Blake Noble

The computerization of music has been a curse, as well as a blessing to music. Some artists know how to use such software to their advantage, in such a way that it's not just a tool for production, but actually an instrument in itself, highlighting imperfections and turning them into something interesting. NIN/Trent Reznor is a poster child for using recording software as such and the music is very good (well perhaps he overused it on Year Zero to the extent that it wound up hurting that album to a degree). I'd also nominate Godflesh here as well, although they are far more guitar-oriented versus NIN. Linkin Park, though, uses ProTools and associated software on everything and I honestly can't think of any album or song by them I've honestly liked. I can't find the substance in their music. It's too clean-cut and boring. Personally, I'm glad the traditional music industry is dying. Major labels are all about greed and taking art (music) and making it something contrived and mediocre. It started getting to the point we are at today in the late '80s, I'd say, and got worse with the rise of file-sharing software and the Nazi-tastic RIAA. If a band or artist has a strong drive and strong and creative work ethic, it's entirely possible to have a career abstinent from any record label, even independent ones, and it's possible to not spend one cent on promotional purposes. It's entirely possible for a band to actually return a profit on record sales for themselves, provided they don't price their work at asinine prices like Universal or Columbia would if they were managing it. Perhaps if major labels would embrace these new technologies and a radical way of thinking, it would be different.

Fear not, for I hope this thread will show you the light. Get on that Mac and get in here. I don't know. New American Gospel seemed to carry more of a Slayer-vibe to me. In fact, I'd personally liken LOG to Slayer. I'm not a big fan, though, so my exposure is limited to what I've checked out (I didn't touch whatever album had "Redneck" on it; I found that "Redneck" and the few other tracks that I listened to from it were just too mainstream). You could consider it Rock ...

Ooh, Pretty Hate Machine. That's my fourth favorite NIN album. The album was very well constructed with a great flow from track to track. My all time favorite is The Fragile, so much so that I recently started a project to incorporate all of the material that got left off of it so that I could get a taste of what the complete experience would be like had it had been released untouched. I'm a big fan of concept albums, and The Fragile is in my top five list, not because the album was so accessible (I really don't think it is anyway; maybe compared to The Downward Spiral) but because I relate so much to its content. This album reaches me on so many emotional levels, it's almost unbelievable. I'd love to write an album like it someday (in my dreams). No doubt. Post-Hardcore/Emo/Screamo/Metalcore/[Genre-here]core isn't about the music, it's about trends/fads and everything's a product. I can't find the talent in most any of those bands that fall within this current movement of music. The vocals are too brash or far too clean with imperfections seemingly eradicated out. Guitar riffs all sound the same, solos are boring. Dummers incorrectly use the double bass pedal, making it the centerpiece of their styles, rather than correctly using it as an accent. Breakdowns are everywhere and showcase no talent whatsoever, it just serves as a place for people act like jackasses during the setlist. I found two bands that have emerged from this current movement in rock/metal that have managed to abstain from a lot of those trends, and those bands are Post-Metal acts Isis and Intronaut. I also have to give a lot of credit to Mastodon for not sounding like, say, Five Finger $h! Fist and actually writing very good, straightforward metal songs with an interesting sound. In a lot of ways, Mastodon is like this generation's Metallica. As for Nickelback, I won't bash them ... this time.

Hey, you don't have to be a rock/metal afficionado to post in this thread. For the record, I'm actually going to grab the complete Robert Johnson Disog' in a few minutes. It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time. Jazz is a genre I also plan to expose myself to very soon. I can honestly say that, as much as my tastes are rooted in rock/metal, I no longer limit myself to that particular genre. I'll listen to just about anything, proved that the artist/band has/have good musicianship, the right intentions, and brings something unique to the table (mainstream country and pop music does none of that, as well as good portion of mainstream rock/metal).

I know we have the "What Are You Listening To?" thread, but what I'd like to see is a thread dedicated to the music snobs here, a hopefully thousand page thread dedicated to in-depth discussions of the music we listen to (without being far beyond obsessed with that analysis; there is a reason why your standard Tool fan is the butt of every joke associated with metal). I have no clue how to start this thread off, really. So I suppose I'll mention what I've been listening to a lot lately: The Avett Brothers. So far, this is the only band with a banjo that I love the hell out of. Great vocals, supreme musicianship, and Emotionalism was quite experimental in terms of dynamics and blending lines. "Pretty Girl From Chile" starts out sounding very Folksy, very Bluegrass and, by the end of the song, evolves into Punk.

"Big Jilm" - Ween I applaud your tastes, sir. For some reason, I find the music video for "Two Weeks" creepy as hell.

After the terrific results I had with Avira Antivirus today, I suggest you download it. Also, pick up HijackThis, Ad-Aware, and CCleaner. All of those programs are free. Use CCleaner at least once a week. CCleaner will clean your harddrive of tons of useless junk hogging up space and fix registry issues. I believe CCleaner was a big reason as to why I limped along with my virus-ridden PC for so long. It does help improve performance by a lot.

That worked out perfectly. Now I have total access to all of my old documents and mp3 files. (If I had to venture a guess, I did not have permission to access this stuff because I did wipe my computer clean back in November, thus reinstalling XP over what was already there.) This will also give me the chance to delete some stuff and really free up some harddrive space. Thanks, Captain. And thanks everyone else who helped me out.

I think the location is C:\USERDATA

Yep. I have the only account on this PC and it has full admin capabilities.

Blah. It still gives me an "access denied" pop-up error. Screw it. I don't need to get in there that bad. I'll do some research into that.

When you've been living with complete loading times of 10 minutes for almost 10 months, 3 minutes is a godsend.

Clean and simplistic, just the way I like it. I love my RocketDock and my auto-hidden taskbar.

Well I did come across a MacBook on eBay earlier with a buy-it-now price of $399 with free shipping. I'll keep an eye out for a deal like that. This computer, for the first time since ... damn ... December of last year I think, is finally running decently. Now it stays on the welcome screen for all of 10 to 15 seconds and is ready to go in less than 3 minutes. That was just now and my fingers are crossed it stays that way. Before, it would stay on the welcome screen for up to 5 minutes and finish booting up in 10. So, knock on wood, everything finally seems normal again. I'm still not running from getting a Mac, though. I've wanted a laptop for a few years now, so that I'm not limited to recording music in my living room. Like I said, Macs are great for that purpose. I really only use my PC for the internet, iTunes, and recording, as well as writing occasionally. I've got a 360 for games (ironic I guess; maybe Apple will build another game console, ha). Back to this, though: Thoughts? I also find it strange it shows the folder is empty when it clearly has files in there.

The one in the last link? It looks to be one of the last iBook G4s, which had a revised 14 inch screen and more harddrive space versus the G3, which is what was in the first link, that came out in mid-2005. That's how old my PC is.

Here we go: http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iBook-Laptop-14-...id=p3911.c0.m14 Just a few bucks more, but you get a 60 gig harddrive. I think that will be decent enough. It might could use some extra RAM, but ...

I don't mind something used so long as it works as intended. As for that particular seller, most of their iBooks are going for $225 each and they were all used in a classroom setting, meaning wear and tear should be to a minimum.

Avira finished its scan and found a total of 10 detections, all of which were corrected. The grand total comes in at 12 issues, again all of them were corrected. After that, I ran HijackThis and no issues were returned. Finally, I ran CCleaner to clean up any mess left over after I uninstalled Norton AntiVirus 2005 (ancient, useless) and after Avira done its job. Fingers crossed. Oh, and I think I'll be picking this up by next month, as a birthday gift to myself: http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iBook-G3-Laptop-...id=p3286.c0.m14 The only thing I don't much like is the skimpy harddrive space. My iPod touch has only 2 gigs less and I filled that up completely with music and only three, very small apps (a piano app, a drumkit app, and the Pandora radio app). On the computer I'm using, my iTunes checks in at almost 20 gigs alone.

Another question: how do I access the USERDATA folder? It seems that there might be some files in there I want to get to (virus scans show that there are a bunch of mp3 files in there of old recordings I made, etc.). The count, btw, is at 9 detections and counting.

Four detections and four warnings so far using Avira, and this makes the second scan I've had to do. First scan, it caught a trojan horse lurking in my OS, so I deleted that file and restarted my PC. It also caught another t-h when I opened up Firefox. Google seems to be working normally ... so far.

Windows XP SP3. Basically, the last version of XP before they brought out Vista. It's not just that I want to get away from Microsoft, Macs are great for recording music. Trent Reznor used Macs to record just about every NIN album, for example. Garageband is a great, basic recording program and it comes free with the computer. That's a big reason for me wanting to make the switch. Carelessly throwing taboo aside, I only buy porn in physical form. Free porn is the death of a PC. Anyone who has any remote form of mental capacity knows this. I'm going to follow up on some of those suggestions. Thanks, siegen.

One step ahead of you here. I've been using Firefox for a while now and upgraded to the latest version a few weeks ago, hoping that it might would fix some of the problem. Done and done. Oh, another cute little piece of info I forgot: 90 percent of all of my document and file names are blue.

I don't. Remember the asshole who totaled the Firebird? I found his username and password for one of those sites saved into my list of saved passwords in Firefox. (oh and inb4: delete system32, if anyone wanted to try that gag.)

Perhaps I should kill it with fire ... ... before I give my life to the AppleLord?

See that? That's what I'm going to do with my virus-infested PC. Anyone here have any idea why I have to turn my computer off 3 times or more in order for the f@#king thing to boot up, or why when I use Google, it doesn't take me to, say, the Wikipedia page I wanted but websites with the names of "gooooosearch.com" or "breast-site.net?" I hate Windows. I've been trying for months to fix this, with no luck. I'm going to buy a Mac next. I can't stand Micro$h! anymore.