#so i was constantly switching between the map and mc

[foxy-lisard]

Anyone got any fun Minecraft servers to recommend? I lost all the ones I had saved and it's a bit hard trying to find them.

[yasbxxgie]

N.W.A. was formed back between 1986 and 1987 with the original lineup consisting of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E & Arabian Prince. A 17 year old Ice Cube joined after his old groups Stereo Crew and C.I.A (Criminals In Action) with Kid Disaster (K-Dee) and Sir Jinx who Dr. Dre produced for both dissolved. Shortly afterward, MC Ren and DJ Yella entered the fold and in November 1987 Macola Records released and distributed N.W.A’s debut project on their independent label funded by local hood Eazy-E called Ruthless Records. At the time, Ice Cube was 18 years old and responsible for writing the songs that put the group on the map both locally and nationally, Eazy-E’s “Boyz-N-The-Hood” & “8 Ball” plus N.W.A.’s “Dopeman”.

In August 1988, N.W.A. who were less than satisfied with Macola’s handling of their material switched to Priority Records as a national distributor. They re-released “N.W.A. & The Posse” (not “Straight Outta Compton”) which immediately began moving units and entered the Billboard charts. They also released a new single “Gangsta, Gangsta” on Ruthless/Priority that garnered them even more attention and spread nationwide like wildfire. The song was once again, penned by Ice Cube. It was soon followed by one of the most influential songs in Rap history, “Fuck The Police”.

The next step was to release Eazy-E’s debut LP “Eazy-Duz-It” which was mostly written by MC Ren and The D.O.C. formerly of Fila Fresh Crew but featured contributions from Ice Cube on the aforementioned “Boyz-N-The-Hood”, “No More ?’s” and the spoken word album closer “Eazy-Chapter 8 Verse 10”. It was released in September 1988 and soon joined the re-released “N.W.A. & The Posse” on both the Top Black Albums and Billboard 200 charts, climbing them both at an impressive rate.

In February 1989, N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” was unleashed on the masses, its meteoric rise up the charts was powered by the Ice Cube penned pre-release singles “Gangsta, Gangsta” & “Fuck The Police” in addition to the single “Express Yourself” that got them some radio play with a video that landed on BET’s “Rap City” and MTV’s “Yo! MTV Raps”. “Express Yourself” featured Dr. Dre kicking rhymes written by Ice Cube and the single and video exposed N.W.A to a much wider audience and expanded their reach even further. Following the sales success of both albums, N.W.A. went on their Straight Outta Compton Tour then picked up some other dates later on but as the tours progressed Ice Cube kept close tabs on his publishing and royalties statements.

By Fall 1989, Ice Cube became frustrated with his situation at Ruthless Records and felt he wasn’t receiving his proper compensation for contributing to the empire Ruthless was becoming. By then, J.J. Fad was Gold, Eazy-E had gone Platinum, N.W.A. was certified Platinum and The D.O.C. had just received his Gold plaque. Cube noted that neither Priority nor Ruthless was spending an exorbitant amount of money on marketing or promotions, they typically sold via word of mouth thanks to the coverage they got in mainstream press as the poster children for “Gangsta Rap”, derived from the N.W.A. single “Gangsta, Gangsta” Cube made significant contributions to.

Ice Cube was 20 years old at the time, constantly butting heads with Jerry Heller and Eazy-E over his splits, points and his royalties from N.W.A’s back catalog in addition to Eazy-E’s. Rather than sign another contract with Ruthless that would no doubt result in Cube continuing being under compensated for his role in the group as well as other albums on the label, he instead opted to go solo. By December 1989, Ice Cube leveraged his value to Priority into a solo deal by telling them Def Jam was interested in signing him.

This resulted in Ruthless Records blocking Dr. Dre from producing Ice Cube’s upcoming debut on Priority Records so he contacted several people in New York in search of producers, among them being The Bomb Squad which he had preliminary talks with. Ice Cube traveled to New York in January 1990 with Sir Jinx heading for the Def Jam offices to meet with Sam Sever, one of the main producers of one of his favorite albums of 1989, 3rd Bass’ “The Cactus Album”.

Sam Sever never showed up for the meeting but by chance Ice Cube ran into Chuck D of Public Enemy who was in Def Jam’s offices handling some business. Ice Cube and Chuck D first became acquainted back in December 1988 when Public Enemy brought N.W.A. & Eazy-E along with them on the Bring The Noise Tour with Ice T, Stetsasonic & EPMD. Public Enemy was in the process of completing their album “Fear Of A Black Planet” and Chuck tells Cube he should come to Greene Street Studios tonight because they were going to record a song called “Burn, Hollywood, Burn” with Big Daddy Kane. Cube came through, recorded a short 4 bar verse and sounded at home over Bomb Squad production… the rest was history.

Ice Cube then spent time with Chuck D fleshing out what he wanted on the album in notebooks and Hank Shocklee of The Bomb Squad stressed that they wanted to make a concise body of work for him as opposed to a few tracks here and there. Next step involved Ice Cube and Sir Jinx spending a couple of weeks at Public Enemy’s pre-production studio and rehearsal space at 510 South Franklin Street in Hempstead, Long Island poring through a mountain of records.

After taking careful consideration of the many records at their disposal, Cube & Jinx selected Funk from Kool & The Gang, Commodores, Betty Davis, Steve Arrington, Funkadelic, Parliament, Sly & The Family Stone, Maceo & The Macks, Bar-Kays, The J.B.’s, Fred Wesley & The New J.B.’s and Zapp in addition to staple breaks from Bob James, Mountain, The Meters, The Turtles, ESG, Cerrone, Melvin Bliss, King Curtis, Lafayette Afro Rock Band, Kid Dynamite and Soul Searchers. Between Ice Cube, Sir Jinx, Hank & Keith Shocklee, Chuck D & Eric “Vietnam” Sadler we have all the ingredients necessary for a classic album.

After close to two full weeks of culling together sample material, additional loops, sounds and song ideas from a cassette tape Chuck sent Cube a month or so prior to him arriving in New York and having Eric “Vietnam” Sadler craft together a bunch of skeletons to work from they eventually moved from there to Greene Street Studios to begin the recording process. Ice Cube had notebooks full of rhymes, some originally intended for Eazy-E and future N.W.A. projects, the ideas he laid down with Chuck and now the beats (some of which were demos originally recorded by Son Of Bazerk and True Mathematics). All that was left was for the Bomb Squad’s mad scientists to put on their lab coats, safety goggles and gloves and try to make a timeless piece of art.

The album itself was created over a 4 week span by The Bomb Squad, Ice Cube & Sir Jinx. The Bomb Squad’s attentions were split between finishing “Fear Of A Black Planet”, putting finishing touches on Bell Biv DeVoe’s debut “Poison”, tour dates and working with other talent they were developing like Leaders Of The New School, Young Black Teenagers and Son Of Bazerk featuring No Self Control & The Band. It was rough going given the scheduling conflicts but eventually the team was able to finish the project. Everyone worked relatively quickly and the album was done, mixed and mastered by Howie Weinberg then was turned in by March 1990. Ice Cube wanted to deliver the album to Priority as soon as possible so it could beat the next N.W.A. project to market.

The album consists of 17 tracks, 3 of which are skits (“Better Off Dead”, “JD’s Gafflin’” & “The Drive-By”) and 3 more were short songs like “What They Hittin’ Foe?”, “I’m Only Out For One Thang” & “Get Off My Dick & Tell Yo Bitch To Come Here”. “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” had a few features on it, Chuck D on “Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside)”, Flavor Flav on “I’m Only Out For One Thang” and Yo-Yo on “It’s A Man’s World”. Given Ice Cube’s track record for making misogynistic anthems, the first member from his crew to get a deal was Yo-Yo and his manager was a Black woman, Pat Charbonnet.

Yo-Yo’s verse on this album led to her getting signed to EastWest/Atlantic later on that year. The experience Sir Jinx & Ice Cube gained working on this album plus having The Lench Mob in tow gave them the foundation for Street Knowledge Music. Eventually it led to Ice Cube working with his own iteration of The Bomb Squad, The Boogie Men (DJ Pooh, Bobcat & Rashad) in concert with his road dawgs Sir Jinx & Chilly Chill.

Priority released a single from the upcoming album in April, “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” b/w “Once Upon A Time In The Projects” but there was no video and although the single was selling it wasn’t receiving any radio airplay. On May 15th, 1990 Ice Cube’s Bomb Squad helmed debut LP “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” finally hit store shelves. When it debuted on the Billboard charts it was #110 on the Top Pop Albums on June 2nd, 1990. The single “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” was #2 on the Hot Rap Singles chart right behind Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke”.

To provide some context to the era, A Tribe Called Quest’s “People’s Instinctive Travels & The Paths Of Rhythm”, Public Enemy’s “Fear Of A Black Planet”, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.’s “New Funky Nation”, Audio Two’s “I Don’t Care: The Album”, Poor Righteous Teachers’ “Holy Intellect” & X-Clan’s “To The East, Blackwards” were all recent releases. By June 9th, 1990, “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” entered the Top Black Albums at #47 and jumped all the way up to #62 on the Top Pop Albums as the single occupied the #1 spot on Hot Rap Singles.

On June 16th, 1990 it leaped all the way up to #19 Top Black Albums and #27 Top Pop Albums while “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” b/w “Once Upon A Time In The Projects” remained the #1 Rap single for the 2nd week in a row. It occupied the top position on the Rap charts as #2 was Snap!’s “The Power”, #3 was Power Jam featuring Chill Rob G “The Power”, #4 was MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” and at #5 was Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke”. Ice Cube had just turned 21 and his first solo single was a #1 Rap hit in the age of MC Hammer & Pop/crossover Rap…

What makes this feat all the more impressive was Ice Cube’s single got little to no support at Black radio whereas all of the singles charting below it were. Nonetheless, Ice Cube’s single was still outselling all of the others while Priority was spending the bare minimum on their marketing campaign and promotional materials. The album was pretty much selling itself via word of mouth.

The subject matter on the album included some of the West Coast fare N.W.A. fans were used to from the same Ice Cube who made “A Bitch Iz A Bitch”. Songs like “The Nigga Ya Love To Hate”, “You Can’t Fade Me”, “Once Upon A Time In The Projects” & “A Gangsta’s Fairytale”. The Bomb Squad/Public Enemy influence was evident in cuts such as “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”, “Turn Off The Radio”, “Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside)”, “Rollin’ Wit The Lench Mob”, “Who’s The Mack?” and “The Bomb”. The way Ice Cube was able to blend elements of Gangsta Rap with Conscious Rap themes and Sir Jinx managed to combine his West Coast roots and East Coast influences to result in the incredible finished product was a revelation for many who thought Cube couldn’t do it on his own.

The fascinating thing about “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” was how it was RIAA certified Gold on August 9th, 1990 with no video, no Black radio support and at the time not even a 2nd single released. One of the motivating factors behind the Bomb Squad knocking the album out of the park was when Ice Cube told Hank Shocklee and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler when he informed N.W.A. that he would seek out production from them if Dr. Dre wasn’t involved with his solo project they said he’d be lucky to even go Gold. This was odd considering “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” was Platinum at the time as was “The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick” which the Bomb Squad had also made significant contributions to.

Around the same time, N.W.A. released their EP “100 Miles And Runnin’” and a video for the title track on Ruthless/Priority containing several Ice Cube disses whereas Ice Cube made a conscious effort to not address his situation with N.W.A. or even mention them at all on his album. That same month, Priority decided to finally shoot a video for the follow up single, “Who’s The Mack?”.

The job of directing the clip went to Alex Winter and Tom Stern of Propaganda Films, it debuted on BET’s “Rap City” & “Yo! MTV Raps” in mid to late September 1990 and had entered the regular rotation of The Box on October 13th, 1990. Priority urged Ice Cube to release some follow up material which resulted in the “Kill At Will” EP released that November. The EP was self produced by Ice Cube, Sir Jinx & Chilly Chill and was supported by two videos, “Jackin’ For Beats” and “Dead Homiez”. It went Gold in under 3 months and “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” eventually went Platinum. Far more important than the sales was the lasting influence of Ice Cube’s debut album and the accompanying EP…

What “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” did was take the style of music Spoonie Gee created, Schoolly D pioneered, Ice T, KRS One (BDP), Just-Ice , Toddy Tee & Mixmaster Spade innovated and Ice Cube made style evolutions in then marry it with the sociopolitical themes Public Enemy addressed on wax but from the perspective of a young person from South Central Los Angeles. This album became a new benchmark for not only artists looking to rebrand themselves after going solo but for new artists making their first project. “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” was revolutionary but gangsta before 2Pac was.

It set in motion a new timeline and created a lane where Paris, Geto Boys, The Coup, The Lench Mob & later on dead prez for a new generation of emcees and groups that could toe the line between gangsta and conscious post Boogie Down Productions’ “Criminal Minded”. Ice Cube was further able to merge the fanbase that loved Public Enemy, BDP, Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers and Brand Nubian with one that also loved Ice T, King T, Geto Boys, Compton’s Most Wanted & Above The Law in a way that N.W.A. couldn’t do without Ice Cube.

Ice Cube’s output and evolution between 1988 and 1992 is easily one of the best and most impactful 5 year periods of any Rap artist in the genre’s history. It’s insane to think that span only covers Ice Cube between the ages of 18 to 23. By the time he was 25, he was considered a legend who was instrumental in launching several Rap careers, including Yo-Yo, Del The Funkee Homosapien (and Souls Of Mischief & Hieroglyphics), Threat, Da Lench Mob, Anotha Level & Kausion amongst others.

Sean “Puffy” Combs once told Ice Cube that while he was in the process of putting together “Ready To Die” for Biggie during his days at Uptown/MCA he studied “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”. Over the past 30 years solo acts, groups and producers alike have all drawn inspiration from this album and cite it as influential. This opus is one of the many bodies of work that inspired me to write about music, frame it and put it into full context for those who may not have lived to experience the era for themselves. Ice Cube went and fucked up the program… Fuck you, Ice Cube!

[x]

[lancecarr]

Media Composer 2019 ֠A step in the right direction?

The day has come for Media Composer editors.  As the line went in Star Wars …”It will be a day long remembered”.  The release of Media Composer 2019(.6) (MC2019), is one that Avid has been pushing for a while now.  We’ve seen the NAB demos, and the live user group feeds showing it off, but the question still remains….Is it a step in the right direction? Well, this “review” is more going to look at answering that question as opposed to getting in and talking about new features.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ll discuss (and show you via tutorials), some of the new features in MC2019, but more look at if this is something that will get editors to switch to, or switch back to, with their upcoming projects.

Media Composer as always been very rigid in how it wanted to you work, and how you were to not only organize your projects, but how to organize your interface as well.  Well, that has gone the way of the Dodo (an expression I use a lot when talking about MC2019). The Project window has always been at the core of your editing experience in MC, and the Project window is no more.  Bin Containers rule the application now, and all the features like settings, Format, Hardware, Usage and many more have been tucked away in menus, only to be accessed when you need them.

This was something that, to be honest, took a little getting used to.  I’ve been using MC2019 for about two months prior to its public release, and I’ll be 100% transparent.  When I started working with it…..I hated it. I didn’t like that the project window was gone. I didn’t like the new Bin Containers. I didn’t like the idea of having to dock all my panels, tools and bins.  But, let me be clear. Much like before, you don’t have to work any particular way. You don’t have to work with docked panels and bins. I find now that the project window was a pretty big waste of space, holding tools that I really never used.  I am now, what some people might call, a “Power Docker”. I dock all my bins now constantly. I find that I can just access all my media so much faster. Here’s the thing, though. If you’re not big on docking, you can tab your bins and tools. Don’t like that idea either?  No problem, you can switch back to having Floating panels as well. Now, with the Project Window gone, how are you going to organize yourself in your editing project? That’s where Bin Containers come into play.

When you first launch the application, you’ll notice what appears to be the project window, that shows you your project bins, as well as any currently open bin.  Looks like a project window, but it isn’t. It’s a bin container broken down into two sides. The left side contains the project sidebar, and the right side has the bin pane.  What’s important to keep in mind here is that at any time if you don’t want to see either pane, NP, you can simply drag the window to the left to cover the Sidebar, or close any open bins to only see your Project Sidebar.

With the bin pane on the right, this is where you can start to “power organize” your bins either by tabs or by docking.  Here’s a tutorial that will show you what I mean.

Bin containers are a very clever way to have a “Project Window”, without having a project window.

  Let’s move on and talk now about another core feature that has stepped into the foreground with the new release of Media Composer 2019, and that is Workspaces.  Previous to MC2019, I wasn’t a Workspace user.  At all. I would only ever use it to switch over to Color Correction mode, and even then that was only sparingly.  With MC2019, I use Workspaces all the time. They go hand in hand with the dockable tools and switching back and forth for little interface changes has become so commonplace for me, I almost don’t even notice I’m doing it anymore.  A perfect example of this is when I want to apply an effect to a clip, and then step into Effects Mode to edit the effects’ parameters. The process would be to call up the Effects Pallette, choose the effect, drop it onto my clip, step into the Effect Editor, move it out of the way, into a location where there aren’t any other tools, and then adjust accordingly.  Pain in the you know what. Now what I do is in one of my Effects workspaces, I have the Effects Pallette and the Effects Editor tabbed to my Bin Container. Now with a quick click of the mouse, I can tab between windows, find what I need, and when I step into the Effects Editor, it’s in a location out of the way, so I can start working immediately.

The other big feature in MC2019 is the Inspector.  Much like MediaInfo (a free utility that you can use outside of Media Composer for getting more information about your media), this dockable panel is used for just that.  Inspecting your media. You’ll get more information that you’ll need about your clips, and this tool is exceptionally helpful when working with Linked media, as I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been asked to take a snapshot of certain clip parameters to send to a client, and now all I have to do is take a snapshot of this window, and it has all the information I need.

With that being said, let’s talk about a few of the Bells and Whistles that I did cover in the above tutorial, in case you didn’t watch it yet..  MXFOP1a media has been the focus of Media Composer for the last few years, and this release has added a very smart feature that I can’t believe has taken this long to add, and that is the ability to capture as MXFOP1a media, as well as Transcode/Consolidate and even mixdown your timelines as it as well.  What does that mean for your Media Management? Data, Video and Audio are now all combined into one simple MXF file, much like it is when you’re exporting your final productions for delivery.

Speaking of Media Formats and Codecs, DNxUncompressed brings along with it the ability to have your media consolidated/transcoded into Float color space, and once you’ve C/T’d it, you can switch your Timeline’s Video Quailty over to Float as well.

Last but not least, Avid added a tool that I never knew I needed, but one that I’m using on a pretty regular basis now, and that is the ability to drag and drop effects to empty places on your timeline.  Before, if you wanted to add an effect, let’s use the Avid Titler+ effect, to your timeline on a track above everything else, you had to add edit points to that empty track before you could drag and drop the effect where you wanted it.  Well, not anymore! Now, simply mark in and out point on the track, and drag and drop any effect (Titler+ included) to the timeline, and that effect will be automatically added to the timeline with no additional work required.

With all this being said, I’ve seen the usual haters online already badmouthing MC2019 before they’ve even started using it.  I’ve seen some posts in the Avid Editors of Facebook page that “Nobody cares about Docked panels, they’re making a big deal about nothing”.  Remember, for Media Composer editors, many of them who have been editing on their Media Composer systems for over 20 years (yes, that’s me raising my hand), they don’t need change.  They don’t like change.  Everything has worked fine the way it is, but let’s look at cars as a good example. How much have they changed in the last 30 years. They haven’t really, at their most basic. You put the key in the ignition, turn it, the car (hopefully) starts, and you drive away.  That’s the way I look at Media Composer. Don’t get me wrong, features have been added, and companies like Boris FX have given us unbelievable tools to do things in our timelines that we have never been able to do before, but to be honest, if you look at Media Composer way back at version 5.5 when I started editing (that’s 20 years ago), and you look at it two months ago, features have been added, but not much has changed.  I would compare this update of Media Composer to going from a Chevy to a Tesla. They still do the same job, but things are just so much smoother in the Tesla than they are in the Chevy (Chevy lovers please don’t start e-mailing me.  LOL).

I’m writing this third last paragraph with a bit of a chuckle, as I’m going to talk about probably my most annoying new “feature” of Media Composer, and that is Audio Scrubbing.  Now, you’re probably thinking “Why would you be annoyed with Audio Scrubbing?”. Well, this comes from the book of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, someone at Avid decided that editors should have the ability to map Audio Scrubbing to any key on the keyboard.  Awesome. Sounds great. Except for one little problem. Audio Scrubbing has been mapped to Caps Lock since day one with, for me at least, absolutely no reason to change that. Well, in this version, you can now map Audio Scrubbing to whatever keyboard shortcut you want……except we can’t map to the Caps Lock key for some reason.  I can’t tell you how many times, today included, I’ve gone to turn on Audio Scrubbing by hitting the Caps Lock key, only to remember, for the millionth time, that I’ve had to map it somewhere else. Exceptionally annoying, no reason to do it, and you won’t get one customer switching to MC because you can map Audio Scrubbing to whatever keyboard shortcut you want to.

I want to give a final mention to a tool that was added a couple of releases ago, and to say it was underwhelming is an understatement, and that is Avid Titler+.  Fear not, Media Composer friends, as much as this tool was confusing definitely not what we expected when it was hyped for years (and years), the development team is still working to get this tool up to the level it needs to be at, and there are some updates to it that I will focus on in it’s own dedicated article/tutorial, as I feel this tool has the potential to be one to replace the Title Tool…just not yet, though.

In the end, the Audio Scrubbing gripe in minor, and I have to say that Avid has converted me.  When I first saw 2019.6, I thought that the coloring of the interface was cool, but I hated docked panels, I never used Workspaces, and I was just really annoyed in general.  After working with it for a couple of months I have to say that I’m totally converted. I’m a Docking Master, and a Workspace Overlord, and I have to say that I have found that these updates (except for Audio Scrubbing, of course) have helped speed up my workflow a great deal.  With that being said, if you’re looking to update to the newest version, which is available now, don’t do it in the middle of a project, as there is a learning curve you’ll need to be ready for as things are where you left them in previous version. I’ll say this…. Avid, you have taken a step in the right direction, and have helped me speed up my workflow more in the last two weeks, than I have in the last 10 years, so keep things going in this direction, and I think you might be onto something!   Keep in mind that I didn’t talk about all the new features of MC2019, so when you download the software, make sure to check out the “What’s New” document for all the new features, as well as the “Known Issues” PDF, as there are still some bugs being worked out, but overall my experience with MC2019 is that it’s one that Media Composer editors, as well as new editors, and recent converts will really like!

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