decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

August 22, 2007

New PC

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 11:44 pm

Inside the Intel Core 2 Quad CPU

I’ve been talking about getting a new PC for years. Looks like it’s coming together…

Months of reading and researching, waiting for new technologies to arrive and settle, and recent shopping around. Here’s what ‘Black Beauty’ will be put together with…

[CPU] : Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz G0 stepping (Overclocked to 3.6GHz)

[Motherboard] : Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6

[RAM] : 2GB / 2 x Corsair XMS DDR2 1024MB PC2-6400C4 800MHz (CAS 4-4-4-12)

[GPU] : Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 8800GTX

[HDD] : 2 x Western Digital 320GB (WD3200AAKS Caviar SE 7200rpm 16MB Cache Sata II)

[FDD] : 1 x ? Black Floppy Disc Drive

[PSU] : 620W – Corsair HX620

[CPU Cooling] : Zalman CNPS9700LED CPU cooler (w/ Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste)

[Case/Enclosure] : SilverStone TJ09 black case w/ side window

[Audio] : Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer PCI

[DVD/CD] : Asus DRW-1814BL black

[OS] : Windows XP Pro

[LCD Monitor] : Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22″ Wide Screen black TFT LCD

[Keyboard] : Logitech black PS2/USB

[Mouse] : Microsoft USB/PS2 Wheel Mouse Optical black

I’ll stick with Windows XP for a while until Vista matures. I think it’s too soon to move to DDR3. I decided against the nVidia 680i chip-set and SLI graphics possibility.

After 8+ years of this Pentium III 450MHz I’m well over-due for a new PC! My own PC!

Let’s build!

August 19, 2007

Mixin’

Filed under: Charts,decoded_,Music — decoded_ @ 12:43 pm

Dave mixing records

Here are some tracks I’m really enjoying at the moment…

Heckmann & Kauffelt – Sommersause [Karton]
Simon Baker – Plastik [Playhouse]
Troy Pierce – Lost On The Way To DC10 (Berlin Version) [Minus]
Seph – Wooden (Guido Schneider Remix) [Phonocult Ltd.]
Lars Wickinger – Fade To Grass [Curle]
Nico Purman – Sunday 7 [Curle]
Sascha Barth – Katapult [Harthouse]
Joris Voorn – Blank [Green]
Dave Shokh & Jaxson – Itzsamna (Format B Remix) [Dipolter]
Sascha Dive – Down Edit (Argy Mix) [Raum…Musik]
Argy – Unreliable Virgin [Cocoon]
Black Strobe – I’m A Man (Audion Donation Mix) [Playlouder]
Pele – Childhood’s End [Connaisseur]
Rejected – Lost [Rejected]
Perc & Fractal – Up [Kompakt Extra]
Einzelkind – Spam Bot [Playhouse]
Late Nite Tuff Guy (HMC) – I Get Deeper [T.Bot’s All Nite House Party]

One day soon I’ll have a new mix featuring these…

August 17, 2007

flickr

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 8:21 pm

flickr logo

I’ve got flickr happening, photos coming very soon…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/decoded_

August 12, 2007

Kei F 5015

Filed under: Music — decoded_ @ 11:05 am

He’s back…

http://keif.blog46.fc2.com

The Japanese guy with great taste in techno/minimal sounds, with regular charts and mixes on his site, looks like he’s finally back on-line. A random Googling around found him. Welcome back Kei. Where have you been? What happened?

I’ve featured many of his excellent mixes on my Internet radio shows in the past.

August 9, 2007

The Cure @ Sydney Entertainment Centre : 10.08.2007

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Music — decoded_ @ 7:02 pm

The Cure - Disintegration

I’ve been a fan of The Cure on and off for more than the last couple of decades, discovering them initially through high-school friends in the 1980s, shouts to Rebecca Penberthy. Disintegration would have to be my fave album by The Cure, followed closely by The Head On The Door. I’ve had quite a few chances over the past couple of decades to go see them live, but never made it happen. Over the last couple of years I’ve listened to The Cure more than I ever have, thanks to iTunes and my iPod. So… I jumped at the chance to finally see them live when our friend Rozie offered to get tickets for us whilst we were still OS. Thanks Rozie!

Even though I was seated far from the action on stage on Friday I really enjoyed their 3+ hours live show. I was very happy to hear heaps of my fave songs: Fascination Street, A Night Like This, Pictures Of You, The Walk, Lullaby, High, Love Song, Push, Hot Hot Hot, Inbetween Days, Kyoto Song, Just Like Heaven, Primary, Disintegration, Never Enough, Friday I’m In Love, Let’s Go To Bed, Close To Me, Why Can’t I Be You, A Forest, Boys Don’t Cry and The Kiss… which sounded massive, I love how intense that song gets!

They also played quite a lot of other stuff, much that I’m not so familiar with, maybe some of the songs from more recent releases, or stuff from when I was too absorbed in dance music to pay any attention at the time. There were quite a few slow, dark, deep songs, that really brought the mood down, things you wouldn’t really expect to hear during a huge concert performance, but respect to them playing what they wanted to. I would have liked to have also heard 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab, and The Caterpillar, but you can’t please everyone. I heard they played a couple of these on Thursday night. We got Friday I’m In Love, with it being a Friday night, Thursday missed out on that.

Their whole show was full of musical contrasts, much like their music/releases. It was quite a roller coaster ride of up/down moods and varying intensities, all with a fantastic light show and projections to match. Some very clever lighting programming, each song having it’s own unique look. At times the lighting and music together was hypnotising and mesmerising. I was absorbed in it deeply, I was seeing spots for hours afterwards from that light-show too.

My only dissapointments were that there were no keyboards on stage/no keyboardists. They did have some programmed synth, keyboard, percussion parts backing many of the songs, which sounded great, but they chose to use lead guitar to play all the main string, piano, synth, brass keyboard lines in many of their well known and much loved classics. How can lead guitar replace the lead synth line in The Walk or the brass/trumpet lines in Why Can’t I Be You?!? Why didn’t they just program those keyboard/synth parts as well, or get in a session keyboardist? I’m glad they didn’t play Love Cats, it wouldn’t work without the piano. I played keyboards in a live band called Napoleon Goes Solo in Adelaide in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s which used to perform many covers of songs by The Cure, so I knew those keyboard parts/sounds very well. I was dissapointed to not hear them. Shouts going out to Neville Hill from NPG, I hope all is well.

The concert sound was great, very loud! I’m glad I was wearing my musicians ear-plugs. The mix was very well done, some very cool mix-wide effects used during some songs, making for a huge, thick, wall of swirling, dense sound, and at other times a thin, fragile sound, reflecting the lo-fi production of their earlier work. At times I felt the mix needed more bass guitar, and shortly after thinking that the bass guitar level would rise, thanks sound engineer. Roberts voice sounded great the whole performance, and everyone played really well I thought, great drummer! You could feel/tell they were getting a little tired during the last encore after 3+ hours! They must have done 3 or 4 encores, I lost count!

I enjoyed their performance. I’m glad I’ve seen them live now. I just wish I had seen them live before their keyboardists/guitarists left. Might have to hunt down some older live DVDs. Any recommendations?

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