Dear _____________,

Dear _____________,

Dear _____________,

Dear _____________,

Dear Record company executives,

Dear Musicians of the world,

I am writing to you in this hour of need, in this hour of greed and hate and persecution. Yes it is a dark time for our nation and for our world. People are in media induced comas, being told not to panic about swine flu which inevitably leads to panic. People are afraid to leave their houses at night for fear of being stabbed by children on street corners, and now people are terrified by pirates, “Hackers” (Note this is in inverted commas as a hacker is your definition not ours), phishers, scammers, script kiddies, viruses, worms and Trojans roving the high waves of the internet.

And why not? We have been told to be afraid of them for our own protection, we are told everyday that these are the people who are sending our world to hell, we are looking through the windscreens of our luxury cars at the edge of oblivion, being slowly nudged towards it by these people! Or so we are told.

I looked out of my window yesterday, I work in a large building it was a good view, and I couldn’t help but look down at the analogue world (If we have a digital then what is this I stand on now? Not real world because for some the digital domain is more real than this) and I looked at the people in their cars, on the pavement. I looked at this proportionately small mass of people, and I tried to imagine their crimes for which they would be tried and punished. Films, music, television show, I looked at these people and pointed a virtual gun to their temples, but the difference is you are willing to pull the trigger.

I am a musician, I am in a band, we have recorded music, it has been copyrighted, am I concerned about people sharing it? No. Fervently not. I am not concerned by people sharing my music, I am not concerned with my music reaching a wider audience, I am not concerned with people obtaining it FOR FREE. Music is my integrity. If someone however were to perform my music elsewhere under a different guise as a different band, and claimed it as their own, then I would be furious. But this is not the issue here. We are not talking about a report in which plagiarists are punished heavily for the false propagation of my work, it is instead a report which presumes the, guilty until proven innocent, users are all downloading illegally.

I am also writing to you as a supporter of open source, creative commons and hacker based ethics, I work with computers day to day. I disseminate information from social media sources, I gather resources from the internet, it forms part of my life and my work. I understand the digital domain, I understand how quickly it will change and adapt to your moves, already the wheels are turning, people are moving against your plans and changing the way they share information, as the hackers manifesto says, you can stop one of us but you cannot stop us all. Do not think for a moment your #3strikes policy will stop people sharing, these measures have not worked in the past why will they stop now, you will simply drive the problem underground where it can boil and grow and rear its head again (This will cause you a bigger problem in the long run).

But what am I writing? (After such a long and rambling introduction?) Of course it is another incendiary and inflammatory letter about the #3strikes policy. I do not agree of course with this policy, as I said I am a musician and a computer user, and I (As well as many of us) are happy for our work to get spread among the people. Any press is good press, the more people who listen to my music are more likely to come to my gigs, are more likely to read my publications, to view my pictures and to enjoy what I do. I make music, art, theatre for the people. Of course it would be wrong of me to say that I am not in this for myself, because of course I am, but I do not make music for the money, I do not act for the fame, I do these things for the reward of being able to get on the stage, watch people react to what I do. As Hannah Nicklin has already said, money is the carrot not the stick; it is the encouragement for people to create art and music.

I guess I have no argument here, I guess there is no great literary work contained here, for that you will have to read the open letter written by Hannah. I guess there is no real reason for anyone to read this, or to have it published, after all I am not a writer I am a musician, one who is writing this as quickly as possible at work, but I feel my point is contained here…somewhere.

Thanks

wbbigdave

Man with Guitar seeks technology for passionate affair

So after a month or more without blogging it’s time to write again. Im finding it hard to think of new technology to bring to the fore and to write about, namely because I don’t seem to have the money to invest in new tech so I cannot review any new tech. Then I realised I am buying technology all the time. Guitar tech, that is my domain, it’s where my money seems to be poured, the pedal makers, the amp crafters the great steel forges where tubes are born and these are the places which thrive on my money. I am proud to wear my “MUFF” t-shirt proudly displaying the Electro Harmonix logo on the back, declaring my love for everything EHX my colours proud.

My latest purchase is the Line 6 Relay 30, it is a Bluetooth based wireless system operating at the very top of the license free wireless frequencies (around 2.4ghz I am told!) so there is little chance for interference from radio systems and mobile phone signals. This is imperative in this modern age plagued by hand held communication devices, and it allows for some fantastic stability of signal (the only interference I have encountered so far is from the other guitarist using the same wireless system and thought it would be a larf to switch to my channel). As I can hear so far there is no real loss in signal, it sounds pretty clean which is good as the box claims “Wired tone, wireless freedom!” it’s not a bad claim either. The tone I was using was mostly provided by the EHX Metal Muff pedal running through the effects loop of an ENGL reverb 50 combo amp, which meant at least I wouldn’t loose signal quality from the pedal tones. The only downsides to this set up were, A) it actually meant I used more wires, one for sending to the effects loop one for returning, power for the Metal Muff the Big Muff Pi and the Tuner, power for the Small Clone (running EHX proprietary 9V adapter) patch leads for these effects on the board (three in total) then power for the Amp, patch lead for each end of the wireless and then the power for the receiving unit as well. All in all we are talking 11 cables compared to my usual 8. B) For some reason the Big Muff Pi I am using feeds back like a champ whore when I run it through the effects loop. This could be because I am running the effects loop totally wet and need to blend it out some or the gain on the amp needs to come down some, but either way I can’t use it’s beautifully crafted muddy tone. This is something I need to play with.

As you can see I don’t have the most complex rig ever imagined but my mind is always looking for more areas into which I can expand. I am constantly looking up more and more pedals and effects. Some day I am sure I will run out of money or space in my rig, but I hope not. I can always find space for one more effect, even if it has to float on the edge of my board, or sit on top of my amp.

Oh another quick note. My favourite piece of technology at the moment are my ear plugs. Crafted by the fine people at Elacin, my ER-20 cost me quite a bit off the shelf (Can’t remember quite how much but enough to make me choke on my drink) but they are so good. I have used regular plugs in the past and I find that they are muddy and block a lot of sound from damaging my precious hearing. But they seriously compromise the sound I am hearing as well. This is good until I really need to hear what’s going on. I need to hear the drumbeat and the bass to get my timing down. Now i'm not saying these plugs are perfect, it takes a while to get used to putting them in, as they are by no means intuitive, and if you don’t put them in far enough not only do they fall out. But they have a tendency to not work properly (functioning like regular plugs) plus the can be a pure bitch to clean. But they have saved my ears on more than one occasion and I am incredibly grateful (I have suffered for up to four days with tinnitus after forgetting them once or twice)

Final word, you can never have enough pedals, guitars, amps, or good quality cables. This, my friends, is a fact.