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My own how-to wiki

I’ve started working on my own how-to database using Mediawiki as the engine. I’m hoping to be able to explain as much as I can about everything I know, however I’d like to do it efficiently. I’d also like to have the instructions based on the idea that anyone should be able to follow them from a base install of Centos 5.3 so I’ve replaced my music samples hard drive with a fresh drive for WMware Fusion to run. I’ll probally create Xen virtual machines so I can explore them more, and use them to give instructions on a wide variety of topics.

This will be very fun. :]

Using the 1/4″ TS Unbalanced Effects Output at -10db for excellent mix recording.

The ubiquitous DJM-600

The ubiquitous DJM-600

I purchased a DJM-600 because it is the de-facto standard for DJ Mixers found at almost every Club and Party I have attended. Not owning one was a major set-back the first time I ever played the large Silver Room at the famous Icehouse Venue in Downtown Phoenix. Considering how dark it was and the conditions that I was playing vinyl in were absolutely terrible – such that any step on the stage would make the needles skip as they were aggrevated by the enormous bass that was being pumped out of the speakers and reflected back at me… It was a mess to try to figure things out. I vowed that I would get my own and discover its secrets.

There, within the instruction manual, was perhaps the most essential secret that I use continuously to this day. Even though I have moved to digital DJing, I still do my mixing through the Analog circuits of my Pioneer DJM-600.

This mixer has so many outputs and inputs that it fits any job, but too often have I almost been in tears to see somebody using the “Record Out” plug with a 3.5mm adapter into a Laptop’s often microphone input jack… Absolute blasphemy! The Record Out is at full power and easily overwhelms the puny input jacks on Laptops and basic Desktop sound cards.

Their second option is to connect to the “booth monitor” out and adjust the booth monitor volume so low that it barely registers. This completely ruins the capturing of the bass, as anyone who has turned down a high-end volume knob can decree that the audio changes color significantly. While avoiding some clipping, this is not a great way to record.

Now, I do not use the Effects on my Pioneer DJM-600 live, unless I’m bored out of my mind and I want to contribute to somebody else’s set by making it more lively… sometimes to success and other times to failure. That’s what the effects do. Sometimes they work and sometimes I want to let the DJ know what I really think about their trying to show off and impress a crowd with the same effects everyone else has. In my opinion, if somebody is using too many effects then they should have practiced their mixing more or brought better songs.

So on to some actual helpful information and my secret that I’ve been wanting to tell other DJs for a while. Did you know that the Effects Send Out use not only much higher quality cables (1/4″ TS Unbalanced) than both the Record and Booth outputs, which are puny RCA? Not only that, but the Effects output is sent at -10db!!!

One would think that having a lower volume output would be a bad thing, but in this modern age everyone should be recording at 24bit, which equals 144db of headroom. The benefits of having -10db include:

  1. Never clipping
  2. Less noise in the signal path as it bypasses the master amp
  3. Has been right under your nose the whole time!

There is one downside, however. In order to record from the Effects Out, you must have the Effects input knob set to Master and NOT TOUCH IT during your mix. Setting it to another channel will mean that only that channel’s output will be sent. Effects are cheesy unless you’re really innovative anyways, or you’re Sasha using a custom MIDI controller with a pimped out Ableton Live. You will also need a decent hardware interface. Currently I use a M-Audio Firewire 410 so I can use direct 1/4″ TS to 1/4″ TS into its inputs, record at 24bit (or 32bit IEEE Floting Point), and not worry about clipping.

When I DJ, I try to keep the levels as close as possible. Unfortunately, unless you know your record’s RMA loudness and Peak Loudness, you’re going to have some fluctuations. With a 24-bit recording, you have enough headroom to utilize software multi-band compressors/limiters/dynamics to really get the most out of your mix. I recommend Ozone 3, and surely Ozone 4 now that it is out. Izotope is a fantastic company and use 64-bit mathematics in their VST/AU plugins. That precision is nice because it gives you extreme freedom to make the mix properly fill in the missing headroom before you convert back to 16-bit for CDDA/MP3 audio.

The key point is that by using the Effects Out on a Pioneer DJM-600, you can focus on your mix and not on accidental clipping. You also get a far superior recording compared to the other methods.


I don’t think he even mentioned it in this video…

Well, if anyone wants help recording their mix or promoting it, please feel free to contact me!

Wandering Downtown Phoenix

On Thanksgiving day in 2005 I wandered downtown Phoenix taking pictures of everything I could fit in my viewfinder. You can find the full gallery here.

Fashion Show photos I took on the Phoenix New Times

Courtesy of Raymond Abril

Courtesy of Raymond Abril

I have had some of my pictures in print!

I stumbled across some pictures that I took at one of Tiffe Fermaint’s fashion shows a few years back at the Phoenix New Times!

I kept wanting the models to slow down, because I did not have one of those super fancy cameras like some of the other photographers. That, and I think there’s no reason they have to be so quick about it!

I have actually been to quite a few fashion shows over the last few years. Some day when I get a much better camera, I’d like to go again. I remember that for the first Labelhorde Fashion Ball, the curator of the Scottsdale Museum of contemporary Art (SMOCA) gave me his seat right next to the runway so I could get some amazing pictures! I’ll share them soon.

I’m pretty sure I know a lot of the models… or at least have met them and forgot their names. It has been a while. Tiffe Fermaint has gone on to have a career that makes me so proud of her! The first time I met her, she was 16. The first thing she said to me was “I’m going to be a fashion designer!”

Its her birthday, so Happy Birthday Tiffe!

TiffeFermaint.com

Twitter.com/Tiffe_Fermaint

She is out at Lake Havasu doing wardrobe for a movie! Sounds like fun!

Relaying for Evolved.FM

Our server is now one of the relays for Evolved.FM, my favorite internet shoutcast station since 2000 when it was XTC London Radio. Obligatory cool graph that will change over time:

Shoutcast Station Listeners

Shoutcast Station Listeners

Now I can be helpful and hopefully lend assistance in keeping a severe listener drop of incident like this morning when the primary server went down for no reason. We have high uptimes and are hosting many more shoutcast stations than are graphed here. They’re mostly used for live DJ broadcasts and assorted fun.

Want to tune in? Click for your player! Windows Media Player or Winamp/iTunes You can also find Evolved.FM on Facebook.

Raymond Abril III

I decided to use a new medium to convey how I really think and the things I would like to share with the world.

Please visit RaymondAbril.com

There will be unique content not found on any other blog on that site!

We Call It Techno! 2008 Full Movie Documentary History of Germany’s Techno Contributions

We Call It Techno! 2008 Full Movie Documentary History of Germany’s Techno Contributions. I was able to relate to this video and really enjoyed seeing the roots of early techno the way I had always imagined – a utopia where there was not a definition of techno and the creative barriers to stay within a certain genre that exist today were not prevalent in Germany. This also chronicles the beginning of the Love Parade and Mayday festivals and how for the first time East and West Germany was able to unite and exchange music and culture. This was a real epicenter for the evolution of the DJ, promoter, and party goer.

WE CALL IT TECHNO! tells the story of a tempestuous phase in music history, the first time that pop culture was created significantly in Germany. With exclusive interviews and comprehensive, mostly unreleased film and photo archive material from the years 1988-1993! –

OST: http://www.discogs.com/release/1388974 – 3 Phase feat. Dr. Motte – Der Klang Der Familie Bam Bam – Give It To Me Cosmic Baby – Cosmic Trigger 4 Cosmic Baby – Galaxia Cosmic Baby – New Zone Cybersonik – Technarchy Dance 2 Trance – We Came In Peace D-Shake – Yaaaah! Eon – Spice F.U.S.E. – FU2 F.U.S.E. – Substance Abuse Frankie Bones – Call It Techno Kid Paul & The Weird Club – Acid In My House Komakino – Dynacore Mark N-R-G – Turn The Bass Microbots – Cosmic Evolution Microglobe – What Is Space Nitzer Ebb – Warsaw Ghetto Ongaku – Mihon 3 Resistance D. – Cosmic Love Sequential – Ambiant Block Sequential – Sonne Space Cube – Pure Tendency T-Bone Castro – Wize Guys Are Freakin’ Lower Teste – The Wipe Break Boys – My House Is Your House Overlords – Sundown Thomas P. Heckmann – Floatation Thomas P. Heckmann – The Sound Of Colour Umo Detic – Fahrenhei

Become a fan of Trance Design Podcast on Facebook!

n96706960782 7593 Become a fan of Trance Design Podcast on Facebook!

Trance Design’s Facebook Page
Trance Design's Facebook Page

Bassmint 1.5 at Push Gallery, downtown Phoenix at First Fridays

Bassmint+1 5+33 Bassmint 1.5 at Push Gallery, downtown Phoenix at First Fridays

I was happy to make it out to Bassmint 1.5 and see a lot of old friends. I have a few pictures up. These make me really want to invest in a much better camera… but it is the fun that matters! Two DJ stages, fine art decorating the walls, and great people to have conversations with. I chose this picture to post in my blog because it is about time for bed after a night of being out. Chao.

Created a Last.fm Artist Page for RayRay Is Forever

DSC05514 Created a Last.fm Artist Page for RayRay Is ForeverI created an Artist Page for myself at Last.FM so I could upload new tracks for others to listen to and download. You can find my artist page here. If you have a Last.FM account, add me as a friend! My username is nichiyume.

I have been joining a great number of social networks lately as a prelude to releasing some audio production related projects. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities!

On a side note, I’m looking to broaden my horizons and skills with using a DSLR in formal events such as weddings. If you know anyone in Arizona who is looking for an Photographer, or you have an event that I could gain some experience for a portfolio, please let me know :)

I am still trying to figure out which DSLR I would like to invest in. That’s quite a bit of a research project, however I long ago reached the limitations of what I could do with a prosumer digital camera without RAW capabilities. I have the software to pre and post-process large numbers of pictures with great ease… so I may as well enjoy them!

Class of ‘88 .pdf

Class of 88 - True House Experience

I can’t remember exactly how I came across this ebook, but it is an amazing and seldom known tale of how the underground party scene around London began. Class of ‘88 is the story of the true acid house experience. It was available for free from a website that no longer exists, so here’s a copy of it.

The things he went through just to be able to throw a party! Lying to police, telling them that they were filming a music video. Being kidnapped by military hoodlums. Some of my favorite DJs have been there since the beginning, their story being told within the book.

From Amaon’s page where you can purchase a copy:

Product Description
What went on behind the Acid House dream? The raves and huge dance parties of the late-1980s changed the face of popular culture, as hundreds of thousands of youngsters enjoyed the illicit thrills of ecstacy and vast, illegal “all-nighters”. Yet beneath the bright surface was a world of drug deals, violence, exploitation, protection rackets and armed robbery. In this book, Wayne Anthony tells the story of his two years as an illegal dance party organizer and promoter. In those two years he was beaten up, menaced by criminals and blackmailers, confronted with sawn-off shotguns, kidnapped and threatened with murder.

My Fl3ffy Mix from 2006. Dark Progressive House

(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

Since I have this crazy notion of working on everything else except my DJ mix, I might as well post this mix. I listen to it quite a bit when I’m in the mood. Unfortunately there isn’t a tracklist because I have no idea what songs I used!

Right click this to download the .mp3

Planning to completely redo my blog.

Although I’ve discovered some plugins that give a better user experience, such as Google’s Friend Connect and utilizing Google’s hosted AJAX libraries as well as 3 static content redirects to Lighttpd, I still dislike how my posts are being displayed. I have a queue of technical articles to write, and I have been considering using a different domain alltogether.

Enable Address Book Sync with OSX & Gmail thanks to Lifehacker

Enable Address Book Sync with OSX & Gmail thanks to Lifehacker! http://ping.fm/dIXih

Reduce the size of your images on Wordpress Blogs

Thanks to this post, I installed Optipng so other Wordpress users on the server can use the Wordpress lossless size reduction plugin.

My two favorite progressive shoutcast stations

n47706113267 2066864 4330 My two favorite progressive shoutcast stations

Evolved.fm used to be XTC London Radio and changed sometime quite mysteriously. I lucked out as to find an old playlist file with an IP address that was being used. I’ve been listening to this station since 2000. Click this to open up the stream!

ETN.fm has a Progressive Channel as well. What’s great about Progressive House is that I love listening to it at any time – whether I am being productive or if I want to relax.

I found a better way to work on my mac

 I found a better way to work on my mac
I found a better way to work on my mac for the time being. Putting the Dock on the small screen to my right to open up real estate for bigger windows on my Cinema Display. I’m having a lot more fun in Aperture getting to use the big monitor to view the images full screen.

Come join my new Dj Mixes Sub-reddit at Reddit.com!

A subreddit just for Dj Mixes! Come Join!

A subreddit just for Dj Mixes! Come Join!

I decided to make a DJ Mix Subreddit at Reddit.com so people can post links to podcasts or other dj mixes. I hope it catches on.

Maxmind GeoIP City now available for free!

For those of you who like Awstats, Maxmind’s GeoIP City database is now available for free as GeoLite City. Geolite Country has been available for free as an alternative to the GeoIP::Free module that Awstats uses by default in Cpanel. Since the latest EDGE updates, the GeoIP::Free module has been throwing errors.

Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/Geo/IPfree.pm line 81.
Create/Update database for config "/home/USERNAME/tmp/awstats/awstats.DOMAIN.com.conf" by AWStats version 6.9 (build 1.925)

Eth0.us has a fix – which is to downgrade to the older version. I decided I would try something new. Besides adding the by city information, the country database is much more up to date and new updates are available monthly from Maxmind as well as an API to use the databases. You can find all kinds of methods to make use of these from their API section.

    Installing Maxmind GeoIPCountry & GeoIPCity on your Cpanel server:

  1. Install the GeoIP C API (comes with the country database)
  2. Install the Geo::IP Perl module (Pureperl if you cannot do step 1)
  3. Download the binary format Maxmind City lite database. gunzip the .dat file and copy to /usr/local/share/GeoIP/, which is where the Country database will be if you performed step 1.

For Cpanel users, you must run this command: cp /usr/local/cpanel/src/3rdparty/gpl/awstats-6.9/wwwroot/cgi-bin/plugins/geoip_city_maxmind.pm /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/plugins/geoip_city_maxmind.pm This will make the module available for use by Awstats.
For new accounts an Awstats configuration file is generated. To add Country and now City statistics in all new sites, edit /usr/local/cpanel/etc/awstats.conf. I’m not sure if cpup will overwrite this file, but it is possible.

You can comment out LoadPlugin="geoipfree"< so the end of the file looks like this:

#LoadPlugin="geoipfree"
LoadPlugin="geoip GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat"
LoadPlugin="geoip_city_maxmind GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/local/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat"

In order to add this to any exsting sites with Awstats, you'll need to edit the /homedir/username/tmp/awstats.domain.com.conf file and change the end. Make sure there that you comment out the old LoadPlugin lines.

Trying it out
If you have in the Web Host Manager (WHM) : Tweak Settings the check box to allow users to update their Awstats, you can try this out. Run tail /usr/local/cpanel/logs/stats_log and watch for any errors from your attempted update. That is if they don't pop out at your screen.

While I'm at it, I want to say kudos to Maxmind for releasing another free product (though read the licensee) and eth0.us because it has been a very helpful blog in the past.

Great mention of my own IRC sillyness

From #hugs
&lt; rayray&gt; and referrers from the netherregions of 'where the frak is
that?'
&lt;@chip&gt; oh man. Seriously? You're saying frak unironically?
&lt;@isosceles&gt; So say we all, chip

Hey Mr DJ – The Rise And Rise Of The Disc Jockey

Hey Mr DJ: The Rise and Rise of… …the Disc Jockey: Timeshift The story of the disc jockey, from the pirate outlaws of the 60s to today’s globe-trotting jocks who are worshiped like super stars. Featuring Pete Tong, Annie Nightingale, Johnnie Walker and Ranking Miss P

Cooliris Embed Wall using the Hardcoredreamer Gallery feeds

Check out below to see the Cooliris Embed Wall work with the gallery!
Continue Reading »

HD Videos from Lostinthestarzzz.net

Some really cool HD videos have been uploaded into Lostinthestarzzz.net

00066 HD Videos from Lostinthestarzzz.net00079 HD Videos from Lostinthestarzzz.net

Help speed test the new server!

Speedtest my new server in Los Angeles http://moo.cyborgcow.net/speedtest

Compare with my old server in Texas http://new.cyborgcow.net/speedtest

Been working on tons of updates. I’ll begin moving sites tomorrow most likely.

When DJs Ruled The World

I agree with the comments about a news article from The Independent called “When Djs ruled the world” made by Global Raver.

Now, take a look at the title again. “When DJs Ruled the World”. Given that all examples refer to a handful of British clubs and British DJs, the allusion to “rulling the world” smacks as ethnocentric and imperialistic. (Substitute “DJs” by “Great Britain” or “The Queen”, and you get the picture). Well, Americans too are prone to such exaggerations…

My Battlestar Galactica Series Finale review

I wrote up a spoiler filled mini-review over at ArizonaHP.org for the Battlestar Galactica Series finale.

PHP Code to display the current song and number of listeners of a shoutcast server

To help out those of you with shoutcast stations and want to show them off! You can use this code in Drupal or any CMS or page that accepts PHP code. Just fill in the IP address of your shoutcast server and the port in which it listens on and this script will output the current song and the number of listeners. There are variations of it floating around the internet. Its weakness is that if your song contains any commas (,) then the song title will stop at the comma.

<?php
$ip = "127.0.0.1";
$port = "8000";
$fp = @fsockopen($ip,$port,$errno,$errstr,1);
if (!$fp)
{
echo "Connection refused"; // Diaplays when sever is offline
}
else
{
fputs($fp, "GET /7.html HTTP/1.0\r\nUser-Agent: Mozilla\r\n\r\n");
while (!feof($fp))
{
$info = fgets($fp);
}
$info = str_replace('', "", $info);
$split = explode(',', $info);
if (empty($split[6]) )
{
echo "The current song is not available"; // Displays when sever is online but no song title
}
else
{
$title = str_replace('\'', '`', $split[6]);
$title = str_replace(',', ' ', $title);
echo "$title -  Listeners: $split[0]"; // Displays song
}
}
?>

Using Lighttpd to serve Gallery 2 static content with redirect rules

I’ve been testing this out and wanted to share it. It provided with a noticeable increase in certain items loading in specific ways that always bothered me.

  1. This use rewrite rules in the .htaccess file in the folder where your gallery main.php resides.
  2. This does not use mod_proxy on purpose because setting up mod_proxy securely is more work than it is worth for this method.
  3. This requires a second HTTP server, which can be on your own server or elsewhere. I chose Lighttpd because of its reputation and because I already had it running on my server. It is truly light and can serve an incredible amount of requests with low CPU or RAM usage. I mean LOW. I could describe how to set it up if anybody wants, but its incredibly easy.
  4. This could conceivably be expanded to include more files, if you want. I’m sure the rewrite rules could be improved. I’m not a master at them like the G2 team.
  5. This is great if you have a second hard drive on your server for the increased I/O capabilities.

That said, you can have Lighttpd running on your server on a second IP address, and therefore domain name/subdomain name, or on another port such as 81. My gallery is on the domain hardcoredreamer.com so I created a DNS A record for fast.hardcoredreamer.com to point to the IP where my Lighttpd process is on.

lighttpd.conf:
If you are running lighttpd on a different port, you would just need to set the document root to be the folder of your web root.
server.document-root        = "/location/of/my/website/root/"

Running on a subdomain:
$HTTP["host"] == "fast.hardcoredreamer.com" {
server.document-root = "/location/of/my/website/root/"
}

For security reasons:
url.access-deny             = ( "~", ".inc", ".htaccess", ".ini", ".php" )

This will deny somebody access to the config.php with my setup password or .htaccess files. I did not enable Lighttpd to be able to even use PHP, so there is no point in it trying to access them. This means Lighttpd stays “light”.

Inside of my /gallery/.htaccess file I added these rewrite rules [note if your gallery folder is called something else, use that name]:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .(js|css|gif|jpg|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /gallery/themes/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fast.hardcoredreamer.com/gallery/themes$1 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .(js|css)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fast.hardcoredreamer.com/gallery%1/$1 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .png [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /gallery/modules/icons/iconpacks/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fast.hardcoredreamer.com/gallery/modules/icons/iconpacks$1 [R,L]

Explanation: My problem was that my silk icon pack icons loaded incredibly slow. They’re small files and I have a 30Mbit connection from my server to home – I shouldn’t actually see them loading up from top to bottom. This redirects any requests for the .png icons in the icon pack to another server. What this does is redirects the requests to Lighttpd which in turn responds with the icons & themes .png, .css, and .js files in parallel to Apache serving all of the other content such as the main pages and thumbnails.

If you are running Lighttpd or another server on a different port, you would just change the RewriteRule to point to your domain/ip/anything:81 or whichever port you choose.

I’m sure this could be expanded upon somehow. I’m sure this makes little sense to many people. I’ve found performance gains by using mysqld_multi to run simultaneously a separate database instance on a second drive with its own innodb caches as well as another instance for Firestats (since it *severely* degrades performance when its sleeping threads tie up your gallery2/other threads.) If anyone is interested in that, let me know.

If you decide you want to try this out, watch your Lighttpd logs to see if the rules you’ve modified for your own server are indeed serving requests. You can also copy your /gallery folder and put that on another drive and just let Lighttpd have access to that one folder, but i’m also using Lighttpd to serve static files for my wordpress blog and anything else I can think of. Using redirect rules, the end user does not see that such and such file is actually located elsewhere.

I’m willing to say that if you use iconpacks, add in the rule for the .png files in your own .htaccess and see if it works. If your gallery folder is called gallery2 try:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .png [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /gallery2/modules/icons/iconpacks/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://fast.hardcoredreamer.com/gallery/modules/icons/iconpacks$1 [R,L]

Caveat: Gallery2 will change your .htaccess file if you tell it to, erasing any additions you make.

If I could just somehow figure out how to get the thumbnails sent through a static server, I’d be quite happy. Compared to Lighttpd, Apache is a lumbering beast filled with features but resource intensive.

ArizonaHP.org made a fun banner for me

rayray is forever banner

rayray is forever banner

Frank Castle, the webmaster of ArizonaHP.org made me a cool banner :] ArizonaHP is a Hobbyist community with discussions on comics, anime, video games, cosplay, manga, and so much more! It is also a center for local events such as Anime and Comic Book conventions.

Server performance upgrades… Horay!

In the last day I set up a second MySQL installation with its own innodb RAM buffers for Firestats, and that alone increased the performance of the gallery tremendously. With the Firestats database reaching 300MB (compressed), it was eating up valuable RAM that the Gallery uses for its 1.5GB database. Thanks to V-nessa.net I was able to discover how to configure chkservd to monitor the second mysql process. I used mysqld_safe’s version option to run a copy of mysqld named mysqld-2. Until this problem was fixed, if one MySQL daemon died such as the most important one that runs most of the sites on the server, since there was a second process in existance chkservd would consider it still running. The final piece of the puzzle was solved by this PDF that let me know that the last two parameters are “process name” and “users who should be running the process.”

I will post in this or a related blog any helpful info so that someday it may help another person. For now I need to see how tuning certain parameters changes performance over about a week of time.

Lastly, I was able to automate my sitemaps thanks to a PHP script that I found. Google does not like it when there are more than 50,000 links in a sitemap, and my site has almost 200,000.

In the background, I’ve also recompiled Apache, PHP, all of its modules, and Cpanel’s PHP so everyone can enjoy faster speed on the server. I found some disk i/o enhancements that will also help.