Up Dharma Down - Bipolar Album Review

I suck at describing music that I love. This album is exactly that--music that I love. And love is a word I don't throw around easily.

So instead of failing miserably to describe how this album sounds, I'll share what I think of it. Very few sophomore albums can say that they are better than their critically acclaimed and commercially successful predecessors. This is one such album. But this one doesn't edge out like Pinkerton did against The Blue Album. It demolishes Fragmented like it was an amateur effort. And Fragmented was no amateur effort. It WAS the best Filipino musical achievement of this millennium.

Bipolar is modern. It is brave. It is emotional yet brilliant. Shut yourself in a room and turn the volume up.

New iPod classic, Same Old Shit

This will be my last iPod. I've had it with Apple's quality control or more appropriately Apple's LACK of quality control.

Last year's iPod classic at launch was slow as a rock. This was fixed in a few months but was replaced with a new problem. Its hard drive would not turn off and would drain its battery even when it was off.

Now the problem is random skipping. Several people have reported the same problem on the Apple support forums in this thread.

Plea for Cheaper CDs

I’m currently pondering the current state of the music industry, particularly the distribution of music here in the third world particularly and the entire world in general. I think music—no, I believe—music is too expensive.

CDs are on average PHP 400 which is around USD 7. That has been their price since my first CD purchase in 1995. Back then the price was understandable. Cassettes were around PHP100 which were around USD 4. The peso was at 25 to a dollar back then. The price increase with the new medium was understandable. The album art was bigger. The sound quality was much higher. You could skip songs instantly. The CDs themselves were more durable.

The same price disparity was seen again when DVD began to replace VHS. Skip forward 10 years and here we are with DVDs at below PHP 200, sometimes going as low as PHP 150 for two DVDs.

That’s the value of entertainment—around PHP 150. That’s the price of a movie ticket, a good, hearty fast-food meal, several days worth of prepaid cell-phone load.

Aside from pricing, the music industry should also follow the movie industry’s other distribution method: home rentals. Movies can be rented since as far back as I can remember. Why not CDs? The Japanese have been doing this for years. Why not the rest of the world?

Of course there’s always the piracy factor. The solution is not just stricter laws and better law enforcement but more affordable pricing as well. If it’s cheap enough, the true music lover would pick the original product.

I Am Seven

I bought myself and my iPod Classic an Altec Lansing IM7 a few months ago. It replaced an Altec Lansing MX5021 that was too bulky for my tiny living room. While it lacks the power and the stereo separation of the MX5021, it still sounds great for the price (Php 6500) and the small package.

Based on reviews on the internet (iLounge, Macworld, Pcmag) it's by far the best sounding portable iPod speakers for its price range. Even user reviews from Amazon confirm that it sounds incredible. There are a couple of 1 to 3 star ratings though but even the 1 star ratings still applaud its sound. I agree wholeheartedly.

Just a couple of flaws to note. Do get the newer black version since the white one has a sliding tray to load your iPod. Unless your iPod is in a case, it will be scratched badly. The black version has a cradle much like the Apple Hifi and the Bose Sounddock.

Also the remote is quite weak, you do need to be close (about 1 meter) and at a fairly perpendicular angle to the IM7 for it to work.

Biggest problem for me was the lack of any visual indicator for treble and bass. It took me about a month tweaking them before I had setting I was content with. Now I'll be hiding the remote so no one messes with it.

Secure Rip Torrents: Jeff Buckley - Grace

After a long hiatus, I'm back. I'll no longer trouble you with my opinions. Instead, I'll share something some of you may find useful.

If you've read my previous posts, you should know I am fanatical when it comes to quality CD ripping. I'm also a cheap-assed torrent pirate. Arrh.

For me, there is nothing better than ripping a CD yourself with a secure ripper like EAC. The next best thing is downloading a torrent ripped with EAC.

How does one know for sure it was ripped with EAC? Here are some signs:
1. The torrent is labeled or has a comment or the files themselves are tagged indicating EAC was used to rip.
2. There is an EAC log included with the tracks.

Of course these are no guarantees. They can easily be faked. Also anyone can securely rip burned unsecure copies. Still, they're free so who am I to complain?

First up is... Jeff Buckley's Grace. This torrent is ripped into one file per disc with cuesheets. The EAC log is included. Enjoy. Download .torrent

UPDATE:
This torrent just got even better. With fooaccrip, I just found out this torrent is verified by AccurateRip. This means 2 things: this rip matches other rips by different people with different copies of the CD and ripped with different PCs.

My First foobar2000 Theme

Here it is my first foobar2000 theme. It's pretty basic. Nothing fancy. It's aimed at people who like to keep the interface simple and clean and who spend time listening to their music rather than looking at their media player.

Some things you would need to set it up:

1. the latest beta version of foobar2000 (currently v0.9.5 beta 2) available here
2. foo_facets.dll available here
3. my theme file available here
4. (optional) the windows xp theme used in the screenshot is available here

After you have the foobar beta installed, copy the facets dll file into the foobar component directory. Run foobar then in preferences, go to default user preferences and click import theme. You just then need to select my theme file.

Ipod Classic Battery Drain

It's been a while since my last post about my new Ipod Classic. Honestly I'm just tired of it. Last time I mentioned the little annoyances like slow syncing with Itunes and how it handles albums by various artists in cover flow.

Apparently that's not the worst of it. The damned thing's battery gets drained after around 2-3 hours of listening. Sometimes it get's drained even while it's off and not in use for days. It looks like the culprit is the hard drive failing to stop spinning. Now Apple, I think that is a BIG problem you need to solve quick. And this is happening to a lot of people. Check these links:

Mobile Magazine, Engadget, Ilounge, Apple Support