Dave's Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

I had a major streak of creative energy after lifting weights earlier today and made this in about 5 hours time.  It’s a work in progress.  It’s easily in there with the Psytrance genre.  Enjoy!

Some of you might know me to be a bit of a Linux geek who is a sucker for the open-source philosophy and culture.  It sure is a beautiful thing in the world of computers; using software that’s free of charge and free to modify because a bunch of people decided to give it away to the public and do whatever they want with it.   This has worked out VERY well for Linux since it began, with bored programmers using the Internet as a global workbench to approach and tinker with any software they wanted and the best results would come to the surface as a new standard, often with no money changing hands.

It’s difficult for most people to imagine doing something like this because we don’t know a thing about computer source code.  We sort of have a foggy idea about it and could boil it down to “a list of instructions for a computer to follow” and add that those instructions can be edited and improved upon by anyone.  Any description more complex than that and it starts to sound like Greek… but for this post, it’s good enough.

Now  imagine you took this model of open-participation and applied it to music production, doing it all on the Internet.  You’re a musician, you play an instrument or have a singing talent and want to find other musicians who share your musical taste.  This is difficult to do in the real world, especially if you’re stuck in Kansas like me.  Sure, it’s easy to find a Kareoke machine on any given night if you look hard enough but finding good, original, local musicians is hard.  So the next best thing is to go online and (in a way that’s reminiscent of posting personal ads looking for a significant other) post your own creations/recordings to be judged by others… perhaps even loved by others, modified by others, built upon by others until eventually the little tune or melody you started with turns into a fleshed out composition that sounds very professional.

This is exactly the kind of situation I’ve found myself in during the last 3 weeks after I did some searching on google for “online music collaboration” and discovered Kompoz.com and indabamusic.com.

I signed up for both at the same time and uploaded the same music (three songs of my own) to both sites.  All I had to do after that was sit back and wait for others to possibly like my music and wish to add something to it, or not.  Over on Kompoz, in a matter of just 2 or 3 hours, a fellow from Latvia named Nikitt had uploaded a new guitar track to one of my songs on Kompoz.  Within a few days after that I was getting emails from people wanting to perform lyrics to the track.    A few days later, another astonishing guitar track was added by a dude from Florida who calls himself Grumpy.  And in all this time, none of the tracks I uploaded to Indaba got even a hint of attention or interest from anybody.  So either they think my music sucks over at that website or (more likely) the user interface for indaba is a mess that makes it difficult for bored musicians to find new projects.  So  maybe Indaba would work for you but it certainly didn’t work for me.

But enough about Indaba failing me.  Kompoz on the other hand has really bolstered my dream of writing a lot of good music.  It’s just so much easier to be able to upload something and for someone else to come along and add an idea to it.  It really is a lot of fun; I would tell my fiance Kristin that it’s like Christmas every day because you never know what you’re going to get.  This happens in part because some of the people who use the site live on the other side of the planet and leave stuff online while you’re asleep and when you wake up you might be surprised to find new recordings uploaded or at least some productive comments.

So this is what I’ve been doing with some of my spare time lately and just wanted to share.  You can check out my Kompoz profile and projects by clicking here.  If you happen to be a musician I encourage you to join Kompoz.com with a free membership, but if you’re serious about music production it pays to get a premium membership for $50 a year so you can exchange high quality WAV files and even publish music for commercial release and get royalties out of it.

I have my M-Audio and Yamaha keyboards hooked up and ready for me to bang out some tunes yet haven’t brought myself to move forward on previous tracks I’ve started work on.  However, I have stumbled across some really neat music someone else made.  I discovered it while watching this video of an ant-shaped robot:

After sifting through the comments for another video by the same robot-building guru I found out that the song in this video is called “Parks On Fire” by Trifonic.

I’ve just purchased their deluxe digital copy of two of their CDs for 8 dollars.  You can stream/preview the whole thing with this little jukebox I’ve embedded here.  If you enjoy it, show your support for an independent musical group and buy their album!

Hey there, ladies and gentleman! I’ve made some great progress on a song I recently posted a sliver up about a month ago (and have since deleted because it is now an obsolete sample)  Back then all I had laid down were tracks for the drums and the lead flute.  A LOT more has gone into it since then.  Though it is not yet finished, I thought I’d give you a newer extended sample.

Click to download “Flow” by David Steinlage (Extended sample)

“Flow” by David Steinlage is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available via the author. www.davestechsupport.com/contact.html.

Recently I purchased a refurbished (and cheap) MP3 player from my favorite gadget retailer TigerDirect.com;  a Sansa e250V2 (or so the back of the unit itself says).  The device itself only stores 2GB of data but comes with an expansion slot that can accept MicroSD flash memory cards, so I purchased an extra 4GB chip on the side.

Unfortunately, I have come to learn that when you get a refurb, it’s possible the manufacturer has replaced the case on the outside with one that has a slightly different model number.  Long story short, I had found that this was actually an e200v1 (or perhaps an e250v1) and its firmware doesn’t support flash memory cards that are SDHC (e.g., anything over 2GB in size).  Even if I had upgraded to the latest version of the firmware available for this player, it still wouldn’t have fixed the problem.

Now for the good news:  While I was digging around for a fix, I came across an open-source software project called Rockbox.  Rockbox is a replacement firmware that will run on several types of MP3 players, and one of the features I was hoping to gain by installing it was support for SDHC cards.  What I got was a hell of a lot more than I expected.

For starts, this OS loads FAST.  Not only that but it came with a bunch of extra applications, visual themes, and GAMES!  Yeah baby!  I couldn’t believe it when I loaded up a variant of id Software’s DOOM on my cheap $30 MP3 player.  There’s no other way to say it but Rockbox is one really awesome piece of software and I’m really happy I found it!  THANK YOU ROCKBOX!

I bought a new keyboard recently and have been spending a good amount of time every day working on some new music.  It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for about 10 years now and am now confident about being able to do it quickly and make it sound good.

Anyway, the latest track is called Ridin’ The Ditch Witch (click on the link to download the MP3; 256 kbps CBR).  I would call it classic rock music with just a dash of psy-trance.  Check it out, enjoy and please leave compliments if you like it.

“Ridin’ The Ditch Witch” by David Steinlage is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.davestechsupport.com/contact.html.

Stumbled across this video today and wanted to share.  Enjoy!

Ilan Rubin, Robin Fink, Me, Trent Reznor, my sister Sara, Justin Meldal-Johnsen

It all kicked off with a short drive from my friend John’s house in Lawrence to the Starlite Amphitheater in Kansas City, Missouri.  We arrived around 3:45 p.m. and joined a group of roughly 100-125 people who all participated in the donation drive for Eric De La Cruz and were anxiously awaiting for their opportunity to meet and greet with the band.  One girl I was standing next was so excited, she said, “I’m looking at the same sky Trent Reznor is looking at.”  I couldn’t help but laugh.

After passing through the gates and being handed my guest pass stickers (which only went to the top-tier donors) we were given a briefing on what to expect next.  We were then led down the hill and around to the back of the venue where we waited in line to walk into a pavilion area of sorts, shake hands with the band, have one item of ours signed by all the members of the band, have our picture taken and even give everybody a hug if we wanted.  From here, the group was split into two and the lower-tier donors were lead back out into the seating area of the venue while us top-tier donors were then lead to a dining hall for dinner.

I was personally expecting to see something like a series of tables pushed together with the band sitting down somewhere and everyone else surrounding them and having some lively table talk.  To our disappointment, we were sat in groups of 8 per table and more or less had to wait there for 50 minutes before Trent arrived to say thanks for the donations and open up for a few questions before going back to whatever it is he does before a show.  This was really the only minor annoyance about the entire experience.  Time constraints and what not are understandable, though the words “dinner with the band” was in the description, and I didn’t realize the word “with” was being used in the Mitch Hedberg-ish sense.  (Mitch Hedberg joked that whenever he goes to the bathroom to shave, he assumes someone else on the planet is also shaving, so he’ll say, “I’m gonna go shave, too.”)

We were then asked to go back out to the main seating area while Street Sweeper Social Club played the first act, and then return to the pavilion next so we could be escorted to the side of the stage and enjoy NIN.  It was surprisingly quiet compared to the loudness you’re pounded with in the seating area.  The staff throughout the entire experience were very kind and polite.  I really didn’t get any good pictures of the side stage area as most of my time was being spent video taping the show.  I’m not going to bother with re-encoding the video and posting it here because, well, I’m feeling kinda lazy, but also because I’m sure someone out there’s got better video than I do.  The view was somewhat obstructed, the camera is shaking from time to time, and the audio sounds a little muffled.

After the show was over we were escorted back out through the seating area because Janes Addiction didn’t really want anybody backstage (certainly not side stage) while performing.  But my sister and I snuck back around and actually caught a glimpse of the lead singer and guitarist head through the double doors we had exited from to go out to the stage and perform.  And that was pretty much the extent of anything exciting that could possibly happen.  I watched Trent walk through a hustling team of roadies loading crates of gear and equipment on his way to his tour bus never to be seen again.  Not being a big fan of Janes Addiction, the four of us decided to leave the show early and beat the traffic to have a small after party of our own back at home.

That was more or less it.  Like I said, I had my expectations high and it’s something I’m sure everybody does who has never participated in something like this.  You have these fantasies of a “best case scenario” of actually getting to sit down and chat with the band for 5 minutes and stuff like that, but it’s simply not the reality of these kinds of things.  I mean, you have to think about these things from the perspective of the band members.  What would you rather do after a show:  Hang out in a decked out bus while surrounded by beautiful women, or doing your best to gum it up with speechless fans who are skilled at the art of making social encounters totally awkward?

In the end, I had fun… I don’t think I’d call it jaw-dropping-awesome kind of fun, but that’s just me personally.  The novelty of the event hasn’t sank in just yet, I guess.  I also got this vinyl record I bought years ago autographed by the band (including their art director, Rob Sheriden, who is a perpetually depressed looking fella):

Overall review:  GOOD TIMES!

In the previous post I mentioned Nine Inch Nails organizing a fund raiser to help Eric De La Cruz get a heart transplant.  They’re doing this by asking for large donations and in exchange they give you and a guest VIP access to any concert you want to attend.  I’m here writing this to let everyone know that my sister and I are now officially VIP attendees of the upcoming KC concert on Wednesday the 27th, and it’s an experience I’ll be telling people about for years.

Now most of you out there (or at least anyone who isn’t really into NIN) are probably saying, “Why would anyone spend that much money just to get backstage and gum it up with people they may never see or speak to again?”  Well… let me put it this way.  Imagine you could meet any single person in the whole world who you’ve wanted to meet for over a decade but couldn’t. Just think of your favorite actor/actress, or author, celebrity, musician, mad scientist perhaps… I don’t care who, just think of someone who you’ve always wanted to say, “Thank you.” to in person because that’s just how much of an influence they’ve had on you and you want them to know.  Then one day, you’re offered that one chance.  That’s kinda what this is like.  An opportunity to do something you’ll never forget for the rest of your life.

Besides, all the money is going towards a worthy cause.  I’ll get to honestly say that I met my favorite musician of all time (one of just a small handful of life long goals/dreams I have) and contribute towards saving a human life in the process.  And I’ll be proud about it for the rest of my life.  I imagine myself decades from now thinking back on the life I lived and appreciate such an experience more so than, say, the experience I’d probably get from spending that kind of money towards something completely material, like an expensive HDTV.  I couldn’t imagine myself retired years from now telling my grandkids about the day I bought a new HDTV and expect them to marvel at my totally boring story.

For me, the things that matter in life aren’t things (stuff) at all.  The things that matter in life are experiences, events, people, emotions, passion, romance,  ideas, adventures, thrills, challenges and also remembering that one of these days you’re gonna die.  Because if you do like most young people and tell yourself it’s too far away to bother thinking about it right now, you might start to procrastinate and regret not doing the things that would otherwise hold their value to you forever.

So, here’s to being ALIVE and happy to finally get to do something I’ve always wanted to do but never believed would ever occur.

Oh, one last thing.  THANKS DAD!  You’ve always been there if I needed a favor or help with about anything and that means the world to me.

In the words of Trent Reznor himself:

This is for something important. Eric De La Cruz is dying and needs a heart transplant. He keeps getting turned down for a transplant list because he’s on Nevada Medicaid, and there are no transplant centers in Nevada. We want to get involved and hopefully so do you, so we’re extending a hand. His sister Veronica (former Anchor and Internet Correspondent for CNN) has started a campaign to save his life.

Eric’s situation shines a bright light on a broken health care system, and his particular set of problems are being addressed on the political front, aiming for reform in addition to the need for immediate financial help to keep him alive TODAY. I think we can help with the latter.

Here’s what we’re offering – three options:

If you have a ticket to a NIN/JA show: if you donate $1,000 to this cause, we’ll invite you to come hang out with us before the NIN/JA show of your choice. You and a guest can watch soundcheck, eat dinner backstage with us, take pics / get autographs and watch the show from the side of the stage if you’d like.

If you donate $300, you and a friend can join us for soundcheck and a handshaking / hug session before doors open at the NIN/JA show of your choice.

If you do NOT have a ticket to a NIN/JA show: if you donate $1,200 to this cause, we’ll invite you to come hang out with us before the NIN/JA show of your choice and provide 2 tickets (best available). You and a guest can watch soundcheck, eat dinner backstage with us, take pics / get autographs and watch the show from the side of the stage if you’d like.

100% of the money collected from this will go directly to Eric’s fund.

I hope you’ll consider helping out with this.

Sincerely, Trent Reznor

Go here for more info. If I’m lucky and can find the money, I’ll get to meet my all time favorite musician AND help save a life.