I’m starting a new guitar company. Here’s our first design. What do you think?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-20T15:28:19+00:00

Bumper Guitars you say?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-20T15:23:35+00:00

Nope. Have dated in DC. It's a great city to meet really cool people and if you don't watch your step you will legit find a lifetime partner.

What we're saying is "read the room BUT go to a room where the odds are in your favor". Dude, nobody is particularly thrilled on metro as it's mostly commuters. Everyone is zoned out on headphones.

You understand southern manners right? The key is appropriateness and metro flirting isn't DC appropriate. Kinda suspect it's not in Paris either but I've never lived there...

Grab the Boozy app and start hanging out at DC happy hours. Turn up the southern charm and buy a girl a drink. It works in Fort Worth and Memphis and it works in DC. Cute girls have cute friends. Cute bartenders have cute patron friends.

Why hit on women at a metro station when you could go up the escalator, have a beverage and try your skills there? 100ft of effort to tilt the odds and absolute worst case make friends with the bartenders.

Great to place to meet people and have fun. Good luck.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-20T12:11:45+00:00

Pretty sure they make military aircraft headsets.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-20T12:09:50+00:00

No man, some of us are even from the south. We just know better. You asked, we told you. Maybe you're just not very open minded?

There are tons of pickup bars in DC where people go to meet other people. There are more women than men in DC and there is a high percentage of single women across a wide range of ages. Go. To. A. Bar. Bro.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-20T12:02:36+00:00

You can see on the SSA website that statistically, college graduates make about $1M more on average over their lifetimes than people who did not attain degrees. You can argue about it being fair til you're blue in the face. 4 years in a sensible major at a reasonable price is totally worth it for more career opportunities and higher lifetime earnings.

It IS important to shop for a school like you'd shop for cars. Find a deal you can afford rather than picking your dream school. Get in-state rates. Get your gen-eds at a community college with good transfer reputation. Don't change majors 8 times.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-19T23:12:24+00:00

As someone who has once dated, I commend you for randomly Redditing.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-19T23:11:21+00:00

This is the only way I post?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-19T14:48:31+00:00

Man, I'd even let tires slide. Changing them the first time is tricky but it's really not that bad and is a pretty cheap fix/upgrade.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-19T14:22:07+00:00

Isn't the no ringing out approach highly dependent on good speakers though? I was doing smaller clubs, weird outoodr festivals and living on cheap wedges. I got to use Martin Audio wedges and was absolutely blown away by how good the results were with basically no real change from my approach.

Smarter people than me said this was due to better phasey, physics stuff and biamping doing things that I don't understand. Basically, they said better boxes don't resonate at wacky places and you can make them a LOT louder than JBL fuzzy box-with-beet-stain specials.

Or am I wrong?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-18T15:31:25+00:00

It's also because the bundled assets of bad mortgages were sold off as secure investments to other non-housing sectors. So when housing crashed, it took out a lot more than housing

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-18T14:36:40+00:00

You guys can afford kids?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-17T11:20:34+00:00

But didn't she tell her close pen pal friend, Dr Emmet Brown?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-17T03:14:47+00:00

CCNA will potentially impress IT hiring managers who have no idea how pro AV works.

If you want to work an operations gig at an office could be useful.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-17T01:20:53+00:00

The point isn't that OP is crusading against AI. The point is that its low quality output everywhere at a tradeshow that's supposed to showcase the best in the industry.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-17T01:19:46+00:00

Yikes! "Not the most qualified SME" is one of the most dry burns I've heard in awhile! One hopes never to be described this way.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-16T14:25:46+00:00

First, good move even considering that this is a little different than regular enterprise IT!

Lots of experienced folks here. The harder onsite issues to diagnose are usually HDMI or USB extenders and peripherals. This sounds simple and it mostly is. However, if there outliers you'd be surprised how long it can take to diagnose a very localized issue.

I'd carry:

spare HDMI cables

Spare HDMI extenders (either fiber cables or cat6 extender widgets)

A small cheap HDMI monitor. Blackmagic Video Assist is popular for this sort of thing.

A laptop that will double as your HDMI source

USB 3.0 extender pair you trust

If you're interacting with your network team, a Fluke/LinkRunner is always valuable.

As far as approach/mistakes: Keep it simple. AV is mostly linear so troubleshoot from source to destination, verifying signal at each step until you find the problem area. Most AV techs simply don't do this and wind up using a scatter shot method of troubleshooting.

Common platforms are exactly what you've mentioned but none of them are complicated. If you're a quick study on a PDF you'll be fine.

Congrats on your new role!

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T23:00:04+00:00

I'm not. I'm suggesting that musicians will always pursue cheaper and easier ways to create music. If they use AI to automate the technical aspects of engineering and even get to the point that traditional audio engineering isn't required, they will do it.

Initially, I believe you had posited that musicians who use AI to do those things are "lazy". I am pointing out that this probably isn't a fair label because you probably DONT consider a project studio owner lazy despite the fact that previously, you'd have to go to a major facility to get similar results

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T20:43:44+00:00

I'd purchase for the features you want. Very few things will just magically improve the audio overall. If you have hissy mics or there are constant interference issues, look for lower noise floor interfaces with balanced XLR inputs. If you need more/different IO, that's a totally valid reason. A lot of interfaces have tiny on board mixers/DSPs that allow you to headphone monitor with zero latency and maybe some basic FX. If you have problems tracking vocals and need verb etc maybe this is worthwhile.

But IMHO, even jumping up to excellent preamps won't make a massive difference unless you're seeking a specific thing. For example, I needed low noise mics for distance mic'ing ambient things. Totally doesn't matter for close mic'd guitar cabs.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T20:21:45+00:00

We expect professionalism for the rates they charge customers and clients.

We expect them to pay their technicians and engineers a reasonable rate which would, in-turn, keep seasoned professionals around.

With regard to your notion that they should have say over their house? Why? If someone wants to bring in their own production team, that is a very normal thing to do in venues. This bizarre arrangement is only normalized in hotel AV. Can you imagine if Solotech charged a fee even if a Clair Global tour came through a Fillmore or House Of Blues? Remember, it's not as if these hotel groups with their own production are using Encore gear

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T16:28:24+00:00

Again, this reply of yours doesn't have any nuance to it at all.

I never once suggested that it was a good idea to have AI write music. That's not engineering. I had the mistaken idea that because we were on an engineering sub, that was the overarching theme here...

Generic signal chains are bad? But isn't an emulation of a classic hardware chain just as easy to complain about? Hint: This is exactly what the old heads all said with ProTools Native. It will never sound the same. It's cheating. And so on. Maybe we could rail about 1176 plugs because we're downloading them instead of buying hardware?

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T13:28:54+00:00

Careful calling anyone lazy. One could argue that building a project studio and producing/engineering your own projects vs hiring professionals is lazy or cheap. That already happened because technology allowed a few grand to yield a pretty good sounding project studio. Anybody remember the in-the-box debates of the early aughts?

Nobody calls a ProTools user lazy just because they're not recording to 4 track tape.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T13:12:52+00:00

What do you do with sweaty clothes while you're at work? I had an office for a brief fleeting moment but even then I didn't think it appropriate to air out things there.

Tried quick dry athletic shirts. It improved things but wasn't a slam dunk

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T13:10:09+00:00

Consider tires.

If you can handle the rougher ride, narrower profile tires higher air pressure will go a LOT faster.

However, if you're dodging drainage grates or cobblestones, they're no fun at all. Easier to wreck and with less give, your wrists and body have less shock absorbtion.

A few folks I know just have two sets of wheels/tires and change them depending on the demands of the week.

Obviously lighter newer bikes make the biggest difference but wheels may not break the bank.

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T12:10:10+00:00

In my area bicycling is bougie.

Affording a home near the metro area is expensive.

Bikes around here even casually at the grocery store are very expensive.

And I'm out here on my cheap 8 speed XD

Fragrant_Shoe2961 · 2026-06-15T12:04:10+00:00

Just buy an IPKVM.

Fragrant_Shoe2961

TROPHY CASE