About Me

I live 4 miles north of Boston, Massachusetts I am 21 years old.

I am a college student undeclared, with a Liberal Arts education (focus on Technical Writing/Journalism possible). My other area of interest as a hobby is in Sound Recording and Audio Engineering. I like hanging out HA learning something new and spreading knowledge. I also enjoy help maintaining the wiki, whenever I have spare time. I enjoy discussing technology, current events, science fiction, music or anything in general. Private Message me if you ever need anything. Additionally I know how to code a little and have written algorithms in C and C++, although I enjoy writing more. I mostly just like working with CSS2, HTML, and XML. I generally prefer Discrete Mathmatics and Statistics over Calculus. I find Calculus highly annoying and aggitating at times. I consider myself be a "semi-audiophile" and I regularly ABX when I can't decide.

Hardware

My hardware specs:

Pentium III 600 Mhz
128 MB Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 video card
M-Audio Revolution 5.1 PCI soundcard.
Sennheiser PCX250 noise-cancelling (closed-cans)
Boston Acoustics 2.1 speakers with discrete subwoofer
Dual-boot Windows ME / Kubuntu.
Windows:
- Cdex 1.70 with cdparanoia libraries for ripping.
- fB2K v0.8.3 for listening.
- Burrrn! for cd writing
- Newsgroups for downloading.
Linux:
- Gripwith cdparanoia libraries for ripping.
- Amarok for listening.
- k3B for cd writing.
- Newgroups for downloading
My encoding habbits:
- Vorbis 1.1.2 libraries -q 5/6 for HD storage
- FLAC 1.13 -C 5 / 6 level for archiving my CD's.
- MP3 Lame 3.98 for compatability.
- LC-AAC for Playstation 3.

Websites

Audio Websites:

Icecast Streaming links to open-source streaming stations on the net (MP3, HE-AAC, AAC, Vorbis streaming)
1980s.fm a cool retro commercial site that brings you back to the 80's. (MP3, Vorbis streaming).
Pandora Account my account on pandora radio for (MP3 streaming)
Last.fm a cool social networking audio site with free full length tracks (MP3 streaming)
Musicbrainz Database essential for metadata and tagging your records
Amazon MP3 commercial website with DRM free single track's and full albums encoded @ 256 CBR or Lame -V 0 presets. All Track's are either $0.89 or $0.99 cents each.
ITunes Music popular Itunes music with DRM free track's and albums encoded at 128 kbps ITunes AAC encoder or "ITunes Plus" 256 kbps AAC. All track's are $0.99 cents each.

Lossless Audio

Lossless Audio Websites:

HD Dowloads a list of websites offering losless audio downloads (pay or for free)
Lossless Audio Blog support for new audiophile hardware and open source audio software, etc.

Technical Interests

My technical and musical interests are:

Ogg Vorbis and Digital Audio Compression.
MIDI Applications and Sound Synthesis
Psychoacoustics and Audio Signal Processing
Music
Classical
- Use of classical music in diverse genres (indian and chinese classical)
- Film Compositions/Scores (post contemporary and popular themes)
- Pieces by famous classical composers of Classical Era and before (Bach, Tchaikovsky, etc).
Electronic
Ambient
- IDM/Braindance
  - Squarpusher
  - Mu-Ziq
  - Venetian Snares
  - Mouse On Mars
- Big Beat
  - FC Kahuna
  - The Chemical Brothers
  - The Crystal Method
  - Fatboy Slim
  - The Prodigy
  - The Propellerheads, etc.
- Chiptunes
  - C64 SID
  - Amiga
  - Super NES
  - Sega Genesis
- Netlabels
  - Kahvi Collective
  - 8-bit Peoples
- Electroclash
  - Felix Da Housecat
  - Fischerspooner
  - The New Deal, etc
- Electronic Dance Music
  - Full-on Psychedelic Trance/Goa Trance
    - Infected Mushroom
    - Astrix
    - Vibe Tribe
    - G.M.S
    - Ananda Shake
    - Sesto Sento
    - Visual Paradox
    - The Misted Muppet
    - Goa Gil, etc
    - Astral Projection
  - Progressive House/Breaks
    - Hybrid
    - BT
    - Way Out West
    - Shiloh
    - Luke Chable
    - Andy Moor
    - Hernan Cattaneo
    - James Zabiela
    - Sasha
  - New Skool Breaks/UK Breaks
    - Meat Katie
    - Plump DJ's
    - Dylan Rhymes
    - Koma and Bones
    - Elite Foce
    - Evil 9
    - Andy Page
    - Uberzone, etc
  - Chicago House
- alternative/indie
- 80's rock/pop
- funk
- jazz
- blues
- new wave
- new age
- hip hop, etc.
Reading
Statistics
Politics/Current Affairs
Science Fiction
Etc

HA Questions

Questions and or people I won't respond to, answer, or find annoying:

Ones that are already in the damn wiki! (or people search the board for on a constant basis)
EAC and LAME questions, because the board litteraly "baraged" with them on a daily basis (to the point of annoyance).
Hydrogenaudio and their kiss ass stance with "EAC" as be all, know all, end all as DAE tool. It's an excellent ripper, but there are too many brown nosers. (My drive doesn't do C2 error correction! who cares).
Hypocrits that use Creative Labs cards and complain about other hi-end one or use it strcitly for (EAX).
Why the hell Windows developers can't just GPL/BSD a PORTION of their code and make it compatible for other OS. Foobar2000 has hybrid BSD license at least. Is it that much to ask really folks? or can they not be "bothered" with that. Sheesh. I could see if you really aren't familiar with Linux or OS/X. Not that's it a big deal. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion though.
Why Record labels/Music Distribution sites don't offer lossless downloads or downloads in different codecs other then MP3.
Why some (not all) programmers can't document API's correctly using wiki's and then complain when it's left up to the user.

Questions that I will answer:

Ogg Vorbis technical questions (I am not a xiph zealot). I just like the project
Questions reguarding other codecs like AAC, lossless, etc.
Thought provoking R&D questions, provide insight, or ask questions
Information pertaining to audio hardware and sound cards
Questions related computer music applications and software (sequencers, hardware, etc)
General/technial questions reguarding CDex.
Music discussion forum related stuff or usage.
Other thought provoking topics (replaygain, dynamics range, mastering, etc)
Questions were I can help people.
Pokes at humorous topics.