I was so put off by the failed Xmas show that I stayed up past midnight programming. This was a difficult set of code that changes the display of a drum machine from a number to a song title. (I’ve been meaning to get around to it for months when the flop gig of y’day spurred me on. I didn’t say total flop, for there was one even worse show: Schneider Park.) This drum machine will be built into my bass, along with a preamp and a few surprise goodies in case some future guitarist tries to pull rank.I know all musicians, including myself, have egos. My gripe is with those egos that are counterproductive. I will never say my ego is “good”, but I’ve never had other musicians quit on stage, call me names, or threaten me, that’s for sure. And I don’t have to extend hollow promises to get them to show up. On the other hand, my imperfect ego means I care not for those left behind by change, for they are lazy, uneducated, or pig-headed if not all three. It takes a disturbance in routine like y’day to get me back in the fast lane. Read later for my discoveries today.
That disastrous gig makes me wonder how long before some people admit it was their personal failure, not the bar’s fault, or because “nobody showed up”. The gig was a fiasco, big time, purely because of their inferior choice in music, a deep and incurable pathological malfunction in this field.
The bar was the same bar right on the shore, and hundreds of people strolled past in the half-hour that I was present, so no excuses are going to work this time. Only those who fear the truth can deny it now. If you don’t like playing (always taking a break) and you can’t draw a crowd (sitting down because nobody is there), time to take inventory. Pssst. Nobody is there because you are sitting down. What do you think the bar is paying you for? Your winning smile?
In a turn of situation in the past months, I’ve had other musicians call me up for advice on how to do what I do. By “situation”, I mean musicians who once scorned my solo bass act. Musicians who are now finally concluding to perform in this town, they may have to do the same (and were thus talking when they should have been listening). Since they would necessarily be using analog equipment, they have “no idea how solo their careers are going to be”. We have nothing to fear from copycat-ism. My show requires brains. A lot of brains.
There is one representative musician who stands out, a guitarist. He was once strident over “live” music not containing recorded tracks. He just spent nearly two years failing to get his “live” band together and finally called me up for advice on DVD players. Seems he found out DVDs don’t come with instructions how I use them and it is not like anybody who works at BrandSmart has a clue in the first place. My show begins with a strict format for downloading certain MP3s at 89 decibels, not by popping a disk into the player and strumming along. Fat chance they can grasp that.
That musician is a good example of blatant disrespect for advanced knowledge. He could not understand why I didn’t use a $30 CD player on stage instead of my $180 setup. Giving me advice, he says, “All you have to do is look up the tune on your list, find the number, and go to that number in your CD player.” Okay, dude. Just you try finding an un-backlit number from a soggy list on a dark stage. No chance he’ll learn that lesson even the hard way since he’ll never make it to a stage.
Okay, here is the tech part. Another few hours of research and I’m concluding that there really is only one real type of Karaoke track. It is MP3+G, meaning an MP3 with a graphics track attached. The CDG seems to be an MP3+G converted so it can be read by most commercial Karaoke equipment. The MP3+G (or mp3+g) is probably uneditable, but now I know there has to be a common track to coordinate the music and lyrics. And it seems both formats use the RW tracks off a CD. Once I find that, I can edit it. This is precisely the information the equipment manufacturers don’t want us to know.
The manufacturers should be content that 99% of the public have no inkling of how to use that knowledge. So, since I had to re-invent the wheel without any help, they can expect the same in return. It is not like they are losing because I would never buy their overpriced disks even if the quality was guaranteed. Have you ever tried to return something you bought on-line from those bastards? Two months later they are still insisting on your unlisted phone number “for their files” before they’ll give you your money back. Anyway, I’m getting closer than ever to producing customized Karaoke disks that are original enough to be copyrighted. Barely enough.
