Wednesday, October 21, 2026
What is Music
At your risk.
Beautiful playing game, interaction between the bass melody and the melody in our mind.
For example:
Largo from Bach F minor Concerto.
Just 2 melodies creating beautiful intervals of 2 notes are sounding together.
Curing a cat with kidney problems?
At your risk.
This is not a medical advice or a nutritionist advice.
Using the freshest possible fish? boiled with just filtered? water, no oil no salt?
The Pleiades amplifier model numbers can be really the schematic
At your risk.
For example Pleiades K117 220R 4M7.
See previous post.
How to connect a Sennheiser MD421HN to iPhone for recording with Garageband, or camera etc.
At your risk.
The beautiful microphone can be 24in away with no need to set the bass correcting switch for proximity effect. Recording outdoors with windshield will avoid close wall reflections.
The MD421HN already has an internal step up transformer, so no need to add an external.
So the impedance is high, the voltage high and we are ready to connect to the gate of a JFET.
For example the Pleiades K117 220R 5M5 preamplifier can be used. The JFET is a K117, a 220ohm resistor is used connected between the source terminal of the JFET and ground, and a 5.5Megohm between gate and ground. Then the drain terminal is connected to the mic input of the mobile device iPad or iPhone. For a modern device an apple USB C to 3.5mm adaptor is used, See previous posts. Headphones may need to be connected so that the mic is recognized too.
The MD412HN high Z signal is connected to the gate of the JFET and the whole Pleiades preamplifier can be assembled inside the mini Tuchel connector as it is only a JFET and 2 small resistors.
It sounds very nice with no hiss or noise.
Garageband
At your risk.
It looks very promising. The fantastic sound of strings expression modulated by hand touching the iPad iPhone screen.
Trying to persuade Zhanna to use. I think she really appreciated the sound and she played something so beautiful using the cinematic strings.
How about trying to making it do more things.
For example:
Recording the upper strings playing C major but then adding cello and double bass playing E instead of C.
Using 2 devices so that one person can play melody at the piano and the other the bass part at the piano, thereby expanding the keyboard and recording 2 persons playing live.
Adding an Apple USB C adaptor to 3.5mm and connecting a Pleiades K117 microphone single JFET preamplifier so that a studio microphone can be connected such as Sennheiser MD421, see next post.
Recording with windshield outdoors so that acoustics are infinite, very high reverberation radius.
Moussaka
At your risk.
This is by George, a chef who had worked in cruise ships and the Dafne's restaurant in Athens, in Plaka under Acropolis.
George started at around 13 years old, long time ago.
This is what I remember him narrating.
Round cut potatoes are crusty fried and placed half on top of each other, like dropped dominoes.
On top a bit of grated parmesan and small bits of tomatoes.
On top ditto for courgettes.
(My version) ditto for oyster mushrooms instead of minced meat.
On top ditto for eggplants.
Remember everything like dropped dominoes and between each layer little parmesan, and tomatoes.
On top round cut peeled tomatoes.
Putting in oven for a while.
Then adding the bechamel sauce and baking in the oven.
George said he makes the bechamel sauce just by lightly baking flour in a pan with a bit of olive oil and adding milk, and stirring?
A Healthy Dessert?
At your risk.
This is not a medical or a nutritionist advice.
Whole grain tahini, a few teaspoons
Adding a teaspoon of cocoa powder, non fat reduced.
Adding a teaspoon of good quality honey.
By Zhanna.
The Most Important Video You Will Ever See
At your risk.
The lecture of Prof. Bartlett University of Colorado.
Thursday, October 1, 2026
Some comments from John Simon on Producing Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
At your risk.
After an e-mail communication with the great producer on Suzanne - Leonard Cohen.
A link had been sent by e-mail to John Simon of this euroelectron post:
https://euroelectron.blogspot.
Below is the reply:
George.
Yes. You found me.
This is a lovely recording.
You are right that the recording of a singer who sings softly enables us to hear a far greater frequency range than that of a “screamer” or “belter” — so there is a level of personal intimacy present.
I was also the arranger for most of this album and I am proud of the use of female voices as a background element. They were all recorded in the same way. The mic in both cases were Neumann U-87s.
I did not produce or record several songs on the album because I had to move on to other projects at the time. For instance I did not record “Stories of The Street” or “Teachers”. But I believe I recorded all the rest.
There is a lot more lore from that era in my book, “Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir Of A Musical Life In And Out Of Rock And Roll” by John Simon. Available from Amazon and wherever fine literature is sold.
Thanks for getting in touch.
Warmly,
js
John,
Yes the girls sound like angels, don't they?
Is the reverb on the voices including Leonard's an echo chamber?
Warmly,
George
An old EMT “box”. About 6 feet long, 4 feet tall and 18” think. It had a plate in it.
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