It's late at night, I'm ill - seems like a good time for a blogpost!
It has been a short while!
Half-term exams have come and gone, learning has happened, things have been comitted to github, and I am very ill - let's have a quick recap of what's happened.
In the weekend just gone (and possibly the reason why I'm currently ill), I was in York doing sound for IVFDF 2024 which is a yearly folk dance festival - not something I usually take part in, but music is music and sound is sound. We were tasked with everything - the audio chain, micing everyone up, mixing for the space and general support for the performers.
It just so happens that the room I was in was horrendous when it came to the acoustics. We had 4 resonant frequencies and they could change depending on how full the venue was, and how hot/cold the room was (people insisted on opening the outside door letting out the warm air). 210hz, 500hz, 2khz, and 6khz were the main culprits. Not to mention the room being split in two by a wall that came down to about 8 ft.
Long story short, we eventually sorted the mix and made things sound as good as we could given the circumstances and people seemed like they were having fun (which is good otherwise we'd have been faced with a lot of angry festivalgoers)
It ended up being an enjoyable event and some of the music played was outstanding - notable mention being Blackbeard's Tea Party who were really chill even though we were running around like headless chickens setting up for them.
I've spent a little more time on youtube as of late, and I've seen some stuff about ULEZ and the vocal car drivers who oppose the scheme, and I think at some point I'll be giving my two-pennies on that at some point, because I'm a big fan of good urban planning and have experienced it (to some extent) having lived in London for most of my life now.
Migrating to another email server has been in the works for a while now and I'm not sure if I'll ever get a good setup ever again. I was using a FOSS tool - Modoboa, but I cannot recommend it if you want an easy time with things. It works the hellhole that is python venv and sending commands to it is nigh impossible, with errors plaguing everything to the point that trying to update to the next version to fix issues is impossible because the update script isn't working. I'll find a way to self-host my email eventually...
Anyway... life trundles on, and I cannot wait for a break at the end of this term, I have ~3 weeks left which is kinda mad and I'm already over the halfway point of my first year at uni (i cannot believe this) - but I probably feel this way given the horrendous ill I feel. Tomorrow I go the the Lakes and it's going to be a great time.
Photos will come in due course!
