Music. Photography. Thoughts.
“Pewi” completed our little unicorn song in a quite wonderful way – and wow, that man can really whistle! Listen:
Musicians:
Thanks to Arno, Shi, and Peter – and thanks to you for reading and for listening!
I was thinking loudly about photography gear end of October because someone over at Imaging Resource wrote about benefits of ‘crop’ sensor cameras, meaning those with a sensor smaller than 24x36mm. And my resumée was that if my camera died today I’d probably just go and get its successor, or a Pen-F.
And since yesterday my camera is dead. I tried several batteries, and with or without lenses, but the thing just doesn’t properly switch on anymore.
I took a photo with Mitchie’s E-M5 Mk2 yesterday, which is a pretty camera, lots faster than my first generation E-M10 was, and it’s weather sealed. So should I get that one instead, while my heart would still choose a Pen-F? Here’s someone who has both:
After watching this, and seeing those breath taking black & whites from the Pen-F, for me the choice is pretty clear. And yes, I know, shoot raw and do the b&w conversions later – but there’s more to life than time spent in front of your computer…
I think I’ll just jump for the Pen-F. That back LCD focus point moving while looking through its viewfinder (without touching your nose against it), and those gorgeous black and whites directly out of camera, that’s just my cup of tea. Yes, it’s expensive. And yes, for video, or for taking photos in the rain, Mitchie’s E-M5 Mk2 is the better one. Still… for me, this is the modern day Leica (especially with those Panasonic built but Leica branded lenses), and if you compare a Pen-F to those German rangefinders, then the Olympus is a steal.
And yes, I also know that these days you could get a cheap “full frame” for the same amount of money. But I wouldn’t want to carry any of these around (except maybe, a Leica M. But I’d rather buy a car than a Leica).
Thanks for reading.
This is a premiere weekend. I not only uploaded my first track making noise with jazz brushes and finger snapping yesterday; today I also uploaded my first (music) video into my Youtube channel. It’s only a remix of what was there before, like the music in it:
List of musicians:
And here’s the video I uploaded:
Thanks for reading, watching, and listening.
Such a wonderful track from Arnosolo and Shi – I just downloaded Arno’s first template (ukulele and guitar) and Shi’s vocals and added jazz brushes, finger snaps, and my bass. Sounds like this:
Musicians until now:
Thanks for listening.
A few days ago I was searching for a capella pieces to improve my mixing / sound design skills. Found a short and sweet one from Shi, loaded it up into my DAW (digital audio workstation for the non-recorders amongst you), and got working. And when I thought it was quite ok, I exported it, and sent the result back to Shi. Looked like this:
Then I determined the tempo (88.226 bpm), and made a click track. And after the usual count-in, I let it click on the 2s and 4s, to get a feeling for the “groove” of the track. And then I took my bass, and started playing around with it.
Shi’s original title was “Don’t touch it!”, and because the song seemed to fit nicely into a simple 2-5-1 progression on E flat (Eb, in German called “es”), I thought about translating it to German like in: “Fass Es nicht an!”. But Wikiloops is an international platform and has an international audience, so I called it like in the title of this article. And here’s the result:
Musicians, until now:
Thanks for listening.
At work, my headphones were pretty damaged, and about to give up the ghost and just fall apart. Well that is what 3 or 4 years of daily usage do to a pair of 20€ headphones I guess. So I had to get some replacement.
At home, I have the Sennheiser HD598SE which are just awesome – best I’ve ever had, so I was thinking of Sennheiser again. But the ones at home are ‘open’, which means that they don’t isolate you from your surrounding, and they also won’t isolate your surrounding from you and whatever you’re listening to. So a comparable set as a ‘closed’ design would be much better for work – where the main purpose is to isolate myself against the office cacophonia (hear marmotte’s awesome title with that name).
Turns out the Sennheiser HD569 – a bit cheaper than my HD598SE – are exactly that:
They arrived today, and I compared them to the ones I had already. The result: if you just want or need the better pair of headphones and don’t mind a few extra Euros, get the HD598 (or now its successor, the HD599). But the HD569 is pretty good, and it really takes you out of your surrounding should you want or need that. I would call them ‘honest’, and although they lack the last tiny bit of deep bass or crisp highs which the HD598 will give you, they are really good for what they are.
I think I’ve made the right choice. Maybe I’ll write more about this after a few days at work.
Thanks for reading.
Some 3 months ago I’ve finally set up encryption on this server again, using the relatively new LetsEncrypt certificates and routines.
And because it’s now almost 3 months ago and I knew that these certificates would expire, I assumed that I still had to tweak a bit, and to interact to keep it going.
But looking at those details of the green lock symbol from my Firefox now showed me this:
How cool. Automagically renewed certs, obviously valid until January now. I’ll keep checking, but what a relief. And somehow I must have done it correctly 🙂
Revisiting this video from slightly over one year ago:
I’m a supporting member, and I still hit that ‘donate’ button this year already. And I’m asking each Wikiloops member who can afford it to do the same. Supporting Wikiloops is supporting ourselves. We have the best platform out there by far.
Thanks.
Zuleikha created her own identity on Wikiloops yesterday, and today she uploaded her second composition (the first one on her own account), called Sunrise:
And today (Monday), she’s the featured new member on the ‘loops:
So follow her there if you like what you hear. Like I do 🙂
What a surprise to find this great gift on this Sunday morning:
So classy, so great – and I’m so proud to be even included into her great work! Downloaded this one immediately (which by the by with 2,40€ costs next to nothing even for non-Wikiloops members, for supporting members like me it’s free).
So – my recommended listening for today, and also my album of the day (or week? month? Let’s see).