November 2023
One of my favorite comedians is a lesser-known Canadian performer named Ron James, who has a particularly wry way of looking at the world. Like me, he’s a man in his 60s, and some of his observations have me doubled over laughing. One I particularly like is his take on trends and Western humanity’s obsession with “the new.” In a cascading series of punch lines, he notes that things like the iPhone 11 in your pocket are not “old”; the Dead Sea Scrolls are old.
September 2023
I grew up listening to jazz from the 1930s and ’40s, thanks to my father’s LP collection and his devotion to the big-band dance music featured every Saturday evening on Ottawa’s CFMO-FM. When I finally found a friend who liked jazz, he played me Charlie Parker recordings from the early ’50s. Looking back, by the time I turned 16, in 1970, the closest I’d come to experiencing contemporary improvised music was a recording called Two of a Mind, a set of duets created by saxophonists Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan in 1962.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
June 2023
If you caught last month’s column, you’ll know that one of the recordings I featured was Van Morrison’s signature major-label debut, Astral Weeks. I noted that—typically for a pop recording in the late 1960s—the recording setup was pretty basic. Morrison’s voice is centered in the soundstage, and there appears to have been little or nothing altered in post-production. One consequence is that Morrison occasionally sounds slightly off-mike. Having seen Morrison perform several times, I expect those off-mike incantations were deliberate.
May 2023
For most of my “Art+Tech” columns so far I’ve led with the music. More often than not, I’ve used the art to see how well a piece of technology can reproduce it.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
April 2023
Composer Wayne Shorter died on March 2 this year, at the age of 89. Along with the release of a massive, career-capping biography of fellow saxophone giant Sonny Rollins, this is a landmark—the symbolic end of a jazz era studded with remarkable iconoclasts. Miles. Monk. Trane. Wayne. Sonny. We all know their unique sounds; hearing them in our heads as soon as those single names pass the lips.
March 2023
This is a story about creativity, power, and choice. It’s also about breaking from what’s expected and taking a risk in new territory.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
February 2023
When the user’s manual for a desktop DAC has 68 pages—68 pages of very small type—you know you’re not dealing with just another digital-to-analog converter. At $1299 (all prices in USD), RME’s ADI-2 DAC FS isn’t priced like most of its competitors, either. I slid it into the place normally filled by my $199 iFi Audio Zen DAC V2, between my iPad Pro and my Focal Alpha Evo 50 studio monitors.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
January 2023
If there’s a psychiatrist out there who wants to delve into the connection between weather and music, I’d be happy to lie on your couch. Deep in my Canadian psyche is the need to hear extremely buoyant–yet-meditative instrumental jazz on late-autumn days. Pianist Keith Jarrett’s 1973 album Solo Concerts: Bremen / Lausanne is the ideal way to scratch that itch. That stems from the first time I saw Jarrett in concert: a crisp, fall night in 1975, which gave way to an exceptionally snowy morning. I woke to it with his music still in my head.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
October 2022
Most of us shift between multiple media sources as we move through our day.
As a creative resource for several marketing agencies, I’m immersed all day. I spend a lot of time developing video scripts, reviewing motion graphics and proposals for accompanying music, and editing presentations. The rest of the time, when I’m writing, I like to have a soundtrack to match the task and my mood. And then, there are all those music videos and bits and pieces of video from artists’ electronic media kits to keep track of, as well.
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.
September 2022
Jimi Hendrix turning 80. It’s unfathomable, of course. Would he be dipping into hip-hop? Playing his hits in casinos? To quote one of his later compositions: Who knows?
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