Health And Beauty Tips

Have you ever seen a massage chair? They are very striking. You may have seen one in the foyer of a hotel or a gym. I have seen them many times in such places, but I was always loathe to try one out. Why? Well, I thought that if I ever sat in one, I would enjoy the experience so much, that I would have to get one. They look so comfortable and the reports that I have head are full of acclaim.

I have always enjoyed having a massage from a human masseuse and I doubted whether a massage chair could match that, but, like I said above, reviews were very favourable. I was itching to put a few dollars in the slot every time I saw one.

Anyway, I bit the bullet one day when I was walking through the entrance hall of my hotel (I travel a lot) and put my money in the slot. I did not realize at that time that there are a couple of set routines that you can choose from or that you can programme your own, so I wasted a fair bit of time ‘playing about’ with the massage chair’s controls before I got anything useful out of it. The next time, I thought, I will read the handbook over a cup of tea, before I sit in the chair and before I put my money in the slot.

However, my failings were not the fault of the massage chair and after my massage sitting, I borrowed the manual and went to the hotel bar to read it. It was very wide-ranging and well-written. It did not read as if an auto-translator program had translated it from Chinese, if you know what I mean. The massage chair had various pre-programmed sequences, which were simple to select, but you could also program your own sequence of routines, which did not seem too difficult either.

The next day, I had a real go on it. I had the massage chair concentrate on my neck, the small of my back and my calves and it was wonderful. I was right in my earlier judgment - I wanted one. I was hooked. OK, the massage was not as good as a human’s, but it was good enough to get rid of daily tensions. I think it is probably nearly as good to use a massage chair for an hour a day as it is to have a massage once a week.

The only other thing to keep in mind is servicing and parts. I imagine that the more you use your massage chair, the sooner parts will wear out and need replacing. I have not looked into this aspect yet, but maybe you should before you purchase one. A five-year warranty would be a good incentive.

However, I do travel a lot and I would probably not get enough use out of the massage chair to warrant buying one, but I have decided to open a new bank account and dribble money into it, so that saving will not be painful and one day, I will have my own massage chair in my own home.

The hi-hat drum samples of today are as varied as they are underappreciated. Think about your favorite songs for a moment. You can probably hear the kick and snare working away in memory, but it can be very hard to keep track of the hi-hat. The truth is, most hi-hats (hats for short) are just supporting acts to the snare and kick combinations that dominate our attention, but they are nevertheless an essential part of most music production projects, so underestimate them at your peril!

The two mistakes often made by music producers regarding the hi-hat are not made exclusively by amateurs, but also by so-called music production veterans and beat making professionals.

The first mistake concerns volume. The role of the hi-hat drum samples is often overstated and overemphasized by many expertly arranged songs. The human ear, it is claimed, has gained a perception of the frequencies that hi-hats occupy throughout evolutionary stages. Apparently some aerial predators made noises that had the same frequencies, and we can therefore hear it above its actual volume.

A good way to go about combating this incongruity is to mix the hat to the point where you think it sounds just about right, and lower it about two decibels further. Any listener will still be able to pick it up due to our superior perception of this sound, so don’t worry about ‘mixing it out’ these drum samples.

The second mistake that we’re going to look at is a pretty big one. Most of us are in the music production game to really make something that sounds good, but if you’re trying to achieve authenticity with your drum samples, there are certain things you really need to avoid and be wary of. With hi-hats, certain physical limitations prevent rhythmic operations that are perceived in a lot of rap songs. For instance, having a consistent hi-hat pattern playing one hit every 16th is all good, as that can be achieved. But coupling it with a cymbal hit or open hi-hat once a bar and not stopping the hi-hat? Physically impossible for most drum-sets, especially if the snare and toms also hit at the same point. How many arms does your drummer have? If you want to have a believable drum track, you must really pay attention here. If you produce dance music or other music where it is understood that the sample track is not supposed to be realistic, you can do whatever sounds good.

You can also go with the default drum samples patterns in programs like Toontrack EZ Drummer and BFD, as well as others. These programs usually include patterns that were really tapped out by a professional drummer on an electronic drum set and do not include these mistakes. You can learn a great deal using programs like this.