new headphones: Grado SR325i

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About a year ago, Jim lent me his Grado headphones for a week. I spent that time listening to the difference between what I was getting from my existing headphones and what I was getting from the Grados. Though the difference was significant, I wasn’t sure if they were the right headphones for me, as I wouldn’t be able to use them for DJing at gigs and such.

About a week ago, I went to Soundhounds and tried some Grado headphones. I settled on the Grado SR325i’s. As the image suggests, my needs for headphones has shifted from DJing to studio use. I have not been using headphones for producing because that’s generally a bad idea, mostly due to the forced dynamics and pressure of closed-air headphones.

The Grado SR325i is an open-air pair of headphones. To the outside observer, it must sound like it is deafining me when I am wearing them, but in fact it’s a trick since they’re open air and a lot of sound escapes instead of being trapped between the headphone and my ear. The flipside of this is that they can not be noise canceling. Hence they can not be used for crazy DJ gigs where the monitors have to be super loud and the headphones even louder. They spend most of their time sitting on my M-Audio Radium 61, and then some time on my head where I listen to music.

The thing I noticed most about these headphones is how effortlessly and fully they reproduce sound and frequency while scaling up and down in volume. Many headphones have a threshold of performance where the high or low will sound alright at mid volume, but then you turn up the volume and the high or low starts getting muddy or actually distorted. With the SR325i’s, it’s as if they’re not even trying – which is dangerous, since it is really easy to turn up the volume too much since it never sounds bad.

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What did I have to compare them to?

My previous pair of headphones were Sony MDRV-700s and, as powerful as they were and good as they looked, they were flimsy. The MDRV-700s broke a lot and were expensive to repair; eventually I zap-strapped the hinges just to keep all the pieces together. I knew many others who had these headphones and eventually they all did the same thing. Pathetic, Sony, pathetic. Finally, the MDRV-700s would distort at higher volumes and I have no idea what the EQ on it was but it couldn’t have been anywhere close to flat. I could hear reasonably well, but sometimes I would wonder if I was hearing distortion because I had put something through a distortion unit or if it was just coming from the headphones.

The SR325i headphones feature a very flat EQ, which makes them ideal as reference monitor headphones for producing. There are no false spikes (or boosts) in frequencies, so it’s very reliable in terms of what you’re actually listening to. It’s like having a ColorSync’d monitor for design work – much better for picking colours. These are much better for picking sounds and sculpting them.

All in all, I am very happy with these headphones and look forward to composing and producing a lot of music with them.

a designer’s lifestyle

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This is a post I made for the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada tonight, and I am reposting it here because I think it might be of interest to anyone who works a desk job.
How do you balance the sit-at-desk nature of design work with the need for physical activity in your day-to-day life?
Personally, I go for walks at lunch, and sometimes I’ll do the 4 kilometer walk home. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some tennis in – but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time for that. I used to take intermittent breaks and do 20 pushups at a time and get back to work. Of course, not every office space allows for this, and it doesn’t really seem appropriate for the workplace in retrospect. Still, how can I regret getting that exercise?
If the interface from the Minority Report because a reality soon, we could strap weights to our arms and get a decent upper body workout while working. That would be awesome. Maybe we could hook up treadmill-like devices for scrolling up and down. The point I am trying to make here is this: if we are going to be spending all our time designing, shouldn’t we be looking at ways for it to actually *be* incidentally good for us? With the rise in popularity of gesture-based input systems, I can see benefits arising from some integration with design applications.
If you’re a software maker, are you thinking about this opportunity? I’m looking at you, Adobe.
If you’re an employer, are you encouraging your employees to get physical activity? I worked at a company a few years back that offered an extra 30 minutes added on to lunch specifically for physical activity. I found the policy added a little endorphins to the middle of the day and the benefit afterwards was increased productivity. Kick that lethargy to the curb.
As usual, comments, questions, opinions, criticisms, recommendations, tips and tricks are all encouraged. What are you doing to achieve balance between the nature of desk work and the need for physical activity? What are you not doing that you would really like to be doing?

retiredad

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Congratulations to my dad who enjoyed his first official day of retirement today – I don’t think the weekend counts since he wouldn’t normally be working on a weekend anyway. Also he would not be working in the summer holidays either, so I guess his retirement could really start in September.
Hmmm. Anyway.
My dad has been working my whole life. I am sure that supporting a family of 6 on one income is no small feat, and he did it. At age 64, he has retired from teaching grades 3 and 4 at Oaklands Elementary for well over 2 decades. Before that, he was supporting the family on a substitute teacher income. I don’t know how that is even possible. He deserves a bit of a rest, though I am sure he will not be idle for very long, if at all.

RIP michael jackson

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I thought it would be somewhat appropriate to give this mid 80’s Michael Jackson a newspaper-esque halftone treatment. As everyone’s probably already told you, Michael Jackson died this afternoon.
I confess that I am not the biggest Michael Jackson fan. I own zero of his albums, but that is kind of why I am posting this. Even though I would not consider myself a big fan, or even a medium size one, this still seems significant. Maybe it would seem less significant if I read it in the paper the next day, but this just happened. Earlier today he was alive.
Not too many pop artists were able to create the widespread excitement that MJ did through his focus on entertainment. Video link from Keith:

You’ll notice that this video’s title is “BILLIE JEANS BEST EVER MOONWALK” – as Adam and Graham pointed out, this video shows him doing the Backslide. It’s a popular misconception that I shared until this afternoon, as shown in this video – How Michael Jackson Learned the Backslide and Mislabeled it the Moonwalk. I would embed it but the amount of advertising done on the 5min video service is totally over the top .. but I digress. It is a fascinating video with some good commentary on the before and after of a pretty significant night for MJ in 1983.

townie

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Adam just made an awesome post on biking, which contains a well articulated overview of different bike options for anyone considering a new bike. I am guessing from his description that the bike I took a photo of, above, is probably a townie hiding out behind the basket. I don’t know for sure. Found on Quadra outside of Floyds.
At this point I am leaning towards a Hybrid.

AFK – Pacific Front Sessions: June 2009

Starts off atmospheric and breaky, quickly moves to four on the floor. This mix is one of layering and programming, every track building on the one before it in some way. It ends, literally, the same way it began with only one semitone of difference and some bpm shift. The tracks on here were selected for their summer-time feel and the parties and festivals that happen during the next few months. Hope you like it.

Tracklisting:

  1. DJ Remy – Unplugged (Original mix – intro) [Audio Therapy]
  2. David West – Illectronics (Original mix) [Tolerant Recordings]
  3. Bastards of Funk and Sonic Union – Glitter (Original mix) [Lowbit]
  4. Orkidea – Metaverse (Jody Wisternoff remix) [AVA Recordings]
  5. Somnus Corp and Emjay – Across the Border (Electrobios and Interplay remix) [Discoteca Music]
  6. Claes Rosen – Eighties 09 (Original dub) [Dumbest]
  7. Beatman and Ludmilla – Couldn’t Sleep (Shiloh remix) [Aurium Recordings]
  8. Max Graham – Smack (Original mix) [Re-Brand records]
  9. Claes Rosen – Mystify (Original mix) [Discoteca Music]
  10. Oliver Smith – Restless (Original mix) [Anjuna beats]
  11. DJ Remy – Unplugged (Original mix – outro) [Audio Therapy]
Download: AFK – Pacific Front Sessions: June 2009 (mp3)

Right click and Save As, or option-click the link on a Mac to automatically download