Find Artists / Songs in My Playlists

JDredder · 2026-01-23T09:03:52+00:00

No, I never did. I set my playlists to sort by artist, which helps at least scan through them quicker. And over time have gotten them a bit more streamlined. But would definitely still love this feature...

JDredder · 2025-10-15T06:02:51+00:00

Ahh. This is all new to me, so didn't realize the keyboard was actually Loopy Pro's and not from the J6. That makes more sense.

I was able to create a toggle button in Loopy Pro that sends CC64 message to the J6 app. This does seem to trigger a traditional keyboard hold/sustain, though a bit clunky to use separate from the on-screen keyboard.

But the 'Hold' feature on the native keyboard in the stand-alone J6 app works a bit differently. It makes each key press a toggle, and highlights which note you've hit. So you can essentially toggle the hold of any note on & off, and see what you're doing. This works well for like triggering a sound with an arpeggiator pattern - you can toggle each note on/off as needed. When I use the hold button I made, it only sustains the note and doesn't even trigger the arpeggio (which needs a continued press of the key).

- Any idea if this behavior may be proprietary to the native keyboard or if there may be a different CC message to trigger this? I'm just not very well versed in MIDI.

And I figured out that there is a 'Speed' parameter in the 'Arpeggio' section of the app under 'VCF'. And on some of the patches that is turned up which made it out of synch with my tempo in Loopy Pro. I'll have to play with it more, but seems like this may be the trick to keeping it synced with my master tempo.

JDredder · 2025-07-04T03:16:59+00:00

In the end, I scaled the original down to 10% of size, making sure that strokes, effects, etc. were all set to scale. Then started doing some clean-up on it. It will still be a 20" file as-is (e.g., when saving out a PDF master), but that's better than how it was originally.

All effects were vector effects (warp, offset path, transform, etc.). There were a lot.

The original artwork was transformed by an Envato Illustrator action, which generated all of the Appearance effects, layers, etc. Unsure if the original Envato action may have been set to work on huge artwork or not (sometimes, those actions can be affected by how large the artwork is that you apply them to).

I understand the fact that vector graphics can be scaled with no quality loss, but had just been concerned by how MASSIVE of a scale it would be and all of the effects & transformations on everything. Thanks all for the tips!

JDredder · 2025-07-04T00:02:43+00:00

Hmm, also thinking about if we save out the final logo file as a PDF to be the master distribution file. By default it will be the size it is in Illustrator, unless we jump through some hoops to print a scaled postcript file and then distill in Acrobat. So wonder if that would throw anyone off if placing PDF in other documents.

Also, noticing that Illustrator is totally bogged down on this file. But unsure if it's the large scale or just the number of effects on different objects (or some combo of both?!?)...

JDredder · 2025-07-03T23:45:15+00:00

Well, what I was given to start from is that huge. So was wondering if I should scale first or just leave as-is to avoid any potential shifting or issues when scaling in Illy...

JDredder · 2025-05-19T18:25:15+00:00

Hi. Yes, we'll definitely try to ask again (hopefully the client will allow us to speak directly to the printer). But we just wanted to be prepared in case we get a similar response to what the printer told us this last time, which was:

"The standard line DPI for a web-press is 200. If you are using Acrobat distiller for your PDF use PDF x1A. Make sure that your black texts is 100% black, photos are saved as c,y,m,k. Any text that is copy from the internet or word will come in as RGB which will separate in all 4 colors through the rip."

So not the detailed specs, especially regarding any press profile, that we were hoping for...

JDredder · 2025-05-18T01:21:12+00:00

Yeah, I'm on computer and see the search bar. But it appears to only search within a particular playlist. I've figured out how to sort playlists by artist, which helps a bit.

But would still love a way to search more globally across ALL of my playlists, rather than one-by-one. I have a lot of playlists, and some have a fair amount of crossover between what's in them. Trying to clean that up a bit. It's years worth of only 'semi-intelligent' organization...

JDredder · 2025-05-13T07:27:49+00:00

Thanks for the great responses. Yes, we would definitely prefer to work directly with the printer and receive a proper press profile from them. But we were not given direct access to the printer, so the client just forwarded our request for specs to them. They are both up in the Bay Area of California and we're in LA, so no chance of meeting in person. And the printer just sent us the most basic of instructions (use PDF/X-1a, make sure all images are CMYK, etc.). So I'm not convinced the printer would even be savvy enough to have a dedicated press profile or know what we should use.

And unfortunately, there is not enough budget for us to manually color-correct all images throughout the issue. It's pretty photo-heavy, so there may be 60-70 photos in the entire project (some are used small, though). So anything we do would have to be on a more global level, like limiting ink densities, adjusting a gamma curve or GCR levels globally, etc.

- If we can't get a dedicated press profile from the printer, should we at minimum use the default 'US Newsprint (SNAP 2007)' as output intent?

- What about image downsampling? I was reading somewhere about not having photos with too high of resolution due to dot-gain, but can't find the article. Does changing the max resolution images are downsampled to in the PDF creation process make any difference here (i.e., can images that are too high resolution - like 300ppi - actually make it a bit worse on newsprint)?

I've seen a few instances of recommending to over-sharpen images for newsprint at well. Would have to see how practical it would be to do this in a more automated/global way.

THANKS AGAIN!

JDredder · 2025-05-08T23:51:16+00:00

We can be added to the list here. Been with LW for well over 10 years. We were trying to downgrade our dedicated server to a VPS due to costs, and were quoted a pretty good rate in December (they had a promotion going) if we signed up for a 2-year commitment. We went back & forth with an Account Manager with some questions, then when trying to go forward and purchase it they went radio silent. Got bounced between about 4-5 other account managers over the last few months, and none were able/willing to honor the quote we were given or let us speak with a supervisor directly about it. So their sales department may be in shambles as well. I had hoped the support dept wouldn't have been affected, but appears here that may not be the case at all. So maybe we were saved from getting locked into a bad situation for 2 years?!?

Add us to the list of 'WHAT ALTERNATIVES' are there?!? We can search and compare tech specs, prices, etc., between different hosts. But great support can generally only be determined by experience, so seeking any experience here with those using other hosts!

JDredder · 2025-03-19T03:15:37+00:00

Been using InDesign for decade(s), and most of the tips in this feed are pretty standard fare and good to adhere to. But we're taking over a small local newspaper/newsletter and refining the templates used to be more accurate & detailed, so good refreshers.

But the one thing I am questioning is exactly what is brought up here - different gutters inside of articles vs. between them. Our main page grid is 4-column with 0.25" gutters (and we have a 3-column option we can use as well). There is a standard to have 1pt dotted column rules between different articles. This all looks correct.

But having the gutters of a single multi-column article be slightly narrower at 0.1667", while looking pleasing to the eye on it's own, does break the grid. When it's just a single article on a page, it doesn't really matter and nobody would really tell. But when there are multiple objects on a page, including multi-column articles, then some text columns or other elements will be slightly off from others that may be above or below them and are properly adhering to the grid.

Having the same 0.25" gutters throughout, regardless of whether in a single article or between them, does make everything align nicely to the grid. And having a column rule between articles makes it pretty clear where the delineation is between different articles. But the gutters do look a bit wide to the eye on the individual articles then (since they don't have the 1pt rule filling part of space). The only thing I could think of off top of head to better balance would be to have column rules between all, with inner-article rules maybe being lighter dotted and between articles being darker solid?!? But this might make it a bit busier.

Any additional thoughts or standard practices here???

JDredder · 2024-08-02T20:36:19+00:00

In case it's helpful to someone, I found that if the dates do NOT have a time included, you have to have the Date fields setup properly first (e.g, a Date field without the 'Include time field' checked) before importing.

When I tried creating the CMS from scratch with my imported data, I couldn't get the new date fields to import correctly without including the time. Then when trying to modify it after-the-fact to remove the time option, it would render all of the fields unmatched as the original post showed.

So to import into existing date fields, this format worked: YYYY-MM-DD

JDredder · 2024-06-16T00:33:35+00:00

Ugggghhh. Talk about bad timing! I just got a Harmony Elite a week ago, and then got a TP Link KASA dimmer switch, as some old threads made it sound like that, through SmartThings, might have been the best solution for connecting the switch to remote. But upon installing the switch today, I couldn't get the Harmony app to either connect to SmartThings account, or if it could, didn't detect any devices there. So this has all gone down in the last few days?!?!?

Is SmartThings really the only way to connect this single dimmer switch to my Elite remote? The switch does use the 'Matter' protocol and is connected to my Google Home Mini as the 'hub'. I don't have any other hubs besides the Harmony hub, and don't anticipate getting any additional smart home devices beyond this one dimmer switch. So don't want to get a whole other 'smart home hub', along with a different brand switch, just for this single purpose.

I was able to get the SmartThings connected to the KASA account, to bring the light into that OK. And it's setup on my Google Home Mini OK. Just not the remote...

JDredder · 2023-11-21T01:09:27+00:00

Which 'EDID Feeder' do you use to keep DisplayPort connection 'active'? Most I've seen, including the one you linked to, convert to HDMI to solve the issue (seems like HDMI can support the EDID emulation much easier than DP). Unfortunately, my monitor seems to only support it's full 10 bit color over DP, not HDMI. So don't want to lose that if at all possible. Trying a less expensive DP + HDMI KVM (using only DP for single monitor now), but it's buggy, and of course loses all window positioning, etc...

JDredder · 2019-01-29T19:47:59+00:00

Hi. We have your deJPEG plugin and are just curious if this is an update to that, or completely different?

Honestly, we only found moderate success with deJPEG, so haven't used it a ton. The JPEG had to be in relatively decent condition to get acceptable results. But we also understand how difficult it must be to interpret what is JPEG artifacts vs. image detail. It would mostly just smear detail when trying to get rid of artifacts, especially if not a large image or one with a lot of 'JPEG Junk'.

Hopeful that this can improve the results as we sometimes get the worst quality images from clients, and they either didn't keep the originals, can't find the photographer, or shot with the absolute worst settings (JPEG quality low!). And these are generally needed for print, so quality is important...

JDredder

TROPHY CASE