on the horizon, so I’m hesitant to dig into that. The other contender: find an AirPlay capable speaker, preferably one with a Bluetooth function or an analog line-in.

Turns out that there are actually a good number of AirPlay capable speakers now. In the end though, I opted for the Roam 2. Probably cheaper than finding another one of the JBLs I used to use, which apparently were popular enough that as years went on, the price went from okay to crazy, lol. While for me, the Roam 2 is very expensive, unlike creating a whole home audio or a surround sound setup with Sonos, it’s not prohibitively expensive.

Thus far, the little buddy passes the first test cases: P!nk’s Funhouse album and AirPlay. I often use “So What” as one of my reference songs for audio playback, among several others. So far, it’s a win ;). While waiting on my Blu-ray rips to finish, it’s also a good excuse to listen to music.

I was a little concerned about the Roam 2’s audio quality, given reviews that I’ve read. But I have no complaints. Being someone who likes music but isn’t an audiophile, I would say if this puppy sounds bad, you shouldn’t be using a portable speaker or must be moving beyond its range. Generally, I answer both those questions with “If I wouldn’t otherwise have audio, I’m not gonna complain unless it sounds like ass,” and quite frankly it sounds better than my tablet and laptop. Certainly no worse than my various Alexa devices :P.

More importantly, it doesn’t drive me batshit when wanting to connect something….

An unexpected fusion

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Sometimes when it comes to music, you’ve just got to listen because it makes you go, “Huh, I really wonder what that would sound like. And ya know what? Sometimes I’m not disappointed!

Shamisen is a sound that resonates a little closer to home, being a stringed instrument. It’s just a different spectrum than I’m used to hearing. By contrast the metal aspects, well, that both kicks it up a notch and works well.

Urge to play video games, rising….

Ramblings of an insane nerd

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The concept™️ 

Mp3Tag (Mac rather than Win in my case) for managing metadata. Cover art is a weak point for something like Quod Libet that I would otherwise choose, and the Mac version is broken on modern systems, meaning I would have to break out my 17 year old ThinkPad to run the FlatPak, or suffer X Forwarding or similar grumbles with restoring my 12 year old Latitude to its Debian glory days. Thus indie software wins this scenario because MacBook Air.

Good ol’ ffmpeg for audio conversions. I’m really not a fan of hand-wrangling ffmpeg, and don’t want to mess with it for cover art purposes. It’s like a grizzly bear wielding a Swiss army knife when it comes to esoteric video muxing and complex encodes, which are a pain. But I’m content to use it for transcoding audio. The open question is whether I want to load ffmpeg on one of my Linux server’s virtual machines, or just brew install ffmpeg while drinking a root beer.

These both solve the problems that exist between my existing music collection, and what Apple Music can offer in the ways of managing a personal music library like it’s still two thousand ‘ought something.

Apple Music is still combat effective for ripping CDs, since I actually like the iTunes+ format of MP4 + AAC 256K and it does a passable job of fetching metadata. It’s just after the disc is ripped, we’re done.

The file server for warehousing data. I’ve mostly followed the pattern of collecting content in its various forms under Music, while backups exist imaginatively under Backups. Things will probably become divided either by format or purpose, such as FLAC, M4A or Library, Player directories in place of the existing “Artist – Album” structure. I might debate between the old media depot under Backups getting reorganized or moving to a dedicated “Originals” structure organized by source (CD, Steam, iTunes, Amazon, Google, yada, yada) on my Music share. One of the advancements over the past decade is its no longer just “Backups” and individual hosts that gets backed up regularly, but the entire file server’s shares where LAN data lives.

This path of insanity makes a good excuse to start normalizing my approach to dealing with cover art, lyrics, and readme files pertaining to music–but are a smaller problem than ensuring sane song metadata and library structure. Enforcing a tag editor centric data flow is also a good reason to make for easily saving/loading metadata from disk.

I’m also thinking that for a general approach to normalization, making MP4/AAC the standard lossy format with FLAC as the lossless where applicable. One of those things that has changed over the past decade and a half, is I’ve no real reason to prefer MP3/320K over AAC/256 or WAV over FLAC. Software compatibility for decoders (unless perhaps, you’re a damn iPod or the like) just isn’t a problem like it was in the early days of AAC, and there’s no real reason to treat the hax that ID3 evolved from and WAV is basically the software equal of a 3.5mm analog jack this side of FLAC.

Yup, let’s just say the iPod experiment finally drove me over the hill ^(o_o)^