I know I truly love a band when I imagine that I’m in the band when I listen to their music. This hasn’t happened with very many musicians, but this feeling was probably the most intense with the Beastie Boys. I loved their music so much in the early 1990′s that I essentially dedicated my life to trying to become a Beastie. It was more than a long shot: it was nothing short of an entirely impossible quest. But I had no choice. There was no other reality worth seeking.

Close Encounter #1

Even though I became a true lifelong Beastie fan in the early nineties, my first close encounter with MCA took place 27 years ago. I was a huge Madonna fan, so my mom took my sister and I to a Madonna concert at the USF Sun Bowl in Tampa Florida. We were very young, so mom got us to the show nice and early. The opening act that evening happened to be a group from Brooklyn called the Beastie Boys.

Licensed to Ill hadn’t been released yet, but that didn’t stop the Beasties from walking in like they owned the place. It was wild. I was so innocent at the time that I was shocked to hear them curse. Early in the set one of them yelled “Make some noise! This isn’t a fucking library!” The audience of teeny boppers got a good chuckle out of that. The show seemed alien, but they won us over. Mid point through the set, they stopped and explained what was going on. They explained what the DJ was, what he was doing, how he could change musical styles in a heartbeat and scratch records. Syd (my sister) and I thought it was really cool. They put on a good show. We were fans. Syd even claimed to have spotted the Beasties getting into a red stretched limo after the show.

Note: I wore a cut-off sleeves t-shirt with a giant British flag printed on it to the show. The shirt had been purchased at Spencer’s. I was trying to look like I was in Def Leppard.  

Close Encounter # 2

My second encounter with Yauch isn’t with his physical form. It was dealing with the Beastie mayhem that had consumed the nation. You see, when the Beasties hit it big (1986 – 1988), I lived in a small town in Florida. I liked their songs. I thought the video and lyrics for Fight For Your Right were funny, and I was mystified by the awesome sounds in the song Hold It Now, Hit It. But I couldn’t really appreciate the Beasties because their fans were constantly trying to beat me up.

During these years I was 100% consumed with skateboarding and punk rock music. Seriously. The only things I did was eat, sleep, go to school, skate and listen to punk. This wasn’t a very popular thing to do in those days. My friends and I were considered outcasts, and treated as such.

The same awful scenario played out several times. We would be skating in a ditch on the side of the road, or in a parking lot at night, and a nefarious looking car would suddenly creep up out of nowhere, blasting License To Ill. The doors would fly open and meatheads would emerge and claim that we had just flipped them off, and they were ready to fight. It got to the point where we would hear someone blasting License To Ill from a car, and an instinct would kick in to go run and hide. It sucked. The terrible irony is that the Beasties were a skate punk band at heart.

Close Encounter #3

Fast forward three years. In college I had become a Beastie devotee. My good buddy Larry Lillvik had played Paul’s Boutique numerous times during our freshman year, and really showed me how to appreciate what the Beasties had done. My fear of Beastie Boy fans had died away, and my deep appreciation for their music had begun.

When you’re young and finishing high school and heading off to college, your life has a trajectory. You’re like a rocket arching through the sky. We had spent the Fall and Winter listening to Paul’s Boutique during our freshman year in college, and my friends and I were actively putting plans into motion to drive across the country for a month in the coming Summer. Now it was Spring, and the flightpath of our young lives was just soaring. Then Check Your Head arrived.

There’s no way to describe it. It was the perfect music at the perfect time. That album hit us like a bomb. It was everything I loved in life, blended together and turned into something totally new. You may not hear it entirely when you listen today, but in its time, there just had never been music like that before. Check Your Head was beyond a triumph. It shot me on my mission to try to become a Beastie. This was the only thing I could possibly do.

So you’re a broke college kid in Boston who can’t rap, but you now must become a Beastie Boy. Where do you start? I took a note from Adam Yauch himself and started playing electric bass guitar. Soon I was in bands, and before long I was playing shows. Before you know it my band was playing a show opening up for Huggy Bear, who Mike D name drops on Ill Communication. By gum, my plan was working!

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. The band I was in was called Syrup USA. Our sound was about as un-Beastie as you can get, but I liked playing the dense and poppy songs that we would write collaboratively. The drummer of this band is my buddy Orrin Anderson.

Just Orrin and myself were in the practice space one evening, about a year or so after he had joined the band. We were chatting, and he mentioned something about the giant Check Your Head poster that was hanging on the wall (another band sharing the space had put up). It was the first time the Beasties had come up in conversation, and I told him flat out that Check Your Head was one of my favorite albums of all time. What he said next rocked my tiny, tiny world. “Adam Yauch and I were best friends growing up.”

I stopped talking. I had to sit down on the nasty floor. I experienced great difficulty processing the information coming out of Orrin’s mouth. “We grew up together in Brooklyn… We hung out all the time… He used to have a band called Medical Junta… They had a great song with the lyrics “I was gunna to sit down and write you a letter, but I think I’ll write a postcard cuz it’s shorter and it’s better”… I recorded the first Beastie Boys demo tape at my dad’s house…” Suddenly I could speak again. “Whoa whoa whoa, you recorded the first Beasties demo tape?!?!”

My brain was blown completely out of my head. The mission of Syrup USA had always been to write a great pop song, get a record deal, and then make that song a fixture in pop radio for the duration of eternity. Suddenly there was an additional mission. We needed to become a success so that Orrin could somehow reconnect with his long lost best pal MCA. The future was abundantly clear.

Encounter # 4

Syrup USA never became a fixture in pop radio, but we did manage to get a record deal and go on a few extensive tours around the US and Canada. In 1997 we were touring in support of our album All Over The Land, and we were in Atlanta playing live at a radio station. After our set, the singer and keyboard player took off to have a break, while Orrin and I stayed and packed up equipment in the steamy little live room at the station. Suddenly some dude pops his head into the room and asks if he could look at the keyboards. Since I was too shy to speak, Orrin told him to come on in.

The dude checked out the keyboards and Orrin made small talk with him as he packed his drums. Orrin’s small talk was revealing some curious factoids about the dude. It turned out that he was “sponsored” by Korg in Japan. That wasn’t normal. Orrin pried a bit more, and then it came out. The dude in the room with Orrin and I was none other than Money Mark. Naturally, I could no longer move.

Orrin, however, didn’t have this problem and continued to freely chat with Mark. Eventually Orrin told him that he was an old buddy of Adam’s, but they had lost touch over the years. Before long Orrin was talking to Money Mark’s manager, perhaps even chatting about getting back in touch with Yauch. I’m not sure what was being said because my brain had turned into Oodles of Noodles the moment I realized it was Mark Nishita. I was seriously mute and useless. Towards the end of the encounter, Mark couldn’t take seeing me suffer. He walked over to me, introduced himself, and shook my hand. He likely said other things to me, but my noodle brain was incapable of recording any information at the time.

Note: I was wearing a purple Tarpon Springs Chimp Farm t-shirt when I met Money Mark. I forget everything else.

Encounter # 5

I moved to New York City in September of 2000. One year after I arrived, the city experienced a terrible calamity. I got one complete year of the irreverent old New York, and I’ve remained here ever since. NYC is still recovering from that horrible event.

A few weeks after September 11th, I was walking around Greenwich VIllage in the early afternoon on a weekday. I was making my way down Lafayette Street headed toward Other Records, and staring at the sidewalk as I went. As the sidewalk rolled by my eyes, I noticed someone’s feet standing on an old skateboard. Old-style skateboards are really popular today, but in 2001 they were not. It struck me as odd, so I looked up to see what the rest of this person looked like. It was Adam Yauch.

Most shockingly, it wasn’t only MCA. Standing to one side was Michael Diamond, and to the other was Adam Horowitz. In that instant I was literally standing in the middle of the Beastie Boys. I, of course, kept walking. It was too unbelievable. For shining a moment, I had been a Beastie Boy. I took twenty more steps and stopped. I turned around to glance at them again, just to confirm what I had seen. There’s no mistaking those guys. I didn’t bother them. They were standing in a circle, smiling and chatting with one another, just as you would expect them to.

And that was it. I went on with my life, and they went on with theirs. I never got to see them perform live again, just that one set at the Sun Dome in 1985. It’s kind of a shame, but it’s also kind of special too.

The loss of Adam Yauch is really tragic. It was a full-blown kick in the chest today, and it’s going to continue to sting for a long time. I know that he had an amazing life, and I know we should celebrate it. But it’s also okay to just be sad.

There’s no doubt that the course of my life has been drastically influenced by the existence of the Beastie Boys. If there’s 40 gigabytes in my head, at least 28 of them are used to permanently store Beastie rhymes.

It sucks to say goodbye when you never had the nerve to say hello. But we have to do it anyway. My heart and prayers are with his young family tonight. Darkness is not the opposite of light, it’s the absence of it. Namaste.

If you’re sold on the idea of having your very own, personal vocal microphone, here are some suggestions:

The Shure SM58
This is the microphone that most clubs use. It sounds great. It’s a classic. However, it’s not perfect. The biggest problem with the SM58 is that the grill dents and deforms when you drop it. The more dented and deformed the grill gets, the worse it sounds.

The Audix OM2

I’m a big fan of Audix Microphones. I own a bunch of them. The very first Audix mic I bought was the OM2. Even though I’ve had it for six or seven years, it still looks and sounds like it’s brand new. The OM2 has a great sound for live vocals, and the grill was designed not to dent when you accidentally drop it. Audix is based outside of Portland Oregon, and they manufacture many of their microphones in the USA.

The Audio-Technica MB4K/C

Kristin Mueller, my dear old friend/bandmate/roommate, used to have an Audio-Technica MB4K/C. We used it for live vocals, and it had a really snappy, present sound. I really liked using it. Plus, back in the day, Kristin was in another band that shared a practice space with Interpol (during their heyday). She was psyched to discover that Interpol was using Midnight Blue Audio-Technica mics too. Midnight Blue, baby! The microphones of mystery! You can hear this mic in acton in the following video. It was shot on Valentine’s Day in 2003, in a long lost dive bar called Siberia. I brought the MB4K/C to use as my vocal mic. Poor Kristin got stuck using a house mic for backup vocals. Sorry Mueller!

I’ve always taken him seriously on this matter. I cook a lot, and I often think of this quote as I’m crushing garlic and stewing beans. I try to find the parallels that compelled Werner to make this statement, and in some ways I can see them. However, I recently toiled through a grueling process that reminded me more of filmmaking than anything else. I moved to a new apartment.

Ways in which moving is the closest alternative to filmmaking:

1) If you try to do it all yourself, you will likely fail.

2) You have to physically move a great number of unreasonably large and heavy objects to multiple locations in a very short period of time.

3) There will be pizza.

4) Halfway through the day you will realize that you’re already more exhausted and over-exerted than you have been since the last time you were on set moved.

5) There will be momentary flashes where you get to make creative decisions: “I’ll put this box over here, and that box in there.”

6) The schedule and the game plan were scrapped after the first hour or two.

7) “It’s going to be a quick move, in and out, just a couple of hours…” echoes in your head as you grind away late into the night.

8) You wonder if they bothered to do any preproduction packing before we started.

9) The biggest mistake made was not hiring an experienced crew of professionals.

10) At the end someone offers you a cold beer, and you’re almost too drained to drink it. Almost.

PS – here’s a link to the film: http://youtu.be/rd6rUo7Htso

Mackie recently announced a new mixer called the DL1608 at the 2012 NAMM show in Las Vegas. I read about the DL1608 when it was announced, and I thought it looked cool and offered a nice wireless iPad mixing solution for live sound. But today I saw this:

I love you, Mackie. You’ve raised the bar for pro audio product videos. I mean, you’ve raised the bar into a really strange and demented place, but still, the bar is higher now.

Rumors about nonexistent Apple products have cemented their place along side such tried-and-true boring conversation topics like “the weather” and “traffic.” If you find yourself waiting at a bus stop for more than forty five seconds, it’s likely an elderly person will corner you and explain how they just heard that Apple was going to release small and mid-sized iPad 3′s in just a couple weeks.

Companies are betting vast sums of money trying to predict Apple’s next move, and basing their bets largely upon rumors, which holds true whether they’re making form-fitting jackets for gadgets that have no form, or they’re making clones of phones that only exist as images in blogs, vlogs and somehow major media outlets too.

People have been talking about Apple’s entrance into the television market for years, but somehow television manufacturers aren’t taking the same cues. It doesn’t take a lot of research to determine what an Apple computer monitor looks like, and the same goes for an iMac. Is it impossible to produce a simple, yet beautiful TV set that mimics these classics?

Startups like Boxee can turn up out of nowhere and churn out low-cost products that harness and organize video content from the web, and output it to a TV. Is it inconceivably difficult for a mammoth television manufacturer to put two and two together and stick Boxee-like guts inside a beautiful TV? There’s been a sustained opportunity to beat Apple’s iTV to market. It’s someone’s chance grab the golden ring before the father of the iPhone arrives.

Who knows. Perhaps Apple’s iTV is just another disembodied spirit of a product that will never actually exist. I understand this stuff isn’t easy, but with the unthinkable success that Apple enjoys, one would assume that more companies would be thinking and acting a few steps ahead, rather than coming out with the same old teardrop-shaped black rectangles we’ve already forgotten about.

10) The crapping out of the cable cutting revolution

In 2010 there was a big scare amongst cable providers that great multitudes of people would cancel their cable TV service in favor of streaming content from the Internet. We were mired in the depths of the great recession, people were losing jobs left and right, and nifty little set-top boxes like the Apple TV 2 and the Roku were coming out to help us get by without the Real Housewives and House Hunters. Sadly, most people didn’t cut the cord. The magnetic pull of ESPN, Snooki, J Wow and The Situation was just too strong.

9) One word: Qwikster

Netflix suffered some pretty embarrassing missteps this year, namely, the creation and speedy termination of their DVD delivery service that they renamed Qwikster. While the move was unusual and regrettable, there was something about it that I appreciated. In one stroke Netflix went from this unstoppable and faceless media entity that seemed to have it all figured out, to this mom and pop operation with a CEO that spoke his mind, even though it made him look like a doofus. Many people cancelled their subscriptions, but I didn’t. I was a proud 2011 cable cutter, and Netflix was a big part of my content consumption plan. It’s easy to be a critic of the Netflix business plan, but I am still impressed. This isn’t easy turf, folks. What, you want to buy the rights to stream the third season of Punky Brewster? No problem. That will cost you 700 trillion dollars a month.

8) Two words: TouchPad

If anyone went nuts in 2011, it was Hewlett Packard. It’s too bad because they were once a very reputable computer company (in the 1980′s my father published a magazine called HP Professional). I got to test drive a TouchPad when they were first released, and to be honest, I thought it sucked. But it seemed like no one hated the TouchPad more than HP themselves. When the news hit that the TouchPad was discontinued, I was amazed. The TouchPad was dead. WebOS was dead. HP even flirted with the idea of not selling personal computers any longer. Only four people working at Engadget cared about the demise of WebOS, but the idea of HP walking away from their PC business was just plain old sad. Hopefully 2012 will be a brighter year at HP.

7) Three words: Ice Cream Sandwich

I’ve been a bit of a harsh critic of Google in the past, but the truth is that hate is just confused love. Google, I say mean things about you sometimes, but it’s only because I love you. I love your Search. I love your Analytics. I even use Chrome for some reason. In 2011 Google named their premier mobile operating system Ice Cream Sandwich. Call it a misstep. Call it goofy. Scratch your head and wonder why they didn’t go with something sophisticated and obvious like “Android 4.0.” Then remember that they call themselves “Google” and move on.

6) The Beastie Boys kicked ass

The Beastie Boys had a good year. Their album The Hot Sause Committee Part 2 came out in the Spring, and it kicked a whole lot of butt. Choice lyric: “‎I fly like a hawk or better yet an eagle… a seagull, I sniff suckers out like a beagle.” Adam Yauch overcame his cancer scare, and at the end of the year the Beasties were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Well deserved. Plus, I finally got Paul’s Boutique on vinyl for Christmas (thanks Mom!)

5) The market failure of Android tablets

Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but there’s no guarantee that manufacturing a facsimile will pay the bills. Man, how many Android tablets came out this year? Does anyone even know for sure? There are at least 35 or more. And it’s really confusing keeping track of all of the versions of Android loaded into these things. This tablet has Honeycomb, that tablet has Gingerbread, that crappy one over there has FroYo, and so on. There isn’t enough oxygen out there for so many tablets to survive. The Dell Streak is already dead. Let’s see who survives 2012.

4) Sony’s NEX 7n digital camera

I know, I know… my blog is kind of known as a place where the Panasonic GH2 gets most of the mirror-less camera attention. But even GH2 lovers have to give props to Sony’s killer NEX 7n. It’s got a full-sized APS-C sensor and a flat body that fits in your pocket. Interhangeable lenses, drop dead beautiful industrial design, this camera has it all. The only thing it doesn’t have is availability. The factory that produces them was wiped out by flooding in Thailand. Godspeed to all of those affected by this tragedy! Be safe, and get this camera to market.

3) More electric cars hit the road

I don’t own an electric car, but in an ideal world I would. But as we all know, the world is far from ideal. The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt both came out in 2011, and while sales have been sluggish, it seems like they’re at least hanging in there. Admittedly, I haven’t explored the possibility of owning one of these cars. Who knows, maybe even city dwellers like myself can be outfitted with a charging station. All I know is that I really think it makes sense to go electric. In 2012 Toyota will release the all-electric Rav 4, and Tesla will put out the long awaited Model S. I mean, give me a break. How could a car be cooler than a Tesla? It can’t.

2) Apple’s iPad 2

I bought one of these things in 2011, and I haven’t really put it down all year. The only reason the iPad 2 isn’t in the #1 spot, is that it isn’t radically different from the iPad 1, which took top honors in last year’s list. Plus, making the 2 number 1 just seems like poor Feng shui.

1) The death of Jobs

Seems out of place to make this the #1 thing on a list of crap, but the loss of Steve Jobs is by far the biggest Earth shaker of the year. Watching Apple in 2011 was like witnessing an epic drama unfold. Their products just got more and more popular, they briefly became the most valuable company on the stock market, and they announced the plans for their new corporate headquarters—which looked like some sort of monolithic temple to the iPod—a physical corporate communion with God. Then, when it seemed like Apple could never outdo itself, their leader Steve Jobs died.

I follow Apple pretty closely, and I was expecting this (to some degree). But even though I saw it coming, I was still shocked when I saw the headline for the first time. I didn’t know Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs didn’t know me, but I really enjoyed his work. One of my favorite things to do with a piece of Apple hardware was to run my fingers across it, and try to imagine how Steve helped shape the thing. What did he approve? What did he detest? What slipped by him in this generation? It’s really sad that those days are over. That’s just the fingernail end of the tip of the iceberg, but it was a fun game that is finished, and it’s sad.

Thanks for giving a shit, Steve.

Hacking your camera is scary, because you can potentially damage it if you do it wrong. But, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll screw it up. When the camera is actively updating its firmware, you just have to be careful not to touch it. This “danger zone” only lasts a couple of minutes. You must not press any buttons or turn off the camera while the firmware is being loaded. This “scariness” isn’t exclusive to the hack. The same danger exists when you’re updating firmware from Panasonic themselves. Keeping your GH2 safe is drop dead simple.

This entire process is odd at first, but once you do it a couple times, it seems really basic. It’s kind of like using Paypal. The first time you try to use Paypal, it’s a hassle. You have to get used to an unfamiliar user interface, you have to enter in a bunch of information, and so on. But once you’re set up and make a few transactions, everything flows along nicely. While we’re on the topic, please use Paypal to donate a little money over at personal-view.com. It helps support the folks that made the hack.

I did my best to write the following instructions as clearly and comprehensively as possible. However, I’m not a technological maniac. I don’t get into making custom patches, I just use patches that I downloaded (I explain how to do this later in the article). And even though I tried to be as comprehensive as possible, I may be missing a tiny bit of information here and there. If you notice something that needs to be added or corrected, please leave a Comment below and tell me about it, and I’ll amend the instructions.

Lastly, I don’t want to intimidate you, but, be warned that you are voiding the warranty on your camera by preforming this hack. You should also be aware that you can revert back to the original firmware, if you don’t like the hack.

Don’t be a wimp! You can do this! Let’s go…

1) You need to download a program called “ptool” to your computer. Here’s the link to where you download ptool: http://www.gh1-hack.info/wiki/PToolSoftware …as you can see from glancing at that page, this is where things get a little confusing (didn’t take long, did it?). On that page, scroll down to the red text that says “Firmware manipulation tool” – the latest ptool is available at the http://www.gh1-hack.info/ptool3d.zip link. Yes, I know the link says “gh1-hack,” but this is the ptool that you need for the GH2 as well. The ptool will arrive as a zip file. Click on it to unzip it.

Keep going... you're on the right page...

2) If you’re on a Mac, you’ll need to download and install a free application called WineBottler. It’s available here: http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/ - Once it’s installed, you don’t have to fuss with this program at all. It just runs in the background and lets you run “exe” programs (like ptool). Here’s a direct link to the download page: http://bit.ly/gA0EJT

3) Download the original firmware for the GH2 onto your computer. Here’s a link to a page on personal-view.com that has a link to the original firmware download: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/330/new-gh2-firmware-leak#Item_4 - it will arrive as a zip file as well. Click on it to unzip it. When unzipped, the firmware will appear as “GH2__V10.bin” – please note that there are two underscores in its name.

4) Create a new folder on your computer and put all of this stuff inside of it. Name your new folder “GH2 Hack” or something obvious like that. Put it in a obvious place, like on your desktop. Put the original GH2 firmware (GH2__V10.bin) in this folder, put the ptool exe in there, put your patches in there (more on this next). One you’ve unzipped these downloads, you don’t have to hang onto the “.zip” versions of these files. Toss those out.

5) Download the hacked firmware patch of your choice, and put it in your hack folder. Here’s a link to a page on personal-view.com with a bunch of hack patches: http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/953/gh2-patch-vault-most-popular-patches-in-one-place/p1 – In order to download these patches, you need to register as a user at personal-view.com and log in. Once you’ve done that, click on one of the icons of the piece of paper with a folded corner. This makes a patch download, and it too will arrive as a .zip file, and it will likely be a .zip file with a long, code-like name. When you unzip it, it will have a completely different name. The unzipped name will be something like “setc.ini.”

6) Launch ptool on your computer, if you’re on a Mac, Wine will launch and present you with this dialog box:

All you have to do is click the “Go” button. That’s the only thing you have to do with WineBottler.

7) Now you have to load the original firmware for the GH2 into ptool. Click on the blue “Load Firmware” button at the bottom left of the ptool interface, and navigate to the folder where you placed the original firmware that you downloaded, (remember, the name is GH2__V10.bin), highlight the firmware by clicking on it, and click Open.

8) If the “Version increment” box in ptool isn’t checked, click on it and check it.

9) The bottom of the ptool interface has a row of round buttons with letters inside of them. The letters are alphabetical, from A to J. The buttons that are green represent the patches that you downloaded, unzipped, and placed inside of your GH2 Hack folder. If you hover your cursor over the green buttons, a box will appear telling you which hack patch it is. You need to load one of these patches into ptool. Click on the green button of the patch you want to use. Once you have clicked, the patch’s settings will be loaded into ptool. Be warned… the interface of the ptool will not change after you click on the patch that you want to load. There is no visual feedback that the patch is loaded. Just click, be confident that you clicked, and move on.

10) Now you have to “export” this hacked firmware patch out of ptool. Click on the green button in the bottom right corner of ptool that says “Save Firmware.” A window will open titled “Save Firmware Image.” Type in what you’re going to name the hacked firmware, but don’t get creative and clever with the name. See the next step…

11) It’s important to name the firmware something specific, yet not identical to another file in your hack folder. The orignal firmware is named GH2__V10.bin so you should not name your new firmware the same thing. What I do is just incrementally name the new firmware one digit higher. The first hack I used (cbrandin’s 66m patch) I named GH2__V11.bin. The second hack I used I named GH2__V12.bin and so on. The double underscore is important, so make sure that’s a part of your new name.

12) Save the new firmware in your hack folder (so you know where it is).

13) Format a good SD card in your GH2. Make sure you’re using a freshly recharged battery (it’s really bad if the battery dies while the firmware is updating, you need to avoid this). Only use a battery, don’t use the Lumix DMW-AC8 AC adapter, because a power surge can interrupt the hack and screw up your camera. Some people say that it’s better to use a Panasonic Lumix lens when you’re hacking. Other people say things go smoother when you put the camera in a custom mode when hacking (the C1, C2 or C3 position on the right dial on top of the camera). I read this in other people’s instructions, so this is what I do too.

14) After formatting your SD card in your GH2, turn off the camera and remove the card, and load it into your computer. You can use the built-in SD card slot on a newer Mac or an external SD card reader, or you can connect the GH2 to your computer with the digital cable that came with the camera.

15) Drag the new hack that you just saved out of your hack folder, and drop it onto the SD card icon on your desktop. The hack will land in there and just sit beside the other folders in your SD card (you know those usual GH2 SD card folders: DCIM, MISC, and PRIVATE). Here’s what it should look like inside the SD card with the hack inside of it:

16) Eject the card from your computer (or dismount the GH2 if you connected with the cable). Put the SD card into your GH2 (make sure the camera is powered off when you insert the card).

17) Turn on your GH2. It will power up and start operating like everything is normal. Press the Play button (the button with the green arrow on it that you press to look at images and videos).

18) The GH2 will go into the odd screen titled “BODY VERSION UP” that looks like this:

The words on the screen ask you “START VERSION UP?” with the option of choosing Yes or No. Press the up arrow (the ISO button) to select Yes, and press the Menu/Set button to activate the process.

19) This is the most important step… While the camera is updating its firmare DO NOT TOUCH IT. Carefully set the camera down on a flat surface and let it peacefully update itself. It’s very important not to press any buttons or to turn off the camera during this process.

20) When your camera completes the firmware updating process, you are essentially finished! The only thing you have to do now is to format the SD Card inside the GH2 again. If you don’t do this, the weird BODY VERSION UP? firmware update screen will appear every time you pres the green Play button on the camera.

Congratulations! You now have a hacked GH2! In fact, it’s no longer a GH2, now it’s a GH2vk! You are finished!

When you start using your GH2vk, it may seem a little anti-climatic at first. There is nothing visually different about the camera’s menus or interface. You’ll start noticing what the hack has done when you start shooting video with the camera. Some patches are really data-consumptive (you can only fit a few minutes of footage on a 16GB card, etc.). Some patches can be a little unruly (the video clips won’t playback in the camera). Some patches get it just right. The camera works great, clips play back just fine, and the moving images are amazing. Experiment and find what works best for you.

I’m still pinching myself that I own a camera that is capable of this quality. THANK YOU VITALIY! If you like what the hack does for you, again, be sure to donate a few bucks over at personal-view.com. If you found my guide helpful, you can help me by simply clicking on a product link on my blog (like this one) and making a purchase. I get a little, tiny commission from Amazon when you make purchases that way.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you below!

Think of this as “The Year In Review” for on-camera mics. It’s like the Academy Awards for mini-shotguns, except that it happened in the Fall as opposed to February. Who wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Shock Mount? Tune in and find out:

Audio Technica is a brand that produces some really exceptional equipment, and they also make gear that competes in the lowest end of the market. The ATR6250 is one of the least expensive off-camera stereo microphones. Its physical size is large, but it didn’t interfere with the frame of my shot when mounted on my camera. As expected, the least expensive mic produced the least pleasing sound. But, if you’re shooting on a frayed shoelace of a budget, the ATR6250 sounds better than some of the dreadful built-in mics on DSLRs (I’m looking at you, Nikon). This mic comes with an odd gaggle of accessories, but the only ones you’re likely to use are the shoe mount (which isn’t shock mounted), the foam windscreen, and the AA battery.

Azden SMX-20 DSLR Stereo Microphone - Late 2011 street price $149, £80, €91

People associate “stereo” with good sound, and “mono” with poor sound. This is not the case. A stereo mic simply has two separate capsules, in order to capture a stereo image (like our two human ears). A mono microphone only has one capsule, but that doesn’t mean that it sounds worse. In fact, mono microphones are preferred for recording dialog. The overall build-quality of the new SMX-20 was better than what I was expecting. The sound quality was decent as well, but it picked up a little more ambient noise than the other mics. I didn’t like the button-sized battery it required, and installing the battery was more difficult than it needed to be. It required unscrewing the body of the mic, and then forcefully removing a sliding plastic part that holds the watch-style battery. But, if you’re looking for a mic that splits the difference between being a good ambient and dialog mic, the SMX-20 fits the bill. The scale of this microphone’s design seems to suit HDSLR cameras quite well.

Sennheiser MKE 400 - Late 2011 street price $199, £179, €205

This is one of the smallest on-camera mics, and one of the best sounding as well. It runs on a single AAA battery, and a switch lets you raise or lower the sensitivity of the mic. If you’re shooting in a quiet area and you need a little extra oomph, you can switch it into the “+” position. When you’re in a loud environment, you can switch it to the “-” position and roll the sensitivity of the mic back a bit. The MKE 400 sounded great on my female subject in the test, however, a common complaint with this mic is that it lacks a bit of bass for deeper sounding voices. It also struggles in the wind, so additional wind protection is mandatory for outdoor usage (but this rule applies to every microphone). The best fluffy windscreen for this mic is the Sennheiser MZW400. If you want to hear the MZW400 in action, being tested out beside the Hudson River on a windy evening, check out this blog post.

Rode VideoMic Pro – Late 2011 street price $229, £145, €166

This is a new mic with a feature that benefits users of the Canon 5D Mark II. If you turn the 5D’s mic input level all the way down and engage the mic’s +20dB switch, the VideoMic Pro will be doing most of the work that the camera’s inferior preamp would normally do. The result is cleaner sounding audio. However, this function doesn’t benefit the Lumix GH2. In fact, I needed to turn on the mic’s -10dB pad and adjust my camera’s input level down to its lowest setting, and then I was able to record some really nice sounding audio. Be aware that the suspenders on the shock mount easily get detached. You need to check on them every time you use the mic. Opening the 9 volt battery door isn’t intuitive and requires effort. On the VideoMic Pro I bought, the shoe mount comes loose and occasionally falls off. This mic is covered by a ten year warranty, but it seems you may need to use it sooner rather than later. A lot of people complain about the cable on this mic. They grumble that it isn’t coiled and that it looks weak, but I disagree. I think it’s just the right length. I’m fine with it not being coiled (it’s less likely to bang around and create noise), and though it may be thin, it seems like a strong cable to me. One of the nice touches on this mic is that the power LED stays illuminated, so you’ll be more likely to remember to turn it on and off. Though it has a few shortcomings, this is a great sounding little mic.

Que Audio Q Mini Shotgun (QMSG1) - Late 2011 street price $299, £189, €216

This mic is sold in kits, and the one I used was the Q DSLR-Video Kit. It comes with everything a DSLR shooter needs (the mic, shock mount, shoe mount, output cable, wind protection, batteries and case). I really liked its size and sound. The mic itself is the same size and weight as a metal ballpoint pen. It has an impressively clear and present sound for such a compact shotgun. The output of this mic is a small, threaded connector, and it requires a special cable that screws into the thread. The other end of the special cable has another thread onto which you must attach a special output connector. Because there are so many proprietary parts, it’s best to purchase this mic in one of the kits. B&H sells just the QMSG1 mini shotgun on it’s own, but without all of the supporting accessories, it’s useless. This mic requires two button-sized batteries to operate. I believe they’re hearing aid batteries, so, in theory, you can easily pick them up at a local pharmacy. As much as I love the small size of this microphone, the included carrying case is impractically large. The included outdoor windscreen is a little too heavy for the mounting hardware to handle. The weight of the windscreen makes the mic swing away loosely from where you position it. But, as you can hear in the shootout video, this mic sounds really good. The sensitivity of this microphone and the sensitivity of the input on the GH2 are a match made in video nerd heaven.

Ambient Recording TinyMike (AMT 216) – Late 2011 street price $439, £250, €286

Everything about this microphone system reeks of quality. Like the Q Mini, the TinyMike is sold in kits, and I used the on-camera kit with the included 3.5mm output cable (there’s another kit available with an XLR output cable). The sound of the TinyMike was excellent, and the robust build-quality of the mic, included shock mount, windscreens and cables were as pro as it gets. I even whacked the shock mount with a hammer (not hard enough to drive a nail, but hard enough to destroy of any of the other shock mounts in this shootout), and it was fine. One thing you should listen for in the shootout video is the silence between the words. The TinyMike has a low noise-floor, making the overall quality of the audio exceptional. The TinyMike also doesn’t require batteries to operate. You never have to worry about a battery dying in the middle of a shoot, and you’ll never shoot something and accidentally forget to turn the mic’s power switch on. The TinyMike comes with a lot of accessories but it doesn’t come with a case, and like a nice lens, it’s not as inexpensive as you’d prefer it to be. It’s also lacking a 3/8″ thread at the base of the shock mount, which is required in order to mount it to a boom pole (there isn’t a 1/4 20 tripod thread either). But, if you’re looking for a mic that’s built as tough as your all-weather magnesium camera body, and sounds as pretty as your picture looks, this is the mic to get. TinyMike wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Shock Mount.

Sennheiser MKH 8060 - Late 2011 street price $1249, £858, €982

This is a pro shotgun mic that was released in 2011, but you can’t plug one directly into a DLSR camera without other equipment involved. The MKH 8060 requires phantom power to operate, so I plugged it into a Sound Devices 302 field mixer (which costs $1295 on its own), and sent the outputs of the mixer into the GH2 at mic-level. The low-noise of the 302’s preamps and the exceptional quality of the MKH 8060 gave it a huge advantage over the other mics. Not surprisingly, this was the best sounding microphone in the shootout to my ears. The dialog sounded really clean, with a crisp, professional sheen that the other mics lacked. The sound quality that the Sennheiser MKH 8060 and the Sound Devices 302 captured into my GH2′s little 2.5mm sub-mini mic input was outstanding. For a complete review of the MKH 8060, check out this blog post.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the test, I didn’t have a clear favorite. Each of these mics have their pluses and minuses, and it’s up to you to decide which one suits you best. For example, if you need the smallest mic possible, one that can fit inside a tiny camera bag, the MKE 400 is likely your best choice. If you’re going to be trekking through remote stretches of South Africa for weeks on end, without question my first choice would be the TinyMike. It’s tough as nails, it sounds great, it doesn’t need batteries and it comes with a fluffy windshield that can be stuffed into a compact compartment.

Remember that these little mics are only really useful for recording the dialog of someone standing directly in front of your camera. You can’t buy one of these little mics and expect all of your audio issues to vanish. It’s a good idea to invest a little more into sound equipment than you originally planned (you’ll eventually realize that you need wireless systems, a recorder, a boom pole, etc.). Besides, you’re not shooting with a pinhole camera. These days everyone has amazing cameras and lenses. Make sure your sound can keep up with your high def moving images.

Thanks for reading this mammoth article! If you found it helpful, please use the links I provide in the article to make purchases of this equipment. I get a small commission from Amazon for sales made this way. If enough people buy stuff with my links, it will motivate me to keep creating reviews like this one. It took a lot of time and effort to make this. If you have any questions about any of these microphones, I encourage you to post a Comment below. Thanks again!

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

-Steve Jobs

I’m saddened that we lost Steve, but I’m sure that the inspiration he’s given me and so many other people is something we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Steve’s temper and bluntness gave many people the impression that, at heart, he was just a cruel person. However, every story I’ve ever read about his misgivings just made me like him more. He was blunt. He was honest. He knew there was no time to waste. While I’m sad he’s gone, I’m happy he lived his life on his terms, and made so many people realize that life is precious.

…and that design is king, and that music is the king’s king.

It doesn’t seem fitting to wish Steve to rest in peace. I can’t imagine the guy resting. I see him in an amazed state, astounded by the new opportunities all around him in the afterlife. While I am truly saddened by his loss, I am also quietly celebrating life itself, and savoring every moment I have to create things and express myself.