Dear Bandcamp and musicians selling there

As I’ve gotten back into music, I’ve finally figured out why I got out of it.

Streaming sucks. I’m not talking about the quality, or things that disappear, or that so little is paid to the artists, which are all additional reasons it sucks.No, I’m talking about how having everything at my fingertips means all of it loses any meaning.

In the old days when I bought an album, often sight-unheard, I was committed to giving it a listen. I’d just spent money on it, I wanted to get the value. If at first I hated it, I kept listening to it a few more times in the hopes it would grow on me and I wouldn’t regret the purchase. That was a vital part of music listening because it forced me to expand my experience. It also made listening to music more intentional.

With streaming my hedonistic tendency takes over, and I just click next if the first measure or two doesn’t immediately give a dopamine rush. Stupid. The worst kind of wasted time because it’s not enjoyable, and just reinforces the ridiculous expectation that everything has to be awesome or it’s not worth my time that the internet has set.

Not to mention that the mere act of opening a streaming app means getting distracted by everything that is new, in an app that has been very carefully crafted and refined to do exactly that as effectively as possible. Also stupid.

So I’ve gone back to buying music. It’s never been a better time to buy music. Albums cost about what they did 40 years ago. And my place of choice to do my buying is Bandcamp.com. Yes, there is plenty of stuff that isn’t there, but what’s there is mostly proving to be enough, and it seems it’s one of the more equitable ways for artists to distribute their work.

Buy boy howdy it isn’t perfect. Here are some things that would make it much better.

Stop penalizing us for buying the digital version

While I love the idea of physical media, its creation and shipping aren’t good, and neither is storing it after it arrives.

BUT, I feel penalized for buying the digital album because you don’t include the liner notes with digital purchases. Sure, we get the .jpg of the album cover, but what about the other sides? The booklet, if any? Maybe a file with lyrics?

Would you please, please, PLEASE include that stuff in the zip file with the music?

Please make shipping costs more visible

[UPDATE: I’m an idiot. It’s right there on the window where you enter the price. Duh.]

Please make it easier to buy discographies

So my daughters are rabid Odie Leigh fans and I decided that since they are Spotify people if anyone in the family was going to buy Odie’s albums it was going to be me. It was actually not that easy to do – and Odie doesn’t have that much stuff. But there are 16 items on their discography page, many of which are singles. Click on the item, click to buy, enter the price, add to cart…repeat 16 times.

Want to see what I mean? Check out Tommy Emmanuel, or The Flashbulb for a few examples. One click for everything. For CDs it would also be attractive because the shipping could be more efficient if they’re shipping together.

I’ve also run into artists that have changed labels, and there’s stuff listed in the discography on their page that can’t be bought there, but there’s a link to someone else’s page, or pages, to buy it. Gwenifer Raymond is an example.

For me music is a bit of an impulsive, emotional purchase. If I’m in the mood to buy you do not want to throw any barriers in my path. I get that changing relationships means different parts are sold by different folks and it’s messy but unavoidable. In Gwenifer’s case the digital version of Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain is on Tompkins Square, and I’m guessing she doesn’t manage their page (and the corresponding links) so the link on the physical-only album page on Gwenifer’s site goes to the main Tompkins site, and then there’s another search to…oh, wait, the search bar will turn it up if I think to do that, and click through to the various listings of the album to find it.

Yeah, I know, first world problems and all that. Still, the artists and the label and Bandcamp should all be well-motivated to make this easier.

Conservatory Ambience

My middle child had an audition at a music conservatory and as part of that was invited to a rehearsal of a quartet.

I waited in the very reverbient lobby, but the quartet was audible so I recorded some of the session along with the lobby ambience. It was frustrating because they kept being stopped by the director and I really wanted to hear the entire piece, but in a way it was better because what I heard had me dying to know what the piece was.

Middle came through for me and this is the piece but not the quartet: In Memoriam, by Joel Love

I made the recording using a Shure SM63 into a SoundDevices MixPre3.

The case for handheld mics

Here’s why every field recording hobbiest should own a decent handheld dynamic omnidirectional interview mic:

  1. They’re inexpensive. A really good one might be $220 new if you go for the long-handled neodymium magnet high-output ones, but most are $100-160. For a mic that will outlast you. For comparison, an AT4022, a competent but mid-range condenser omni is $350. It will need a furry at least but a baseball is much better so add $100ish for that. In fact, they’re inexpensive enough you might find yourself trying a few different ones out. They also hold their value.
  2. They’re inherently wind resistant. You won’t need to get a furry or blimp for it. A foamy might be useful on really windy days, but those are cheap (Wind Tech foams are typically $7-10).
  3. They work the way you thought your handheld recorder would work. You can handhold it! While recording! You can adjust things and press buttons on the recorder without clobbering the recording with creaking & popping plastic noises. There will be much much less noise from changing your grip to moving the mic hand to hand, and many applications drown what little noise there is completely out.
  4. They’re small. My newest mic, a Shure SM63 is less than 5.5″ long and 1.25″ wide. The Electro Voice 635a is a bit bigger. The RE50 is 7.75″ by 2″. Compare that to a blimp – the Rode is over 19″ long and 5″ in diameter.
  5. No fur to get caught in zippers. No furry to get pulled off as you pull it out of your pocket or bag.
  6. They are optimized for voice. Now if you’re a hobbiest I’m assuming you’re recording your family/friends/kids/even yourself at least some of the time. There’s a reason these mics are optimized for voice and that’s because it’s easier to understand recordings made with them over an instrument mic like the AT4022.
  7. They’re durable. You don’t need to worry about them. Shove it in a bag, no case is necessary. They’re designed to be used by people who simply do not care about the equipment. They’re heavy (to reduce handling noise) and feel like you could pound a nail with one. Some people have pounded nails with them.
  8. Dynamic mics do not have self noise. The downside of this is the high gain required, which used to be a disadvantage when amps were noisy but these days all but the lowest end recorders have enough gain for most of these mics, and that gain is far more quiet than it’s ever been before.
  9. They don’t require phantom power. So if you’ve got a recorder that has only 1/8″ inputs or one that doesn’t have phantom power you’re in luck.
  10. They tend to be omnidirectional. That does away with proximity effect, which is more natural sounding when you’re handholding it and not keeping a steady distance from a source.
  11. They’re mono. While there’s lots of great things to record in stereo, recording while you’re handholding the mic and moving around is a lot more pleasant to listen to in mono because the orientation is consistent. It’s very distracting to listen to recordings where people speaking are moving from one ear to another because the mic was being moved. Mono does away with this. When combined with an omnidirectional mic, it does a much better job of capturing the sound of a place when the mics can’t be stationary.

You’re just two tents

There’s an old joke about a guy who goes to see a psychiatrist and he’s complaining about the wild nightmares he’s having. “One night I dreamt I was a teepee!” He said. “The next night I dreamt I was a wigwam! What’s wrong with me doc?” The Dr. paused for a moment, and then said “Well, it sounds like maybe you’re just too tense.”

Thanks folks, I’m here all night!

Anyway, we’re planning a new trip for this year where we’ll be camping our way around and we need to get a new tent. The place we’re going is likely to be remote and windy, and the tent we used last time probably isn’t up to it, and in any case the fam is not a fan.

So I’ve been looking at the Springbar tents, mainly the Skyliner because it is the largest, has a nice layout, and is ready for a stove.

The Skyliner has the most space, and we could use a stove.
The Skyliner has the most space, and we could use a stove.

But my minimalist side wants a Traveler because it will be much less expensive, lighter, smaller, and more proven.

The Traveler might be a better fit
The Traveler might be a better fit

The roof on the Skyliner is a new design, and there are quite a few reports about water pooling due to ripples forming in the roof. It sounds like it’s a combination of an early design flaw using a pole that put too much tension on the roof, and more care needing to be taken with pitching the tent. I’m wary of that. Most people do not really rely on their tents – they go out to a campground and if it doesn’t work out they bail. There will be no bailing from this trip.

I’m looking at canvas because it is quiet. It doesn’t make as much noise as synthetics. Yes, it’s heavier, and more bulky. It also doesn’t require a fly or lots of guy lines. Plenty of evidence they can withstand strong wind. We toured their factory on our last trip, and I left certain I would own one someday.

Still, I’m tempted by the likes of the Snowpeak Land Lock or similar.

The Land Lock has a huge vestibule
The Land Lock has a huge vestibule

Huge – tons of vestibule space. But it’s synthetic, with lots of poles, and not simple to erect. No doubt it is strong enough. It’s about the same price as the Skyliner. It’s hard to tell because Snowpeak doesn’t put very much info on their site, and what’s there isn’t clear. They often casually mention that an inner tent is required…that might be hundreds more.

I haven’t made up my mind yet, because I’m not buying until we’re certain we’re going.

The Traveler is the best fit for the trip’s use case: Staying two nights max, so not really making home, just a crash pad. Least amount of stakes (screws, really) and no guy lines. Very proven design. And not too big for the 2-3 people we’re looking at for the future.

The Skyliner is more space, weight, bulk, stakes, and risk. But the extra floor space would be welcome if we end up stuck in the tent, and for future trips where we might stay somewhere for several days. But it’s overkill for a future of trips for 2-3 people, because we just don’t need that much space.

The Snowpeak is the biggest covered floor plan 20 feet by 13 feet, and they have a great reputation & cult following. The Springbars don’t have any kind of vestibule. The tent we took on our last trip didn’t either, and we didn’t miss it much.

Space, however, comes at another cost. Not all campgrounds have the space. One we stayed at in Moab wouldn’t have fit any of these tents.

The last choice is just take the tent we have. The manufacturer did send us a new fly, and I could re-attach the ground loops properly, and get some valium for the kids to take if there’s wind.

How Did You Digitize Your Journals?

Editor’s note: I also posted this on my other blog at RecordingThoughts.com, but my reboot of that blog is a bit further behind so I’m posting here as well. My apologies to those who follow both.

I’ve got about 35 volumes of journals I’ve kept over the years, and I’d like to digitize them. The problem is there are so many options out there it’s overwhelming at first glance.

Mark Koester as a nice article, but it’s from 2019 and I suspect things are quite a bit different now.

I’m not going to buy a scanner to do this. I do have good lighting, and some space and a table, and I can get a pane of glass to hold things flat. I have an old iPhone 8 I can dedicate to the task, or an iPhone 14 Pro Max, or a Sony ZV-E10. Maybe the last with a zoom lens would be the best choice.

I’m not an artist so I don’t need to capture subtle shades or brushstrokes. I do want color, and I do want whatever OCR has to offer to make them searchable after the fact. I’m in the Apple ecosystem.

I’m just starting to search for ideas, so if you’ve got links or suggestions please let me know!

The fear of accomplishment

I was listening to The Walk by Father Roderick, a podcast that I never thought I’d be listening to but is actually really good, and the episode was May 19, ’23, What Needs Pruning In Your Life?

The episode talks about balancing the things others want you to do with the things you want to do, and how to tell the difference. Yeah, it never really occurred to me that I’d get those two things mixed up but actually it’s pretty easy.

Anyway, he explained that one way to tell them apart is by identifying whether you feel relief or accomplishment when you finish them – the former being the indicator that you’re doing it for others.

The idea is that for each thing you ask yourself whether you would feel relieved or accomplished when finishing the task.

But what if there’s nothing on your list that you think would make you a sense of accomplishment? Is that a sign that you need better stuff on your list? Or, are you really able to judge accomplishment vs. relief in advance? Or, is there some other mental fuzz clouding things up?

As I looked through my list, I didn’t see anything that I expected to bring a sense of accomplishment. They were all items I needed to get done ‘or else’ or the loose boards that needed nailing that we all have in our lives.

So I started to try to come up with some items and as I mulled them over I felt something that took me a while to figure out – I was afraid of them. The feeling presented as doubt, but when I said “So what if it doesn’t work, you’re not out anything” suddenly new reasons to avoid them started showing up.

I think for me fear is like that thing in physics that you can’t actually see when you look at it, but you can see its shadow and the effects it causes. When you’ve eliminated all the other possible causes of the shadow or effect, what you’ve got left is fear.

Which way forward? Fediverse integration with WordPress.com

Several days ago WordPress.com announced that blogs on their platform could now be integrated to the Fediverse via an ActivityPub plugin. Great news!

After a few bumps it was fairly easy to get things connected, and sure enough posts end up in the Fediverse. Comments made in the Fediverse find their way back to the blog, and post tags are included in the post in the ActivityPub plugin sends as hastags.

But there’s a complication – they end up there via a new account created for the blog. The account name is not user selectable (except for folks on the more expensive WordPress.com plans) and is a bit long, but that’s not the problem.

The problem is that the account isn’t a regular Mastodon account. There’s no way to log into the account and see mentions, for example, or toot without posting in WordPress. The account can’t follow anyone. It’s an account for someone who doesn’t ever want to interact with Mastodon.

So, if I want to interact with Mastodon normally, I still need another account.

There seems to be 3 possibilities:

Have a normal Mastodon account and have the marketing connection in WordPress.com send posts there

It works fine, but no hashtags are included, which is very severe limitation for Mastodon.

Have a normal Mastodon account and the ActivityPub account created by WordPress.com for the posts

Now there are two accounts, but there’s nothing to connect them. If I’m going to publish a long piece about something, and I want to post about it in advance, I’m doing the advance posting on one account but the post is coming from another.

I can try to join the accounts via the bio on the normal account, but what’s that going to look like? If someone comes across my content via a hashtag on Mastodon (very likely) how will they find my normal account?

Have a normal Mastodon account and the ActivityPub account and post to both of them

Still two accounts, but now when a blog post comes out it is posted to both of them. One of those, the ActivityPub account, will include hashtags but the other will not. Seems like a needless waste of space, and for those that are following both accounts (which would be the desired state in this scenario) there are going be two posts.

None of these are great options. I suspect this is all in flux and features will be changing, but in the mean time, which option is the best?

I’ve decided on the middle option, and will try to modify my Bio to include it, and see how that works.

Those of you who are in the same boat, which way are you going?

A third Mastodon test…

I disconnected the marketing connection to Mastodon, and am using just the fediverse connection to see how this works.

I’m trying to figure out if I still need to have WordPress.com send posts to my original Mastodon user @SteveDuncan or just let them come out as swduncan.com@swduncan.com. Not a very graceful username, and no post-by-post control, but I don’t know when or why I wouldn’t want it to go to Mastodon.