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Music Review: Nick Murphy, “Missing Link EP”

Rebranding is always a risk, especially if your career is skyrocketing. But that’s exactly what Nick Murphy (formerly performing under the stage name, Chet Faker) did for his latest EP, “Missing Link.” The Australian singer/songwriter has garnered a great amount of success in the span of his short career: from a slow and steamy cover of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” that went viral, to the critical acclaim of his first few albums, EPs and singles, branding experts across the board would strongly advise the budding artist to not ditch the stage name. And yet, pour one out for Chet Faker. The surprising turn for the artist was announced in a tweet late last year. Now, with “Missing Link,” Murphy’s first EP under his real name, Murphy prefaced its release to fans by calling it “a bridge between what’s out and what’s coming.” Opener “Your Time (feat. KAYRANADA)” will please any Faker fan looking for a fix, albeit it’s a bit heavier and more pulsating than a standard Faker track. The one and a half minute interlude that follows (“Bye”), is wholly unnecessary, while “I’m Ready,” which comes after, feels even more House than the opening track. Closing track, “Weak Education” is the most sonically interesting and experimental of the five track EP. Overall, “Missing Link” is a complete departure from Murphy’s former moniker, but that’s exactly what he wanted. Whether his fans will indulge the change is yet to be seen.

July 14, 2017

Featured Music Friday

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Throwback Thursday: The Animals, “House of The Rising Sun.”

On this day in 1964, English blues rock band, The Animals, reached number one on the singles charts in the UK with their rendition of “House of The Rising Sun.” With it’s howling vocals and haunting organ riffs, the song is viewed by many music historians as the first mainstream, folk rock hit. Although The Animals popularized this particular ballad, musicologists have traced its theme and wordage back to a 16th century. The song was eventually brought to the US, where the location changed from England to New Orleans by Southern performers. The oldest published version of the song dates back to 1925, and the oldest known recording is by Appalachian musicians from 1933. Woody Guthrie recorded a version in 1941, and Bob Dylan followed suite 20 years later. But it wasn’t until The Animals’ 1964 version of the song that it became a mainstream hit, and eventually, a rock classic.

July 13, 2017

This Day in Music History

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Setting up a new 5GHz WiFi Router

In my previous blog post Blackfire Router Recommendations, I recommended the ASUS RT-AC56U and the ASUS RT-AC68U as the two routers that will best support whole home wireless streaming at the latest 802.11ac WiFi standard. I also explained why I chose the ASUS RT-AC68U to upgrade my home WiFi from 2.4GHz to 5GHz. In this blog, I’ll explain how to set up these ASUS routers.

The first thing you’ll want to keep in mind before set up is that devices work differently on 5GHz and 2.4GHz WiFi bands. 5GHz capable devices on a 5GHz Wifi channel give you the best data rates from your router. The problem is that 5GHz WiFi has a shorter range than 2.4GHz (meaning your laptop might actually get a better connection on the 2.4GHz band than 5GHz if you are a couple of walls away from your router). Also, any older devices you may have in your home will only work on the 2.4GHz band. The reason why I’m mentioning the differences between 5GHz and 2.4GHz is because this router gives both bands. It also gives you two choices for setup: have one SSID name that covers both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands OR create separate SSID names for each band. Of course, all the devices on the router will still work together whichever band they use to connect.

So, one SSID or two?

If you set both SSIDs to the same name, and with the same password AND with the same encryption method (e.g. WPA2), then you and all your household will only see one WiFi network to join. Your devices will then join whichever band it sees first, and dynamically switch to 2.4GHz if you get out of range of the 5GHz band. The advantage of using just one SSID is that it’s simplest for all your household users – no further decisions need to be made. The disadvantage of this, is that your high speed 5GHz capable devices might end up joining the slower 2.4GHz network. Further, the switchover from 5GHz to 2.4Ghz is not always seamless: if you are listening to music or watching a video, you will experience a glitch or drop out.

If you set up two separate SSIDs, you will have to manually choose the right band for each of your devices. The advantage for going down this route is you can be sure that 5GHz devices near your router can operate at the max data rate at all times. The disadvantage is that you need to know which band your devices can operate on, and decide upfront whether you want to trade max data rate potential for long-distance roaming throughout a larger home.

For an uninterrupted streaming experience, we’d recommend the following:

You’ll get the best performance with devices positioned near the router
To optimize a Blackfire-powered wireless 5.1 audio system, position the router in the same room
To optimize a multi-room music system, position the router centrally in your house, and high up – to get the best range.
Connect to the 2.4GHz SSID for most of your devices most of the time
Connect to the 5GHz SSID for devices that are known to be 5GHz capable and have high data bandwidth requirements (like a SmartTV, Set Top Box, Blackfire capable speakers, or a laptop used for streaming)

How to Set Up an ASUS RT-AC68U or RT-AC56U:

Use an ethernet cable to connect the WAN socket to a cable modem
Plug in your router and switch it to “ON” (If your router is not brand new, make sure to push the “Reset Button” on the back panel to restore it to the factory defaults)
Look for blue LEDs lights to appear indicating that “Power,” “5GHz WiFi,” “2.4GHz WiFi” and “WAN” are all on
Either connect another ethernet cable directly from your laptop ethernet port to your router LAN port OR use WiFi to find an SSID called “ASUS” on your Laptop. (You can also download the ASUS Router app to your phone, then connect to the “ASUS” SSID.)
Open your browser – a setup app should appear
Set your Admin password:
Decide on your SSID Name(s) – I called mine “BFRX-BUTTERS” for the 2.4GHz band and used “BFRX-BUTTERS_5G” suffix after the name to show the one on the 5GHz band.
Decide on your new password(s):
Hit “Apply” then reconnect to your new SSID
Congratulations, you’re now live!

In my next blog post, I’ll discuss how to get the best performance out of your new router.

July 12, 2017

The Tech

Ruben Mookerjee

1 Comment

Bay Area Concert Buzz: July-August

On Saturday July 22, the hugely successful and highly acclaimed hip-hop duo, Run the Jewels, are taking the stage at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. In the wake of their third album, “Run the Jewels 3,” they’ve been selling out venues and headlining summer music festivals. With their political lyrics, they’re widely viewed as the future of hip-hop. For ticket information, click here.

On Sunday July 30, legendary folk rock singer, Neil Diamond, will be performing at San Jose’s SAP Center as part of his 50th Anniversary World Tour. Presented by Live Nation, the world tour is in celebration of the artist’s astonishing career: from selling over 125 million albums worldwide, to multiple Grammy wins and being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Neil Diamond and his music has helped shape the American landscape over the past half century. For more information, check out this link.

The Band Perry will be coming to the Bay Area and performing at two different outdoor venues this summer. The first, at Mountain Winery in Saratoga on Tuesday August 1st; and the second, at Wente Vineyards in Livermore on August 3rd. Both venues will serve as a perfect background for an evening with the unstoppable pop-country trio. Their popularity and massive industry success leaves other country stars shaking in their cowboy boots.

At the Oracle Arena in Oakland on Friday August 4th, the most talented and sought-after rapper in the business, Kendrick Lamar, will be gracing the stage to what is sure to be a spectacular night of hip-hop. Lamar is coming to the Bay as part of THE DAMN. TOUR, celebrating his latest album, which went straight to No. 1 and was certified platinum. For more ticket information, click here. And check out my review of DAMN. here.

Finally, Hans Zimmer, the Academy Award winning composer behind over 150 film scores including “The Lion King,” “The Dark Knight,” “The Pirates of the Caribbean” series and “Inception” has been on tour this year. To the surprise and delight of many music and movie fans, he was even a headliner this year at the largest summer music festival, Coachella. Now, Zimmer is scheduled to take on the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Wednesday, August 9th. Get your tickets now before they sell out! And don’t forget to bring some popcorn.

What concerts or events are you most excited for in July and August? Comment below!

July 11, 2017

For Your Entertainment

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WiFi Router Upgrade Recommendations

If you’re like me, setting up your home router is as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist. Maybe that’s why I have a toothache and my home network is struggling with the 2.4GHz router that I installed 7 years ago. It was a pretty good router in its day, however, 7 years is more like 50 when it comes to technology. It’s currently running well below its optimum due to advances in WiFi standards, improved router technology and increased demands on WiFi from almost every new device I buy. I’m giving in and setting up a new router for my house. But which router should I get? At Blackfire Research, we are often asked for recommendations on which routers will best support whole home wireless streaming. I must mention that technology changes rapidly, so by the time you read this blog post, there may be an even better router on the market. With that in mind, reviews at Tom’s Guide and CNET are my two go-to references.

We do quite a lot of wireless demos and testing at our Blackfire office in San Francisco, which require high performing routers operating at the latest 802.11ac WiFi standard. Netgear and Linksys/Belkin make very fine routers, and the Apple AirPort Extreme is a popular choice, but, we’ve grown particularly fond of two from ASUS that are not only high performing, but reliable, easy to set up, and are now available at a much lower cost than when they were first launched. Those two routers are: the ASUS RT-AC56U and the ASUS RT-AC68U.

The more cost effective of the two is the ASUS RT-AC56U, but the ASUS RT-AC68U will give the highest performance. Here’s what we like about both of these routers:

Default settings out of the box are good for most situations
Subjectively cope with noisy environments better than other routers we’ve tested
Relatively low cost (for an 802.11ac router)
Mobile phone app simplifies both setup and maintenance
Mature design (launched in 2013) which is very reliable
Large user community, offering plenty of online advice.

The ASUS RT-AC68U has all the features of the 56U, but adds:

1.3Gb/s (vs. 900Gb/s) data rate at 5GHz
600Gb/s (vs. 300Gb/s) data rate at 2.4GHz
External antenna (for more flexible adjustment, tweaking and positioning)

We recommend that you upgrade to the 68U version if:

you have a big home
there are several walls between your router and your living space
you have lots of family members all connecting at once
your home internet connection is greater than 200MB/s

You can purchase both the ASUS RT-AC56U and the ASUS RT-AC68U on Amazon.

Further, here’s a breakdown of the tradeoffs between 2.4GHz and 5GHz:

2.4GHz:

supports most WiFi devices; better range; less attenuation by walls and objects
congested band due to Bluetooth, cellphones and lots of other non-standard wireless devices

5GHz:

Fastest data rates; relatively uncongested frequency band at the moment
Not suitable for many devices due to antenna, range limitations and power consumption

For my home, I purchased the ASUS RT-AC68U for the extra capacity for multiple users and flexibility in antenna positioning. For my next blog post, I’ll walk through how I setup my new router.

July 10, 2017

The Tech

Ruben Mookerjee

3 Comments