User talk:Isomorphic

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[edit] Piano recordings

There are many ways. I'll start by describing what I do.

I find a decent grand piano in a quiet place. Sometimes I use my piano at home, which is a nice 6' grand, and other times I use a piano at a college or church.

I use an inexpensive stereo condenser microphone made by Sony. I got it used as part of a trade when I was getting rid of some other gear but they are around $100 new. Sony is constantly tweaking the model numbers and prices but something in that approximate price range should work OK. I usually attach the microphone to the piano lid with tape, so that it faces towards the dampers, especially if I'm in my living room. If I'm in a studio or church, sometimes it works better or as well to have the microphone in the area for the audience or congregation. I usually clip it to a music stand so that I can position it.

The microphone is crucial to the whole process. Piano does not record well in mono, and you absolutely must have a condensor mic intended for recording rather than something intended for stage use. I've tried to record with an SM58 which is a highly respectable vocal mic for stage use and the recordings come out sounding like mud.

I have an iRiver H340, which is a sort of open-source-friendly iPod. There are three important differences from an iPod: (1) it records from a line in, a built-in microphone (which is worthless), or an external microphone; (2) it looks like a hard disk when it is connected to a USB port on a computer, so you can get files off it; and (3) it supports the OGG format used by Wikipedia. Though there are periodic reports that the H340 has been discontinued, you could still get new ones last time I looked. They are around $400, about the same as an iPod.

The H340 though it will play back OGG will only record to MP3, so I do have to transcode the files on my computer before uploading them to commons. At the same time, I also cut the inevitable footsteps and other crud at the beginning and end of the recording. There are open source tools for doing this. I use cutmp3 and mp32ogg.

That system works well for me because I have the H340 anyway, and since I often record things in public places I need a portable and compact setup.

Many musicians record to their computers. If you have a notebook computer or if your piano lives next to your desktop computer, this will work. You can use the same type of microphone, or there are now supposed to be some reasonably good USB mics out there that have built in A-to-D. If you have a more ordinary sort of microphone you would want to match up a good sound card to it or use a USB A-to-D converter.

There are lots of other ways to do it. In the olden times I used a field recorder (cassette) and then encoded the files at my computer in a seperate step. Some people still use DAT. The high-end way to do it is to get a digital recorder like the one Marantz is selling. They reportedly work great and are very easy and intuitive to use but for $1000 they better be.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A page move that may be of concern to you...

Francis Stanley Gabreski has been moved around again. I have no pref one way or the other about what the article should be named, I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Cheers. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 15:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Upcoming NYC Meetup

You wanted to know when the next meetup was being organized in New York City. Plan for Saturday, 9 December 2006. While you're at it. Come help us decide on a restaurant. See: Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC. Spread the word. Thanks. —ExplorerCDT 22:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Architecture bulletin

WikiProject Architecture Bulletin   v • d • e 
Announcements - please add your Project announcements   v • d • e 
  1. One Bayfront Plaza promoted to GA on 3 October 2007. Rai-me 23:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  2. List of tallest buildings in San Francisco promoted to FL on 11 October 2007. Rai-me 19:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  3. Buildings and architecture of Bristol promoted to FA on 23 October 2007. — Rod talk 09:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  4. List of tallest buildings in Dallas promoted to FL on 8 November 2007. Rai-me 03:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
  5. List of tallest buildings in Detroit promoted to FL on 8 December 2007. Rai-me 07:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  6. List of tallest buildings in Dubai promoted to FL on 21 December 2007. Cheers. Trance addict 19:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  7. List of tallest buildings in Cleveland promoted to FL on 7 January 2007. Rai-me 00:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  8. List of tallest buildings in Tulsa promoted to FL on 7 January 2007. Rai-me 04:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  9. 5th Avenue Theatre promoted to GA on 20 January 2008.--Skotywa (talk) 05:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  10. List of tallest buildings and structures in Manchester promoted to FL on 19 February 2008. Cheers. Trance addict 02:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
New article announcements - add new architecture article to list



Archives

This month's collaboration is Johannes Itten.

Johannes Itten, this month's collaboration
Featured article and Featured list candidates
Feature picture candidates
Articles at Peer Review
Pettit Memorial Chapel - Dean Castle - Smederevo fortress - Somerset Towers - Bath Stone - Leo J. Ryan Federal Building - Architects (Registration) Acts, 1931 to 1938 - Cannons (house)
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[edit] Survey Invitation

Hi there, I am a research student from the National University of Singapore and I wish to invite you to do an online survey about Wikipedia. To compensate you for your time, I am offering a reward of USD$10, either to you or as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. For more information, please go to the research home page. Thank you. --WikiInquirer 02:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)talk to me

[edit] Khazar coins

I need your help resolving an issue on Khazars- as you may know, this article contains two images of Khazar coins bearing Jewish inscriptions. The coins (and their images) are in the Swedish Numismatic Museum. The two images are here: Image:Khazar coin.jpg and Image:Khazar coin1.jpg A user, User:Cbdorsett, has been engaging in an extended campaign to remove the coins. His first move was to claim that the translation given for the coins was inaccurate. When that failed because of RS and NOR, he moved on to attacking the copyright. The entire discussion is here: [1] As I pointed out, the images are most likely not copyrightable as they are images of currency (the issue has not yet been adjudicated as far as I know because who in the world is going to sue over a picture of a coin); even if they are copyrightable, I believe I have provided adequate fair-use rationale for their appearance in the article. He has now listed the coins on Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2007_March_29/Images Any insight or assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

--Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematics CotW

Hey Iso, I am writing you to let you know that the Mathematics Collaboration of the week(soon to "of the month") is getting an overhaul of sorts and I would encourage you to participate in whatever way you can, i.e. nominate an article, contribute to an article, or sign up to be part of the project. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks--Cronholm144 21:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Warrior Nation

It's back. Third time today - you killed it last, I think. Any chance you could salt this one? It seems to be a group of folks determined to get it up. Either way, thanks for working CSD! It's appreciated. Philippe 00:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again... but it's back. Again. Philippe 00:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RIONI moda italia

Another editor has added the {{prod}} template to the article RIONI moda italia, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 12:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update on KA

You did an edit on the Kura-Araxes subject several months ago which you mentioned was incorrectly related to Armenians. Someone promptly intervened and reverted your changes. You likely know this but there is a lot of POV in Wikipedia--the person who anonymously reverted your edit was Ararat Arev who has been banned because he was making a whole bunch of ridiculous theories that Armenians did this or that. But he keeps coming back with dynamic anonymous IPs which changes numbers with every edit he makes. The Admins have temporarily corrected the page: [2] You can check its article history. This is just a warning that you CANNOT always trust what is placed on Wikipedia--due to the large amounts of POV and nonsense posted by people who want to futher their own agendas, rather than the truth. The Admins do their best to protect articles but they are only human. The article on Mitanni was also protected partly due to Ararat Arev's behaviour. Ararat Arev uses many sock puppets--80 of which have been banned here alone: [3] He never follows the WP: CIVIL rules. The rest are anonymous like the one you encountered.

Here is a talk from the Admin on the whole topic: [4] Regards, Leoboudv (talk) 20:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)