I've been able to use At Bat for a bit over a week now. My opinion of it is mostly the same. I can't really say how much more reliable the sound is on a Wifi connection, because the Wifi at the house has been flaking out a ton lately (plus the Droid just doesn't get a strong signal from it). I've had nights with completely uninterrupted sound, and others in which I've just quit listening instead of attempting to reconnect every inning. However, I'm quite positive that it isn't all due to problem on my end. There were a few instances where a game cut out, and I would open up the browser to make sure that websites still loaded. They did so without a hitch, making me believe the disconnects were due to problems with MLB's servers. Whatever the issue, I'd be happy if the game's reliably reconnected, but this only happens occasionally. The rest of the time, the program will simply hang unless you coax it into trying again.
Despite that, I was using At Bat to listen to at least one game a day from Monday to Sunday, and the majority of that time was probably disconnect free. In essence, this program turns your smartphone into an AM pocket radio, allowing to pretend that you're your dad for a night, sitting on the porch and tuning in before bedtime. That's really special to me, and if the disconnects would improve a bit more, I'll be in heaven.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
With the Beatles
Album: With the BeatlesRelease Date: November 22 1963
No help on this review; I'm going it alone. I have always felt like With the Beatles is susceptible to getting lost in the shuffle. Released just four months after Please Please Me, it breaks down to eight original tunes and six covers, just like it's predecessor. As the second album, it doesn't celebrate any major "firsts". Even it's iconic album art is easily forgotten among several more iconic album covers that would succeed it. In short, it was a quick and dirty follow up meant to preserve the band's unparalleled success.
But you know what? I like it better than Please Please Me, by a long shot even. True, Please Please Me is more iconic, and there are individual songs on it that tend to stick in my head more strongly. But every time I fire up With the Beatles, I am reminded of how many great songs are on it.
Where do I start? First there are the covers, which are some of the band's most memorable. "Please Mister Postman", "Money", "Roll Over Beethoven", and "You Really Got a Hold on Me" are all present here, and as expected, the Beatles' takes on these standards are so good that they are often the only versions that people remember. Surprisingly, my favorite of the covers is "Till There was You", which is so obscure that people are likely to think it is a Lennon/McCartney original. The rendition is light and airy, a ray of sunshine that stands out amongst the band's output to this point, at least in terms of style.
Among the original songs, I'm not sure how, exactly, I want to describe them. There's nothing that matches "I Saw Her Standing There" or "Love Me Do" in terms of "smacks you in the face" quality, though the opening lines of "It Won't Be Long" are damn close. Yet overall, the songwriting feels more mature. The harmonies are more clever and interesting, and just four months later, it already sounds like the band is coming into their own. While I'm listening to them, the songs on With the Beatles hold my interest much more easily than those on Please Please Me, but once I'm done they tend to slip away. I'm not sure why this is the case, especially with tracks like "Hold Me Tight", which practically sums up the entire concept of sock hop dance hits for me.
If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say the problem with With the Beatles is one of magnitude. The first and final songs on Please Please Me are definitive in a way that nothing here really is, even if this is a stronger overall body of work. This in turn causes us to go back to Please Please Me with greater frequency, which is what really causes it to stick in our minds. Make no mistake though; With the Beatles has a stronger overall set of covers, and it gives us a solid glimpse into the future sound that the third album, A Hard Day's Night, would use to cement Beatlemania. You may not always remember how good it is, but that just makes it one of the more generous album's in the band's catalog, and it ensures that every re-listen is a treat.
Monday, April 05, 2010
MLB at Bat
Blackouts are the most frustrating thing a sports fan can deal with. You move away from your favorite team (or live somewhere in the midwest where the team affiliations of neighboring states get flaky), yet you still want to follow them. You can't see them on TV, since (understandably) the local stations want to follow their own home teams. But you can't easily venture online, since the Powers That Be have determined that listening to streaming radio online doesn't grant you permission to hear the game, even if you're listening to the same advertisements as the local audience. If you're dealing with the NFL, it gets even worse, as even the team minutes away from your house may be blacked out if ticket sales are weak.
For better or for worse, some of the sports leagues have developed a solution - pay them money, and you can get different kinds of access to the entire league's content. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, you probably don't want access to the entire league, in which case you're always going to be paying for service you don't need. Second, said prices can be enormous depending on what you're after. Full season access to televised ball games? Better save your coins for that Triple Play package. And good luck making sure you get exactly what you need. My roomate got giddy over a supposedly sweet deal for NFL games on DirectTV, only to discover that there are at least two packages available, and the one he sprung for didn't grant games in HD or guarantee no blackouts. He haggled to get that version for free, but that's not the point.
As frustrating as this all is, I'll admit I'm willing to pony up a bit for a service. And thankfully (if you want to call it that), MLB has done better than most sports in creating different services. You can get TV access, online video and radio access, and now, in the era of smartphones, there exists a new program called MLB At Bat. Far as I can tell, it is one of the cheapest options out there. For a $15 flat fee, you can download an app for iPhone, Blackberry or Android that allows gives you live data of every MLB game, and even better, full radio broadcasts. If you're on iPhone, you can also get some video. It lasts all season and through the playoffs, and appears to have no blackouts.
No matter how annoying it may be to have to pay for this service, I'll admit that getting radio broadcasts of the Mets wherever I go for less a week's lunch budget is hardly the worst sacrifice. So I took the plunge and downloaded the Android version today.
So far, I'm liking it, but the season is long, and there are questions that still need answering. The best feature is the lack of one - there are no accounts to create, no signing in to be done. You just fire up the app and go. There's also a wealth of data at your fingertips. At Bat has all the info you'd expect from Yahoo! Sports or ESPN, including the box score, play by play breakdown, and analysis of every pitch. There are ways to get this info for free, but on a phone that lacks Flash and the like, being able to get it conveniently has its advantages over relying on apps that may not refresh correctly, or finding a browser page that will actually display.
Now about that audio... it lets you choose your radio station, if there's a choice, and the sound quality is crystal clear, or at least, as clear as it would be on AM radio. There's something about that AM sound, however, that makes baseball on the radio so charming, so I'm glad that everything sounds the way I like it. I have had problems with the connection already on Opening Day, though I have to test listening to it via Wi-Fi. On that note, I'll be curious to see how much data a single game uses up. I know I'm on an unlimited plan, but I'm still figuring out if these phone providers have some sort of hidden bandwidth cap (if it's five gigs, as I've heard it rumored, I'll be fine this month, but what of the future?)
Lastly, the Android version currently lacks gameday video. I don't actually need this feature, since baseball is the one sport that works perfectly well on the radio, but I can understand a bit of complaint on principle, since the feature exist for iPhone users paying just as much. Still, iPhone lacked it in its first year of the app, so I'm sure MLB will roll it out eventually.
Bottom line, At Bat is shaping up to be a solid program and a good value. As long as the sound quality and the streams stay strong, I'll be in heaven all season.
PS - Forgot to mention, there needs to be a better way to start/stop radio streaming. Currently you must go to audio, and hit a small stop button that doesn't easily recognize touch inputs, and looks more like a checkbox than a stop button. Something nice and big at the bottom of the app would be nice.
For better or for worse, some of the sports leagues have developed a solution - pay them money, and you can get different kinds of access to the entire league's content. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, you probably don't want access to the entire league, in which case you're always going to be paying for service you don't need. Second, said prices can be enormous depending on what you're after. Full season access to televised ball games? Better save your coins for that Triple Play package. And good luck making sure you get exactly what you need. My roomate got giddy over a supposedly sweet deal for NFL games on DirectTV, only to discover that there are at least two packages available, and the one he sprung for didn't grant games in HD or guarantee no blackouts. He haggled to get that version for free, but that's not the point.
As frustrating as this all is, I'll admit I'm willing to pony up a bit for a service. And thankfully (if you want to call it that), MLB has done better than most sports in creating different services. You can get TV access, online video and radio access, and now, in the era of smartphones, there exists a new program called MLB At Bat. Far as I can tell, it is one of the cheapest options out there. For a $15 flat fee, you can download an app for iPhone, Blackberry or Android that allows gives you live data of every MLB game, and even better, full radio broadcasts. If you're on iPhone, you can also get some video. It lasts all season and through the playoffs, and appears to have no blackouts.
No matter how annoying it may be to have to pay for this service, I'll admit that getting radio broadcasts of the Mets wherever I go for less a week's lunch budget is hardly the worst sacrifice. So I took the plunge and downloaded the Android version today.
So far, I'm liking it, but the season is long, and there are questions that still need answering. The best feature is the lack of one - there are no accounts to create, no signing in to be done. You just fire up the app and go. There's also a wealth of data at your fingertips. At Bat has all the info you'd expect from Yahoo! Sports or ESPN, including the box score, play by play breakdown, and analysis of every pitch. There are ways to get this info for free, but on a phone that lacks Flash and the like, being able to get it conveniently has its advantages over relying on apps that may not refresh correctly, or finding a browser page that will actually display.
Now about that audio... it lets you choose your radio station, if there's a choice, and the sound quality is crystal clear, or at least, as clear as it would be on AM radio. There's something about that AM sound, however, that makes baseball on the radio so charming, so I'm glad that everything sounds the way I like it. I have had problems with the connection already on Opening Day, though I have to test listening to it via Wi-Fi. On that note, I'll be curious to see how much data a single game uses up. I know I'm on an unlimited plan, but I'm still figuring out if these phone providers have some sort of hidden bandwidth cap (if it's five gigs, as I've heard it rumored, I'll be fine this month, but what of the future?)
Lastly, the Android version currently lacks gameday video. I don't actually need this feature, since baseball is the one sport that works perfectly well on the radio, but I can understand a bit of complaint on principle, since the feature exist for iPhone users paying just as much. Still, iPhone lacked it in its first year of the app, so I'm sure MLB will roll it out eventually.
Bottom line, At Bat is shaping up to be a solid program and a good value. As long as the sound quality and the streams stay strong, I'll be in heaven all season.
PS - Forgot to mention, there needs to be a better way to start/stop radio streaming. Currently you must go to audio, and hit a small stop button that doesn't easily recognize touch inputs, and looks more like a checkbox than a stop button. Something nice and big at the bottom of the app would be nice.
Friday, April 02, 2010
The Hendrix Remasters
I knew about the Jimi Hendrix remastering project for a while now, but I didn't know they were out until a week or two after release. I guess I expected the same level of hoopla that the Beatles remasters received. The fact that I didn't find it means that either Hendrix's staying power is weaker than I thought, or I just didn't look hard enough for press material.
In any case, they're out, which means that I had to pick up a couple of the albums, as well as do the usual research to get better acquainted with Jimi.
Said research brought up back my typical feelings of excitement, confusion, and despair. Let's start with the confusion part. Like many classic rock acts, Hendrix's discography is more complicated than it needs to be. The only records to come out during his lifetime were the three albums he made with the Experience, and one live album made near the end of his life. However, he spent a boatload of time in the studio during '69 and '70, working on material for new, post-Experience albums. His untimely death meant that Jimi would never have control over how this music would be used, and sure enough, the people in charge of his recordings would mine this collection throughout the 70's (and even the 80's) to create a ridiculous amount of posthumous records. There have also been various legal battles throughout the years, as one group or another tried to gain control of the Hendrix estate.
Today, members of his family have created Experience Hendrix, who, as far as I can tell, have full control over all of Jimi's music, and who are most definitely in charge of these remasters.
Much like The Beatles CD releases from the 80's, these Hendrix remasters attempt to create a cohesive, standard collection of his studio recordings. This collection consists of the three Experience albums, as well as two posthumous releases. The first of these is First Rays of the Rising Sun, which was actually created over a decade ago, and is the family's attempt to create the album Jimi was working on before his death. These tracks were all released in some form on the first three posthumous albums created back in the 70's, but those are no longer recognized, with First taking their place in the Hendrix canon. The other is Valleys of Neptune, which is a brand new attempt at recreating and the releasing the material Jimi worked on in 1969, immediately after finishing up with the Experience. . All in all, the catalog is fairly neat these days, and since the remastering project is only five albums large, it isn't too pricey to collect.
Now for the excitement. For ten or eleven dollars (only slightly pricier than a modern music release), each remaster gives you a CD, a documentary DVD, a hefty booklet with a lot of great photos and lyrics, and a hefty cardboard digipak case to hold it in. It's a fairly nice package that arguably gives you more than any of the Beatles remasters, and for less money. Okay, so those albums also come with exactly the same stuff, but the documentaries are shorter and relegated to on disc Quicktime files.
In regards to the quality of the supplemental material, the booklet contains the usual cock sucking essay by a nostalgic music critic, but the lyrics and photos more than make up for the revisionist Hendrix history. The DVD, on the other hand, is great all around. A number of Jimi's associates take turns reminiscing about the recording of the album, and we get to go into the engineer's booth to take a listen to individual parts of each song, learning how they were recorded and mixed, giving you a glimpse into the creation process that few bands ever reveal. Some of the interview segments don't feel entirely honest or thorough, but these are still useful, since you can still learn a lot by what they don't say.
Since I'm not an audiophile, my opinion on the sound quality isn't going to be worth much, but for my ears it's better than expected. Everything is crisp, and I have no trouble hearing the dynamics (which really do add something special to these tracks). That covers my usual gripes in regards to mastering. There might be some compression for the sake of loudness going on; after listening to Are You Experienced, I immediately switched to Sgt. Pepper in mono, and found it to be a hell of a lot quieter at the same volume.
And now for the despair: as is typical of the internet, no one is happy with these remasters, or the way in which Experience Hendrix has handled anything. I see some nicely made, well priced releases, and an official website boasting an impressive number of interviews and official bootlegs for free listening. However, for the old timers who were live for Hendrix's work, and the younger fans who can use the power of anonymity to pretend to be both audiophiles and Hendrix historians, none of this is good enough. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Jimi created hundreds of unreleased tracks and thousands of live recordings in his short career, making it likely that no one can agree on just what is and isn't worth releasing. But that still doesn't excuse the fact that haters won't let something as simple as acknowledging that their worldview is just one of many get in the way of their scorn. The bottom line is that if you're a new fan who hasn't bought past Hendrix releases, there's nothing wrong with these remasters. And if you truly are an older, experienced fan, the best thing you can do in a review is describe the music and why you like it. Not everyone has the desire, time, or money to track down whatever rare or definitive version you put your stamp of approval on. Share your interest in the music first, and let the reader decide for themselves how deep they want to dig.
In any case, they're out, which means that I had to pick up a couple of the albums, as well as do the usual research to get better acquainted with Jimi.
Said research brought up back my typical feelings of excitement, confusion, and despair. Let's start with the confusion part. Like many classic rock acts, Hendrix's discography is more complicated than it needs to be. The only records to come out during his lifetime were the three albums he made with the Experience, and one live album made near the end of his life. However, he spent a boatload of time in the studio during '69 and '70, working on material for new, post-Experience albums. His untimely death meant that Jimi would never have control over how this music would be used, and sure enough, the people in charge of his recordings would mine this collection throughout the 70's (and even the 80's) to create a ridiculous amount of posthumous records. There have also been various legal battles throughout the years, as one group or another tried to gain control of the Hendrix estate.
Today, members of his family have created Experience Hendrix, who, as far as I can tell, have full control over all of Jimi's music, and who are most definitely in charge of these remasters.
Much like The Beatles CD releases from the 80's, these Hendrix remasters attempt to create a cohesive, standard collection of his studio recordings. This collection consists of the three Experience albums, as well as two posthumous releases. The first of these is First Rays of the Rising Sun, which was actually created over a decade ago, and is the family's attempt to create the album Jimi was working on before his death. These tracks were all released in some form on the first three posthumous albums created back in the 70's, but those are no longer recognized, with First taking their place in the Hendrix canon. The other is Valleys of Neptune, which is a brand new attempt at recreating and the releasing the material Jimi worked on in 1969, immediately after finishing up with the Experience. . All in all, the catalog is fairly neat these days, and since the remastering project is only five albums large, it isn't too pricey to collect.
Now for the excitement. For ten or eleven dollars (only slightly pricier than a modern music release), each remaster gives you a CD, a documentary DVD, a hefty booklet with a lot of great photos and lyrics, and a hefty cardboard digipak case to hold it in. It's a fairly nice package that arguably gives you more than any of the Beatles remasters, and for less money. Okay, so those albums also come with exactly the same stuff, but the documentaries are shorter and relegated to on disc Quicktime files.
In regards to the quality of the supplemental material, the booklet contains the usual cock sucking essay by a nostalgic music critic, but the lyrics and photos more than make up for the revisionist Hendrix history. The DVD, on the other hand, is great all around. A number of Jimi's associates take turns reminiscing about the recording of the album, and we get to go into the engineer's booth to take a listen to individual parts of each song, learning how they were recorded and mixed, giving you a glimpse into the creation process that few bands ever reveal. Some of the interview segments don't feel entirely honest or thorough, but these are still useful, since you can still learn a lot by what they don't say.
Since I'm not an audiophile, my opinion on the sound quality isn't going to be worth much, but for my ears it's better than expected. Everything is crisp, and I have no trouble hearing the dynamics (which really do add something special to these tracks). That covers my usual gripes in regards to mastering. There might be some compression for the sake of loudness going on; after listening to Are You Experienced, I immediately switched to Sgt. Pepper in mono, and found it to be a hell of a lot quieter at the same volume.
And now for the despair: as is typical of the internet, no one is happy with these remasters, or the way in which Experience Hendrix has handled anything. I see some nicely made, well priced releases, and an official website boasting an impressive number of interviews and official bootlegs for free listening. However, for the old timers who were live for Hendrix's work, and the younger fans who can use the power of anonymity to pretend to be both audiophiles and Hendrix historians, none of this is good enough. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Jimi created hundreds of unreleased tracks and thousands of live recordings in his short career, making it likely that no one can agree on just what is and isn't worth releasing. But that still doesn't excuse the fact that haters won't let something as simple as acknowledging that their worldview is just one of many get in the way of their scorn. The bottom line is that if you're a new fan who hasn't bought past Hendrix releases, there's nothing wrong with these remasters. And if you truly are an older, experienced fan, the best thing you can do in a review is describe the music and why you like it. Not everyone has the desire, time, or money to track down whatever rare or definitive version you put your stamp of approval on. Share your interest in the music first, and let the reader decide for themselves how deep they want to dig.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Running Wild
So far, my experience with the Android OS can be boiled down to "baked in features are great, optional apps are hit or miss". That's quite acceptable for me, especially since the Android Marketplace is still slowly evolving. Even an official Google app like Listen can get a way with some flakiness, since I know it is a Labs product. But I had my first real issue with a standard phone feature, and I think it says a lot.
The basic problem was that gmail wasn't syncing with the phone. Out of the blue, over the last two days, I've had to manually refresh the program to get my messages. It started off as a mild annoyance, but grew into great concern when none of the simple fixes and settings tweaks I tried did a lick of good. Just as I was tempted to do a factory reset, I came across the true problem. I had been disabling almost all background process on the phone in order to test its performance, including Google Talk. As it turns out, gmail won't sync without this process running.
Right off the bat, this is pretty stupid. Nowhere does it say that the Google Talk process is in charge of anything but incoming IM's. I suppose the logic behind this is "there's a reason this process is spawned by the phone at startup. Don't mess with it." But the other processes launched by the OS have names like "Android Keyboard" and "Voice Search". I know what they are, and that I should probably leave them alone. That isn't really the case with Gtalk.
But it doesn't stop there. It turns out that Gtalk sticks its fingers into other parts of the phone. Say you have another IM client, like Meebo. You can add your Google Talk account to it, but the standard Gtalk process will almost always get the messages first, in which case you're stuck managing two IM programs. Furthermore, based on what I can tell, if one of your contacts is online, Android will try to send messages via Gtalk, rather than an standard text. I'm still figuring out if there's a setting behind this one, because while this feature can be nice in order to save texts, it doesn't take into account the idea that someone may get up from their desk for an indefinite period of time (unless it doesn't use Gtalk to message idle users....I'll have to check).
A few points about all this. Firstly, the Gtalk process is not very Linuxy. It should do one thing, and one thing well, and instead it tries to master several areas of the device. Second, the confusion behind it is very Linuxy, in that a simple (but frustrating) problem is solved by something that a new user would never think of checking. Third, when things do go wrong in Linux, there's usually some sort of documentation that, if you had read it, would have shed a clue. The documentation that comes in the box of a Droid is sparse, and finding more robust manuals online requires quite a bit of digging.
In a way, Google has proven why Apple has disapproved of multitasking in the iPhone. There's no chance for mystery or surprise. Users get what they choose to use, and everything else about the phone's operation is tucked away. I'm glad that Android lets us have more control, but granting that control means that people will find ways to screw things up. This can cause chaos for regular users, and for the power geeks, there at least needs to be a chance to RTFM.
It also reinforces the "work in progress" feel that official Google software occassionally falls victim to. While I said I won't criticize a Labs product like Listen, I'm still scratching me head at the fact that the app never seems to close; it just works in the background. Now, there are a lot of instances in which this is a good thing - if it's downloading a show, or set to auto refresh subscriptions, or I pause a show and want to come back - but there's no way to tell it to close up for good. By allowing multitasking, Android also allows programs to behave however they want. They may actually close when you hit the back button, or they may sit in the corner and wait for you to come back. With any luck, the behavior of these programs will evolve over time, but right now it's just another one of those characteristics of Android that has the potential to drive away new users towards the iPhone, in turn reinforcing the idea that you can't have user power or whizbang features without the experience falling apart.
The basic problem was that gmail wasn't syncing with the phone. Out of the blue, over the last two days, I've had to manually refresh the program to get my messages. It started off as a mild annoyance, but grew into great concern when none of the simple fixes and settings tweaks I tried did a lick of good. Just as I was tempted to do a factory reset, I came across the true problem. I had been disabling almost all background process on the phone in order to test its performance, including Google Talk. As it turns out, gmail won't sync without this process running.
Right off the bat, this is pretty stupid. Nowhere does it say that the Google Talk process is in charge of anything but incoming IM's. I suppose the logic behind this is "there's a reason this process is spawned by the phone at startup. Don't mess with it." But the other processes launched by the OS have names like "Android Keyboard" and "Voice Search". I know what they are, and that I should probably leave them alone. That isn't really the case with Gtalk.
But it doesn't stop there. It turns out that Gtalk sticks its fingers into other parts of the phone. Say you have another IM client, like Meebo. You can add your Google Talk account to it, but the standard Gtalk process will almost always get the messages first, in which case you're stuck managing two IM programs. Furthermore, based on what I can tell, if one of your contacts is online, Android will try to send messages via Gtalk, rather than an standard text. I'm still figuring out if there's a setting behind this one, because while this feature can be nice in order to save texts, it doesn't take into account the idea that someone may get up from their desk for an indefinite period of time (unless it doesn't use Gtalk to message idle users....I'll have to check).
A few points about all this. Firstly, the Gtalk process is not very Linuxy. It should do one thing, and one thing well, and instead it tries to master several areas of the device. Second, the confusion behind it is very Linuxy, in that a simple (but frustrating) problem is solved by something that a new user would never think of checking. Third, when things do go wrong in Linux, there's usually some sort of documentation that, if you had read it, would have shed a clue. The documentation that comes in the box of a Droid is sparse, and finding more robust manuals online requires quite a bit of digging.
In a way, Google has proven why Apple has disapproved of multitasking in the iPhone. There's no chance for mystery or surprise. Users get what they choose to use, and everything else about the phone's operation is tucked away. I'm glad that Android lets us have more control, but granting that control means that people will find ways to screw things up. This can cause chaos for regular users, and for the power geeks, there at least needs to be a chance to RTFM.
It also reinforces the "work in progress" feel that official Google software occassionally falls victim to. While I said I won't criticize a Labs product like Listen, I'm still scratching me head at the fact that the app never seems to close; it just works in the background. Now, there are a lot of instances in which this is a good thing - if it's downloading a show, or set to auto refresh subscriptions, or I pause a show and want to come back - but there's no way to tell it to close up for good. By allowing multitasking, Android also allows programs to behave however they want. They may actually close when you hit the back button, or they may sit in the corner and wait for you to come back. With any luck, the behavior of these programs will evolve over time, but right now it's just another one of those characteristics of Android that has the potential to drive away new users towards the iPhone, in turn reinforcing the idea that you can't have user power or whizbang features without the experience falling apart.
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