Wednesday, December 17, 2008

stoptional


one of the things that makes my wife sigh in slight annoyance is something that happens whenever we're driving though any sort of mall parking lot. i hate speed bumps. not just because they're annoying - no, i hate the very principle of speed bumps. punish everyone for the sins of a few. it's kinda like in grade school when a teacher threatens to punish the whole class if she doesn't find out who put a tack on her chair (which i really did in 5th grade, but i digress).

and something i hate even more than speed bumps are stop signs. i hate to break my momentum and stop signs are the antithesis of momentum. it's not like stopping at a store to get something done. it's not prolonged like a stoplight where you could actually use the time to change the radio station, send a text message or just look around at the other drivers who you will momentarily challenge with some sort of suburban drag race once the light turns green. but ya know, stop signs are stop signs. they serve a valid purpose....well, kind of. get this - in many European cities (specifically, cities in Holland, Germany and England) traffic planners have been testing a new theory about traffic for the past couple years with good results. they are tearing down stop signs, removing stoplights and getting rid of lane lines. apparently accidents in these cities have gone down dramatically as a result. when people rely on lights and signs, they are lured into a false sense of security and let their judgment lapse and get into accidents. but with no lights or signs telling them what to do, people are forced to be aware and to watch out for other drivers. it's interesting how a laissez-faire approach works even beyond economics.

anyway, it'll probably be a while before American cities start tearing down stop signs and lights so for the time being i just have to deal with it. EXCEPT in mall parking lots. those stop signs at malls are bogus. they're imposters. frauds. fakes and phonies. they were not placed there by city ordinance. no, they were placed there by the owner of the mall which means we aren't obligated by law to obey them. don't believe me? well think about this. real stop signs must be a certain height and oriented at a certain angle to be valid. if you get a ticket for a stop sign violation, you can actually get out of that ticket if you prove in court that the stop sign was turned around a few degrees or if the sign was bent over and therefore the incorrect height. now think about mall stop signs. they're about 3 or 4 feet lower than real stop signs and are hardly the right size. sooooo, much to my wife's chagrin, whenever i'm driving through a mall parking lot and there's no traffic or pedestrians or good reason to stop at a mall stop sign, i drive right through it in perfectly good conscience. it's those instances where i declare said stop sign to be "stoptional"

Sunday, April 20, 2008

you can call me roger...

sometimes i have guilty pleasures that creep up in the weirdest of places. i love to eat popsicles...even if it's freezing outside, for instance. or take this tour. us, Skillet and Decypher Down. three loud rockbands and somehow i fit this into our set every night. there's absolutely nothing rock and roll about it, but i think it's sweet. take a look:










oh, and if you understand the reference in the title of this blog, extra gold stars for you.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

plugins

some have said that men who drive big flashy cars are compensating for something in their personal life. i've always said that a guitar player's ego is directly proportional to the size of their pedalboard. in studio world, it seems the appropriate metaphor is plugins. talk to any kid fresh out of recording school and the first thing they'll talk about is plugins. the disdain you're picking up from me is really targeted at my younger self who was very guilty of such offenses, i should point out. why on god's green earth would anybody ever need 28 different kinds of EQ and 35 compressors? i mean, i understand the subtle differences between a few added features here and there. but seriously? i once was talking to an intern who was telling me about a project he was working on. apparently he was pretty proud of the fact that he had to put an average of two EQs and one compressor on every track of a full band. really? the unspoken yet implied message was this: more plugins = better recording. and of course, better recording = bigger ego. instead of spending all that time tweaking compression ratios and zeroing in on the perfect frequency, maybe do a little prep work by making sure the drummer has a good sounding kit. maybe even have a conversation about what they are playing and whether or not it's the right thing for that part of the song.

i could be totally wrong about all this stuff. maybe all the big engineers and producers out there use boatloads of plugins to hammer a square peg into a round hole. i've just found it easier to find a creative solution rather than a technical one.

About Me

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos; that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" --Hi Fidelity


Hey guys, my name is Nick Baumhardt. I help write and record music. I also play guitar for Thousand Foot Krutch and FM Static.

These are my thoughts on music, art, politics, food, recording and whatever else I feel like writing about.

For more info about my producing, go to www.NickBaumhardt.com or myspace.com/nickbaumhardt
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