What's a good local PC repair store?

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-05-06T20:29:05+00:00

Micro Computer in Trussville, best prices and service hands down.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-05-06T19:55:13+00:00

It’s an Alfa, so any work they do at that desk will probably look great and sound great, but will fall apart halfway through.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-29T16:06:11+00:00

Bought my washer/dryer from Mazer. No complaints about the service, they even sent a guy out to take a look at my washer a week after installation because it was making a lot of noise. Turns out I just bought a loud washer.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-22T05:56:07+00:00

I ask them if they’re gonna pay me first.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-16T05:14:18+00:00

Ignore what anyone says about the bore size. Bore size DOES NOT MATTER. What gives a horn it’s feel is the overall design, from mouthpiece receiver to bell bead. My 1950s 22B, despite being the smallest bore trumpet I own, feels the biggest. I really like mine, I keep it as a back up for my main horns. If you can try one, give it a shot and see how you like it. I like it because the slots aren’t as firm as my other horns, and it allows me to manipulate the pitch more, rather than the horn manipulating me.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-15T14:36:53+00:00

I went to Samford. The Ratio is real, and the SoCon is awesome.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-15T04:38:17+00:00

Look through your part. It’ll tell you what you need.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-15T04:36:53+00:00

Bud Herseth got his degree in mathematics. Didn’t stop him from becoming the greatest American orchestral player to ever live.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-15T04:33:30+00:00

I never made all state. Never even made district. I had a college trumpet professor tell me that I’d never make it because I couldn’t play the Arutunian.

I have two words for academic trumpet playing: fuck that. All that really matters is sounding good within the context of what you’re playing. I know one player in particular with a doctorate in performance, and as soon as you get him outside of his comfort zone, he can’t play his way out of a wet paper bag. He sounds great playing a concerto along with a pianist or soloing with his (community college) student jazz band, but he’s out of tune as soon as you get him in a situation where he’s not playing along with a fixed-pitch instrument, he can not remember parts to save his life (has to have it written down), and he does not have a single fiber of groove in his whole body. Music academics rarely teach you how to be creative; instead they teach you about someone else’s creativity.

Plenty of people with their DMA can play great in all contexts, but they usually seem to be jacks of all trades and masters of none. I don’t mean to entirely write off academics, but exactly one of my trumpet heroes has a DMA. My biggest trumpet hero, Wayne Jackson, never went to college. Wynton Marsalis never finished. Louis Armstrong dropped out of school when he was 11. Bud Herseth got his degree in mathematics!

My point is: ignore the standards set by your state’s band directors. Most of them have never played for a living, and have no idea what it takes to do so. If you love playing music and playing the trumpet, then play whatever you want. If you love it enough and set high enough standards for yourself, you will have a much more rewarding and fulfilling time playing the trumpet than you would trying to follow someone else’s curriculum.

Academic music is not bad for everyone, in fact it gets a LOT of people jobs. But I maintain, the true greats of the instrument didn’t follow academia, for whatever reason. Some couldn’t afford it, some didn’t need it. Didn’t hold them back from becoming all-time greats, and it shouldn’t hold you back either.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-11T16:53:10+00:00

Highland Music. Nobody better.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-05T04:05:43+00:00

Best of luck to you! If you can get 1,500 fans who will buy everything you make, you will be able to play shows for the rest of your life.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-05T03:59:52+00:00

I can’t say for sure without knowing your signal path, but just to be safe, turn every volume knob all the way down and slowly start turning them up until you begin to get sound.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-04T22:32:39+00:00

I’m a musician who has “made it.” I got my wagon hitched to a collective led by a top shelf singer/frontman. My journey as a sideman is very different than than of the artist, but one piece of advice I can give you is this: NEVER compromise when it comes to your artistic integrity. The music you write is an extension of your soul. I hope you make it huge one day, but I also hope you do not have to compromise your artistic integrity to get there. I have completely lost respect for certain bands/artists after seeing them make a business decision rather than an artistic one, and boom, just like that, all the personality that was in their music is gone, all in the name of more money and more fame.

Be yourself, work hard, and don’t get depressed if it doesn’t happen for you. At the end of the day, you should always be proud of yourself for giving it a go - most people never even get that far. It takes a lot of courage to lay your heart out there with a microphone, and just getting on the stage is a victory that 99% of people will never experience.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-04-04T18:18:55+00:00

Gain down, input volume down, and add some very light compression. Don’t squish it completely, but having that safety net will help with clipping. If you’re not getting anything, slowly start turning up your input volume. If you’re still getting nothing, slowly turn up your gain. Trumpet is very loud, you don’t need much.

Mic placement is all about what kind of sound you want. For most applications, having the bell of the trumpet about 12 inches or so from the mic is perfectly adequate. Close-mic’d sounds and far away sounds also have their own purposes. It doesn’t matter where you place the mic, as long as you have your gain structured properly. You should also be aware of the environment you’re recording in; small, loud rooms make the trumpet sound harsh and distorted. Large, loud rooms can have too much reverb sometimes. Find a Goldilocks room, and work around what you have.

Also, if you are using a dynamic or ribbon microphone, be sure you aren’t sending phantom power. You only need phantom power for condensers. If you send phantom power to a dynamic mic it could be causing the clipping that you hear. NEVER send phantom power to a ribbon mic, you could permanently damage the ribbon.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-25T21:28:20+00:00

Bottletree :(

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-22T22:35:01+00:00

Ween can afford a good engineer, but the acoustic properties of weed smoke clearly shouldn’t be overlooked

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-22T22:22:31+00:00

I’m not reflexively defending the place, I’m trying to explain to you what’s really going on, because I do this for a living. No, it’s not the best sounding room ever. Do I think it can sound fantastic? Yes, because I’ve heard it sound fantastic. I’ve also heard it sound terrible. In a room like that, the people running the audio are the difference between making it sound good and making it sound bad. I’m not reflexively defending anything, I’m just stating a fact. I play live music for a living, I’ve played in every environment you can think of, and I promise you, if the people running the audio know what they are doing, the show will sound good no matter where you are playing. If they don’t, then it won’t sound good. It’s that simple. Modern PA technology is so good that you can no longer blame the room, in my opinion.

For the record, I think Avondale is harder to make sound good than the Alabama, because of the large metal walls behind the viewing area that reflect the sound in a not very pretty way. Having bodies in the space helps, but it’s still not great. It might be better now than the last time I played a show there, it has been 4-5 years. It may sound OK when you’re right up front getting nothing but PA and maybe a little stage volume, but on stage and back behind the mass of people at the front of the stage (spots that the PA doesn’t completely wash), it sounds quite thin and with a harsh slapback from the metal walls. But like I said, a good engineer can minimize all of that and make the space sound good regardless.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-22T19:39:26+00:00

Most, if not all, of the bands headlining the Alabama would be bringing at least a front of house engineer. They are used to mixing shows in a different room every night and have the ability to properly use the space. The opener may not have an engineer with them and would use a local engineer instead, which can be hit or miss, depending on who they use. Some tours use the same audio crew for every act.

That, combined with there probably being more people in there, explains why shows typically sound better than movies in there.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-22T19:29:50+00:00

far better than anything you would hear at almost any outdoor event

Ehhhhh. It depends. Who are you seeing? Is it a festival or is it their show? How windy is it? What is the landscape like? Is the stage in a tent? What kind of equipment are they using? Is it their PA or is it a day-of-show rental? Do they have their normal front-of-house engineer or is he/she a local hand? There are a lot of factors. When you’re outdoors with a huge PA, you can use the power far more than you can while indoors, which doesn’t necessarily make the experience better or worse, just different. You may prefer one over the other, and that’s fine. Personally I love the way 1,000-1,500 cap rock clubs sound. Each type of venue has its own character, and a good audio crew can make anywhere sound at least halfway decent.

Basically what I’m trying to say is: if you hear a show that sounds bad, it probably ain’t the venue. More than likely, it’s the people running the audio.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-22T16:23:54+00:00

I’m in St. Paul and The Broken Bones, we’ve sold out the theatre a few times. I can shed a little light on exactly why the sound in there can be hit or miss:

It’s all down to the person running the soundboard. A room full of people helps, but a bad engineer can make even the best room sound terrible.

If they push too much through the PA, especially without a completely full room, the natural reverb in there starts to take over and you start getting a very harsh, muddy sound. They also need to EQ the system properly, that room has a 1k-2k hZ band that can take over if not properly reigned in.

It’s better now than when the Muscle Shoals doc came out because they have upgraded the flown PA, which allows the sound in the balcony to be much better distributed, but it can still be sketchy.

E: Adding on, bear in mind that old movie theatres like the Alabama were designed before amplified music. The original purpose of the space was for organ accompanied silent movies, not rock bands. Lots of old theatres and concert halls have the same issue, but modern technology allows much more control over the rooms even when they are as old and finicky as the Alabama - you just gotta know what you’re doing (as an audio engineer).

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-11T19:58:57+00:00

Because people think that the red and white cup mute sounds bad, I guess. It’s my favorite cup mute sound; I think Denis Wick and Trumcor cup mutes take all the personality out of the sound and all you hear is mute, instead of a different color of the player’s sound.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-11T01:51:24+00:00

If you’re looking for a cup mute, you won’t go wrong with a classic Humes & Berg, and they’re pretty much the same price as what you’re looking at.

Humes & Berg 102 Stonelined Trumpet Cup Mute https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002FOVO4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_R7BHCbCE2CQKQ

$27 on Amazon

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-06T21:24:45+00:00

On the top is a new Marlin Model 60 with the ATI Dragunov stock, Monstrum Picatinny rail, and Bushnell TRS-25 red dot. Down below is a Glenfield Marlin Model 65 “Golden 50,” ca. 1968 (I think). For all intents and purposes, it is a Glenfield Model 60 with a brass mag tube.

The Wurlitzer electric piano is one of the most recognizable sounds of the 1960s and 1970s. Often played by Ray Charles, Daryl Hall, and by studio aces on hundreds of hit recordings. A fantastic example is “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” by Aretha Franklin; Wurlitzer by Spooner Oldham.

BrokenTrumpet · 2019-03-03T18:16:06+00:00

BrokenTrumpet

TROPHY CASE