CTA - Sacred Ground

Over the years, I've reviewed a number of Chicago-related recordings - new Chicago, late-released Chicago, old Chicago re-recorded by the latest band, solo recordings by members of Chicago, a Toto recording with a Pankow horn arrangement, etc.

This one is something slightly different, although it could go under a solo album by a former band member. This one has a twist in that it's the second album by Danny Seraphine, the original Chicago drummer who left the band (was kicked out?) after Chicago 18. He's definitely trying to sound like Chicago, or as someone else has mentioned, like Chicago should have sounded had the David Foster era never happened.

Well, if the name of the band is an indicator, it may be more of a Chicago tribute band with not one, but two Chicago members involved. Bill Champlin also appears, and Jason Scheff has also appeared with them live in concert. Their first album was almost entirely Chicago covers, which is why I never bought it. This one is different. There is one Chicago cover and one BS&T cover (which Chicago often covered in concerts back in the day).

Tracks:
Sacred Ground
The Real World
I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
Out of Reason
Primetime
Conviction (Song for Ronnie)
Strike
Chorale
Full Circle
Staring at the Sun
In the Kitchen
Take Me Back to Chicago
Go On
Daydream Lover

Before I rip it to shreds, let me first say that I like this album.

Package: Danny must have been the advocate of the nameless, faceless brand, because this is more nameless and faceless than Chicago. No liner notes, no listing of band members, not even writing credits.

Production: Pretty good, although sometimes the textures are a little dense, with less variety than a typical Chicago album. I don't really like the track order, and if Danny wants to sound more like old Chicago, he needs to have a better album concept. For example, Chorale was slipped into the middle of the album with no relation to what happens before and after. For the same reason, he needs to rethink who is sing which tracks. There were a few that would have sounded more like Chicago if Bill would have sung them, especially The Real World.

Horn arrangements: Many of these do sound like Pankow's distinctive horn writing - too much at times. Certain recognizable tropes sound like they were lifted straight from various Chicago albums, and others just sound bland (Strike).

Solos: Where are they? You don't get a horn solo until the 12th track (Take Me Back to Chicago). There are lots of guitar solos, and more keyboard solos than typical for Chicago. (Robert Lamm was never a great improviser.) For that matter, James Pankow recorded many embarrassing trombone solos as well as some awesome ones, and Walt was an advocate of wrong note solos, to the extend that very few were "right" note solos. Lee's recorded solos were generally quite good. To be honest, none of them are really masters of their instruments, but they did what they did really well, and were terrific as a unit. Chicago super-subs Lee Thornburg, Nick Lane, and Ray Hermann are probably all better players than the founding members.

As far as the concept goes, they (at times) sound more like Tower of Power or Blood, Sweat, & Tears than Chicago. Why? It possible is accounted for by more soulful vocals, especially from the unnamed tenor lead, and possibly thicker brass over-dubs. ILYMTYEK is a BS&T cover, but it sounds like it was covered by ToP. My real question is why they NEED to sound like Chicago. Yes, I love Chicago, but I think they should take it to the next step, become a band with named members, unique writing styles, and stable personnel. I would like to hear the individuals express themselves more, not just try to sound like Chicago.

This is getting long, and I haven't even discussed the individual tracks. Here is a brief rundown:

My favorite track is the instrumental, In the Kitchen. Here there is no attempt to sound like Chicago. In fact, I probably would have started the album with Chorale, In the Kitchen, then either The Real World, or Staring at the Sun. That would have been a typical Chicago progression, then something low-key like Go On. I would probably end the album with Out of Reason and Daydream Lover. The piano solo, Conviction, should have been paired with some more appropriate than Strike. Full Circle is the obvious candidate.

Staring at the Sun is a rocker, and at times sounds like (the brief) DeWayne Bailey-era late Chicago. The tenor vocalist and guitarist both sound like him and the lower voice sounds a little like Robert. One of the singers in Go On sounds like Keith Howland. The title track is good, but I wouldn't have started the album with it. It almost sounds like Foster-era Chicago, but with more brass and fewer synths. It does have the wall-of-voices like late Chicago. The Real World reminds me of James Pankow's Toto collaboration (Dying on My Feet - which I liked a lot) although it doesn't really sound the same. Primetime is another instrumental, which I think works well. Strike sounds like something off Hilary McRae's only album. I liked her album, but I don't really care for this. It also reminds me of Love Me, Do from XXX, which I didn't like at all.

My overall verdict is tough. It's not an album that I can't put down, yet I like it. If I could forget that this isn't really a Chicago cover band, I would probably give it 4 stars out of 5, but considering all my above criticism, let's say 3.5 stars. I might like it a little more than Robert Lamm's Subtlety and Passion, which I can't remember what I rated it, but I confess I haven't listened to it in a long time.

More upgrades

All summer I have put up with slow POSTing on my desktop. I was also suffering from lack of RAM. I put off upgrading until after we came back from the UK, and now I've done it.

I decided this time to go for raw speed. Over the years, I've used mostly AMD in my builds, but I've always come up against some incompatibility issues, the latest one being the Scarlett, which I solved in the end.

To switch to Intel, I had to get rid of the motherboard and memory. I opted for an unlocked i7-8700K which was illogically lower priced than the locked version. As I am going for stability, I won't overclock it. I went for a mid-level ASUS ATX motherboard and the fastest DDR4 RAM I could find. I went for 2 8GB sticks, so I have room to upgrade. (There are 2 free slots.)

I fortunately could keep all my drives and PSU, but I discovered that I had no parallel port for my laser printer. I bought one, but it shows up as LPT3. Score won't recognize that, and oddly very little else did. Fortunately, I have a JetDirect port, and it seems to work fine over the network, although for some reason it won't print multiple copies.

I set it up and it is blisteringly fast. The latest versions of iTunes say my graphics card is too slow to play video, and I can't seem to roll back to a version that does, even though Apple says I can.

The last piece of the puzzle was that I was getting a low frequency rumble on my speakers. Since both the Scarlett and the JBL monitors both support balanced cables, I bought some, and now I have crystal clear sound.

Now that I have everything set up properly, I have no complaints (other than the multiple print issue). Re-authorizing Windows was tricky, but somehow I succeeded.

A review update, of sorts

These past few months have brought more hardware woes, which have inspired me to update some of the things I said in the last blog on Windows 10.

I had a hard disk failure (Samsung SSD 850 PRO), which was under warranty, and has since been repaired, but not before I bought a new one. I was lucky to be completely backed up, and after I installed the new drive I was able to read the old one, although I never did get it to boot.

After refreshing my installation, I was still having some problems:
1) My computer was slow to POST, but that seems to have fixed itself. I'm not sure what I did that fixed it, but it seems to be OK now.

2) When coming out of hibernation or sleep mode, it freezes for a short time. I haven't figured out why.

3) I have had a lot of problems with that Creative X-Fi, and it may have been the driver that killed the old SSD. I finally ditched it, and have opted for an external option: a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. You have to be careful with it. I read some instructions when installing it that you had to attach it to a USB3 port if you have an AMD CPU in your computer (which I do). That, I discovered, is only if you have version 1 of the unit. In fact, I discovered that with version 2, it is better to plug it into USB2. When I ordered it, I decided not to install it until I upgraded my SATAIII card to one that also has a USB3 port. I tried two, and one didn't work at all, but the second one did. Unfortunately, it was competing for bandwidth with my HD, and causing dropouts. In the end, I put the Scarlett on a USB2 port and started using ASIO4ALL to control it, rather that the Focusrite driver, which kept looping (in Sibelius or Finale). It also hogs the device, so I have been leaving the Directsound drive on by default, so it shares with other software. I'm not sure of the advantage of using ASIO just for playback anyway.


My laptop

About 5 years ago, I purchased an HP Split X2. It has become a little long in the tooth lately for two reasons: The SSD (system drive) is full. There is a second drive (SATA) in the keyboard, but if I separate the two, obviously, those files become unavailable. I've installed a 128 GB SD Card, and gotten around some of the problems, but I think there is a speed penalty there.

I decided that I would upgrade the SSD and the RAM. I was having difficulty opening the case and was afraid to do it, so I tried to find out what I can do online. Unfortunately, there are about 10 different model numbers for the Split X2, and I didn't know which was correct. The software gave me the official number, but that wasn't listed on the site.

Finally, I tried Crucial, who have an online checker for such things. It told me I could install an 8 GB kit (2x4GB), but it didn't look like the SSD was upgradeable. I was about to order the memory, and possibly take it to Best Buy to be installed, but then decided to try to open it up again. I was able to pry it open, and eventually discovered there were 4 screws hidden under the grille for the speakers (glued on). I carefully removed the grille, detached the screws and opened it up.

At first, I didn't see the memory or the SSD, then I found a small card partly covered up by a label that said Micron RealSSD C400 mSATA 128GB. That sounded like a hard disk to me, and I eventually discovered that it was. Replacing it with a larger one would proved difficult, although I eventually found a 256GB version on Ebay, so I ordered it. I wanted a 512GB, but never found one.

Next, the memory. I couldn't find it for the longest time, but eventually, I looked under the heatsink cover, and there it was ... soldered to the motherboard. So much for that idea.

So, it was the opposite of what Crucial said. The SSD could be upgraded, but not the memory. The SSD will arrive by Friday, and I've ordered an USB adapter to copy everything across. Should be (ahem) fun. At least, I'll have some headroom on the drive, so it should speed things up.