Espy

I like stale popcorn

To the one guy on that one discord server: please stop poking fun at someone if they don't want to engage with your humor

I've been testing different distros on a spare gaming laptop with the primary goal of installing FL Studio and having minimal audio recording issues with my interface, and gaming second. I was happy with CachyOS the most, tl;dr everything was smooth and I was most comfortable with it. FL Studio was mostly fine other than FL Cloud not working, which... does that even matter if that works? So I'll be making the switch probably by next spring. I just need to finish up a project first. Lemme yap for a bit. So far from looking at what plugins I've got on W10, yabridge and wine staging should be mostly fine. https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge I'm a lot more concerned with the Native Instruments software manager. That's apparently a headache to get running and there are times where it fails and refuses to run stuff like Kontakt properly because of it: https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=26555 And it seems like they technically could make everything supported but they have no plans to do that, see this discussion: https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/251127 UJAM too, another software manager issue but there's a workaround it seems: https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=26935 For Arturia, I did find this guide and it seems like it isn't as bad as I thought. Again, their software manager is what I was concerned with but it seems like it's not really a major issue: https://dev.to/neroblackstone/install-arturia-vst-on-linux-22i9 An admin on their forums (seems like he's an internal beta tester) said an ominous "yet" when asked about linux support: https://legacy-forum.arturia.com/index.php?topic=91789.0 But it looks like other issues arise in terms of CPU performance but the solution is simple at least: https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?p=179721 I did forget about the Serum 2 synth, I heard it has weird issues where you have to trick it to work and it could have graphical and latency issues + Steve Duda has no intention of officially supporting Linux: https://xferrecords.com/forums/general/will-serum-ever-be-available-for-linux It's a shame, it's a cool synth. I also have Serum 1 and that is also not officially supported but is less of a headache to set up apparently. At least there's tons of other synths. Vital I think is natively supported and I think U-he came out with Zebralette 3 for free, which I've been wanting to try. I mean synthesis is different from that one but it looks cool. U-he is pretty cool actually, they jumped on trying to support Linux I think in 2014 which is relatively quite early for such a popular brand, but had issues supporting it by 2017, then picked it back up again going into the 2020's: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=564393&sid=5b78d76d09d58e1a6823ee1817d56302 FabFilter is another one. It should work fine with yabridge but they seem to toy with the idea of supporting linux natively, but then backing away from it. They've also expressed interesting in supporting raspberry pi too??: https://prod.fabfilter.com/forum/topic/6686/running-fabfilter-plug-ins-on-raspberry-pi#comment17460 But their current stance is no: https://prod.fabfilter.com/forum/topic/8148/yup-im-going-to-be-another-guy-to-make-a-linux-post#comment0 I have some instruments I like from Sampleson too but I can't find any info about it on linux, so I'll just try yabridge and see what happens. There's an organ I use sometimes which is actually this one: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3117/ But it's an older version that did show it was native? The recent version I have I didn't see anything related to linux so it was probably dropped at some point which is interesting. The only thing that's a bit of a wild west is Intel Arc GPU performance. I have an A770 16GB and most of the information about Intel Arc performance is people saying to not buy one over a Radeon equivalent, which is not exactly helpful in my situation. Everything else is old info and discussion from a few years ago when it just launched or there were no discussions at all if someone started a topic. So I guess I'll have to find out myself. IF it ends up not working well then I have an RX 6700 XT that I can fall back to. That should be guaranteed to work well. But I like this A770, it's quirky but it's worked fine for me these few years. Now comes the question of hardware support when I upgrade from my current audio interface. There's a lot of upgrades I want to make for my home studio but that's an entirely different topic.

Don’t be that person who doesn’t have the sound of a metal shipping container door closing when you need it.

Aliens

Anyone else use any of these? How's your experience? And what do you like to collect? They're all primarily user-generated music databases for physical media, though there are entries for digital media too. Discogs has a marketplace added on top of it. They all also let you organize your collection. But I generally prefer Discogs, though I do appreciate the Musicbrainz open database approach and the more social approach from RYM. Although with RYM it feels like too much emphasis on socializing and other weird stuff like rating releases. TBH I rate what I really like as 5 stars, but apparently that's a no-no with RYM. Anyways... I like to collect Drum & Bass releases, more specifically from 1998 - 2008. That time period appeals to me a lot and it's also relatively accessible for me as it's not so expensive despite limited pressings and availability in the States compared to the UK or EU where it was more popular at the time. I also don't mind collecting promo white label releases with generic sleeves instead of the main release. Represses are also fine as long as the pressing isn't complete wack. Hell, if the seller says it's a DJ-owned copy then I'll take it as long as it's affordable, and usually it is. These sites have been really helpful for that and I'm very thankful these exist. I tend to throw all variants of a release into my wantlist because of how I collect (you can see that below on my Discogs profile). So it's really messy, I promise I just want one copy of a release not several! I might also accidentally not remove something from my wants when I already have it, it happens. I think with Discogs, it's really interesting to see what the street price on some records are vs. what I paid for it. I keep a note of how much I paid for a record and when I got it, and so far I've paid an average of $10.63 for all of my D&B records ($202 total / 19 releases). It doesn't matter to me that much what these are valued at, but I do want to try to get that average under $10. I think that's a good average for me to stay around as much as possible; the lower, the better. Here's my Discogs profile: https://www.discogs.com/user/EspyV and my RYM profile: https://rateyourmusic.com/~EspyVibe in case you want to be nosy, you can see my collection on both of those sites. The CD's might come and go because I've begun marking them as needing to go through it later since I have a lot of loose CD's (like, at least a few hundred... maybe a thousand, don't ask) that I want to sell. Exceptions ofc if I really like it or bought it intentionally on it's own. I wonder if I should write about any standouts, since I should listen to them to make sure there's no issues before selling, it also gives me the opportunity to listen to music I wouldn't otherwise listen to properly. Maybe that could be a 2026 thing. I'm not sure if I will use RYM much, but it does have some of my record collection there.

LOL tell me about it. I had one package come in a cereal box (with crumbs). I do want to know what the thought process was like. Slap a shipping label directly on a cereal box, then use scotch tape to keep the top flap shut. Don't even check for loose bits of cereal inside of it. Well actually now as I'm typing this, why did USPS accept it? Whatever lmao To be fair it did stay closed but that box was a wreck when it got to me. I was worried about what I ordered but it was fine, just with some food on it. I only let the seller know to not ship stuff out like that, be glad it was me instead of someone else who would be a headache to deal with over it. I left a neutral review and moved on.

Based on IRL reasons I wouldn't go with Ponyville just because it feels like too much going on for such a small town. Not to mention the School of Friendship. I'm not opposed to it, just that it would get a lot of foot (hoof) traffic when there's a landmark like that in Ponyville. It's kinda the same reason for cities like Manehattan, so much is going on that it's a little too overwhelming for me to live in. I'm scared of heights, so probably not Canterlot or Cloudsdale. Apparently Cloudsdale isn't the only cloud-based city. I'm not sure why I never noticed it before, but Stratusburg is another one (briefly shown in the Top Bolt episode) and it seems to be much smaller and has residencies on both land and clouds. It also doesn't seem ridiculously high relative to land (fitting for stratus clouds). So I'd probably live there if I'm not hiding in the middle of a forest (probably near Neighagara Falls) or maybe somewhere a little out there like Sire's Hollow or Seaward Shoals would be fine for me. If I had to live in a larger city, it'd be the Crystal Empire. Otherwise, anywhere else that's too cold or too hot is a no. I also get spooked easily so not the Everfree Forest or anywhere like it. With that being said... the OC that I'm still working on is born in Cloudsdale but lives in Manehattan.

Ok maybe it was a bad idea to start setting up this rack this late at night. I'll just continue it tomorrow. Also I need to get a rug.

Why are we filling vinyl records with water again? I'm just seeing them leak more and more. That might be mixed generally with poorer QC at vinyl record plants though compared to like 20+ years ago. Maybe they do hold up if it's actually pressed well.

I hesitate a bit and then take it with water. I had major issues with it when I was younger. It had to be crushed or ground up and mixed with water because I didn't like the way it went down the throat. It still feels weird, but it freaked me out as a kid. I take them as it was intended now.

Ok I accidentally changed the title of this while scrolling (and changed it back, followed by the forums going down for a bit) so now I have to pay for my crime by responding. A combination of "It's not that bad / It was bound to happen anyways / It doesn't affect me so I don't care / You're overreacting" to anyone who says this stuff when someone is emotionally distressed: you probably wouldn't like it if someone else said any of these things to you if you were struggling really badly with something and came to them for some sort of comfort. And now I realize that "you probably wouldn't like it if" would be a fit for this thread.

There's a bridge near where I live with a paranormal history attached to it. It's been out of use for a long time until fairly recently when they turned it into a pedestrian walkway. I literally had no idea this existed. I've driven right by this place almost my entire life (though ever since they expanded Gate City Blvd./Jamestown Pkwy, I've used that because it's faster). I thought they were just slightly making the road bigger and making it nicer, I didn't know it was a much larger project to also clean up the bridge for a walkway and to celebrate it's paranormal history. It's called Lydia's Bridge. It gets confused with the current one in use (the one with graffiti all over it, that's from high schoolers and yes they're allowed to do it, it's tradition) but right next to it literally in walking distance is a much older underpass which runs under the same railway. The legend got garbled up over time and there's multiple versions of it, but the consistent detail is people will stop to pick up a young hitchhiking woman wearing a white dress only to realize she isn't there anymore. Or they floor it because they get spooked (and I know that specific road, it's narrow (used to be even more narrow) and REALLY curvy, so that's a really dangerous thing to do there. But usually she just disappears when they get close to it. There's also been a lot of reports of headlights flickering (this I've experienced) or other strange anomalies involving radio signals, camera equipment, etc. It seems like the origin comes from a real accident that happened in the 1920's and involved a car accident at the bridge, where one woman died and everyone else survived but with varying injuries. Annie L. Jackson is the woman who died in the accident. Not long after, the legend started to go around about this bridge. It's suspected of course that her middle name stands for Lydia from a descendant of hers, but they're not 100% sure. It's just assumed because she wasn't spoken about much by her family. Otherwise it does match up the most considering the tale itself. Who knows where the "prom" thing came from, but tales like these are just one big game of telephone anyways. https://www.wgpfoundation.org/historic-markers/lydias-bridge/ https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/lydias-bridge-mystery-solved/83-487001437 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58464999/annie-lydia-jackson

Whenever a hobby community talks down on a new hobbyist for getting things that are recommended by said community. Like, why recommend those to newcomers to begin with if you're just gonna be mean about it to newcomers? Makes no sense to me.

This wasn't last night but it happened a few days ago after a nap. I'll spare some details. I fell in love with a street performer; a trumpet player to be exact. I'm talking head over heels, like I was hypnotized. They were finishing up a street performance with their friend who was a percussionist and they had a little crowd around them. When they finished, the percussionist went to go to a bar because the trumpet guy wanted to walk and talk with me. But it was like we were suddenly on a date and it felt like forever. He was just so easy to talk to and very sincere. Why did he pick me? There was already a crowd where I'd literally just shown up and he singled me out. I was flustered for the rest of the day after I woke up. I've never been properly in love with anyone but I guess now I know what that feeling is like.

I forgot I ordered this book a while ago, How You Make Me Feel: The Life & Legacy of Marcus Intalex by Sherif Dhaimish and Mark O'Donnell, and it came in yesterday. I'm going through it today and so far it's very interesting. I've been researching a ton into the history of jungle and drum & bass so it's been very helpful with that, shows how interconnected a lot of people are. It's a biography of DJ and music artist Marcus Kaye, otherwise known as Marcus Intalex, and his career in the rave music scene as well as some parts of his personal life. He's one of my personal idols and I don't have that many. It's great to hear he was a decent bloke, very blunt and honest but that was his way of showing his kindness. There's an excerpt here: https://ukf.com/read/how-you-make-me-feel-an-extract/ The little story on there about Goldie giving them that mixing desk is funny. Why was he in his underpants? We'll never know, but that's really just classic Goldie nonsense.

My tinfoil hat is on, so I'll say it intentionally got "left behind" by Toshiba for business reasons because Toshiba is a founding member of the HDMI Forum, which initially consisted of Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Maxell, Philips, Silicon Image (Lattice Semicondictor), Sony, Thomson (Technicolor SA/Vantiva SA), and Toshiba. And because HDMI involves a lot of licensing, there's lots of money to be made. I'm sure they've all made bucketloads of money from it. Everyone is scratching each other's backs basically.

I don't remember if it was weighted or not but I graduated high school with like a 2.5 GPA. Might've been a bit less than that actually.

Flim and Flam on their way to finally put the Apple family out of business

So initially I didn't know what I wanted to do as I was getting close to graduating high school. I decided to take a break from schooling but I was pretty close to thinking about becoming a teacher. Decided not to pursue it because of how thankless and terrifyingly stressful that career is. Got by during the covid pandemic working in the kitchen at a tea café. No longer working there (thankfully). Right now my money comes from selling PCs and PC parts but while that's been good for me, it's also stressful and I lost a lot of enjoyment from it recently because of memory prices skyrocketing due to AI. It used to be one of the most affordable parts but now it's worse than even GPUs. I want out. I want to pursue music as a solo artist, along with DJing now (that just comes with the music I make) but that's also stressful in a different way. I don't want to play the social media game. It's necessary these days but it's overwhelming me just looking at it. I would say I don't know how people do it, but I used to sit on Discord constantly from 2018 to like 2023 pretty badly. So uh... Don't get me started on AI bros. They say otherwise but there's a lot of issues and contradictions there that tells me they want to become popular and make money through no effort beyond trying to type the correct prompt for a few hours. Yet people just... listen to it and give their support blindly. "Talented" sure bud. Takes a lot of talent to write a prompt that something else will churn out, the result sounding all the same but in a really bad way. Go ahead and keep telling me I'll get left behind. I don't care about being in this race, creative endeavors aren't even a race. The only race here is AI bro vs AI bro. AI bros are missing what puts "human emotions & expressions" into "human emotions & expressions". Posers.

I finally thought of something for this thread and I know it's a hot take, but it's wrestling for me (WWF/WWE-type, "normal" wrestling is fine). Well, I don't hate it. I just don't like it, something is off about it. This is in contrast to boxing, even though I consider both sports to be unsafe for the fighters, boxing doesn't give me that same feeling. I'm more indifferent to it, idk.