2008 March Archive at eastowners

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Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Gearhead Review : M-Audio Axiom 61

Published

dead headphonist

on March 11, 2008

in Music

. 1 Comment

No one knows yet (the cat’s outta the bag now I guess), but I’m starting a new project and as part of that, I’ve been revisiting some old demons; in this case, learning piano to a little more depth than the odd year of piano lessons I had in high school. I’ve been looking for a formidable (and cheap) set of keys for a while and settled on the M-Audio Axiom 61 MIDI controller. It has 61 semi-weighted full size keys and more buttons and sliders than you can shake a stick at.

Given the plethora of software-based MIDI sounds that can be had these days and the fact that this set of keys is going to live permanently next to a computer, I saw this as an opportunity to put more investment in the keyboard and not worry about the sounds it can make. I’ve looked at a lot of “all in one” type keyboards and none of them had the “feel” of the Axiom or the MIDI capabilities.

Fifteen years or so ago, I spent some quality time with a Kurzweil stage piano with MIDI and a nice Korg piano module (a rig that probably cost >$3k at the time). While the Kurz had 88 fully weighted keys, the built in grand piano sound was less reactive and had less depth than the Reason Steinway grand that I’m using today. I will eventually need the full 88 (and the Axiom will become a “second” board), but for initial practice and working out sequences, it’s absolutely beautiful. The aftertouch is excellent and the M-Audio sustain pedal I picked up with it is quite simply just like a piano sustain.

The Axiom is excellent for organ playing as well and does very well with B3 sounds. The drums pads, I’ve found to be much much better than other online reviews I read before picking the board up. I’ve played around quite a lot with acoustic drums sets and have been able to reproduce a pretty convincing drum set with it. The pads are more reactive than others I’ve played with, but to be honest it’s been a looong time since I last played with drum pads. Even the keys are good for drumming due to their sensitivity.

All in all, I’m very satisfied with the Axiom, but I realize that I’m not a professional keys player and this board would probably not work for someone that required a more hammer-like feel. If you are a DIY “basement” artist, have no need for built-in sounds and are looking for a really good set of semi-weighted MIDI keys to lay down basic rhythm and solos, I highly recommend it as a solution that gives you good creative controls and doesn’t break the bank.

Here’s a link to purchase the Axiom (and some more reviews), if you’re interested.

Incidentally, expect an announcement about my new project as summer gets closer and tunes get produced. I really need some time to practice…

Tackle it Tuesday

Published

charmaspice

on March 10, 2008

in Housework and Tackle-it

. 2 Comments

Current Mood: Tired or Sleepy

Since we tackled one of our major projects this past weekend (you can read the post on that here) other stuff went by the wayside. Yesterday I ended up doing some blogging, e-mailing, touch-up painting, started working on the trim in Clare’s new room, and took care of Clare as she stayed home sick with a cold. She slept in until 10am yesterday, so I knew she wasn’t feeling well.

Even though it sounds like I’ve been tackling a lot the list has only begun, today it’s onto the piled up laundry that has piled up while we did other stuff this weekend. Why is it that things seem to never end around here. As soon as I have every piece of laundry done, there’s always more. I suppose that’s what happens when you like to be clean and fresh. While the laundry is doing it’s thing I’ll also be working on the trim again. I am hoping to have things tidied up in the paint arena by Thursday the latest so I can start hauling furniture and going through the toys. We’ll see though, knowing my luck next Tuesday I’ll still be tackling it - knock on wood though that I won’t!

To see what others are tackling be sure to head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom, and if you’ve read this what are you tackling today?

Painting a Perfect Picture

Published

charmaspice

on March 10, 2008

in Housework, Raves and Updates

. 1 Comment

Current Mood: Happy emoticon Happy

What a weekend it has been at the Eastowner house! Believe it or not, I’m finally making more progress on the Wish Lish I started almost 7 months ago. We had made some progress right away with it, as I’m sure you read here, and here. Then with what seemed like an easy project with my number 1; it went all too wrong all too quickly. We found a leak by the chimney on the outside wall - got that fixed, we found ants in the wall under the drywall - got an exterminator, and then I had to wait for the wall to be repaired - which finally happened last week. Finally it seemed like I might get something done around here, and with some help I did. If you don’t know my darling hubby, it’s a rare day that he does manual labor being in the computer business. I love you darling, but you sure did sigh a lot this weekend. :)

On Friday I went to Lowe’s to get stuff to prime the walls, and prepare the room. I had the intention to start early on Saturday priming the room, and then go get the colored paint and some more supplies while it dried - however we ended up having a margaritta night on Friday delaying our start on Saturday. So, instead we started out our day by going out for some lunch at Ming Ten (our way of getting sushi for cheap, and Clare likes the Chinese buffet while the ability to get an ice cream cone after dinner), stopping at Lowe’s to get some supplies. Saturday afternoon we put down the plastic to cover the floor - lesson learned, I think I am going to buy the heavier, reusable clothes next time. The plastic floor coverings while cheap, are a pain to keep our nice hard woods covered, and they tear easily (especially with shoes on); therefore we ruined socks in order to keep the plasic from tearing too much. Although the paint trays kept getting caught in them and tearing holes anyway.

Sunday morning we started with the ceiling. Can I just tell you - whoever came up with the idea to texture ceilings needs to be shot! We think the ceiling was textured because they had to replace part of the plaste at one point, and decided to texture it to cover up that fact. Clare picked a lovely shade of pink. When we first started putting it on, I was like “OH MY - It looks like a piggy bank color. Man is this bright!” It did tone down a bit as it dried. However the only problem is that with textured ceilings and pink paint it took us a bit to be sure we had all of the teenie white spots covered up. After staring up at the celing for like half an hour looking for spots I starting seeing spots!

After some lunch we started on the purple walls. Clare helped of course, and had some fun while doing it. You can of course seem more pictues of our job in the gallery under Latest - Uncategorized. The purple took 2 coats, especially in the cut in areas where we left the yellow. We are going to give the purple a day or so to set before I start taping off to do the white trim around the top of the room, the floor boards, and of course the windows and doorways. It was quite a job, more than I thought, and it took us most of Sunday to get it done. It was a productive way to spend our weekend, and I can’t wait for the end of the week when I can get Clare all moved in. Our living room has become a bit of a toy pit, so it’ll be nice to have it all in one space.

Wordless Wednesday - Crazy Eastowners

Published

charmaspice

on March 5, 2008

in Photos and Wordless-Wednesday

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Confused emoticon Confused

We were working on a family photo project, and decided to make a funny pose. Not the funniest, but it’s us nonetheless being silly.

For more Wordless Wednesday check out 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday!

Weekend with the Ponies

Published

charmaspice

on March 3, 2008

in Kid-friendly and Updates

. 0 Comments

Current Mood: Tired or Sleepy

The weekend has come and gone, but we still have our memories. Friday night was much of nothing. We stayed in, as our money well is running dry - with my car breaking down, the stupid cop pulling me over, and we are FINALLY starting on Clare’s room. Brad & I wanted to go down to St. Joe to see our fav band Hello Dave, but we decided to be fiscally responsible people - and that sucked! It would have kinda stunk anyway, as I had a date with Clare early on Sunday afternoon. Ya see, I was the cool mom that bought tickets months ago to see My Little Pony Live - The Worlds Biggest Tea Party! We had seats that were 3rd row center from the stage, so skipping out on it would have not been cheap - that and we’d have one disapointed little girl. So, off we went just us girls to The Delta Plex where not only were the Ponies there, but they also had the Gun & Knife Show going on - and they charged you $5 to get in the parking lot! You can tell I was excited about the parking situation can’t ya. The show was pretty good, and Clare was the most animated I’ve ever seen her at a show like this. We’ve taken her to Sesame Street Live, and Diego Live (well Brad got stuck with that one), and things on ice, but I would have to say 5 is the best age to do things like this with. There were however older girls in front of us that were rather annoyed with Clare’s 5 year old excitement - but ah well, what do you expect when you’re 9 and at a Pony show. We got home in time to figure something out for dinner. We opted to go out because there wasn’t much in the way of stuff here, and my friend Holly was up for the weekend. I rummaged through my coupon stash to see if there was anything good in there, and I had some coupons for Uno’s . They have pretty good pizza, and other stuff, and a bar with drinks for the adults. Afterwards we ran to Meijer to pick up some drinking neccesities, and came home to settle in for Boogie Nights on TV. I missed out on this one somehow in the past.

Sunday was our big breakfast morning. We try to cook breakfast for the entire family one day on the weekend, and it usually varies depending on what I have around here or if someone wants to run to the store. We tried to make our own hash browns with some potatoes I had on hand - they didn’t turn out so well, so I think we’ll stick to the frozen kind. Then there was the scrambled eggs, and faux sausage (since we are kinda Vegetarian around here) to round it out. Because it usually takes us so long to get things made this usually turns into more like big brunch than anything. The rest of the day was spent lounging around doing much of nothing - other than the laundry I needed to catch up on.

Oh, before I forget. There are some semi-okay pics of Clare’s and my little date afternoon in her gallery under the 2008 section if you’re interested in seeing what it’s all about. If they ever come back to town again I think we’d go, it was so girly and pink though that I had to come home and decompress a bit - hence the need for a restaurant with adult drinks. Not Clare though, she was wound up and ready to play with her new pony tea set she got!