May 2017

Ardour's Paul Davis speaks at Linux audio event

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Paul Davis, a Linux luminary who developed the JACK streaming protocol and currently works on the Ardour DAW (digital audio workstation), speaks at a conference here (video embed -- start at 2:22:32).

Worth a watch, even if it's pessimistic overall about Linux audio. On the one hand he offers a necessary reality check to open source boosterism, but on the other, he needs to insulate himself from ordinary bonehead users on forums, they are clearly wearing him down. (He's even testier on the forums.)

He makes a good point about certain types of software only being viable in the commercial realm, as opposed to the open source model. His example is Elastique Audio, a proprietary timestretching algorithm. He admits that neither Linux nor anyone else offers anything as good. It excels, he argues, because the creators spent ten years "polishing and polishing" the code. You need a promise of return, and not just the love of your peers, to do something that numbing.

At one point he muses on the types of audio users who might be drawn to Linux environment. An impetus he missed is people fleeing Apple and Windows for political and aesthetic reasons. Getting away from computer companies that trick you, spy on you, and bleed you for additional services is a strong motivator.

better watch out

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I made this DVD cover as a thought experiment (previous example). Whereas Hellman's film Cockfighter will never get the Criterion treatment for an absolute certainty, because of animal rights activists and general distaste for southern cracker entertainment, this 1989 entry in the yuletide nightmare franchise might actually... nah.

silent_night_deadly_night_3_hellman

It's a pretty good effort, rather droll and arch as it delivers the goods to the teenage date market. The protagonist is a cute blind girl with psychic powers; the bad guy is the serial killer from previous films (I think) who was revived from the dead by a well-meaning (!) scientist, played by Richard Beymer (later Benjamin Horne in Twin Peaks). More future Lynch actors show up: wifebeater Leo from Peaks and Laura Harring, twelve years before her breakout role in Mulholland Drive.

The serial killer wears a transparent plastic dome on his head that, as the movie progresses, shows clearer and clearer views of his exposed brain matter underneath the plastic. By the end, we even see reddish fluid sloshing around in there. Ick.

The film is never boring but moves slowly. Shots are carefully framed, especially closeups of the heroine, who looks like a Seventeen cover model and is smart, resourceful (at least when she's not walking up to the killer and touching his face), and surprisingly acid-tongued. An early scene with a shrink establishes that she's full of anger over the loss of her parents and that's why she keeps insulting everyone with rude one-liners throughout the movie.

Unless you are an IMDb commenter ("I feel that this is the absolute worst" etc), you can tell this movie was made by a slumming auteur. It's too smart, and the camera work and editing too assured, for the cheesy '80s series that launched with a topless Linnea Quigley running from an ax. In turns dreamlike and sarcastic, SNDN3:BWO is Two Lane Blacktop with decapitations.

Moondog, "Voices of Spring," "Down is Up" lyrics

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Moondog 2 (1971) was Columbia's follow-up to the better-known Moondog. The second installment features Louis Hardin and his daughter singing rounds, with simple percussion, keyboard, and woodwind accompaniment, and what sounds to me like quite a bit of overtracking and stereo-mixing.

Each little song (26 in all) is charming and minimal, reminiscent of the Carl Orff gassenhauer (street song) for children. I couldn't make out all the words but this blog transcribed them. I made some tweaks to a couple of my favorites:

Voices of Spring

voices of spring were in chorus
each voice was bringing a song
i couldn't sing in the chorus until i wrote a new song
i wrote my song and joined the throng

voices of spring were in chorus
each voice was singing a song
i couldn't sing in the chorus until i wrote my new song
i wrote my song and joined the throng

Down is Up

down is up, and so up is down
because the earth is round
there is no such a thing as up or down

Dead Mountaineer's Hotel

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...is a Soviet-era genre-bending novel by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky, one of their more memorable efforts. A ten-little-indians style mystery with an oddball assortment of characters snowed in at a mountain lodge. Just how oddball is gradually revealed to a by-the-book police inspector.

An Estonian film version, "Hukkunud Alpinisti" hotell, with script by the Strugatskys, showed up on YouTube. Made in the late '70s, yet it looks like an '80s film, with aggressively modern set design, an electronic score, and stylish costuming. Touches of Kubrick and Argento, as much as the budget allowed. The Strugatskys somewhat truncated their plot and characters but the story works, especially the surprisingly emotional ending.

Hukkunud_Alpinisti_hotell

cutting and pressing records

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Audio Geography Studios mini-documentary on lathe cutting records: [YouTube]

Audio Geography is a US-based business that offers small runs of lathe cut vinyl records to musicians. The owner acquired vintage cutting equipment used by radio stations in the '40s and '50s and employs it to cut grooved vinyl, without any further steps in the pressing process.

OFM Vinyl mini-documentary on transforming a lathe cut acetate into a nickel master and pressing the vinyl: [YouTube]

OFM Vinyl, a small record-pressing company based in France, appears to be out of business. The 2012 video shows James S. Taylor (ex-Swayzak, recording here under the name Lugano Fell), working on an ambient composition using a turntable, mixer, and (presumably) looper. The live output of his sound process is recorded directly to an acetate disc (called a "lacquer" in the video) using a lathe cutter. The rest of the video shows the labor- and equipment-intensive process of turning the lacquer into a nickel-plated master and pressing a vinyl record from the master.