Music + Technology = Pete Lacis

Egnater Amp Building Seminar, Premier Guitar Magazine & Video Feature of Yours Truly

Posted by in amplifiers, audio clips, music, musical instruments, pete lacis, technology

This past weekend I had the priveledge to attend the Egnater amp building seminar outside of Detroit, MI. It was an amazing experience to build my own JTM 45 – inspired amp, let alone to learn about all of the theory behind how and why these things work. I was amazed at seemingly how few of the amp’s components actually let to it sounding like a Marshall, Fender, Vox, etc. The amp sounds great as is, but I’m psyched to get back under the hood and start some tweaking! In…read more

Feb.27
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The annoying thing about upgrading to OS X 10.5.2

Posted by in annoyances, apple, technology

While overall I’ve been very happy with the results my new 200 GB hard drive, OS X 10.5.2 and Office 2008 install, I’m a bit annoyed that capability I had with my MacBook Pro out of the box with OS X 10.4 are now missing……namely iDVD, iMovie and iPhoto.  Sure, I can regain those capabilities via $99 family pack upgrade.  However, its the principle of having to pay for capabilities I already had (and had already paid for) that is just not right.  First the $200 penalty for iPhone early…read more

Feb.16
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Upgrading the Hard Drive in my MacBook Pro and installing Leopard

Posted by in apple, technology

As a musician and multimedia creation expert, I’ve run into trouble attempting to maximize performance and storage space.  Specifically, my 17″ MacBook Pro had 90 GB hard drive at 7200 rpm.  It was speedy for sure…..but it was so loaded with apps that I had little to no room for data.  Being that I have almost three terabytes of external storage, somethings were just not as efficient as I would have liked (namely Native Instruments sample libraries for Komplete 4 had to be housed externally).  After much frustration and a…read more

Feb.15
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Colorado Caucuses and being a new resident

Posted by in life, pete lacis

With all of the great enthusiasm surrounding the current election, my wife and I were looking forward to participating in the process in our new home state of Colorado.  However, we learned yesterday that in this day and age of Internet instant gratification, participating in a Colorado caucus can’t be a last minute decision.  Guess we’ll have to wait until the general election when our vote doesn’t really count.

Feb.05
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Blabbermouth.net and posting my content without credit

Posted by in music, musical instruments, technology

I received an interesting lesson regarding free syndication of content today via Google Alerts. Apparently Blabbermouth.net chose to post some of my videos from my NAMM coverage. Fine, but not only did they not give any credit, they even posted my descriptions verbatim from my YouTube entries. I set the content up to be freely distributed in an effort to help spread the word about certain artists and manufacturers. That said, posting someone else’s content without citing a source or giving credit is totally wrong in my book.

Jan.23
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Winter NAMM – Day 1 wrap up

Posted by in amplifiers, music, musical instruments

Highlights: Suhr Modern – new 24 fret model with new body shape, neck joint and neck carve – will own one! Suhr Badger 40 watt – with EL34’s  -  different “flavor” of the original badger – less chime, more midrange snarl – has a solid state rectifier (original Badger has tube recifier) Custom Audio Amplifiers – OD100 Standard and OD100 SE Plus – now I understand what all the fuss is about regarding the current version of the standard.  The SE Plus is certainly an improvement over the SE, put…read more

Jan.18
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Blogging The NAMM Show

Posted by in musical instruments, technology

Today marks the beginning of coverage of Winter NAMM 2008.  Stay tuned for all the latest and greatest news.  Quick updates will be posted via Twitter  with daily wrap-up articles posted here, complete with photos and video.  Stay tuned!

Jan.17
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Possible Leak – Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 Keynote?

Posted by in marketing, public relations, technology

Twitter has been abuzz this morning regarding the possible leak of Steve Jobs’ Macworld 2008 keynote on wikipedia. If this turns out to be true, it marks an enormous change in the world of Apple pr, in that they have always been extremely tight-lipped about all things announcement related.  Leaks are a common way to build buzz, but it has never been Apple’s style….especially not Steve Jobs’.  This will be fun to watch.

Jan.14
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AVCHD and the Apple Final Cut Fiasco

Posted by in pete lacis, technology, trouble shooting

While the AVCHD format is still pretty new, I was disappointed to learn that the version of Final Cut Express HD (3.5) that I purchased in August would not support this new codec. Then I learn that the new version of Final Cut Express 4 supports AVCHD, but actually has less features than v3.5 So this would lead one to believe that it costs $99 to “upgrade but downgrade?!” With this realization (and after researching about and drooling over Final Cut Pro Studio 2), I was all set to purchase…read more

Jan.13
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