DMX

DMX's real name is Earl Simmons, I believe. He's just an ordinary rapper, nothing special. You'd be inclined to listen to him if you like songs about drugs, violence, rape, and hate that overlap a primitive drum beat supplied by a drum machine, with the same bass note repeating every four seconds or so. You may also like him if you are looking for your "dogs" (where are dey at, anyway?) Actually, the first time I heard of him I thought that DMX stood for "Dog Man X", that would really make more sense. Anyway, all of his songs sound the same, but occasionally vary on the amount of references to his "dogs" and marijuana per second. The music causes major ear bleeds.

DMX was born and spent a lengthy portion of his life in the terrible ghetto of Yonkers (shout out 2 warburton, dawg!!!) He's been busted for every possible thing that any other average, or amateur, rapper has been in his lifetime. This includes possession of illegal weapons, possession of drugs, rape, larceny, and resisting arrest. In fact, my friend, whose father is a Yonkers police officer, claims his dad once ticketed DMX for speeding, but he "unfortunately" didn't get his autograph. DMX claims he was just "be'n hassled by the man."

DMX has an arrest record dating back to 1988. Back in '98, he was accused of raping an exotic dancer in the Bronx. According to my count, DMX has at least five recent arrests all having to do with (1) marijuana possession, (2) driving without a license, and (3) an outstanding amount of parking tickets...maybe my friend was telling the truth. And, um, there's probably an arrest warrant out there for him somewhere right now...

But we're not trying to rag on rap or our friend, Earl. We're just portraying an accurate picture of what he's like "behind the music."...Ironically, his music and his real life are disturbingly similar.

If I were saying all of this aloud right now (I reside in Yonkers), I'd probably be dead by now.

              -The Unauthorized Biography of Earl Simmons

DMX is a digital music service present on many cable and satellite systems. They have a couple dozen channels with different genres of music playing all day with no advertising. Truly a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately they compress the music a tad bit too much and you can sometimes hear artifacts. But hey, it doesn't cost extra, so why complain? "Lite classical" owns.

DMX is also shorthand for an intelligent lighting control protocol called DMX-512. The 512 means that there are 512 channels of control. Think of it as MIDI, except for lights. Your average fixture takes up between 8-16 channels, depending on the features. For example, a moving head fixture such as a MartinMAC 600 NT takes up one channel for intensity, one channel for strobe speed, one channel for pan, and so forth. So in other words, you run out of channels after maybe using 25 fixtures. That's why most controllers, such as the Wholehog series, and the Lightjockey, support multiple universes, allowing for more than 512 channels.