Steve Litchfield

This had been bugging me for a year and I finally got music sync between my Mac and my iPhone working reliably in 2024... With a little 'dance' I have to do. Sadly. I don't think I'm alone in having problems, either, judging from reports online, yet the issues are not so widespread that Apple has actually, you know, FIXED them with a software patch. Sigh. The symptom is that, when plugging in to sync (I know, I know, old school), everything just grinds to a halt when it comes to the 'sync' step, i.e. where your music library syncs to what's on the phone. It will hang there forever. What's happening, under the hood, is that Apple's MDCrashReportTool (ironically) has errr... crashed, and, when queried by Finder's Music sync, can't respond to say that all is OK. So the latter just waits and waits...  The 'solution' (which works every time but is a bit of a hassle) is to go into Activity Monitor on your Mac (it's in the Utilities fold...

It occurred to me, when listening to a 'deluxe' album, remastered from a 1970s classic, with loads of bonus tracks, that recording music used to be a lot more fun, a lot more spontaneous. In 2023, in fact since about 1983, so for the last 40 years(!), recording music is about assembling parts of a jigsaw - drum parts here, bass there, keyboards there, vocals, and so on. All of which are recorded in 100% isolation and can be replaced, broken up, and generally juggled until the rendered whole, down to stereo, is as the artist wants it. I have some knowledge of all this, having at first done lots of home recording onto Foster and Tascam multi-tracks, then recorded an album in a real studio, plus lots of 'live' recording along the way in a variety of settings. So I'm listening to some of these 1970s out-takes and bonus tracks and it's blatantly clear how different recording was, especially for rock bands. Several tracks started with studio chatter "This might b...

I just had a startling revelation, a discovery. And it will help anyone struggling with listening to stuff on headphones on an Android smartphone. But please be patient while I describe the scenario... You're out for a walk listening to a podcast or music. The phone's in your pocket or in its belt case - and you're using the supplied wired stereo headset to deliver the tunes or spoken word. All is right with the world til you get interrupted.  Perhaps you meet someone and stop for a chat? Or arrive at a shop and have to conduct some business or other. Either way, you press the single button on your headset and the music or podcast pauses. Or you're in bed listening to a podcast, drifting off happily to sleep. OK, there's a fair chance you'll fall asleep and you'll miss most of the podcast, but I find I know when I'm too tired to listen on and I pause playback and remove the earbuds just before I settle down to actually sleep. In either case, yo...

As someone who started with vinyl records (LPs) back in the 1970s and graduated through cassettes to CDs, I get fed up with so-called audiophiles who say that vinyl recordings sound better than the same pieces on CD. They're simply talking rubbish. In favour of their argument, they suggest that the 44kHz sampling rate of digital music means that the 'full' analog waveforms of music aren't stored when on CD. They'd be right, but unless we're talking about piano music and the listener is a 20 year old afficianado with perfect hearing the difference is completely inaudible. Certainly for 99.999% of people, and especially those who like listening to music a lot (and fairly loud), hearing won't be perfect. Even more so as we all get older. In favour of CD 44kHz sampled music, there are many factors, including: These days, most CDs are either recorded digitally in the first place, or digitally remastered, which means ZERO hiss, ZERO wobble/wow, PERFECT graphic equ...

And so yet another music service is to close ( Virgin Digital ), with customers being locked out of re-downloading music they've already paid for. Why do consumers put up with this? Just say no to DRM. Buy CDs and then keep them on your shelf, ripping them in iTunes or Media Player when you want to any portable device and carry on doing so for free until the end of time....

I've lost count of the number of commercial sites I've visited, upon which I want to purchase something simple, something small - and, when I get to fill in my credit card details, they also want me to create an account on their system, complete with user name, password, full address (again) and so on. Look, I just want to buy something, OK, I won't be coming back, don't take it personally, it's just that you've only got the one thing I want. So WHY DO I HAVE TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT? And have to remember (/write-down and keep safe) one MORE username and password. Usually, I just turn back at this point and go to another site, if possible, which doesn't have the same system. What sparked this off? I wanted to use a particular piece of royalty-free ambient music in my video podcast , so I clicked through the relevant site to the 'Ask us for a quote' section. All I wanted was a price, like "$10" or "$100". Instead I was presented with a...

I don't often crawl out from under my rock and stick my head up to be shot at, but if you fancy coming along to say hello or to enjoy what'll hopefully be a good night of original music, note that Shed Music (couple of our videos here ), in which I'm 'guitar and vocals', is playing the 3Bs in Reading on October 17th, we're starting to play at 9pm. Go on, come along, buy some beer and make the landlord a happy man....