I do offer to let readers use my brain, and while for deeper and/or ongoing research or support I do charge, I’ll also give a bit of free advice when the question and my response are useful for a blog post. Here is a question I received last week, and my reply. I have redacted all identifying information about the querent to protect his privacy:
Category Archives: Band
Minimize Options For Misconnecting Stage Gear
Unless your band is performing at a very high-level venue, you are usually lucky to get a brief line check – you jump on stage, plug into the sound system for the first time at the start of your set, and the sound person give you a thumbs-up that he has a signal from you – before you start to play, let alone a full sound check.
So if you don’t get that thumbs-up, your band starts losing time from your set while you and the engineer try to figure out the problem in your signal chain! While you can’t always prevent an issue caused by sudden gear failure, you can avoid issues caused by misconnections…
Tip/Warning: Long File Names in Bandcamp (and Other Zipped Downloads)
I recently purchased a new album as a zipped download from the site Bandcamp.com to my Windows PC at work (because the network connection there has a much bigger “pipe” than at home). The zipped file contained eight MP3 files which when extracted should have gone into a folder with the name of the band and the album title.
I clicked to “extract all’ the files, and the program did so… until it reached the eighth and final track. At that point it failed and gave me the error message:
I tried again and got the same error, “Path too long”. After some research I determined what was wrong and how to work around it, plus told the band – they fixed it so that other buyers will not have this problem:
Friday Faves 09-21-12: Music and Kickstarter
Music to stream and download:
The benefits are over, but our friends have a long way to go recovering from the fire at Columbia House. A bunch of bands who played the benefits (including me as Reverse Polish Notation, and my band Ginger Ibex) donated tracks for a digital album – pay what you like, all money goes to the Columbia House folks: