A friend just completed construction on his new studio

Billionaires get GAS too.

Looking forward to a new mix of Don’t Doubt Ur Vibe.

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And a collection of guitars and rock memorabilia so large it became a (very cool) museum.

Just read this interesting piece on the desk and its “value”:

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I always thought he was VST-centric!

Being a local moderately aware of fellow local musicians, Allen’s band would employ an associate from time to time to map out tracks for his band to perform live.

Allen had some cool stuff with his Experience Music Project / Sci-Fi Museum (lots of props and rock ephemera exhibits.)

He also put a great deal of money into building up “Cinerama”, a large theater with excellent sound, used for local film festivals, film and tv release parties, was an amazing local resource for art and indie.

…until

The “nonprofit” administrators decided to shutter its doors permanently when Covid hit, because nothing says supporting your local community like not handling institutions like a profit-seeking corporation, getting your yearly bonus for destroying local resources so you could continue wealth-accumulation and rent-seeking in the name of the ghost of a dead multi-billionaire.

Vainglorious, legacy-obsessed “philanthropy” is such selfish trash, so much historic is (virtually) buried along with these dudes, never ending up in the hands of the next generations, hoarded for a small number of bureaucrats to actively divert from the hands of subculture, youth, and the city which gave them so many of the items, the people creating magic these man-children loved dying at least comparatively penniless.

Add more gold to the dragon-hoard! Bury it deep so nobody can get their eyes and ears on it.

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Oh yeah, I mean in general I would rather much much more of those billions of dollars would go back to city services instead of being hoarded for “that nerd shit” I enjoy.

But it’s somehow even more worthless when stewards of investment funds in the name of a dead multibillionaire give zero shits about locals, subculture in Seattle on top of not giving a shit about the underclass.

If nobody can access it, sink Paul Allen’s rotting corpse* in his billion dollar yacht with whatever multi-million dollar god-tier studio for all the good it does humanity. Seal in the investment brokers who happily tank any self-sustaining but not profitable enough local institutions to ensure they get their yearly bonus.

(I’ll scuba dive the wreckage!)

Yeah, just seeing these people bleed life out of the city drives me bonkers. Museums can be bad enough at keeping culture and art out of the hands of people, once the billionaire nerds die all their cultural hoards seem to be handed over to corporations who actively despise arts existing outside of maximum profit drive, and would sooner kill and dispose than hand over to others.

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I could ask, but that level of epicness would be wasted on me. I’m in the digital domain these days and I’m not making any music that’s suitable for the needs of his studio, that desk or an end-to-end analog production.

That being said, maybe I’ll broach the idea of playing a small part in a session sometime, just to be a part of it.

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For a time there was a campaign here in town to “Keep Tucson Shitty”. This was around the same time that these investment firms began tearing down historic, turn of the century, buildings to put in stupidly priced apartments, and boring, cookie cutter offices Downtown. It angers me, as it’s people who have no personal attachment to my city, coming in, tearing it’s soul apart, and replacing it with paint by numbers buildings that some prick somewhere thinks looks good. It’s especially true for Phoenix, and that’s one of the reasons I’m not a fan of that metropolis. It has no soul. Just boring, cookie cutter, boring buildings made on the cheap, to turn a profit. Sad really.

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@jdaddyaz

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This makes me feel slightly less guilty for “splurging” on a SOMA Cosmos last week.

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using this thread as a way to A / B your guilt is an extremely dangerous use of the crossfader.

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Sure, $1,700,000 seems like a lot, but I believe it’s the current fashion these days to quantify the value of outrageously expensive equipment not in dollars, but in OP1 Fields. 850 OP1 Fields seems way more reasonable than $1,700,000.

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Sounds like most of America.

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Yes, I miss me some crust, people bridge-and-tunneling into downtown areas in roving packs, looking for trashy “EDM” bottle club theme experiences, the wooing (oh the wooing) mating calls.

Gentrification is a slow process, but the one-two punch of tech companies feeling they don’t have to contribute to the local economy beyond paychecks (and disproportionate command over city councils/real estate crises) and pandemic hasn’t helped the ephemeral culture of any city.

With time communities can reform, when cultural change is too rapid people lose the ability to reform closeby and get scattered to the winds. It’s hard to re-estabish events, it’s tough to rapidly secure financing for anything of a venue when the business wasn’t appealing to the most broad and profitable clientele in the first place!

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Ehhh what’s a treasure without a dragon guarding it to slay! :wink:

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dibs on “850 OP1 Fields” as a band name

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“The compressors and limiters are some of the most wonderfully brutal sounding in the history of recorded music”

ok, it’s starting to sound like more of a bargain…

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So. Much. Wooing.

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Great story, and sadly this make my head spin that most people nowadays end up listening to Dark Side of the Moon like quality recordings on Spotify with bluetooth crappy airbuds: Perhaps even in 128kb/s bitrate because they aren’t aware of the default cellular streaming settings…🥲

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Is your friend looking for anyone trying to test the systems limits? :tongue:

That’s an awesome experience!

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I mean most people weren’t listening through audiophile systems in 1973 either :stuck_out_tongue:

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Your probably right, touché :grin:

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