Fruggums

Today I went to see Iron Maiden's movie - Flight 666.

I'm assuming you know who they are and what they're all about. 

This was easily one of the highlights of my semester. It's difficult to type it all about, put it into words - because you'd never feel the way I did unless you were there. No amount of wordplay is going to get you to live that experience. But this isn't about you for now, I'm writing this because I really can't keep it all in, mainly because I don't know any heavy metal fans I can spill this out to (the one I do know sleeps at 10PM and isn't an Iron Maiden fan, sigh)

I was at the first show of the Somewhere Back in Time World Tour in Mumbai. Hovering around the 10th row in an absolutely sold out show of 30,000 fans crammed into a dusty smoky sweaty mess.

This was no ordinary movie. Outside the theatre, the place was dotted with Iron Maiden shirts, one guy even had a Powerslave Mask on. Once you get in, you realize that not many people are outside because well, there's already a line 40 minutes before the show. This is a movie theater, not a concert. There was 'MAIDEN MAIDEN MAIDEN!' chanting already. Theater supervisor tried to calm us down because there were other movies going on. Hah, well, he tried. It's just such a fabulously crazy group of people to be among. To anyone that thinks heavy metal fans are a bunch of rowdy a**holes, you've got it all wrong - that's all I'm going to say, because if you had that preconception, you won't believe me till you see if for yourself. Alright, and then this flood of Maiden shirt sprints into the theatre. I got a center seat so I was pretty stoked about it all. 

The movie opened with footage from the Mumbai show. During the show, you're in some other place (No, I don't drink) and really, it's the most surreal experience you can have, I hardly remember most of it - you're there, just there, going completely nuts the entire experience, arms in the air, shouting your lungs out. You don't feel much of it till it's over. To see footage of the show, to think that "Hey, I was in there" was ... heartwarming, spectacular and mind-blowing. To see what they saw, what that show was, was emotional. To be able to say - I was there, right there, is something special. 

The show was loud. I mean - LOUD. As loud as a concert. That was brilliant. To feel the concert as if you're there. Nothing compared to a plasma and a home theater. Mind-rattling bass and you can hear the crowd just enveloping you. There's really nothing like it, except, being there in real life. Even better, the entire theater was singing along with every song. To the point where we hand our hands up clapping along with Bruce - "Screeeeeam for me Mumbai!" - I still remember that one. I lost most of my voice for the rest of that night.

You might not understand all this if you aren't into heavy metal music. I'd be happy to help you out on that front. 

Iron Maiden manages to do something no other band has managed to do for me. When I was at the concert, when I was at the movie, when I'm listening to them at home, things change. All the rubbish I have to put up with sometimes just doesn't matter at all. Everything to worry about, think about, all those problems, downfalls, irritants, and anything that just keeps you from being plan and simple happy and alive,  just - gone. That's something that I tend to need quite often. And in the movie you can see how much this band means to people. No other band bothers to go to places like Colombia and Costa Rica and travel so extensively covering the entire globe to make sure they don't leave anybody out. Getting to people whose only route to Maiden is old casette tapes. There was this one scene - right after the concert, for about a minute they showed a man who managed to get hold of one of Nicko's drumsticks just crying and crying for that entire few minutes. You feel it right there. It just means so much to people. Not many bands come to India either. No band like Maiden has ever come to India. And to see these guys just giving people that experience is just, there are no words for it. And really, they're a swell bunch of guys, if you watch the movie you will realize how amazingly down to earth they are, it's unbelievable. I can't wait to get my hands on the DVD and re-live the entire thing best I can. My neighbors aren't going to like me very much that day.

I could go on, and on, and on. I just needed to vent here. If you're an Iron Maiden fan, you probably didn't need to read this. If you aren't a fan, you're probably wondering why you wasted a few minutes bothering to go through this - or, you're thinking - I want all of this right here. Go get it, you won't ever regret it.  

Up the Irons,

UP THE IRONS!

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I had to send my ER-4P (according to me, nothing beats it, and I'm not the only one who says that, Google a few reviews) headphones in for repairs a week ago to Etymotic Research. You know what a Head-Fi I am. Kind of a painful experience to go without them for a while.

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I've been on Last.fm and iLike but of course it makes sense to only be on one of them. I noticed that the Last.fm community is far more intelligent/diverse/musical.

   

Click here to download:

Last_I_liked_tag_internet_geek.zip (197 KB)

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After my intensive reading of Head-Fi, I realized that regarding my current rig, there is one major flaw - source.
 
Taking output from the headphone jack of an iPod is actually quite an 'average' source. Its nothing special and because the sound is going through all those el-cheapo components right out of the DAC (Digital to Analog converter), quality suffers.
 
So I realized that I needed to get a Line Out Cable.
 
What this cable does is let me get pure line-out audio from an iPod. It bypasses the tiny mediocre amp and circuitry leading to the headphone port and gives me unaltered pure analog signals straight from the source.
 
So I went out, did my research, and settled on a Qables Performance Line cable (Other great makers are ALO Audio and Moon Audio. There are a lot of people who make their own. The most expensive cables cost around $300 or more). Here's my mini-review.
 
After listening to just a few songs (without burning-in the cable) - the difference is bloody obvious, and I only expect it to get better as proceed to burning it in.
 
From the iPod (ALAC), to the Qable, to a Headroom AirHead, to the ER-4Ps, let me tell you, it sounds miles better.
 
I don't even have to delve into specifics, the overall sound itself is far richer, crisper, warmer, cleaner. The most pronounced improvement is in the mids - they seem to pop a lot more than before. The bass is much more well-rounded and a wee bit stronger (appearance of even lower frequencies). Taking the boom of a bass drum as an example, instead of being a single sound occurrence, like a little singular pop, it has a beginning fade-in, the pop, and an end fade-out - there's a little more resonance and impact. Overall, the sound feels a lot more balanced, everything seems to blend together in harmony (warmer) - I especially love this because the ER-4Ps tend to lean toward the clinical/cold side sometimes. The soundstage is also extended by a bit, but this one took a bit of time to realize. Really, it is a very large difference from the headphone port.
 
Overall, an LOC (especially a quality one) is a fantastic investment. Don't worry Mom, I paid for it myself.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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Today I spent most of my day (wait... all of my day) reading Head-Fi. (Sparked my my post yesterday and the fact one of my friends is buying new headphones.)

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Anybody who knows me beyond a How Are You knows I'm a total audiophile (not a hardcore guy who knows every single thing there is to know, just someone who truly appreciates and longs for great sound). And while I may not fork up the cash for dreamy audio equipment, I try my best to squeeze the most out of what I can afford (and I'm not complaining, I've been privileged with some quality sound and am thankful for every moment of it)

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Knights of Cydonia from

HAARP by Muse (free download of the above here)

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For those of you who don't know me too well, I worked on a ton of productions back when I was in school. I used to be the technical go-to guy for events. I mostly dealt with sound but anything involving gadgetry and geekness, I was probably around.

So I worked on several house plays, school plays and of course the king of them all, the 4-storey 45 minute sound and light show (if you were there, you know. If you were involved, you're gushing with nostalgia already).

Since I dealt with sound, not only was in live mixing, but it was the soundtrack too. 

Now I find myself unable to listen to certain songs because it simply makes me sad. I can't listen to the Pirates of the Caribbean OST because of all the countless hours we spent in the studio working with that music, and the two shows, gosh, I can hardly stand watching the movie, identifying each piece of music, where it was in the show, even the bloody dialogue has stuck with me.

I can't listen to Mad Pianos, Shipping up to Boston, Extreme Ways, and not even the Pink Panther theme, because they're tied so deeply with all of the school plays.

Also, the two CMUN videos I worked on. I actively avoid What I've Done from the 2007 and every song from the 2008 video. 

Its because it keeps hitting me that I'm never going to be able to work on stuff like that again (unless I go into production professionally, which I think I will eventually). SnL (Sound & Light show) was easily the best few months of my 'childhood' in school. I'm not sure if anything is going to ever come on par with that, and that isn't nice to think about (and you know, we're human, so its unavoidable)

On a more positive note, I feel I'm lucky I'm in photography. I couldn't stand a desk job. If I didn't have this sort of creativity going on all the time I'd probably be thinking about this stuff more often (and that wouldn't be nice, you don't want to be reading more of this do you?). This field (actually, pretty much any creative field) has potential, for adventure, to be rewarding and to really command what you want out of the rest of your existence here.

Plus, I have this gut feeling I'm going to get back into sound work again. Working on a production really is something special. Unfortunately its addictive. Its sort of like going to concerts actually. Once you've been for one, you're looking forward to the next, missing the previous, and living in the present. 

Hope for the best.

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