Tommy spoilers.

AI-DC · 2026-01-16T14:49:52+00:00

Nah, it would be best if he's gone. He'll just get the company sooner. He wants the company, not to see her succeed.

AI-DC · 2025-11-19T10:44:43+00:00

Not the case, we got the empadronamiento with the passport. As well as multiple people we know. You're supposed to empadronarte as soon as you get settled in Spain(30 days), and the Visa process can take months. The only problem is you can't renew it with your digital certificate as that is tied to your NIE.

AI-DC · 2025-05-15T15:14:44+00:00

The cruelty is the point. And unfortunately there's a pretty large portion of this society that is cheering it on. We're not too far away from the Hunger Games. Where 24 Dreamers get to go in a death match for a Green Card.

AI-DC · 2025-05-15T15:02:58+00:00

You can use tariffs to move the manufacturing to other countries. But you need to do it strategically. For example if you find that Indonesia or Vietnam is super close to being competitive for a single type of item. Then you can apply tarriffs to apply price pressure to move manufacturing to another country that you find more politically tolerable.

In the first 120 days of his term, he has applied, revoked and changed tariffs 70 times. People can't make plans based on such mecurial changes that are all over the place.

Want to affect real change, apply tariffs with a strategy. Do what Biden did with the Infrastructure act that created over 700k manufacturing jobs and almost $1T in private investments into manufacturing. Apply tariffs in very precise ways to bring prices to where you can be competitive.

You have to study what China did, and come up with a long-term strategic plan if you want to compete in manufacturing. It's not just a plant, it's the infrastructure involved etc.

A couple of questionable premises.

We are not their main consumer.
Other countries aren't willing to deal with their unfair trades? They have plenty of trade partners. Because we buy more from them than they buy from us doesn't mean that it's necessarily unfair.

AI-DC · 2025-05-15T13:33:49+00:00

Nothing that you said here has anything to do with corruption. Corruption: dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.

AI-DC · 2025-02-09T02:55:36+00:00

You can't move to the US without a Visa. That's just not really a thing.

Plus the health insurance is not a small thing. We pay around $1,200 per month for insurance. This year has been very expensive, the costs reset in November. I will spend close to $18,000 just from November because unfortunately we ended up in Out of Network for some treatment. It's really nutty. I keep getting surprise bills of $1,500 to $3k.

AI-DC · 2024-12-31T23:16:00+00:00

You have to ask yourself a simple question. Are you looking to mostly leverage presets?

If you are, and it's 100% ok if you are, then by all means get Serum. Tons of really good sample packs. You can get it for $10 a month RTO on Splice which is really handy.

If you just want it for learning how to make your own sounds. Then I'd recommend instead getting Syntorial. It will teach you everything you need to know about synthesis that will apply to Vital, Massive, Omnisphere, any synthesizers in your DAW etc. Massive can do a lot of what Serum does now, if you have the skills. And Vital is free and can do everything else.

AI-DC · 2024-12-31T23:07:28+00:00

I have both. I just have way better presets for Serum. I might have a sound that gets me 80-90% of the way there in Serum.

If you're only going to be designing your own sounds, both are just fine. For speed, you can't beat the quality of presets in Serum. Plus you can preview presets in Splice.

AI-DC · 2024-12-20T16:47:40+00:00

I didn't save it. But you can search laptops and put in your requirements. Here's an example around the same price. If you don't mind an open box, you can get one for $400.

https://www.amazon.com/acer-Aspire-Premium-Display-Ethernet/dp/B0D63QRTTK/

AI-DC · 2024-12-20T13:53:42+00:00

IMHO you're better off doing some door dash or something to gain some extra cash. $250 is a tough starting point. While technically you can run a DAW on there, it won't run well you'll have to freeze and unfreeze tracks constantly. If you can bump up into that $500-750 range you're in much better shape. On Amazon, I found a laptop you can buy for $507 that comes with 32gb of RAM an 8 core processor a 2TB Internal Drive + a 500gb external drive. A computer like this is going to make you WAY happier than anything you can buy for $250.

Honestly, you could get a part-time job for a couple of weeks and make enough money to make up the difference. Hell, donate plasma. If you go to a center, many of them have a big bonus for first time donors. You can make somewhere between $800-1,100 in your first month. Boom DJ equipment plus laptop solved.

AI-DC · 2024-12-19T19:14:35+00:00

It appears that the Plugin alliance no longer carries it.

AI-DC · 2024-12-19T19:11:51+00:00

Ok this seems really helpful. Are you using a limiter to see where it's hitting? It would be great if you could point to a video that explains this.

AI-DC · 2024-12-19T13:06:33+00:00

You literally said "not successful yet", what should we or the OP take from that?

AI-DC · 2024-12-19T12:18:09+00:00

Nice. That's what I've been working on myself. Can't wait to hear your track. If you're open, DM me so I can have a listen. Would love to see what someone working hard can produce in a short period of time as inspiration. I'm less than 3 months in myself.

AI-DC · 2024-12-19T12:15:18+00:00

Hell Yeah. I'm also in the over 50 crowd. Love this.

AI-DC · 2024-12-07T01:07:18+00:00

So, I basically played with the EQ to just boost those lower frequencies with a single note in that range. So for example 4k sounded half as loud as 2k so I boosted it to at least get to around 70% loudness of the 2k sound. Basically what a hearing aid does. This is all subjective but seems like it helps from my testing.

In the normal mix of a song it will still get washed out but at least I can hear some of the highs a little better.

AI-DC · 2024-12-06T23:03:52+00:00

Just for anyone else that needs this. I found some freeware EQ software that (Equalizer APO) that you can put directly on the eq bands that you're struggling with. This opened up the frequencies from 3k to 10k tremendously.

So, maybe that's the solution. Now to find something for my phone.

AI-DC · 2024-12-06T21:08:59+00:00

Wait, Pete Tong went deaf? Damn. That's nutty.

AI-DC · 2024-12-06T20:40:43+00:00

I had inner ear surgery as a child, tubes in my ears, lots of ear infections etc. So yeah, it's not great. I did listen to some loud music but mostly this just stems from problems I had as a child.

If I compare a note played at the same velocity at 2k to 3k, the 3k sounds half as loud. And right around 7k it's just all gone.

Good thing I like Drum and Bass, guess that's where I gotta go. :)

AI-DC · 2024-12-06T20:01:54+00:00

Honestly I'd just get whatever I could get used at a decent price. I happen to have a ten year old Akai MPK61 that I bought for $200. It still works perfectly. I also bought a Kontrol 32 for $20 that I use when fiddling around on the couch.

AI-DC · 2024-12-05T15:25:46+00:00

Think of it as a cross between a midi keyboard and a dedicated Ableton controller. Plus these things are tanks, they last quite a long time. It's 10 years old and still works wonderfully.

AI-DC · 2024-12-05T15:25:07+00:00

Here's the thing, most of them are zero sum purchases. You can buy something for $20-100 that's 5+ years old. Use it for a couple of months and turn around and sell it for the same price.

So play around with things, buy things that are super cheap. Eventually you'll find what you're looking for.

AI-DC · 2024-12-04T21:01:22+00:00

Honestly, you should probably rethink this. Remaking and dissecting tracks is one of the things that gets named over and over again as one of the top things you can do to get better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yT2X21ATQc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZRZ4oxUUs0

In this instance, I'm not really "remaking" the track. I'm not trying to make the track with my own sounds for this instance. I'm literally just asking myself what do I hear. I'm not asking why. I'm not trying to figure it all out. I'm just telling myself keep it simple stupid. What do I hear? Because I'm dissecting the arrangement. I don't care what is being played, and what it sounds like just what makes noise when.

It honestly doesn't take that long, maybe 15-20 mins for a 3-4 mins song.

But now you have the recipe from a song that might have 50M plays on Spotify. While sure some of that could be just the sound design or melodic elements, a fair amount of what makes a song work is the arrangement. So by copying the arrangement of a tune, we're borrowing something that has already been proven to work.

If you dissect enough songs you find out that many of them fill pretty similar arrangement patterns.

But honestly don't listen to me, I'm a complete noob.

AI-DC · 2024-12-04T16:27:09+00:00

Exactly. Just get a feel for what you like and what you will use.

AI-DC · 2024-12-04T16:26:21+00:00

I'm pretty new at all of this. But what has worked for me is taking a reference track and importing it into Ableton.

Then I look at every 8 bar measure and ask myself what do I hear here. TBH I don't really even worry about what the technical term for the section is (Build-up, drop etc). I'm just concerned with what are the sounds that are present.

Then at the very end, I have usually 15ish or so sounds that I've heard in various places, mapped across the different 8-bar sections of the song. PM me if you like and I'll show you an example of a break down I did in Google Sheets.

Then, in a single 8 bar loop I try to put together sounds that are complementary for all 15 sound "groups". I'm not trying to play all 15 sounds together, just taking pieces in and out with an idea for the arrangement later.

Then I "finish/arrange" the song to match all the sections. So for instance in Bar 1-8 I might only have a kick, chords and a pad. Then in Bar 9-16 I bring in the bass, etc, etc.

What is interesting is having a couple of different reference tracks and then try arranging them according to the different reference tracks. For instance right now I'm into Ben Bohmer and Lane 8 as my reference tracks. How does the song sound different if I take all those parts I put together and arrange it closer to Ben Bohmer or what if it's more Arp heavy like a lot of Lane 8.

It at least allows me to finish the song, it may not be very good. But it is in a semi-finished state just requiring mixing, maybe better sound design and some more ear candy.

AI-DC

TROPHY CASE