AdvancingMusician

Solving the Puzzles of Music

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Read The F@%&!* Manual

Once upon a time, literally in another millennium, there was no Netflix. There was no YouTube. There were no streaming sites to watch whatever you wanted when you wanted. Getting depressed already?

You were at the mercy of the TV-programming stations. You depended on them broadcasting cool stuff and you had to watch it whenever they broadcasted it. If you were busy at that time, then tough luck.

image of an old vcr with tapes and remote control

Are you old enough to even know this technology?

This changed in the early 80's when VCRs became the hot consumer technology.

Finally you could:

  • record the program
  • watch it repeatedly
  • watch it anytime you wanted at your own schedule and convenience
  • skip (and later block) commercials
  • rent movies which added yet another dimension to your freedom of program selection

So no wonder VCRs were such a success despite the limitations of degrading tapes.

The "00:00" Blinking Display Epidemic

One more quick side anecdote before we finally get to the main topic ...



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Where’s That Sound Again?

300 – Wolf Scene

Back in the good ol’ days when I was a kid and had to walk endless miles, fighting wolves and snow storms just to get to school, it was easy to find the sound you needed for your music project.

You put your microphone in front of the guitar amp or the piano going the acoustic route, or auditioned the whopping 32 presets of your sound module. Then you hit record on your 4-track tape recorder. After your first take you maybe quickly fiddled with a couple of knobs and buttons to shape the sound the way you needed.

There were limited options and this “forced” you quickly back to making music.

Today, you have multiple hard drives filled with Terrabytes of exquisite samples – the finest instruments played by the best musicians in awesome locations, recorded on incredible gear by talented engineers. All that awesomeness right at your fingertips – and what do you suffer through?

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Use Evernote to Quickly Find Anything in Your (Music) Magazine Collection

Keyboards magazine cover November 1987

My 1st Keyboards magazine from November 1987

Hi, my name is Marko and I used to be a music magazine addict. 🙂

No kidding.

It started in 1987 with my first (German) “Keyboards” magazine.

A year later, soon after I had started playing guitar I also bought my first guitar magazines. In the early 90s I had a subscription to “Guitar for the Practicing Musician” and was getting the magazine shipped to Austria until I moved to California for my music studies.

On my bookshelves there’s issues of:

  • Guitar Player
  • Guitar One
  • Guitar School
  • Gitarre+Bass
  • Guitar Techniques
  • Sound Check
  • Keys
  • Electronic Musician
  • and various other mag experiments

Crazy, I know.

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