Photo by aneye4apicture
Today’s idea is based on an idea I had about three years ago – about making it easier to convert your vinyl collection to digital files, so that you can listen to them on an mp3 player.
Flatbed vinyl scanner
The idea is very simple. Rather than play the record on a turntable and convert the audio to an mp3 file, you would simply place the record on a flatbed scanner, take an ultra-high resolution image of each side of the disc, and then a piece of software would analyse the grooves from the visual data, and reconstruct it as an audio file.
Given the technology, it’s easy to imagine that the software could be smart enough to distinguish between a groove and a scratch or a bit of dirt (ie: distinguish signal from noise), and make sufficiently intelligent decisions to restore the waveform accordingly.
In fact, there’s no reason you couldn’t pretty much have completely noiseless vinyl rips, with tracks separated where there’s silence between songs, and the software able to recognise and add metadata to the tracks based on its reading of the catalogue number engraved on the record by the playout groove.
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Tagged: Recordings, Records, Vinyl
- Published:
- March 12, 2010 – 1:15 pm
- Author:
- By Dubber
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Dave teaches a class on rhythm
Predictably, given the fact that I’ve pretty much done nothing other than the Dave Holland project for the past four days, my photo today would be of something from that project.
This was taken during a really interesting class that he taught this morning in which he talked about the relationship between the drums and bass – and played some great examples, giving the students pointers and making helpful suggestions.
Also, I think this picture kind of captures Dave quite well. Lots of knowledge to impart – and very approachable about it.
Tagged: jazz
- Published:
- March 11, 2010 – 11:30 pm
- Author:
- By Dubber
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Photo by Illinois Springfield
Today’s idea is about sound. Specifically, acoustics and recorded music. Simply put, my idea is for people to turn up to a concert hall, sit down, and listen to a record.
There are a few ways you could approach this, but ideally, the listening experience would be curated and explained track by track by the person or people responsible for the recording – or the person who selected the collection of music, assuming that’s someone whose opinion you’d have cause to respect.
And then, after the concert, everyone would be handed a CD copy of the music they’ve just heard. Ideally, they’d be limited edition recordings with programme-like liner notes that you could only get if you went to the event.
This may not necessarily work for all music, but it does work for music that’s primarily designed to be listened to (as opposed to music that’s designed to be danced to in clubs, for instance), and those forms of music for which audio fidelity is an important consideration (though of course, I’m not just talking about classical or jazz music here).
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Tagged: Audio, Concert, Concert Hall, Recordings
- Published:
- March 11, 2010 – 11:06 am
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- By Dubber
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Jake and Hannah join me for the Dave Holland gig
I asked Jake and Hannah to join me to come and see the Conservatoire students led by Dave Holland in a performance at the Adrian Boult Hall this evening. I’m so glad they came.
It was a great performance, and there was some inspiring drumming (my ulterior motive for asking Jake along). Best of all, Dave made a special point on stage at the beginning of the second half to thank me personally for the web project I’m doing, and said some very nice things about it – so having Jake there to hear that was extra cool and it meant a lot.
Tagged: Conservatoire, Family, Photo
- Published:
- March 10, 2010 – 11:16 pm
- Author:
- By Dubber
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My card
Today’s idea is a fairly simple one: a business card that remains relevant and current no matter whether you change your job, your address, your phone number or your email address.
People you give your card to simply open up a generic reader application on their computer, hold the card up to their webcam – and not only are your details in the computer, but they’ll automatically update in their system if you change any of your info on your account.
But perhaps even more cleverly, using the various APIs available on different services, users can also very simply elect to friend you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, add you as a contact in LinkedIn, Flickr, Last.fm, Skype… or any other number of services.
Go to a conference, collect a bunch of these, and it’s a simple matter of holding them up to your webcam or showing them to your iPhone one at a time to be scanned, added to your contacts database, and social networked up.
Tagged: Business Card
- Published:
- March 10, 2010 – 11:10 am
- Author:
- By Dubber
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Dave Holland in full flight
Absolutely loving working on the Holland For A Week project. I’m pretty much doing nothing but at the moment. It has all the right ingredients – and the music’s been fantastic.
Tagged: Music, Photo
- Published:
- March 9, 2010 – 11:14 pm
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- By Dubber
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Photo by Sharky1974
I’ve become quite a fan of graffiti art in recent years. I was always sort of aware of the quality out there, and I’ve long been an admirer of Otis Frizzell (who I commissioned to design my tattoo). In my travels in recent years, I’ve been struck by the different art lining the streets in different places. Marseille and Berlin, in particular, have some incredible works, there’s some amazing stuff right here in Birmingham (see above) and my hometown of Auckland has some brilliant artists.
And sometimes, they get in trouble for what they do.
But the thing that really got me interested was when a friend of mine in Berlin started pointing out how to spot works by particular artists. What their style was, what they were particularly known for, and in which areas of the city they tended to showcase their skills. And that got me thinking about the city as a sort of inside-out art gallery: with the paintings on the outside of the wall.
The only thing missing was those little white cards that tell you about the paintings.
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Tagged: Apps, graffiti, iPhone
- Published:
- March 9, 2010 – 8:47 am
- Author:
- By Dubber
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