Drews Sound

My uncle through marage has a dog. Lets call him Hank, cause, that’s the dogs name. My in-laws told my wife, that the pup, was coming over for some time, and, that they had put a wire, we’ll call it a Hankwire, by the deck, so that Hank, couldn’t go under it. They said, “Tell Drew, and he can make a song, called Hankwire.” So, I did.

I really like the chords, the melody, which help to paint the feelings, of a dog, who wants to do things humans, think it maybe shouldn’t. These things, taking on the attribute, of Hankwire. To the dog, they are just normal.

I used the H1e as the recorder to overdub. The Rode Nt4 microphone, and, a small Gretch guitar I purchased, while I was in Nashville this year. It’s pretty thin, and sounds to my ear to fit the backwoods, blues tone I want to convey. Audio below.

As I type this up using a mobile device, the way I see it, as much as we’ve got to bitch about as blind folk, we are living in the future, where we can be vastly independent. Sure, independence, is nothing new, but today It’s quicker and closer than ever.

Pull up a ride share app, and book a ride, depending on what marcket you live in, you’ll be on your way in the matter of minutes. Pull up Be My Eyes, and get snappy quick artificial intelligence assist.

I’ve been using this technology in the Be My Eyes app sense it came out, and no doubt, it’s gotten better, or I mentally know what to expect. The responses are non-bius. You don’t hear the oo’s and um’s as a human with sight tries to figure out how to put into words what they see, or how they don’t appreciate what you are having them describe for you, and, if the translation of what they are describing isn’t what you are needing, don’t deal with the frusteration of them trying to describe the visual to you again.

Naturally, I was just used to these things, and so, they didn’t really bother me, but now, with the availibility of AI, I feel I get the info so much quicker, without the extra’s, and, even though I am using assistance, it doesn’t quite feel like it, it feels private.

The other night, I was getting dressed for an outing. I was worried, what I was waring, may not coordinate together well. i was able to have a conversation with the AI bot and at the end of it all, feel confident, what I chose, did in fact look all right. I didn’t get any extra info, no, the AI didn’t stroke my ego, and tell me I looked sexy, but, as a blind person, what I really want, and have wanted, is just the facts.

What worries me is, that I now get frusterated, more than usual, with human interaction. Someone helps me, and they oo and um, and cary on with conversation that is 10 seconds of what I don’t need, and I think, if I was using an AI solution, I would have my answer already.

It will be interesting to see how AI continues to impact our lives as blind people. I feel we are still so new in this space right now, but even so already it has made such a difference in my life.

Dear David Goodwin, I wanted to be one of the many I’m sure, to write publicly, and thank you for your service to your community. To say that Apple Vis has impacted my life would only be touching the service of my feelings towards the project.

 

I will never forget wanting an iPod Touch. The longing to have one of these accessible devices, to this day, is one of the strongest yearning’s I’ve had for anything but my first guitar. When I was able to get one how Apple and it’s products truly started shaping my life around technology. The first site I stumbled upon when searching for information regarding iOS accessibility was Apple Vis. That was late 2009 or 2010 I believe. From then on it’s been the first site I’ve went to for iOS and Apple news.

 

The team of folks at Apple Vis is no doubt a solid group of individuals! It is truly sad to see the site close it’s doors, but I appreciate the blog post which was written and I do understand.

 

I wish you blessings for your future. 

 

Thank you truly, for all you have done. The existence of Apple Vis no doubt will leave a very positive mark in our minds eye for years to come!

 

Drew Weber

 

Feel free to read David’s Blog post here:

 

https://www.applevis.com/blog/end-era-message-founder-we-announce-closure-applevis

If I had an f150, with Subs, AIC, may sound like, this, of course, it’s my imaginary Raddling Licence plate, which, is actually, my vinyl fiberglass holder. Lol.

july 6th has come and gone, and I’m sorry that I’m just now, writing about this. I do understand however that not everyone is on the BTSpeak list, and conventions bring new owners of the BTSpeak. If you are one such person, congratulations on the purchase! I trust the BTSpeak will enrich your life as it does mine.

After the July 6th update, upon boot, I find that the BTSpeak doesn’t always have audio through the internal speakers. The first thing I kind of do at this point, is to overthink, and to freak out a bit. If you feel the BTSpeak go through the normal boot vibrate sequence, we may trust that it has booted. I can confirm this, by powering off the BTSpeak, without speech from the Perkins keyboard.

O Chord, S, S, p, y, enter.

Also, it is important to remember, that holding the power button, properly, shuts down the unit. I start thinking I am hard shutting down the device, when I think of it as a Windows computer, so, even if we resort to this, long press of power button, and the unit vibrates, then, makes the loud click, as power is cut from the unit at the appropriate time, this is perfectly safe.

I wrote Blazie Tech support about this issue today, and they are aware of the bug, and are working on a solution. This is great news, and I trust they will get the issue worked out in a timely manner as they often prove to do. The fix, for now to my understanding is to, eliminate RH Voice. Though I wasn’t using RH Voice, I uninstalled it from the TTS manager: O chord, s, s, s, s, m. From here you will find the option, Remove the RH Voice TTS Engine. Pressing Dot 8, enter, on this your unit will vibrate for 20 or so seconds, and you will be prompted that the uninstall was successful.

I have rebooted and shut down the unit several times, and things for me are working as normal.

Have you ever thought that fireworks sound like 80’s synth drums? I remember the first time I heard fireworks, and that’s what I thought, I think I even said, dad, those sound like drums! The best way I can show case this, is, removing silence with a second between hits, and add some compression. Listen to Binaural toms, snairs, and kicks from the sky!!

Love the rhythmic clicks in this. And then the. brrmv, or however, you may put that into text. Sounds cool! it’s a Sandis 3.5 inch drive that uses USB-C. Incredibly fast for a mechanical drive!

Do you remember that scene, in Back To The Future, where he receives the shipment, of his first novel? This is kind of like that, with emphasis, on, kind of. 🙂 The originals, were burned from the home computer in 2004, had cool printed CD labels, and home made Jewl Case Inserts!

More Beauty Than Gold is my first, full length album, recorded in my home studio, or basement, whhen I was 18. 20 years ago. “My God, has it been that long?”

It was my first time with a full set of drum mics. First time having 12 songs, a concept/sound that all needed to be similar., and, looking back 20 years later, it’s amazing what you can learn about producing in 20 years time. No doubt I’ve got my wishlist for what I could have done differently, but hey, I was just a kid.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the stems for the record any more, so, my hope was to use an app like Moises, to cut everything a part, and at least, compress the vocals. But it did not sound right, and, as we for sure didn’t have Mastering over the internet, the album wasn’t originally mastered. Thanks to EMaster, this thing sounds better than it ever did, at least no vocals pop up 6 DB louder than everything else any more. lol.

20 years. Oh the memories. Thanks for listening.