Agreed

Turns out my account is still here, so in that sense, I am too, but my profile correctly notes I haven't posted since 2009. I reckon in retrospect the changes made at that time didn't turn out too great? Seems like a dead forum overall.

FLAC isn't lossy. The biggest barrier to lossless compression becoming mainstream is precisely the confusion that consumers have over what it all means. I don't use WAV for anything in my DAW (REAPER) because it supports FLAC natively. It provides at least 20-25% more compression than zipping a WAV. I once spent an hour in a thread on Gearslutz trying to convince professional audio engineers that archiving their audio files in FLAC would be more efficient and useful than archiving with ZIP, but their confusion that any compression with audio means you're losing data was very difficult to overcome. I've found the best way to describe it to help people understand is to tell them that it is basically a ZIP you can listen to and work with live, but with the added benefit of being far more efficient than ZIP because its compression was designed specifically to store audio. Any lossless codec will provide the same sound quality as the input source, so it comes down to other considerations. Apple's might win because the iPod will play it and everybody has an iPod. But FLAC is a better codec, more efficient in compression and decompression (in two senses - it can make moderately smaller files, not by much but by enough that if you're archiving projects in the studio it adds up, and also in the sense that they have managed to get it to a state where it's not too processor intensive to decompress either); it also has the benefit of being open source, meaning no licensing fees and what have you and it can be seamlessly integrated into anything you care to integrate it into (DAWs, media players, etc.) There are some hybrid formats which provide lossy compression with an additional file generated at the time of compression which acts as a key to restore all of the discarded data to allow them to be decompressed into the bit-correct original, but I don't see the point in those myself.

My wife and I are moving at the end of this month, and that takes money, especially since we had to pay an extra month of rent for a place we won't be living in until next month in order to hold it since the other places we were looking at got rented out from under us. One good way to get money when you are broke is to sell things that you own, so I am! No overseas orders, it's not that I hate you guys or anything, it's just a tremendous pain in the ass if the slightest thing goes wrong and I don't have the time to deal with any of that stuff since we're moving at the end of this month. Sorry foreigners. The goods Rocktron Pro-Gap Ultra single-rackspace Digital Preamp SOLD Zoom TM-01 Tri Metal ($93) - If you don't know the story, Zoom had a brief run of analog pedals that were really cool. There was a fuzz, a distortion, and this high-gain beast. It's a quite well regarded high-gain pedal with eerily quiet operation, even with gobs of distortion. The control layout is like a Boss Metalzone, but the tone is much better than that much maligned pedal. I've had this for a long time and I hate to get rid of it because they aren't making anymore and they are getting hard to come by, but so be it. This rare fire-breathing behemoth of a high-gain distortion pedal can be yours for $93. Digitech Metal Master ($49) - Another high-gainer, this one is quite an interesting pedal. I've long considered it the best digital distortion pedal on the market, handily stomping (no pun intended) the Boss Metalcore which came quite a bit later. It has effective EQ adjustments which allow you to dial in its sound for your setup, and the "X-series" Warp control adjusts between the overall sound of a few different well-regarded high gain amps. My favorite settings for it are the Digitech Death Metal setting (which sounds sick, and not much like that pedal, a good thing since the Death Metal kind of blows) and the Mesa Mark setting. Basically turn the Warp until you like how the midrange and distortion character sounds. This I'll sell for $49. Catalinbread Hyperpak Dirty Channel ($87) - Another pedal that has now been discontinued, the Hyperpak DC is aimed at giving your clean amplifier another, dirty channel. It has Volume and Drive controls, and is extremely small, about one inch by two and a half inches or so. Don't let the size fool you, it has a big sound which responds quite naturally to your playing dynamics, and which is tonally neutral so as to work with your amp's own voicing to give you a unique overdriven tone depending on your own setup. Internally it's an inverting CMOS pedal, based on the Craig Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz, the circuit which was behind the much loved Red Llama overdrive (it turned out the Red Llama even used the PCB transfer from Anderton's book, sort of funny actually). Catalinbread discontinued this pedal because given the highly limited internal space, its construction is too difficult and time-consuming, and the miniature enclosure too costly to meet the criteria for their new, more streamline building processes. I'll sell this for $87. Boss Dyna-Drive SOLD Digitech Bad Monkey ($30) - Before there was the Cool Cat series by Danelectro, copying and lying pricks that they are, there was the analog series from Digitech. This is the lowest gain member of that pedal family, and in my opinion (shared by many others) the best sounding and most useful. It's a dynamic, toneful Tubescreamer-esque overdrive that doubles as a great boost; it has an active bass control which allows you to boost or cut to your own preference, and a good treble control that lets you dial in your high end. It even has both a regular amplifier output, and an analog cabinet simulated mixer out in case you need to run direct. All of these features plus a good fundamental overdrive tone in my opinion make this is a more useful pedal than the Tubescreamer, at a great price. I'll let this one go for $30. Behringer Dynamics Compressor ($19) - Similar to the MXR DynaComp, it's an inexpensive compressor that does good things to your sound. Wanted to try a compressor? Here's your chance. Makes a good back-up, too. $19. Behringer GDI21 ($19) - Copying the functionality of the Tech21 unit with a similar name, this is an inexpensive but flexible DI that offers a number of different amplifier sounds with both TRS and XLR outputs. This thing actually rocks, and it's handy to have around - someone ought to snap this up, you'll like it! $19. Fender Lace Gold strat pickup (SOLD pending payment) - I liked the sound of this when I had it in, but needed something more modern. This is a classic strat sound. Adjust it close to the strings, that's the key to getting authentic spank and quack out of Lace pickups - people that adjust them as though they were six-pole pups complain about sterility, but the problem is maladjustment. The magnetic field on them is quite small compared to traditional pickups, and so they need to be twice or even three times as close to the strings for optimal sound. I have two Lace pickups in one of my favorite guitars and this has been my "secret" to success. $30 Seymour Duncan Duckbucker neck pickup ($42) - I didn't get along with this pickup because of unfair expectations. I didn't do my research when I impulse bought it, and expected a humbucker sound in a strat size. Well, if you want that, buy the JB Jr. - if, on the other hand, you want an "overwound single coil" sound without hum, get this. If I had known what I was getting into I might have liked it, but at least I can pass on the info to you so that you'll know if it's right for you. Don't try putting it in the bridge, it's the Neck version and sounds like ass in the bridge. Trust me on that. $42 Electro-Harmonix Holy Stain - SOLD Mixvibes U46DJ MKII DJ audio interface - (SOLD pending payment) I haven't even gotten deep into this thing except to test that it does in fact work. It's bus powered but it can also be run off of an adapter, though it didn't come with one (why would you need it to, I guess, since it's bus powered?) I can tell you that the instrument inputs work well on it and the thing sounds good and has low latency in my testing. If you want to know more about it read the linked page. I do know that it's a hell of a lot of external sound card for $120. ---------------------------- Prices do not include shipping, which will be calculated depending on how far away from me you are and if it's substantial I'll split it with you. I now accept Paypal, which is exciting! However I will also take Postal Money Orders. No personal checks, please.

Amplitube Fender has an amazing sounding '63 Reverb module. ... or so I heard. Check www.frugalguitarist.com next week...

I LOVE the Fender '63 Reverb. Well done.

Worst parody thread ever Duel at dawn.