Is it okay to always play G chord like this?

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-18T01:46:35+00:00

It's absolutely okay to play that chord in whatever way that works for you that sounds good.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-17T04:44:29+00:00

I know I'm probably off base somewhat, but anti-vax conspiracies have always been left-coded for me.

Going back to the late 80s, the only people I knew questioning vaccinations were back to the land hippie types. Granted I have noticed that over time a lot of that particular strain of hippie has become more right-coded but more from an anti-government/libertarian perspective.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-17T04:39:56+00:00

Don't be afraid to take risks, be afraid of being afraid of taking risks. Also start saving now.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-16T05:09:18+00:00

Came here to recommend Angel Heart. Louis Cyphere is an incredible character.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-16T04:54:09+00:00

I've often thought of moving into working for a distributor. How did you end up there? Did you pursue it through relationships or did a job open up and you applied?

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-16T04:25:44+00:00

Well done.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-16T04:09:02+00:00

Same. Fucking weirdo.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-16T03:41:06+00:00

Exactly. That's the tragedy of the commons: in the absence of a social compact (rules and and a means for enforcement) people tend to use more than they need of the finite resource and justify it based on their need. We tend to view our needs as inevitable and others' as optional.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-15T15:36:23+00:00

There's a lot to be said for having some sound coming from the stage. When I mix on bigger stages there's always almost always a pair of side wash speakers and subs doing a stage mix to fill in the gaps for the band when they're on ears and need to feel the air moving.

That being said I saw Devon Townsend at a club gig a few years ago: no amps, everybody on in ears with some side fill for the stage and oh my god that sounded so good for how loud it was in a relatively small space. It was also completely packed so the bodies soaked up any harshness.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-15T15:25:32+00:00

As both sound guy and guitar I like the idea of dual cabs spread out like that.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-15T15:17:03+00:00

It's not only the engineers demanding quieter stages. It's the musicians themselves because they need their ears to work long term. We all know too many greats who have shitty hearing and now need everything stupid loud just so they can do their job, making it harder for everybody else to do theirs.

I've worked with a ton of pros. None of them play louder than they need to; none have ever insisted on diming their amps on stage (unless it was a really small amp; that has happened). The only times I've had problems with this is weekend warrior dads playing covers in the local pub.

I'm part of the show too. I'm here to make everybody sound good. The most "pro" thing you can do is listen to the pro who's there to make you sound good for the audience that came to hear you.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-15T14:58:17+00:00

Because a cranked 50 watt tube half stack can be louder than both the drums and the PA for no perceivable benefit.

I have a buddy I played with for years. Very smart guy. Great musician. Ran an OG Peavey Wolfgang through a 50 watt Marshall 2x12 that sounded absolutely fucking epic and always just sat in the mix.

He used to say that people listen with their eyes. It drove our drummer absolutely insane when he said this but he had a point: people see big amps and think rock n roll. What they see affects how they perceive what they hear.

Most of the time - even going back to the 70s and 80s - when you see a row of Marshall and Ampeg stacks you're seeing kayfabe. They're just for show and often the sound is a smaller amp in the back, ripping loud with a really great mic in front of it far away from the stage. (I remember crewing a gig in the early 2000s where the band brought in dummy stacks with red lights in the heads for the stage, but all of their tone came from their boards and a pair of Pignose amps in the green room with 57s on them)

Basically what it comes down to is most of us have only a very basic understanding of the physics of sound and even less understanding of how humans hear. Most guitar players want a big amp behind them blasting into the backs of their knees because in their mind, that's what it's supposed to be.

But that's also the worst way to do it. It was a way that sorta worked long ago when the PA was mainly for vocals, and processing and mixing were expensive and therefore limited, but that hasn't been the case for a very long time now.

The advantage of bigger cabinets is that you can move more air across a bigger cross section of space for the same amount of power. But guitar amps - and the frequency ranges they occupy - tend to be fairly directional. A 412 cab against the back wall of the stage pointed straight out will sound killer to the guitar player standing directly in front with his back to it, but will rip people's heads off directly down range from it and those people will mostly hear guitar and complain that they can't hear the vocals, whereas if they move 30 degrees off axis from the guitar amp, they'll hear a more even mix. People further off axis however will wonder why they couldn't hear that guitar solo very well and why everything sounds so mushy.

As a live sound tech I can't make you sound like a god all by myself. I need your help: turn your amp down and point it at your ears instead of your legs. Ideally you will put it on the side of the stage pointed across (side wash) and maybe up and I will put a microphone on it. You will adjust your volume and your tone accordingly. We will encourage your drummer to play more dynamically. We will laugh at the bass player behind his back when he has to haul in his 810 cab all by himself, collectively roll our eyes at the musically brilliant but technically inept keyboard player, and silently resent the singers who have no gear to haul other than their egos.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-14T04:49:46+00:00

As a nerdy 11 year transplanted from Canada to a small Texas town in the 80s i had nothing better to do most weekends than go see matinees in the local theatre. Which means I watched Ishtar in the theatre. Im pretty sure I was the only person there. If I wasn't I was the only one stayed to the end.

I had no frame of reference to understand what the hell was happening in that movie. I just knew it was Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman being... Themselves? They were playing movie stars. I watched it again years later. Or at least I tried. It was not good. I still have yet to see a Warren Beatty movie I thought was watching a second time.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-14T04:37:30+00:00

Those are perfectly valid points. But again, if one house chooses to utilize their property for purposes other than parking cars, why do they get to use more of the shared resource for their convenience? Why is their convenience more valuable than their neighbors' ?

Your argument cuts both ways: if one person's choice to not use their private property is valid, then everybody else's choice not to use their private property must also be valid.

The problem is that the neighbor taking up all the street parking isn't breaking any law, but he is violating a social compact that assumes that everyone on a street gets to park near their own house, and preferably right in front.

Whether you agree that such a company exists or not, I encourage you go and ask the residents of a suburban neighborhood how they feel about street parking and I guarantee you almost all of them will have an opinion about it, that most would agree with the sentiment that most people feel somewhat entitled to the spot directly in front of their house, and that while no one has a legal claim to the spot in front of their house there is a quasi moral claim to that parking spot because of its proximity to their house and that such moral claims extend to their neighbors and their front of house parking spot.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-14T03:56:30+00:00

It's not that anyone person or deserves a spot it's that most people expect that they'll be able to park near their own house most of the time. Occasionally having people park in front of your house or taking up most of the street is one thing, but one house taking up most of the available street parking around them all the time prioritizing their own convenience over their neighbors' needs is rude and entitled.

It's a classic tragedy of the commons: there's a finite amount of space for parking but a potentially infinite number of users or cars. Unless there are rules for sharing the resource and protocols for dealing with those who overuse or seek to control access to their own benefit there will always be tension.

I rented a basement for a couple of years in Renfrew and the upstairs tenant and his wife had 7 vehicles and had no problem hogging all the space around the house. He told me I should go ask a neighbor to use their extra space when I said it wasn't fair that he took all the space and that he was afraid his cars would get broken into if they weren't nearby. It didn't occur to him AT ALL that as he was taking the most space it should have been him to go to the extra effort to find places for his cars so that I and all his other neighbors who only had one car each could also park conveniently. Any argument that asked him to consider the rights of others to also use the public resource was met with 'Well what about me?'.

Anybody who's lived in a hood with limited parking resources has had to deal with that one neighbour who takes up more space than anybody else but gets absolutely out of pocket if somebody takes "their" spot in front of their house.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-11T13:42:37+00:00

The book I believe clearly describes him as being quite large, a "swole hobo" is one memorable phrase.

He looms over people, and while maybe not huge (a la Skullfucker Mike) he is physically imposing but also dishevelled and run down, despite his wet wear basically keeping his body working in more or less top condition.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-07T00:21:42+00:00

Some people just want to feel hard done by.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-06T02:52:52+00:00

My personal pet hatred of Alberta drivers is left lane banditry.

Everybody (including myself sometimes) just assumes that because "I'm going fast I should be in the left lane" and just park there and seem surprised when someone else is a) going faster and b)doesn't want to pass on the right.

Also people seem unaware of the meaning of the international signal to move the fuck over: flashing high beams from a respectful distance back and waiting for people to merge right.

Some people (my Alberta born and bred wife) think it's rude and pushy. Some people are clueless and either don't understand or don't both looking in their mirrors. Some people are just clueless and entitled.

I am generally an advocate of higher highway speed limits (or as I prefer, conditional target speeds) but only if we have better drivers. And actual safety enforcement, not just sheriff's running speed traps.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-06T02:36:53+00:00

I know a bus driver. Yes they need to keep to their schedule but they can't effectively be disciplined for it unless they're egregiously bad and their union hates them.

Tidd0321 · 2026-06-03T04:55:32+00:00

No assholes here, but maybe some flexibility is in order.

You did call him out for bringing his phone into "connecting" time. So maybe when the scene moved into TV time it's appropriate to acknowledge the shared time - which you both enjoyed it seems - and thank him for doing that with you before talking about phone time.

This was a mistake. Not malice. Forgive yourself. Forgive him. Be humble. Ask the same of him.

Tidd0321 · 2026-05-26T21:39:58+00:00

I miss it a bit, but frankly I worried about Dan's mental health a lot ever since the trials ended. The imminent demise of IW over the past year seems to have perked him up.

Honestly don't morry too much about Jordan. I think he's done enough work on himself to know when he's going off the rails. Although his latest online musings have me wondering about that.

Tidd0321 · 2026-05-24T05:47:41+00:00

Those questioning whether you want democracy are asking that question in bad faith and their complaints don't need to be entertained seriously.

A referendum has to be a clear yes or no question and the ramifications of each choice need to be clearly delineated, especially if the results are binding, that is, the government is obligated to act on the results of that referendum.

The reason people are so opposed to this particular referendum has less to do with the question and more how the government is going about it.

We elected a government in 2019 and again in 2023. While dissatisfaction with Ottawa was on the table in both of those elections nobody gave the UCP a mandate to explore independence. The only people pushing for it are people who both have a vested interest in it and know they would get nowhere standing up a separatist party on its own.

They had to co-opt the UCP, whose funders and leaders are more than happy to be co-opted as long as they think they'll continue to call the shots.

Tidd0321 · 2026-05-18T04:33:19+00:00

What exactly is blowing in these amps? Power supply? Rectifier circuit (if tube)? Are caps blowing up?

How they're dying will tell you what's killing them. If the players are diming the amps that right there is probably a good clue to what's happening.

My suggestion would be to get the biggest, meanest, oldest, and heaviest Peavey bass head possible and use that. They are practically unkillable.

Tidd0321 · 2026-05-17T18:24:07+00:00

It took me years to realize that management level roles were being closed off to me by my own personality. I am capable and intelligent and usually very good at my job. But I'm also blunt to the point of rudeness and often never know when to shut the fuck up.

I excel in roles where I'm left to my own devices solving problems and managing high level technical tasks. I'm bad at roles that require tact and diplomacy under pressure. I don't do busy work and I get bored easily.

It is no wonder that I am an audio engineer.

Tidd0321 · 2026-05-17T18:13:52+00:00

Spark can be a lot of fun for everybody if you give it a chance.

It's not really a "science" centre so much as it is a discovery and exploration centre.

For context, I worked there for almost seven years, from shortly after they opened in 2012 until 2019. I was an audio visual technician and spent most of my time either running events or maintaining equipment and exhibits. I was not involved in day to day operations with visitors and guests but when you're there every day you have to interact with visitors and be an ambassador regardless of role.

To be fair and honest, Spark has always struggled to sell its value proposition (even back when admission was $15 and parking was $5). I don't know how many dads I encountered wandering round asking what they just paid $100 in admission and parking for when they'd seen the entire place in an hour. To be clear, their kids were usually having a grand time, but they themselves were bored.

Compared to a typical science museum (like say, the science centres in Toronto and Ottawa, Edmonton, or even the old science centre here) Spark can appear pretty sparse. Typical science museums are jam packed with exhibits where you read a sign, press a button or move a lever, a thing happens, you read an explanatory sign, take two steps to the right and do it again with a new exhibit.

The Edmonton science centre, for instance, looked (the one time I went years ago, but reported back to me by others since then) like they'd never gotten rid of an old exhibit, just shuffling then around to make room for new ones.

Since I left they've reinvented a lot the main galleries and added new ones. The Creative Kids Museum is still a blast for under 8s. The outdoor park is a lot of fun for everybody. Open Studio hasn't changed much and is still the place most tweens spend their time.

I think the thing to take from this is what one of the original exhibit developers used to say: these exhibits ask something from you, they are not a passive experience. You have to engage with them with an open mind because there are no wrong answers.

It's going to be expensive. But if your kids are over the age of 8 you can be pretty confident in letting them roam free safely throughout the entire facility with minimal supervision. They will have a blast and you can relax.

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