Making An Emergency Flash Drive

I recently read an article on Gizmodo about creating an emergency flash drive and it dawned on my how valuable that could be for touring musicians. This is not so much an emergency drive for any programs you use (although that's a great idea), it's for your personal information in case you're incapacitated, so it should be marked as such. That way, police, doctors, EMTs or anyone else in the position to help you have a quick and easy way of doing so.

What you're going to do is get a small 1 Gig or so flash drive and split it into two halves; open and encrypted. On the open side, create the following:

• A plaintext .txt doc titled 'EMERGENCY' with your name, address and nationality, complete with  contact info in English, Spanish, and any local language of countries you might be visiting, as well as phone numbers of family, spouse or partner, band leader, tour manager, management, and anyone else appropriate.

• A credit card file with contact info of all of your credit cards. Don't include the actual card numbers, expiration dates or CVV numbers though.

• A "MEDICAL" file listing your medications, drug or food allergies, and your physician's contact info. Also clearly mark "I HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE" on it with all the numbers and contact info (assuming you have it, of course).

• A scan of your insurance card, front and back.

On the encrypted section (the article suggests TrueCrypt), include:

• A scanned copy of each of your credit and debit cards.

• The contact info, routing number and account number of your bank accounts.

• Scanned copies or digital photos of your passport and driver's license.

• If you're travelling with a laptop, smartphone or tablet (who doesn't these days), include the serial numbers and passwords for each.

• And finally, the contact info and passwords for any critical apps or plugins that you use.

You want to keep your emergency drive safe, so it has to be small enough to either hang around your neck or easily fit in your pocket. After all, it doesn't do you much good if it was in your backpack and that's what was stolen in the first place.

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The Craziest Cutting Edge Instruments

This comes from Gizmodo and it's worthy of noting. It's the craziest new cutting edge musical tech instruments that just came out at Musikmesse, which is Europe's version of the NAMM show, only much, much larger. Each of these are an interesting new twist on an existing product.

The AlphaSphere has a number of pads that each act like a drum controller, but you can assign any sound you want either via dedicated software or your favorite. Sure does look cool.

The next time  you've been served and someone tells you "It's On!", show up with your crew with one of these babies. The Steez Audio Type S (terrible name) picks a playlist, then automatically edits the tracks and tempo between songs in "Auto Battle Mode."

The Endeavour Evo claims to be a keyboard with an entirely new way of generating and controlling sound thanks to its "Magic Key" technology. The sounds aren't that great to my ears, but it does have a unique way of controlling them by having touch sensitive keys where by just moving your finger up a key you can change a parameter. Check out the video on the site for a better idea of the concept.

Full size

The Alesis iO Mix is basically a mixer/dock that wraps around your iPad. I'm sure it's only the tip of the iceberg of future iPad accessory products, but it's the only one of its type at the moment. Check it out.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

The IKEA Salad Bowl Speaker System

Let's say you know some audiophile who'd just love to own a custom, one-of-a-kind speaker system to impress his friends. Undoubtedly that audiophile has plenty of money to burn. Why should a company like B&O, VonSchwiekert, Magnapan, or Revel get all the dough when you can whip something up for him with some old fiberglass, a few left over speaker drivers, and some parts from Ikea that will look every bit the part (and you can put most of the money in your pocket as well).

Using 3 of Ikea's Blanda Matt salad bowls and a few Baren Hangs pegs for feet, here's a three-way system that certainly looks the part. Of course, it probably won't sound that great, but when has that ever stopped an audiophile from buying before? Thanks to Gizmodo for the heads up on this.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.


You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.


Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.