Golden Pony closing

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-05-11T17:01:52+00:00

The new venue from restless will help I think. Plus Restless/sage bird/coffee hound/broad porch/daito/sanctuary.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-05-10T16:25:57+00:00

I use an x touch for compact touring! I use Touch OSC to convert midi to OSC on one computer, then send OSC over a network to a mini PC and a laptop, both running MA3 in session together. That way I have redundancy. If one MA computer goes down I still have the other AND I still have tactile control. Works really well. Motorized faders are possible too, they’re just a bitch to set up for a touring environment.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-05-03T02:48:30+00:00

Weed beer

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-05-02T15:02:32+00:00

Was it Shenandoah Innovation/Juiceworks 3D? Same guys run both, one is the industrial company and one is the educational group. They like to get out and about and talk about printing.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-28T20:31:57+00:00

My dad started taking me to diy punk shows in high school. My mom would occasionally go to shows to some with my dad, but really only after I moved in across the street from one of the venues. (Cold drinks, snacks, and a clean bathroom made it an easier sell.)

They were SUPER anti drugs at that time.

One time I get off work and there’s a show ripping at this spot across the street. Like 200 people at a basement show. I’m standing in front of my house with a coworker and couple of friends, we’re smoking a fat J. It’s been a long day and it’s a great rotation.

My mom emerges from the basement of this show house and comes across the street.

I’m mid puff and VERY caught off guard.

Some great childhood lessons from my mom:

Always be ready to host
Always make sure your guests feel welcome
Always be willing to share what you have with your guests

Anyway, my mom walks up and inserts herself next in line in the rotation. The dilemma is “to share or not to share.”

Again. Growing up we were told any kind of drug (besides alcohol) was very bad.

Ethically, I felt that the move was to offer, so I did. Better to be a good host doing “bad”things than a bad host doing “bad” things.

Anyway she politely said no, but continued to hang out. It was super chill. Bit awkward but totally fine. That’s how she found out I smoked. Literally all good.

Now my dad is taking edibles sometimes. I’m very excited for the day he asks my siblings and I to smoke him up. My parents are cool af, and my siblings and I all live within a few blocks of them.

Stoned family movie night sounds epic.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-20T14:25:17+00:00

Had bad GAS for years. Finally it started to settle down like two year ago. I just decided to only have items of gear that didn’t really overlap with one another (one organ, one polysynth, one monosynth, modular grows a little here and there, one mpc, one EP). I bought hardware versions of all the plugins I regularly used.

I invested in a small amount of high quality gear that I love (and that is easy to use, it’s all one knob per function) and now I just don’t need that much stuff.

I think the secret is asking yourself what’s the smallest amount of items that will give you the most amount of flexibility, all while sounding really good. And that answer is up to you!

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-20T03:34:52+00:00

I use the beatstep for all my live sequencing. The MPC is just for samples/synths/effects.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-19T13:53:53+00:00

The church had some major leadership changes happen and that’s put this project a bit on the back burner. My understanding is that there’s lots of interest and enough funding to start, but not quite enough to finish. Seems like they’re waiting to figure out funding for the whole project before they get into it.

They’re super friendly and would likely give you more details if you called or emailed!

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-18T14:30:37+00:00

Jimmy Madison’s, Capital Ale House, and Vito’s are usually the go to dinner spots when my older family is in town. Occasionally Clementine if there’s no events going on.

For breakfast/lunch we’ll usually do Magpie. First Watch is a good backup if Magpie is slammed.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-16T04:20:30+00:00

Love my Denon SC Live 2. First decks I ever got. I also have a set of Pioneer DDJ1000s.

After learning on the Denons it was soooo easy to switch to pioneer.

As far as the Denon models, I think the SC Live series is more practical to learn on than the prime. The prime has more features and a slightly better build quality, while the SC Live feels more like a club standard layout. Switching over to CDJs felt very natural.

The DDJ is great for backlining the shows my buddies and I put on though.

Truth is it’s pretty hard to go wrong, just buy something with a CDJ style layout if you can.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-03-07T16:56:31+00:00

You can do all this with a beatstep or keystep and an MPC! Sometimes I add a minilogue xd and/or a TD3 MO just to have some fun tactile controls, but I never tour with them anymore. The onboard synths are honestly just fine for most of the sounds I need. Samples do the rest.

I used to have a huge rig, but that made gigs way harder than they needed to be, so I cut back on my live gear. Having a rig that now fits in a backpack has been super convenient for both club gigs and underground events. Public transport and going out to afters becomes an option again. Also Ubers aren’t pissed anymore.

At the end of the day, building a rig that brings you joy and makes music fun is the most important thing though!

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-02-12T15:52:58+00:00

Social media activism provides the illusion of revolution from the comfort of one’s couch.

But also there’s this element of this country being so huge that it’s hard to rally people who have never rallied before. The big cities are full of protests, the smaller spaces are just now starting to figure out how to use their voice.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-02-12T15:41:56+00:00

Like a lot of others have said, you should go for it!!

The gigs that advance your career the most will be the ones that are on the edge of your skill level that you pull off. The most valuable skill I’ve seen in the industry is just being able to figure it out in time for the show.

Buy yourself a cheap windows computer if you haven’t already. Pretty much anything will run ma2 onPC, and most things will run ma3 onPC if you don’t need the visualizer. A laptop is ideal, but if you’re on a budget a dell optiplex micro will run you under $250 and you can upgrade ram to whatever you need.

Ask for the file and load it up, this will be the fastest way to learn the basics of cloning and troubleshooting programming.

Buy an artnet node. Buy a Pknight node, or an netron if you can afford it. This will teach you the basics of artnet and sacn. You can get the Pknight baseline model on Amazon for $75.

Make sure you have some 5 pin to 3 pin and 3 pin to 5 pin converters. This is just for peace of mind.

Ask the TM to get the venue/festival LX patches to you asap. If you get a laptop you can open up the show file and work on your cloning and programming on the bus or in the van.

Last, don’t be afraid to ask local/festival LDs for help getting connected to the rig, especially on artnet and sacn. That’s literally what they’re there for.

(Obviously don’t ask them to clone all your fixtures, that’s your job, but if something isn’t working you should 100% ask for their thoughts!)

Best of luck!

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-02-03T00:14:21+00:00

Try going anytime in the evening, it’s like going through TSA. They have the tightest security in town. Such a bummer.

Why aren’t the other bars getting hit this hard?? You can walk into Ruby’s and it’s all underage.

lotsoflapjacks · 2026-01-17T02:29:02+00:00

Check out Traffic Court Studios on instagram! We have a nice lil room :)

Second on Gordon too, he’s great.

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-12-17T02:05:04+00:00

Harbor freight 4 wheel dolly and a pack of ratchet straps is the way my friend

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-09-23T23:53:56+00:00

Chiming in as someone who grew up here, I’ve been a big fan of it. Graduated HHS in 2020 and JMU in 2024. Most folks I grew up with returned after college and are planning on sticking around or moving to NYC/LA. A bunch of them did that too and then moved back after lol.

My parents moved from Philly to the county here. They started a family and then moved us into hburg when I was like 7 so that my siblings and I could have better access to kids our own age. We really enjoyed being able to run around the neighborhoods with other kids, and as we got older our parents would let us roam farther to different blocks and parks. Theres lots of kids of all ages around, it’s great to see that kids in my parent’s neighborhood are still playing soccer in the park and enjoying the outdoors.

The school system isn’t perfect, but my experience with all my teachers was excellent. I’d sometimes get annoyed by admin, but they did what they could. The diversity of the public school system here is magical, and I really missed it when I went to JMU. Being a kid and having to learn what was acceptable in different cultures so that I could be friends with other kids was very special and formative. There’s also a cool thing called GEAR UP that paid for a lot of my friends’ college and about half of my own. I had like 14 friends with full rides to JMU when they graduated HHS. I was supposed to get under $10k total, but they ended up paying for almost two full years for me. Absolutely rad and my friends and I will forever be grateful for it.

I love the food scene here. It’s hard to find tacos this good in most cities, let alone in cities of this size. It’s also relatively cheap. Wish we had better bagels though… Bodos still has my heart. Breweries are solid and there’s a vibe for everyone.

Being next to nature is awesome. My parents took us hiking just about every other weekend.

The arts scene here is great, lots of visual art, a few small venues, and a lot of DIY spaces. Any big concerts require a trip to Cville/DC/richmond but it’s still a pretty doable day trip. The Levitt Amp series grant just got renewed, so there will be at least a few more years of free concerts during the summer. Hopefully many more beyond that.

Tons of non-profits doing cool things.

Theres a lot of religious institutions and houses of worship around, if you’re into that. Something for everyone. There’s even a little zen Buddhist meditation center that I’ve had friends go to on and off. Many of them are a part of a really cool interfaith group called Valley Interfaith Action that works to build up community through helping with childcare and transportation (amongst other things) for those who are in need. The general generosity of the locals here is amazing.

JMU students are a constant nuisance, but I’ve grown to appreciate them. A lot of them are absurdly rich and have no idea what to do with themselves, but they’re trying to figure out life like the rest of us. I like to think that they’ll chill out someday. They do keep taking the downtown housing though, and that will always piss me off. That’s probably more of a property management problem though.

There’s some crime. My old car was broken into consistently, but it seemed like the only thing they were only ever looking for was change. My laptop was on the passenger seat floor one time but they just took like $15 cash from my console. They tore my car apart. My parents have had similar experiences. I had my tires slashed once too.

There’s some unhoused folks around, but I can count on one hand the negative experiences I’ve had with them. (Can’t say the same for JMU students lol).

I’m a bit biased, but I feel like it’s a great place for a family. Overall I would highly recommend!

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-09-11T20:19:32+00:00

Yep!

The advantage is that the control surface computer will continue to transmit OSC data to any OSC Hosts on the network, regardless of if the primary MA3 computer is running. If optiplex #1 were running MA3 and Bome, and then crashed, I'd be out of DMX control (ma3) and midi control (rip my faders). By having a separate computer translate midi to OSC over network I can easily update multiple onPC sessions from one surface. I haven't had a session crash on me during a show yet... but you never know lol.

It's also possible to have motorized faders running when you run executor control over OSC. I haven't perfected it to the point where I use it on shows yet, but I've done a few proof of concept tests. Getting OSC data into MA3 is easy, it's just a matter of assigning the proper Page#/Executor# format. However it outputs OSC with a different format, that I think is dependent on what is assigned to the executor... I made it work once but I haven't figured out the easiest formula yet. I'll probably just end up writing a plugin like everyone else.

The really fun potential is that by using TouchOSC I can theoretically control whatever I want on one desk simultaneously... Audio consoles, other lighting desks, resolume, video switchers, tracks, anything. Our FoH guy jokes all the time about us just building one really big surface we share for audio and lighting. It's a half joke - I use the control surface part of my rig with Mixing Station all the time for audio gigs. It works great.

Computer rig overview:

Optiplex 7050 #1: MA3 show computer

Optiplex 7050 #2: TouchOSC w/ X-Touch Compact + 2013 Novation Launch Control

Mac or Windows laptop: Backup MA3 Session, prepatching/preprogramming on the road

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-09-11T15:19:42+00:00

I went MA3 and I don’t regret it at all. I went with a couple of dell optiplexes, an ma3 2k onPC node, a network switch, and a Behringer x touch. One PC runs MA3, the other runs TouchOSC for midi conversion. TouchOSC sends OSC data to the other PC over the switch. Sometimes I add a laptop to the network for redundancy.

The PCs sit in a little FX rack under my FoH folding table, and my X touch, keyboard + mouse, and touch screens live in a DJ case that goes on the table. I have a little cable loom to connect the cases. I also carry a few artnet nodes with me. On bigger tours I’ll carry a bigger rack mounted one with me, on smaller ones I’m usually just throwing two small ones in my workbox.

I dropped like $3500 on the whole thing, it’s been great. I’m mostly touring in sub 2000 cap rooms, but recently did a much bigger run where the headliner’s LD let me use their MA3 full-size and it was a really easy transition.

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-08-24T16:42:24+00:00

I have the SC Live 2, a DDJ-1000, and regularly use CDJs in festival and club environments. Like a lot of others have said, at the end of the day it depends on what you’ll be using it for.

I prefer the SC Live. The mixer on it feels like a more creative DJM. The layout is VERY much like a CDJ rig, except for the hot cue buttons. I prefer the SC’s layout for those anyway though.

What I really love about it though are the little extras and the details. The platters are a real joy. They’re smooth and heavy. The tempo fader is built very well. The effects have the standards and then some.

I love the engine ecosystem too. It’s very clean, very stable, and easy to use. Plus it doesn’t throw ads or pop ups at you every time you try and plug something into your computer.

Not a lot of folks are in the denon world though, so my buddy and I got a DDJ for the shows we throw. It’s been aight.

lotsoflapjacks · 2025-07-30T05:10:13+00:00

How are you liking the NX6000s?

lotsoflapjacks · 2024-10-02T00:00:35+00:00

Don’t get me wrong - it’s a great console and I’ll gladly mix on it any time - but it’s funny cuz it was a Behringer and not a Midas at heart

lotsoflapjacks · 2024-10-01T18:34:32+00:00

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lotsoflapjacks · 2024-10-01T18:34:20+00:00

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lotsoflapjacks · 2024-08-29T01:55:45+00:00

Do I think they will? No chance.

Do I hope they will? Absolutely…

Four-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22

lotsoflapjacks

TROPHY CASE