High Sierra High Tech

Greetings from the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA. I’ve just returned from a set by the heavily tech-augmented band Zilla, fronted by the String Cheese Incident’s Michael Travis, so before dropping off to sleep I thought I’d give you the rundown on some of the other tech aspects of this four-day weekend.

First off, as you can see, I’m online (big surprise, huh?). My GSM roaming carrier here is Edge Wireless, whose EDGE (how appropriate) data service runs at the jaw-dropping speed of….14 kbps. Which, come to think of it, is about what I got during my first T-Mobile test the other day. In fairness to Edge Wireless, their network is probably quite overloaded this weekend, with all the festival-goers temporarily bumping up the local population. And I suspect that on an ongoing basis, there’s historically not been much demand for cellular data services up here, so Edge’s network is probably voice-optimized from a timeslot allocation standpoint.

Speaking of overloaded, Verizon’s also up here, with 1xRTT data services. 1xRTT is slow under the best of circumstances, and Verizon’s network is so overloaded that the Linksys WRT54G3G-ST router/Kyocera KPC650 PC Card combo regularly drops Internet sessions. Fortunately, a wireless ISP called DigitalPath is also here, and I’m currently connected to a nearby access point. Their service cost is pretty reasonable; $7.50 per day, or $14.95 per week (I signed up for the latter, as I’m here through Sunday night). The access point is currently on channel 10 (haven’t these folks ever heard about using non-overlapping 802.11b/g channels?), which as you can see from the graphic below is a pretty crowded slice of spectrum:

When I was on the phone with them earlier today, I suggested that they might want to reconfigure the AP for channel 6 or, better yet, 1. We’ll see….

I brought a pretty simple recording rig this time, compared to festivals past:

1. Oktava MC012 mics, with cardioid, hypercardioid and omni capsules, and cables
2. Audio Technica AT8410A shock mounts, a Shure A27M stereo mic adapter, and a Manfrotto 004BAC mic stand.
3. Denecke’s PS-2 portable mic preamp and AD-20 44.1 kHz portable A/D converter
4. A S/PDIF optical cable, and a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3

Frankly, though, I’m not sure if I’m going to do any recording this year, in spite of the outstanding festival lineup. As much as I enjoy recording, it’s also more than a bit of a hassle….hauling the gear (no matter how portable my self-control enables it to be) to a stage and setting it up, only to tear it back down again after the set….worrying about someone bumping into or stepping on it….and grumbling to myself about all the people around me who, instead of being quiet and enjoying the music (isn’t that why they came….to listen to music?), keep shouting to each other and to folks on the other end of their cellphone conversations, all of which inevitably ends up in the recording no matter how high I stick the mics in the air….these hassles tend to diminish my enjoyment of the music experience. And frankly, when I can alternatively just go to the Internet Archive and download someone else’s recording of the set….

I also brought the solar cell array, and it looks like I might be using it a fair bit, in spite of the fact that I (theoretically at least) have access to AC power. The RVs around me keep cranking their air conditioning systems full blast, popping the main breakers. Fortunately, the refrigerator in my comparatively diminutive 2001 Volkswagen EuroVan Camper runs not only on AC and DC but also on propane! The weather was quite hot today; 100 degrees F at 3500 feet above sea level….I don’t want to imagine what it was like back home in Sacramento (at 25 feet above sea level!). The weather forecast calls for cooler temperatures through the weekend, and I hope it’s accurate.

That’s all for now. Happy weekend, all!

p.s….parked in the vendor area around the main stage, surrounded by booths selling fairy wings, incense, left-leaning bumper stickers and organic food, is an enormous, gaudily-attired bus promoting Guitar Hero II. That is so wrong, on so many levels….;-)

Followup: I broke down and recorded Yonder Mountain String Band’s excellent, wind-free set last (Friday) night. But you already knew I would, didn’t you? More to come, after I figure out why I got low-level static throughout the recording, except during the quiet bits in-between songs. AD-20 analog stage overload, yathink?

Followup II: the static ended up being caused by a loose optical digital connection between the AD-20 and the NJB3. I’ve just returned from making two excellent recordings, of the Del McCoury Band and Les Claypool’s Fancy Band.