herrcaptain
@herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Road trip! 2 weeks ago:
I guess this makes the Midwest the taint of America.
- Comment on Don't fret, check your spam folder 4 weeks ago:
I would legitimately love to see this. Sounds like a bit of a Forest Gump vibe, and your choice of Nicolas Cage feels perfect for this role.
- Comment on What are the pros and cons to buying a smart watch from temu? 1 month ago:
Pros: price
Cons: the watch doesn’t work and now you have lead poisoning
- Comment on Need tips, when is a non-campaign game considered 'completed'? 2 months ago:
Given that I mostly play heavily-modded games, a run is usually “complete” when it is abandoned due to its inevitable TPS death.
- Comment on Proton Now Has a Bitcoin Wallet 3 months ago:
I’ve actually meant to try that but haven’t yet gotten around to it. I’d still love an official app though, as sometimes 3rd party solutions don’t work great with cloud storage (at least in my experience).
- Comment on Proton Now Has a Bitcoin Wallet 3 months ago:
What we’re begging for: A Linux client for Proton Drive
What we get: A fucking Bitcoin wallet
- Comment on confusing love 4 months ago:
Ya know what? I’m happy for them.
- Comment on Anon wants cigarette money 4 months ago:
Oooo - you posted this in the same minute I did, but you actually managed to link it properly. Well played.
- Comment on Anon wants cigarette money 4 months ago:
I have no idea how to properly link to a community in my app, but here you go:
- Comment on Galaxy S10 til the wheels come off 4 months ago:
If you really truly are interested in it as a career don’t hold back, but know that it’s a looooooong road for very little money and absolutely no guarantees. Like anything fairly creative, only the top percentile make actual good money (or even sustainable money), and even then you usually have to freelance and build your own reputation to get there. That said, there are viable adjacent jobs that use that skillset. I worked in corporate AV for a few years, which involves running sound, lighting, and video for events. It’s far from glamorous though, and mostly involves manual labor in setups and teardowns. You’re basically a roadie who also runs the gear, but instead of mixing cool rock shows you’re mixing a few mics and a PowerPoint presentation for a pharmaceutical convention. The hours can also suuuuuuuck. My longest shift was 20 hours. I got home at 3 AM after that and then had to be back at the shop for 7. You live on free coffee and cookies that the banquet staff give you (you get to be on a first-name basis with every hotel banquet server in your city). It can be weirdly fun as a youngster but I have no idea how the older techs survived. I regularly worked 40 hour weeks when I was part time and 60-80 when full-time. I burned out by like 22.
The music store gig was really fun though. I ran the rentals desk and spent a lot of time teaching my customers how to use the pro audio gear. That’s also the most ridiculous place I’ve ever worked in terms of memorable stories.
You can also run sound in a dive bar, but that’s mostly about who you know and involves more networking than you’d expect to work in a dive bar for very little money.
As far as actually being a professional audio engineer or producer who makes a living making records - that’s the real tough part. I suppose it’s possible to land a staff job in a studio, but that’s not really how it worked in my small city. I freelanced with my own gear and home studio for years until I met a (relatively - this is Canada) big-name producer who I’d built rapport with from my job in the music store. He offered to let me work out of his proper studio for a very reasonable rate. Note that this wasn’t a job - it was an offer to pay him to use his facility. Still, it was the closest thing I had to a break and for a few glorious months I was (barely) scraping by as a full-time recording engineer. The clientele I had built up over the previous decade were almost exclusively local punk and garage rock bands, meaning none of them had money, and now they had to pay real studio fees on top of my own, so I was charging way too little. I was technically doing it though, but then I finally fully burned out - due in part to some looming personal issues - and that was that.
As to all your other comments - alllll of that can be learned through study and experimentation. I went to an overpriced school to learn the fundamentals, but a diploma like that means shit and you can learn it just as well on your own. With stuff like EQ you don’t need to be able to instantly pick out a good/bad frequency fully by ear - there are little tricks for zoning in on what you’re looking for (crank the gain on the EQ and scan the frequency range until you find the tone you’re trying to get rid of, then turn it down. Hint: it’s almost always the lower-mids making stuff sound muddy.)
This all being said, if you’re interested in this stuff I suggest dipping your toes in as a hobbyist first. If it becomes your obsession maybe consider a career, but only if you’ll be content working adjacent jobs rather than recording bands full time. Also, in case I didn’t make it quite clear, there’s a ton of networking involved. It’s easier if you actually play in a band, as I did (you don’t have to be good - just out there meeting people). I suppose it’d still be possible otherwise if you spend most of your free time at local shows and really get to know the musicians. Also, by the time I was getting in, home recording was a vibrant industry so wasn’t just competing with other engineers for jobs - I was also competing with bands just doing it themselves. I’m sure that’s only gotten tougher these days with cheap gear being so accessible.
I hope this doesn’t come across as demoralizing. I just want to make sure you know what you’re potentially getting yourself into. If you’re hating your current industry, though, and this all sounds overwhelming, another approach is to find something tolerable but maybe not what you envisioned, and make the best of it. In creative fields work typically becomes your life as it’s a constant grind to make ends meet and something that was once pleasurable inevitably becomes tainted by association. Some people have the emotional fortitude to survive under those conditions but I suspect they’re few and far between. I’ve worked probably a dozen jobs in my life before landing in my current role. Depending on how you count it, I’ve been here about 11 years and I fully expect this will be the company I work at for the rest of my working life (in part because my family bought the business a few years ago after several of us had worked there for years). The job has nothing to do with anything I went to school for and is in an industry I have no personal interest in. But, the work itself is interesting and sometimes creative,. Most importantly, the people are good, so I’m about as happy as a person can be in a job. Keep yourself open to opportunities like that, if you can find them. Buying the business helped, but even before that I had pretty much accepted that I was a lifer because this was the first grown-up job I felt content in.
- Comment on Galaxy S10 til the wheels come off 4 months ago:
I used to actually know a ton about this stuff but haven’t touched a musical instrument or audio device in over 12 years. Sooooo, bear with me.
All of this will depend entirely where your interests lay in terms of audio production/engineering. One of the core skills would be the ability to pick out different sounds from a soundscape. I suspect you already have a knack for that given how much you seem to think about audio quality. Tied in with that would be an understanding of how digital audio works in terms of bitrate, dynamic range, what clipping sounds (and looks) like, etc. I’m sure there’s tons of info on all that online. Analog audio has a whole other set of skills associated with it, but I doubt it’s super accessible these days for a beginner. That’s outside of cassettes, at least. I’m sure old 4-track cassette recorders are super cheap. As much as I loved analog recording, you’re probably better off just going digitally and using processing to get an approximation of the “traditional” analog sound, though, if that’s your jsn. Or if you’re going for a black metal sound or something else intentionally grungy, go to town on a cassette deck.
From there I’d say the biggest skills would be understanding basic mic technique, the general physics of sound, and how to properly set your levels (basically the ratio of preamp vs amp). Next up would be figuring out basic processing - namely the different types of EQ and compression. Effects play into that too - especially reverb and delay - but EQ and compression (plus proper micing and levels) are generally going to be the foundation of a good mix.
That being said - this all entirely depends on what you’re going for. If you don’t do anything musical yourself and aren’t inclined to record other musicians, you can have tons of fun remixing other people’s work. I’m pretty sure there are sites out there where you can download raw audio tracks to mix yourself. Another viable option if you’re into electronic forms of music is to get a sequencer and experiment that way.
I got my start when I was maybe 13 or 14 with a cracked copy of Fruity Loops (I think it’s called FL Studio now). I used that to write dumb electronic songs despite having no theoretical musical or audio knowledge (besides having previously used the built in Windows sound recording software to layer weird shit I recorded with a crappy mic). That software also came with demo tracks that I experimented with. About a year later I got a bass guitar and started a punk band, and that led to all sorts of weird experimentation with recording mediums. From there I bought a shitty reel to reel tape deck and began recording punk bands out of their jam spaces, eventually went to school for audio engineering, had a bunch of jobs related to the art (while freelancing doing recording work and live sound), and finally burned out and never touched a guitar or mic again.
None of that is necessary or even something I’d recommend. It’s a perfectly legitimate hobby if you want to keep it small-scale. You can start it with almost no money, but that’s where I’d caution you if you have anything approaching an addictive personality - the gear can get super addictive as you begin a quest for the perfect tone. For a few years there I worked at a musical instrument store and most of my paycheck went right back to my work (the staff discount sure helped though). Likewise, most of what I’d make freelancing would go back to gear as well. That’s one of the big reasons I quit cold turkey one day. I still miss it as a hobby, but I know the second I start it back up I’ll be right back to dreaming of expensive tube preamps. Your own mileage may vary if you have better self-control.
- Comment on Ironing 4 months ago:
That one surprises me less, based on the limited stuff I already know about GMO companies like Monsanto. Still madness, of course.
- Comment on My laptop hinge just ripped its screws right out. 4 months ago:
That’s the way to do it. I used a broken laptop like that as my daily driver for a few years after losing my desktop and being unable to replace it.
- Comment on You're in the right place 4 months ago:
They should name that shop Potpourri.
- Comment on My laptop hinge just ripped its screws right out. 4 months ago:
I assume she’s using a separate keyboard/mouse, right? Though I’m enjoying the mental picture of someone trying to touch type on a vertical keyboard.
- Comment on The internet connects people 4 months ago:
Very good point! I imagine meeting someone in person and finding out they have the same unusual hobby would have been quite the thrill. I’m old enough to distinctly remember a world before the ubiquitous internet, but never had a super niche hobby to have given me that sort of experience.
- Comment on The internet connects people 4 months ago:
That’s a fair point but I suspect this has always been the case. I bet if we could go back to the prehistoric period we’d find someone saying, “Cronk found himself another dick-shaped leaf to add to his collection.” I’d almost think with less available to amuse them, people would be finding joy in all sorts of weird hobbies or collections.
- Comment on The internet connects people 4 months ago:
Imagine how different the world was for people with super niche interests before the internet. Back then, this would have been seen as the weird (or at best eccentric) guy in your town who collects fire alarms and won’t stop talking about them. Now he’s presumably got a fulfilling social life via his unusual hobby, and an outlet to share his thoughts to a willing audience.
For all its many faults over the last decades, this is the pure internet at its best.
- Comment on Never mind the bollocks 4 months ago:
Really puts the term “bust a nut” into perspective.
- Comment on Ironing 4 months ago:
Well now I’m bummed out to find out that people are trying to patent math.
I’m with you on all of those though.
- Comment on Ironing 4 months ago:
Okay, but how about we still go with the subcontractor, but … Hear me out here … We call it AI and the subcontractor actually works in India for pennies on the dollar? Pivot to that and you’ve got my investment.
- Every venture capitalist right now
- Comment on Galaxy S10 til the wheels come off 4 months ago:
^ This person audio-engineers.
No judgement - just from reading your comment I definitely get this vibe. I get it though. Most wireless stuff is either going to be heavily EQed consumer trash or overpriced audiophile stuff with all the latest buzzwords. There just doesn’t seem to be much of a market for reference-grade stuff in a wireless format.
Not that I could justify spending a bunch on good headphones though, so I’ve settled for a low-end pair that sound acceptable for what they are.
- Comment on Ironing 4 months ago:
Soon on Forbes or something:
“You’ll be flattened to find out what industry millenials are killing next.”
- Comment on Lol. Lmao, even. 4 months ago:
I mean, Absurdism can (to a degree) take you from depressed to content. It obviously can’t help with the actual chemical imbalance sort of depression that drugs can fix, but it sure can help with that good ol’ existential dread.
It’s been a staple of my mental health for decades, though the drugs certainly help. SSRI’s for me, but whatever works for you.
TLDR: Absurdism is good and drugs are good too.
- Comment on Leg day, bros 4 months ago:
You know, until you posted this comic I never really put it together that millipedes are generally not predators. I guess that also explains why I’ve always instinctively found them less scary than centipedes.
- Comment on Leg day, bros 4 months ago:
It’s weird how when they have even more legs somehow they become less creepy. I guess it’s because they have to pack them in so tight and it starts to almost become cute.
- Comment on App development 4 months ago:
You can probably compile her yourself if you can’t find her in the AUR.
- Comment on Did it hurt? 4 months ago:
I can see them surviving in the wild in Vancouver, but here in MB it regularly gets to -30 to -40 for several months in the winter. I’m not sure they’d like that too much.
That said, maybe your dad’s house is a supermarket. Does he have lots of food in it?
- Comment on Did it hurt? 4 months ago:
Good to know. Nevertheless, I hope to never be in a situation where I get to find out. I’m guessing they’re suuuuper rare here. I checked the iNaturalist app and there were no observed sightings of either type mentioned in that article.
There’s probably just a colony in the back of a supermarket somewhere.
- Comment on Did it hurt? 4 months ago:
Well, crap. Now I’m going to be irrationally afraid of a run-in with an illusive grape-riding Black Widow.
I did know about foreign spiders hitching a ride on produce. I just didn’t know that these dudes could take root in our cold wasteland. Nonetheless, thanks for the link!