I’m having a ton of fun with Pokemon Odyssey, it is one of the most unique rom hacks out there, and you do not need to know anything about the game it’s based on to appreciate it

The best way to learn is to say something confidently wrong on the Internet haha

Yeah you know what, I definitely am wrong about this, I totally thought they were using AI but that makes way more sense

I know it doesn’t need AI for older versions of feedback suppression, but there are newer systems using it that are more effective at dynamically subtracting those frequencies

Oh yeah you’re right! It’s the same for all unwanted noise. Rustling, wind, buzz, ac noise. All of it can be filtered out now! You can even take away the reverb from an untreated room and add in your own reverb. Convolution reverb is amazing, you can actually capture the reverb of any space you want and add it into your recording in post. I honestly don’t know how much an expensive treated room matters over some investment in the plugins that let you do those things.

An example for movies: instead of trying to capture the actors talking inside their helmets for Interstellar, they actually made an IR inside of the helmet itself and added that to the overdubs!

The way you create an IR (impulse response) to capture the reverb of a space is you take a speaker and play a sine wave (or a gunshot/balloon pop,) then record it with a good mic. Then just take that WAV file and put it into a convolution reverb plugin. It sounds identical, the technology is amazing! You can use this to capture all kinds of analog circuitry like guitar amps also, that’s how they make those guitar amp plugins.

An amazing use for it in audio engineering is for feedback suppression. The old way to give yourself more headroom required you to sit there and turn up the gain until feedback happens and cut that frequency. Now you just turn on the feedback suppression and it does all that for you on the fly. It’s game changing for live sound, every major venue has it now.

My cat Lola in the best picture I took of her as a kitten

My dog Joanie who has her ear protection on for band practice

Them together as babies (they play together and are best friends)

Playtime

Daily outdoor adventures

You’re right, I need this room in my life

Blood Sweat & Tears had like 200 members, my dad knew one of the founding members and went to one of their concerts a couple years back. Got to talk to them after the show and not one of them had even heard of the guy. Feels like the ultimate example of this

I use the mpk mini play and it’s super handy all the time with those onboard effects! Bring it all the time in my backpack for noodling when I know I have hours to kill. Had it for 7 years and no issues at all. Although I will say the new mpk minis went through a massive upgrade, worth splurging for.

The biggest thing that helped me was art. I’ve played music most of my life, and made the decision to move out to a city with a great music scene 4 years ago where I knew nobody. It took me 3 years of exploring open mic communities and such for me to finally find the one for me. Built up an amazing friend group from there and I feel so emotionally and artistically fulfilled now! I was so lonely those first 3 years, but the second I found my people it was night and day. I think the best thing everyone can do is hone in on a hobby you love and connect with the community surrounding it if you can, sometimes the hobby can be enough too though!

I would happily contribute to this, lmk if we decide on a specific community to all join in on, I think it would be cool if it was musician’s interests in general. Like I’m an audio engineer as well as a guitarist so it would fun to have a space to have deep conversations about both, as well as other musical niches people have an interest in.

A Kora! It’s an African instrument that is considered a guitar harp, with 21 strings ranging from the size of bass guitar string to fishing wire. The way it is played allows you to play the bass, lead, and rhythm at the same time. Here is a short example of a master kora player Toumani Diabate showcasing the instrument: https://youtu.be/8luhdxS2KuM?si=llpa2YVyIOf77_Nd

As a guitarist I found this guy who transcribed Toumani’s work onto a classical guitar, very interesting listen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=55QnOlXckOk

My other thing would be trippy out there instruments that seem to put you in a different state of mind like the Yaybahar or “The Beam” that the grateful dead likes to break out sometimes

Yaybahar example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_aY6TxC1ojA&pp=ygUWeWVoYWJhciBhdCBpbnN0cnVtZW50IA%3D%3D

The Beam example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0h8o-1IQ5G0&pp=ygUSZ3JhdGVmdWwgZGVhZCBiZWFt