Ye Macce Threade

[ironbut]

Mine is 16G and I've never had an issue with loading/streaming but I rarely watch 4k content (the Apple screensavers are kind of awesome to watch though).

I have quite a few apps (one for each of the channels I watch) and I haven't put much of a dent in the storage.

I guess 64G would be more of a future proofing thing.

If you don't have a universal remote, you might spend that $20 for one. The Siri remote could be the worst device ever to grace the Apple catalog!

 

[Dusty Chalk]

5 hours ago, Voltron said:

What is the benefit of more storage on the Apple TV 4K--more apps? Storage of media? Does 32gb or 64gb make more sense? It's only $20 bucks but I'm not even sure what it is for...

64 is twice as good as 32.  It is the Head-Case way.

[Voltron]

I went the HC way, of course.  

[Dusty Chalk]

Moar betr!

[Grahame]

Meanwhile ...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/03/claps-and-cheers-apple-stores-carefully-managed-drama

 

[Hopstretch]

Lol. Little Jonny Bunning ("is a PhD student in the History of Science & Medicine program at Yale") so wants his academic narrative to be true, in the face of the stubborn disagreement of reality. It's adorable.

[HiWire]

What's the politically correct alternative? Buying Huawei at Best Buy?

Edited December 9, 2018 by HiWire

[morphsci]

The politically correct alternative is to treat the story as the rubbish it is. Stop the presses, Apple is in business to make money. Who knew .

[Dusty Chalk]

Neither my Mac mini nor my DAC (HRT Music Streamer HD) have a volume control -- what's the better option -- software, or preamp?  And if software, what software?

I was thinking of something like this for a cheap solution:

https://staticz.onfastspring.com/sound-control

[ironbut]

I would try using the "built in" volume controls in the apps (Spotify, iTunes etc.) before buying something like that.

Some gain software will cause audible bit reduction at low levels. 

On the other hand, that is cheap enough to just give it a try.

If I can, I always prefer analog gain controls. If poorly done, it can be noisy (noise floor) but for the most part, digital audio has such a large s/n ratio that it would be very hard to notice.

Mackie and T.C. Electric both make a fairly cheap analog volume knob (XLR).

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Computer-Audio/Accessories/LEVEL-PILOT/p/P0D71#googtrans(en|en)

Griffen made a nice looking digital knob but it maybe out of production?

https://www.amazon.com/Griffin-PowerMate-Multimedia-Control-Computers/dp/B01F63TOAC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545505802&sr=8-2&keywords=griffin+volume+knob

Me, I generally use the analog volume knob on my Amarra 4 (thanks Al!!!!) or built in app volume or a combination of the two (depending on current laziness level).

[Dusty Chalk]

7 hours ago, ironbut said:

I would try using the "built in" volume controls in the apps (Spotify, iTunes etc.) before buying something like that.

... 

On the other hand, that is cheap enough to just give it a try.

I did, but there are apps (like Mixlr showreel pages in any browser) that don't have volume controls.

And:  I did, pretty much right after I posted.  It's not bad in terms of degradation, and does exactly as advertised.

And:  I appreciate all the other advice.  Will live with this for now, since it's not critical listening...will revisit when I critically listen.  (Which is hardly ever these days.)

[ironbut]

These days for my casual listening whatever is easy rules the day.

You might keep an eye out for one of those Griffin Power Mates. They come in Bluetooth and usb versions and are nice under the hand.

[ironbut]

I remembered that you are usually a pc user and it occurred to me that you may not be familiar with the mac keyboard which has volume and screen brightness keys.

The F11 key is Decrease volume and F12 is Increase volume. F10 is mute. These keys are shortcuts for the settings in Preferences>Sound in OSX. 

If they don't work that way, you may need to hold the Fn Key to "Shift" the F keys to their "Special" assignments. You can toggle this in Preferences>Keyboard.

For some Apple devices (some Mini's) there used to be a remote that was supplied. It also adjusts the same settings. I have one somewhere that I used once with an old Macbook and you can still find them for under $20. I'm not sure if it works in the current OS though.

Here's a link to the keyboard comparisons;

http://xahlee.info/kbd/apple_pc_kb_diff.html

These guys have one of those remotes for sale;

https://www.macofalltrades.com/apple-original-remote-a1156/#tech-specs

Let me know if you want to try the remote. I'm sure I could find it and I'd be happy to give it to you once I do.

[Dusty Chalk]

No, I’m good, but thanks for the very generous offer and more importantly the very useful information.  

You’re right, I’m not familiar with Apples / Macs, but I am familiar with Google, and...it’s kind of bizarre—I found a couple different ways to adjust the sound level, but none of them worked.  There must be something weird about the driver for the HRT device that prevents it.  

I ended up buying the software—it was more expensive than a latte, but not much.  It works fine.  There is an occasional jump in volume, but that’s relatively minor.  It otherwise does exactly what I want—including cool things like play my music at one volume, but videos almost mute.

[Dusty Chalk]

Anyone use Soundflower?

[ironbut]

43 minutes ago, Dusty Chalk said:

Anyone use Soundflower?

Yup. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I've been trying to remember what I was using it for but for the life of me,..

Whatever it was, I've had to install it a few times for some kind of audio workaround?

[Dusty Chalk]

Apparently it's the best way to record audio without a loopback cord.

I want to upload some drum and bass backing tracks to YouTube, play it back at half speed, and record it, because I can't seem to duplicate that particular distortion.  Take for example (okay, this is the specific drum and bass sound I want to emulate) this, and play it back at half speed.  At normal speed, it is just synth pop, but at half speed it just sounds so deliciously doomy.

That said, if you have any ideas on how to emulate the distortion, I am all (ahem) ears.  Bitcrusher?

[grawk]

https://liveukulele.com/gear/software/how-to-slow-down-an-mp3-with-audacity/

[Dusty Chalk]

I know how to slow down and pitch shift and everything, but the algorithm that YouTube uses is all gnarly and artifacty (probably because it has to be synchronized to the video), and it’s that particular distortion that I’m trying to recreate.

[Torpedo]

Would looking at a spectrogram plot of that sound help to determine the type of distortion? Maybe you can emulate it by EQing a bit after a normal speed reduction.

[ironbut]

Sounds like you've found the distortion you want so I'm with you Dusty. 

You could spend days trying to find a plugin setting to do something similar but by then, the inspiration goes poof.

So, you just need to make using it as easy as possible. 

Is Soundflower working for you?

Edited February 7, 2019 by ironbut

[Dusty Chalk]

11 hours ago, Torpedo said:

Would looking at a spectrogram plot of that sound help to determine the type of distortion? Maybe you can emulate it by EQing a bit after a normal speed reduction.

Not really, no.  Distortions aren't well represented by Fourier analysis.  It might give a clue but...

7 hours ago, ironbut said:

Is Soundflower working for you?

Wanted to know if it was a piece of crap before I downloaded it.  That NTFS software I downloaded certainly was.

[ironbut]

Yes, Soundflower is actually excellent. I'm not sure if you'll need it but there used to be a companion app called Flowerbed that put an icon into your menu bar so you didn't have to open Audio Midi Setup to enable/disable it. If you have a couple of Output choices to decide on (like Built In or your audio interface) it's just as easy to just switch between inputs and outputs in Audio Midi Setup.

Anyway, good stuff IMHO.

BTW, I remembered that the last time I was using it was to do some sound design stuff in the Unreal video game engine. 

[grawk]

I've had reasonably good luck with soundflower.  It's a little finicky.  Flowerbed is no more tho.

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks for all the advice, guys.

9 hours ago, ironbut said:

Sounds like you've found the distortion you want so I'm with you Dusty. 

You could spend days trying to find a plugin setting to do something similar but by then, the inspiration goes poof.

So, you just need to make using it as easy as possible. 

Actually, my bigger concern is that they'll "fix" the gnarliness/artifacts, and it will sound just like Audacity, so I need to hurry up and get around to it before they do that.