[wotts]

The solar storm and auroras are subsiding just as it was getting dark enough in Oregon - just a pronounced green-ish glow up north with no visible banding and no pink in the short exposure times my phone is capable of. There are more successive coronal mass ejections coming over the next day or two so maybe tomorrow night will be cool.

I just came back in following another display. I am downloading the pictures now.

 

[Minoguez]

From lake Wenatchee in Washington state.

 

[sixergixer]

Ok, it wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

10 second exposures with my iPhone 14 Pro.

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

Hey all,

The time flies by. Too many things to do right now!

Sooooo, a quick update, before I go into Weekend Documentation Hell (long story, you'll read about it this year):

1. You may see Kraken as early as next week. Think "media capability, music quality." Not giant power. I've been using one for about a year. It's a great little amp, but if you're looking for a 7x300W monster, this isn't for you.
2. Getting close on being able to let you know where the new Schiit is going to be. As soon as the building has closed and the foundation repair guys are on site, I'll let you know. It's in a cool area of San Antonio, that much I can say. Corpus Christi stays as it is now...making smaller products.
3. Other stuff I've mentioned is slugging its way to production (Stjarna, Gungnir 2, etc.) but don't be surprised if these are delayed a bit, mainly due to, well, everything. You move a company, do the dev work on a Very Big Idea, develop new products, etc, and see how it works out. We're concentrating on making sure there's as little disruption in current operations as possible. And that alone is a very big job.

All the best,
Jason

What is Kraken? I might miss that info mentioned before .....

 

[strider1007]

Kraken is a 5-channel power-amp..

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...most-improbable-start-up.701900/post-18096883

 

[Ohno Schiitizen]

Kraken is a 5-channel power-amp..

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...most-improbable-start-up.701900/post-18096883

I see, thank you so much for the info and link ~

 

[Bowmoreman]

Certainly SD is a high level guide for recorded pop music (and very well done), but something like "Aja" had 64 tracks (or more), mixing, mastering, musicians playing alone in the studio, they tried what - 6 or 7 drummers - before they settled on Gadd - there is no way to be sure what the exact sound should be - but I agree that it does make for an interesting/useful comparison tool.

Still on an absolute level, give me a 3 mic 1/2 speed master or 15 ips tape of a live unamplified performance in a great Hall for the creme de la creme tool - in particular if one was present for the recording or at least at another time in the same Hall with the same artist(s)/conductor.

^this.

Hence why I love the old RCA Shaded Dogs (Mohr era) and Mercury Living Presences (Cozart/Fine). SOME of those are recorded in places I’m auditorium familiar with (e.g. Boston Symphony hall, etc.). Similar era original Jazz (acoustic) was often recorded well in this fashion.

HP’s definition of “The Absolute Sound” always made sense to the engineer in me intellectually. Subjectivity can (and should) have “reference standards”. If one is disciplined, and uses such recordings carefully, you really can dial in your system and room to be “lifelike” to a remarkable degree. And, it’s way beyond simple frequency response flatness…

SD are not well-recorded in the sense that one cannot KNOW what “real/live” actually sounded like (64 track mixes, etc.). But they are exceptionally well recorded for the “total experience”. Punchy, dynamic, warm (or not) when needed, crystal clear highs, wonderful soundscapes. Their stuff is reference for me for those reasons. Oh, and hearing Kamakiriad on my 19 speaker Lexus LS460 Mark Levinson surround system is quite the treat. (For the record: I bought the car used for only $15K with 50K miles on it just before Covid, from an 82 year old guy whose wife was taking the car away from him; poor chap. I’m not a car snob, but that kinda bargain is epic and had to be done…. Last 5 years with it have been great).

Idea! Schiit should consider mobile audio components! Especially for the (currently execrable-sounding) pure EV market: younger demographic with all their music on their device. The EVs I’ve been in have sound systems that sound like azzz (to me). Growth market?

 

[Bowmoreman]

I have most of Steely Dan’s albums- from ‘Can’t Buy a Thrill’ up to, and including, ‘Gaucho’.

I particularly like Aja.

SD are not a band I listen to a lot as they can be a bit too ‘polished’ for me, but there is no doubt that their albums are all well crafted.

Recording Gaucho was apparently a tortuous process.

Mark Knopfler described his experience of 10 takes for a short solo on ‘Time Out of Mind’ as ‘like getting into a swimming pool with lead weights tied to your boots’.

I love Larry Carlton’s solo on ‘Third World Man’ from Gaucho.

Many of my favourite albums were recorded ‘live’ in the studio without overdubs.


I don’t think you can beat the spontaneity and feel of recordings made that way.

Last night I enjoyed a very rare live music experience; I saw Chris Leslie ( who has played with Fairport Convention and Ian Anderson) in a tiny local venue with no amps and no mics.

It was very special.

I spoke to Chris at the interval and he said that you can’t beat a true ‘acoustic’ performance in a small, intimate venue.

The event was sold out, with about 60 people in the audience.

A memorable night.

Agreed, whenever possible. In last 12 years, seen Leo Kottke live 4 times, at no time/place was it more than 150 people, usually more like 50-75 in very intimate settings. His Tacoma 6 and 12 String Guitar Album (colloquially called the Armadillo album) is thus a perfect reference for me to this date. Leo was super nice, he spoke with and autographed a set of his CDs for my son (then at the time only 13 but already playing his custom 6 string in finger-picking styles; by age 15 he could do most of Leo’s work spontaneously, and the guy who built his two guitars (my neighbor who was also the astronomer with the huge Tak Mewlon interestingly enough, set up live gigs for him at bookstores, etc. We also had a custom 12 string made for him.)

Acoustic+Music/Artist you know+Live+place you know == the perfect reference. Rinse, repeat. It’s hard, takes decades in my case, but you can really create a system end to end that does that live intimate experience remarkably well. Calibration is a thing.

 

[Bowmoreman]

Hey all,

The time flies by. Too many things to do right now!

Sooooo, a quick update, before I go into Weekend Documentation Hell (long story, you'll read about it this year):

1. You may see Kraken as early as next week. Think "media capability, music quality." Not giant power. I've been using one for about a year. It's a great little amp, but if you're looking for a 7x300W monster, this isn't for you.
2. Getting close on being able to let you know where the new Schiit is going to be. As soon as the building has closed and the foundation repair guys are on site, I'll let you know. It's in a cool area of San Antonio, that much I can say. Corpus Christi stays as it is now...making smaller products.
3. Other stuff I've mentioned is slugging its way to production (Stjarna, Gungnir 2, etc.) but don't be surprised if these are delayed a bit, mainly due to, well, everything. You move a company, do the dev work on a Very Big Idea, develop new products, etc, and see how it works out. We're concentrating on making sure there's as little disruption in current operations as possible. And that alone is a very big job.

All the best,
Jason

Nice! You forgot to add in the epic complexity and stress of moving cross country, buying/building new home, etc… I’m impressed at your stamina and drive.

 

[Timster]

Continue to be amazed by the point and shoot capability of the iPhone 14 Pro. Taken this evening nearby to Scarsdale, Vic, Australia. No edits, handheld, straight off the phone.
** Def not super sharp, or pro quality, but still. And there was barely any visible Aurora when these were taken.

 

[FellowTraveller]

Ninja’s by @JohnnyCanuck

Check out Kamakiriad sometime; excellently recorded as well…

Thanks much for the recommendations!

 

[FellowTraveller]

Kamakiriad FULL Behind The Scenes Documentary at youtube also worth to watch.

​

Wow! Cool. Will check it out.

 

[FellowTraveller]

I'm particularly fond of this story. They spent 6 hours working on the words "Well the" for "Home at Last" during the Aja sessions

"We’d be remiss if we didn’t include this anecdote about seasoned studio engineer Lenise Bent, who worked with the band during their Aja sessions. It was the recording of the song “Home at Last” that brought her to a breaking point, due to Fagen and Becker’s insistence on getting two words, two syllables, absolutely perfect. As remembered by Dick LaPalm, Bent’s friend and publicist extraordinaire:

"‘Dick, I have to talk to you.’ She put her head down on the desk in her arms and said, ‘Well-the, well-the, well-the.’ I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Lenise looked up and said, ‘Dick, I have to get off the Aja session. They worked on the words ‘well the’ for six hours last night. All they did was work those two words for just the right sound for hours. I really have to get off the session.’"

https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/steely-dan-stories-of-donald-fagen-and-walter-becker.html

I appreciate the perfectionism to a degree, but anything after Aja is kind of iffy for me, when I feel they started taking it to a pretty absurd degree, at the expense of the human element of musicianship (e.g. that programmed beat on "Hey Nineteen"). I think of recorded music first and foremost as a kind of language, the same way people talk about the "language of film". It's a cultural artifact, with nods to the values of the cultures it comes from. With the later Steely Dan stuff it's almost like they tried creating their own dialect of recorded music that did away with a lot of the language that had come before, all in the name of perfectionism.

IMHO of course

Great story, and very interesting comment about how they kind of created their own dialect of recorded music. Still thinking about that.

 

[Whazzzup]

we had clouds

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Of course! I’ve got an incredibly valuable load in the car!



5 days. Taking it slow.

Turlock -> Bakersfield
Bakersfield -> Flagstaff
Flagstaff -> Roswell
Roswell -> Kerrville
Kerrville -> Boerne

I assume you've go something to do/someone to see in Kerville as the drive to Boerne is only 35ish miles. Either way, welcome to TX.