Jim Gilchrist

I don't believe Al's post was intended as a recommendation to check out the system he mentioned or to suggest it as an option for our (or any other) industry. I believe it was presented as social commentary. Take a deep breath. Repeat after me: "Al's post is intended as social commentary and satire." Thanks.

One of the icons of American music, be it blues, country or pop would have turned 85 today. "I don't care if you got 90 tracks. How's it sound, baby?"

Hey, Steve I've got some cases you could use to ship gear out and back. I'll email you some photos tomorrow. Jim

Otis Redding would have turned 74 today.

Danny Gatton's on my radio today, in honor of what would have been his 70th birthday. He was a native of my hometown, Washington, DC and played around town when he wasn't busy building hot rods. At the peak of his popularity, his band was playing 23 or 24 nights a month in the bars and nightclubs around town. John Preveti, who played bass with Danny for around 18 years, said of him "You know, when he played country music, it sounded like all he played was country music. When he played jazz, it sounded like that's all he played, rockabilly, old rock and roll, soul music. You know, he called himself a Whitman sampler of music." Danny's Redneck Jazz experiment with the late Buddy Emmons stands as proof. Sadly, Danny died by his own hand on October 4, 1994. He was only 49. My friend Virginia Quesada's film about Danny called The Humbler - the Danny Gatton Story, which has been in the works since before Danny died, is slated for release in August of 2016. Best regards, Jim

I feel pretty lucky in that my local, 487, has a pretty healthy training and education budget and has decided to pay the $20 for members in good standing for the Lynda.com program. Also just recertified for CPR, first aid and AED operation thanks to the fund. Did an aerial lift and forklift safety class earlier this month as well. Best regards, Jim

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was born August 24, 1905.

The unit pictured in the eBay link has the direct out mod output connector. One thing that's great about the Cooper/Vark mod is the direct out board is only turned on when the output cable is connected. The board isn't a power hog but definitely has an effect on battery life. Best regards, Jim

Hey, Reid. I've got some RF resistant fabric from my trip on the Enterprise in the last century. It may help and you're welcome to it. I can always drop it in the mail to you. We came aboard via the COD as well, right as Hurricane Georges, at this point teetering between a tropical storm and an F1 hurricane, meandered into the ship's path. It was a pretty interesting trip out to the ship and the ship was underway into the wind as always during flight operations, adding at least 40 knots to the windspeed of the storm. When we deplaned it felt like it was raining needles. Horizontally. When the rest of the ship's aircraft got back aboard, they put the hammer down to outrun the storm. Never gone that fast on such a large vessel. Not much sync sound on my gig. A few batches of aircraft getting slung off the boat and being recovered, a few hours of wild sound with the airboss in the control tower and wild recordings of the ship's coms. The phased array radar and flight control radar were sometimes problematic. If you live with the chiefs, it'll be pretty sweet but if you're assigned to the regular crew quarters plan on an extra few minutes to get in and out of your rack. Best regards, Jim

50 years ago today, Bob Dylan opened his set at the Newport Folk Festival like this and American music changed forever.

Just because, Tedeschi Trucks Band with Sharon Jones and Doyle Bramhall II covering the Etta James tune "Tell Mama." Jones had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2013 but it looks like she's back on her feet.

The Matthews kit stands are ok. I have a pair of the mediums and one of the bigger size. They're great for travel but be sure to locktite the set screws at the top of each section and pack an allen key with them. The screws will vibrate loose during travel and caution is required when tightening them. It's easy to bend the tubes out of round at the top and that can make adjusting the height difficult. Best regards, Jim

Lowell George met his tragic end 36 years ago today, in a room at the long-gone Twin Bridges Marriott, on the Arlington, Virginia end of the 14th Street Bridge. I was fortunate to attend his last show, on June 28, 1979 at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC. George and Little Feat were house favorites at the venue.

Thanks, Al. I needed that! Today marks what would have been Big Bill Broonzy's 122nd birthday.

PDFpen 2 is pretty nice, though I haven't used to for sides I have used it to combine and edit PDFs on the fly. It's pricey and there is a companion app, PDFpen Scan+, that's available as part of a bundle that lets you scan documents with the phone's camera and create PDFs that are searchable. The in-app OCR is pretty cool as well. Best regards, Jim

Happy birthday to Todd Rundgren.

Those issues do not occur in the Sound Devices product the original post refers to as one of the possible choices. Both the Nomad 12 and the 688 can be seen, touched and might even be available for extended demos from NYC dealers. You'll certainly be able to arrange a rental and many dealers will credit trial rental charges towards your purchase. Also, when judging it's best to make files on both recorders of the same or similar material, drag them into the audio editor of your choice and A/B the recordings via the same playback chain. Best regards, Jim

Happy 73rd birthday to one of the true innovators of American popular music.

50 years and a couple of days ago, Bob Dylan recorded his iconic song Like a Rolling Stone. 48 years ago today, Jimi Hendrix performed what is still my favorite cover version of the song on the final night of the Monterey International Pop Music Festival.

Happy birthday, Sir Paul.

Happy 72nd birthday to Dewey Lindon "Spooner" Oldham, session keyboard player extraordinaire. He played on lots of hits at both Muscle Shoals and Fame Studios in Alabama and in LA as well. He's accompanying one of the guys that wrote a bunch of those hits, Dan Penn. "The Dark End of the Street," first released by James Carr in 1967, is one of my favorite songs.

Richard, I looked the Logitec K800 recently for use here at home on our media system. I think it's 2.4 GHz wireless with a pre-paired dongle on their proprietary Unify standard, not actually Bluetooth. The pre-pairing thing works as well (better, as far as I'm concerned) as Bluetooth does and that Unify with the ability to connect up to 6 different devices to the same dongle seemed pretty nice. Sadly there's no Mac version of the multi device paring software required to add devices, at least not yet. The Mini we use here at home as a media serve has a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse which both disconnect occasionally, a problem I've never had with the pre-paired variety. The distinction is important because Bluetooth requires a pairing process so Joe can't go buy a Bluetooth dongle, plug it in to the keyboard port of his 970 and use his Bluetooth Apple keyboard. I believe there's no way to address the pairing function in the 970's user interface and I'm certain there isn't in the 6 series recorders. It gets confusing particularly because there are Bluetooth keyboards which come bundled with dongles but they aren't pre-paired like your Logitech or the little Rii unit I use with the 633 are. Best, Jim

Sound Devices doesn't support Bluetooth keyboards, at least on the 6 series. I suspect the half-rack recorders won't either. Bluetooth pairing requires too much processing power for pairing and there's no way to address the pairing process in the user interface on the 6 series recorders. There are a couple of threads about keyboards and Sound Devices gear both here and on Sound Devices' support board, and I've had pretty great luck with the Rii pre-paired wifi keyboard and dongle with both my 633 and 664, for what it's worth. Have a look here or here. And consider joining the Sound Devices support board. Best regards, Jim

Great clip, Crew. Thanks for posting. It's a nice little movie. Anybody that hasn't had a chance to see it probably should. It takes lots of liberties with John Nichols' book of the same name but is enjoyable all the same. Best regards, Jim

Baldemar Huerta, better known as Freddy Fender, was born 78 years ago today, June 4, 1937. He performed as a solo rockabilly and country act, as a member of the groups Texas Tornadoes and Los Super 7 and recorded his final album under his given name in 2001. He also acted in a couple of films and on TV, notably as Mayor Sammy Cantu in Robert Redford's 1988 debut as a director, The Milagro Beanfield War.