Music. Photography. Thoughts.
My old MIDI master keyboard with 49 keys was pretty finished, and I had that since 25 or 30 years – so time for a new one. I would have bought another simple and cheap one, but then saw a good deal with lots of additional full versions of libraries, like a Rhodes e-piano and a Mini Moog synth, so I could hardly say “no” to that. And I think Zuleikha likes it as well…
So that was a right decision… and like always, thanks for reading.
The support from Sonarworks just sent me a headphone correction file for my new Sennheiser HD 560S on Linux:
And this is their Reference 4 which is succeeded by now, on Linux which was never officially supported – and that is what I’d call an outstanding software support & service! So a big “Thank You!” goes out to the Sonarworks support team, you guys & girls rock!
I just tried Chris Johnson’s Energy2 plugin for the first time, liked his original one a lot, but this one’s better. But let the man explain it himself:
How very cool to have something like this in one’s toolkit – thanks a lot, Chris!
Please have a look at Chris’ Airwindows site, and download all the tools together or separately for all major operating systems. And support the man if you can.
My microphone cable broke, so I couldn’t use it for my latest collab when playing the upright with a bow. So I ordered new ones, and now the show can go on…
I used Silver Efex with a Fujifilm Acros 100 black & white film simulation for this one, plus a border. As always, thanks for viewing.
I’m using my Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd generation audio interface under Linux since years, it was and is USB class compliant, so no worries there.
In case you want to know how to set up a newer 3rd generation interface, look at Unfa’s video review of the Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen:
And on LinuxMusicians, Geoffrey Bennett just announced his new control panel gui for these interfaces, see also his github pages.
Cool stuff. I’m using his drivers already, but the gui needs gtk4 and a kernel 5.14 or newer, so this should work on my Arch but not yet on my Debian partition. Doesn’t matter since I can also change the interface settings using qasmixer, even if that isn’t as nice as his one.
Cool stuff! Thanks Geoffrey and Unfa and the kernel team and everyone 🙂 Did I say that free software rocks?
Here’s Frode Berg explaining and demonstrating why that matters, especially but not only for us double (or upright) bass players:
Thanks Frode for the explanations…
Got myself some “Reference-grade headphones for analytical listening sessions”, as it says on the box:
And, a bit further up on the same box, the product name:
And the Sennheiser HD 560S, currently available for 149€ instead of 199, are just wow. Watch a review from a Youtuber who calls himself “DMS” who is also cited on the product page:
So yes, for that price they are without any real competition if you need headphones which you can trust, without having to eq or “correct” them, which is what I did with my Sennheiser HD 598SE during the last years. First listens of today were:
and finally one from our “mix master” at wikiloops, Monsieur OliVBee:
I also tried to listen with some equalizer settings and frequency curves made for and of these headphones from a reddit user named “oratory1990”, find his list and explanations/howtos and free programs here. With these, Oliv’s track #10082 sounded just like with my corrected headphones before, but the interesting thing was: I liked the sparkle on these cymbals even more *without* that correction – these cans are great right out of the proverbial box!
So well done, Sennheiser. You have some headphones there which are like the famous HD600 in their neutrality, with an even more pronounced bass, and very very detailed. Bravo! I can only recommend to try these.
This is no advertising – I paid them with my own money, and my trusty old HD 598SE with new earpads will find a new home at some relative’s place.
As always, thanks for reading (and maybe listening). And look up oratory1990, maybe you’ll find some correction curves/settings for your own headphones.
P.S., from later in the evening:
I have listened a bit more, and tried both pulseeffects on Debian (with pulseaudio and jack) and easyeffects on Arch (with pipewire), the LSP parametric eq was the same. And so was the sound, with oratory1990’s recommended eq settings it’s pretty much the same as my Sennheiser 598SE, corrected with Sonarworks (99$). But the difference with the 560S is pretty minimal, so you don’t have to eq it. But this is just a cheap (free) method of getting a sound reproduction which is very nice, and close to reality. So – I can recommend both the headphones *and* the eq methods and curves. Nice 🙂
Again, thanks for reading. And good night.
Zoom has a new multieffects pedal just for us bass players:
The interesting parts are the nice sounds, the versatility (almost like a Line6), but especially the two inputs on which you can switch the impedance from 1MOhm to 10MOhm which is good for piezo pickups like the ones on double basses. And additional to all the amp and cabinet simulations it also has four simulated DI outputs, two of them tube, the other two solid state.
Found it via No Treble where they also embed a video…