Hifidelitydj

Welcome to hifidelitydj.blogspot.com. I guess you're probably thinking that this site is just for dj's. Well guess again. I made this blog in the hopes of sharing my knowledge and history of music with everyone.

Now for a little bit about me! Yes I am a dj but there's more to me than that. I started at the age of seven playing the piano. But i did not enjoy what i was playing and it only lasted for a few years. O.k. quit yawning. Anyway, I pursued a long journey of trial and error to achieve my now extensive knowledge of audio systems and how they work. I currently own and operate a sophisticated hi grade recording studio in st louis mo. I'm currently working on virtual stereo configurations, such as multidimensional audio applications. anyway now on to the show!

To kick off the site I will begin with a little music history. I'm going to take you back to the 1980's to discuss some of the greatest artists of all time. Do you remember "tears for fears". Well "everybody wants to rule the world.












"check this out!"
Do you remember the movie "the breakfast club"? O.k. it was'nt the greatest movie ever but it did include a world hit soundtrack. From "simple minds", "Don't you forget about me!"





O.K. Now I'm going to address a sensitive situation about multimedia, copyrights,
and ethics. For starters I do NOT! intentionally embed copyrighted material in my blog. Nor do I claim nor assume the right s of any material unless i before hand specify so. Secondly... My videos are linked from "youtube" with embedded code Not! actually inserted into my pages... Now about the subject of multimedia and copyright's?" Well, According to federal laws students in school, college, etc, Are in some cases exempt from copyright laws as long as the material is used for an educational purpose. Cool! But What about the ethics side of things. It seems there is a huge world wide public controversy over people deliberately downloading copyrighted material. On the news you mostly here the RIAA's accusations of unethical conduct among internet users. What you don't hear about is the other side of the story. The record and movie production company's aren't very ethical themselves charging people an arm and a leg for a music album, or a new Batman movie, while not fairly paying their employees and pocketing all the dough! Thats corporate America's main objective it seems. How can you be proud of your achievements if you cause the the onset of misery for others. Such as A hardworking
family who cant pay the bills much less feed their children because Micheal Eisner from disney decides to pocket $512,000,000 like he did in 1997. What a hero thanks to these greedy executives their hard working employees live a life of poverty. Did you know that one quarter of Americas society is literally born into a life of poverty? People who come from poor dysfunctional families believe it or not are almost entirely setup for failure from the start. As an example I lived most of my life under unbearable conditions. having come from a poor family, and a dysfunctional one at that, I wasnt given much of a chance for success. I guess you could say I was stuck on the bad side of the "digital divide". Not having access to educataional resources and computers as wealthier families did. Growing up I fought my way to the top, with fierce persistence! Never giving into accepting "oh i guess this is just the way it is".
Success isnt just hardwork. In america hardwork will get you a nice broken down car to live in! And luxurious garbage cans full of rotten food! "Hmmm delicious".
As many of my friends and family I worked 75 hours a week for nothing. So it's not hard work alone that matters, It's persistance. Yes unrelenting persistance that will have you achieving success when you least expect it. So use your will power and goals, dont give in to the taunts of a negative society. Find the positive aspects to work from. O.K. thats enough philosophy. After all I'm not Aristotle.


Another thing I plan to do in this blog is discuss some current news (feel free to post your comment's) about what's going on in america and the new's. How do you feel about society in america today? Do you think it's good or bad? In my opinion I'm very upset with todays society and our governments agenda. It seems that the senate, congress, and rest of the government spends to much time bickering over whether
Abortion should be illegal, or whether gays can be married or be allowed to adopt children. Both issues I personally see as Hate among mainly religious people.
Did they ever consider that maybe NOT everyone is a christian? Or that we all have our own beliefs?The point is, there are issues of far greater importance in this country that need to be addressed first. Like, poverty and unemployment, or education and crime prevention. If our government made light of these issues when they should have, we would not be where we are today.
And what about hate?
I guess It's wrong for people to have their own opinions and beliefs in america. Isnt it nice how our laws are being shaped more and more everyday upon
christian beliefs. Dont believe me? Look at that five dollar bill in your pocket, "In god we trust". Which basically states if you are not a christian you haven't a place in the american society today! This is not what I remember in the 80's. I was most likely about, Ohh, 3 years old when the videos I posted on here came out. But I do remember a much different america. I remember an america where people were valued for their independence, and differences, and a country where people valued eachother.. What happened to that? Is it gone for ever? Or can we all do something to change the hateful inequality of america? Yes I know this seems very negative, But I tell it like it is. This what I see and I will speak my mind. Whether people are black, white, gay,straight,christian,they should be treated equally with respect. And I can say from my own personal knowledge for a fact that this country has a checkered past. And I can PROVE it!
I went to school in a black neighborhood in my 7th grade year, where in my history class we were taught the subject of "black history". This was a valuable lesson for me to learn. I and my all black class watched in horror video after video of white people visiously attacking blacks. I was appauled. It was unbearable to watch. Infact I left the room several times cause I couldnt bear to see anymore. Despite what we all seen
none of the students ever treated me any different. I thought they would but in fact they treated my like one of them. I felt at home when I entered my all black history class. They even defended me several times when I was attacked by others for no apparent reason. So the point I'm trying to make is, "We can look at the world and pretend everything's the way we want it to be it is, Or we can look at things for the way they truly are"! If not, then we live a life of ignorance, and if so, we learn to solve problems with ourselves and the world.

O.K. let's get back on track!

Time a for a discussion on audio equipment, and the myths that surround it.

Some body recently said to me, "vinyl records are over with". I replied "since when". I just bought a brand new set of newmark turntables a year ago and I buy new records all the time, so I think this was an error of ignorance on the other guys part. Just goes to say "dont comment on something you don't know is a fact and then state it as a fact.! Facts require evidence, evaluation, and explanation just to name a few. A few years ago I started to notice digital audio equipment creeping up on society. There were components that employed optical and coaxial digital connections(such as spdif (sony phillips digital interface). A digital codec that rarely is compatible with any components other than sony. Although effective. Then all of sudden everything had usb ports to for connectivity with computers. Computers? I knew nothing about them muchless digital audio. I realized in 2004 I would have to learn about them and digital audio theory. And if I didnt I would be out of the game! Today I record 75% of my final work on computers; either to cd or dvd or various media codecs such as .wav a lossless codec. And now over 50% of recording studio uses digital technology. Understanding the concepts of digital theory and computers as they pertain to audio can open a million doors for everyone. If you plan to work with audio or video you need to learn these concepts, "they are a must"!

Now for those of you who work in the field this applies to you. Theres this myth that you can't get hi quality digital audio unless you record at atleast 96kHz, 24bit. Well i got news for you. Based on my last five years of research on this subject I will explain. The quality of the final product you record isnt just inherent in the medium you used to record with, but the quality of the source material itself. You can only obtain what is given to be recorded. And here's one of the problems that arise when recording and editing digitally; O.k. let's say Britney Spears is "yodelling" or doing whatever it is she does, into a microphone. And the producers records her voice then dubs it into the audio track in precision and proper time. It sounds great right? Not exactly. Digital audio, like it's analog ancestor tends to add a measured level of compression during the recording process, inherently destroying alot of the original content and muffling the sound. Or does it? I come to find out that the material isnt destroyed just infact masked. The track is so heavily compressed in the recording process that the sounds that are missing or muffled are still there. Theyre just hidden. I guess the question you're asking now is "well, is there a way to retrieve this hidden data in the digital audio file"? You bet there is... One way to decompress the compressed signal is to first add more compression at a low level. This raises the lower level signal's slightly up and lowers the higher levels signal's down(I must stress it is usually better to do a digital to analog conversion before the compression process). Then run the compressed signal through a decent reverb component(" and i dont mean Behrenger"!) like a boss or korg emx,esx digital effects processor. These work fine. Then record the signal(remembering to keep your eq's high frequency content level's at line level or lower if possible as this will produce a digital error if you go past zero in the recording process adn create a hi pitched sound potentially damaging your ear drums. Then run the signal into a audio interface connected to your computer(or a dual rca to 1/8 mini jack cable connected to your mic input on p.c. Then record using your favorite software. I personally use sony sound forge however there a many programs for recording to choose from, like "pro tools". You only need to put your recording settings at 44.1 kHz 16bit (redbook cd audio) and just record to wav if you like. Then you can convert the .wav file to whatever media you choose such as a standard audio cd using windows media player to do the conversion. And there you have it a HD audio cd at a redbook price! what a deal. P.S. "dont use junk cables or fancy no name million dollar junk cables either". Stick with names you know and trust such as Monster cable. If you use junk cables you are setting yourself up for failure. The sound system is only as strong as it's weakest link!


O.k. So maybe I'm not a professional programmer yet! But I'm doing my best to make the site work.
For one I've also had some unexpected problems stemming from blogger that don't help, like font sizes
changing for no apparent reason at all. I've had to go back and edit the HTML atleast 10 times so far because of this issue. Besides that I don't care much for the (GUI) that blogger gives you to work with. It's very poorly laid out. I'm considering installing "apache" server on my desktop and hosting my blog from my own sever. Some of the advantages would be that I could do all the code myself. This would eliminate bloggers junk code altogether, and make it easier for me to provide better input and backgrounds. Also I tried to insert a background in my blog, but as usual blogger returns an error everytime I try to insert it. Thank god for blogger!. "Where would we be without you"? As I said im no professional coder but I know enough to know that blogger needs some serious maintenance! And soon!

Alright now i'm going to discuss a little bit more about what I will be doing in the coming months and weeks with this blog! I plan to post videos frequently that will relate to the current subject at hand. And as I said before I do NOT! upload copyrighted material I can only link to it! I will plan to work with the 80's stuff moving all the way up to present. By the way I added lots of goodies such as a streaming media player(so you can listen to your favorite electronica while reading), video games, a google search bar and more! all are located on the left panel for your viewing. So check it out. I was going to do google adsense on this site but they seem to be downsizing it more and more everyday. I dont think there's much money to be made these days with google.

On my next post I will explain digital audio theory and how it works! As soon as I
have the time to do it! I have four classes right now so new posts will only be once a week at most. I'm going to try to feature atleast 4 videos a week.........

YES! I just got my first comment! And it was a positive one.