Lester Hein
Small city boy, big city dreams
Cable questions
My friends think I’m odd. Weird things like fonts and cable connections make me smile. I spend hours reading about mic placement and CSS float rules. And I don’t like socks. all of these together make me a geek, I guess. Which is why I’m annoyed today.
I’m trying to find the answer to a sound geek question, and I can’t get to an answer. The question in question is whether or not using an XLR to 1/4 Jack will deliver a lower quality signal hen compared to an XLR to XLR mic cable.
The reason this particular question has captured my attention span is because I’m thinking of getting a new mixing desk for the StereoType Records live performances. The desk has 8 x 1/4 line ins with mic preamps. I’d like to mic our drum set using the line jacks and save the XLR inputs for the lead and backing vocals, but I’ worried that this might not be as good as sending the drum signal straight to XLR.
If XLR is better, it means finding a different and more expensive desk which can take all the mic ins that we need. Bleh.
If you know the answer let me know.
Custom dashboards in WordPress
For the last few weeks I’ve been quietly working on the revamped marketing plan for the next year here at StereoType Records.
Now, the StereoType Records website runs on WordPress, which is a great platform, but one that can take a bit of time to get your head around.
One of the things that I need to do is do present registered users with a branded, customized dashboard. The default one is a little confusing if you’re a new user and our brand is badly represented.
So far, I’ve managed to customize the registration page as well as the registration email that is sent to new users, but all of that is almost pointless if the user lands on a boring, unbranded Dashboard.
I’m sure that all it’s going to take is a bit of time until I can figure out how to do this, but in the mean time, have you tried this before? Did it work for you?
Please let me know how you managed to style and brand your WordPress dashboard for different user roles.
And yes, I do realize the irony of blogging about WordPress customization on a bloger blog.
Balance Schmalance
Balance is important. I hear this everywhere – from people trying to sell me gym memberships to the ones trying to keep me regular with their high fibre diets. I’ve been working hard at getting my balance right. The right amount of work and the right amount of play. The right amount of sleep. The right amount of protein. It’s all a bit much really.
This month, I’ll be working on my musical balance. For the last year I have been immersed in the live music scene and have seen and worked with some truly talented artists. But the down side is that the other electronic glitchy thumping squelchy world of electronic dance has been neglected. There’s no balance and the scale its decidedly lopsided.
Force is a crime
So things have been busy on my side of the earth. So much so that I’ve not had time to indulge in my favourite activity – the written word – for the past while. Today things reached the point where I simply need to write something, Anything. Hopefully this first stride will galvanize me in to action and verb will flow.
The fluid verbs will sadly have to wait a bit tho. There’s still tons to do before the bills are even barely paid.
Oh well. Ce La Vie.
