August 23rd, 2019 – Smack them Drums.

Huh, that wasn’t as hard as I expected.

On August 20th I had occasion to visit Innovation Station, Dave Mallen’s stunning in-home studio in Northern Virginia. This is the studio where Heather won studio time and though it’s got a very unassuming exterior, the interior is something like Star Trek TNG (well, if we’re being honest here, TNG lighting and feel, but probably more “Enterprise” in size of screens and in the presence of physical switches, etc.). Despite the Trek nerdery in the visual, our in-house nerd banter was mostly Star WARS oriented. This is pretty unrelated to the rest of this post except insomuch as it was DEFINITELY part of my decisions to buy some new gear this week!

A respectable mic huddle. Ironically, it was the SM57 getting snuggled up to the snare drum that won me over to David’s engineering. Basically, here’s a guy who has spent a LOT of money on his space, and he talks the tech talk well, but even surrounded by $1000+ microphones, knowing that sometimes the right tool for the job is the cheapest mic in the room – that’s admirable.

I have the Hinkal curse. We like to buy low as much as possible, but we also would rather throw money at certain types of problems rather than level up our own knowledge. This isn’t across the board : I LOVE learning about Live sound, certain computer things, guitar maintenance… rob-specific items – but I have NO interest in learning more about how to fix my car, or repairing an air conditioner. Mon dieu, just let me throw money at someone till they make the problem go away.

And there are a couple of in-betweener items : like higher-level sound gear type problems, or certain OTHER computer things – where I know JUST ENOUGH to make myself dangerous. And I indeed void warranties.

Anywho, it’s not a big deal. I’ve had a number of computer things crop up in the past couple of days that I THINK I’ve solved satisfactorily on my own, and I’m feeling inordinately proud of this for absolutely NO good reason. Silly things : I learned a lot about graphics cards in a short period of time and though my friend Artem was integral in getting me started, I have the positive glowing sensation that I didn’t have to go and bug him for MORE help. Along those lines I just upgraded the PHP version on ilyAIMY.com’s server and solved a display problem with Institute of Musical Traditions’ website and am feeling foolishly good about it all.

At Innovation Station we mostly recorded drums with our friend JK behind the kit… good times were had, and I need to make a t-shirt.

I’ve got plenty of OTHER problems to deal with, but that’s giving me a sense of optimism that may or may not be deserved.

In any case. I really should be writing in the Journal more… but what I REALLY really ought to be doing right now is loading speakers into the car. So… sorry dear reader, I’m OUTTA here.

Wednesday night Kristen and wandered on down to New Deal Cafe to catch some Ayreheart!

An awesome surprise to find my friend Georgie Jessup’s art on the walls! Though I’ve seen them around her house and Edith May’s Paradise, it was cool to see them away from home and hung in a “gallery” setting.

The reason for the hardware update had SOMETHING to do with the fact that I TOO was going to be recording. After Dave Mallen’s studio I did some fancy footwork and Heather and I picked up a new laptop on the way home. Thursday night saw me setting it up in Jimmy Stewart’s sunroom, and… and… losing my seat to his cat.