The Moral Guardians Make A Housecall – 201012
Sponsored by “Y album (temporary)”.
The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that I didn’t do any editing at all yesterday, in spite of my vain promise to do so.
But I made up for it today. I edited the Tele parts in CE5 and tweaked a number of the Les Paul parts too.
And I went further and programmed up 8 MIDI drum parts, using the Roland Juno-D/Phonic Firefly/Kore Player Sky Kit. I’ll edit those tomorrow.
Plus, I also tracked the metronome from the track in CE5, using the Phonic Firefly and the Behringer Xenyx 1202 mixer. The metronome is in 3/4 time, but there is a section with a rather odd jazz-y time signature and the “rub” between the 3/4 metronome and the jazz-y bit is rather interesting, so I’ll chuck the metronome into the mix too in the relevant sections. Audio cleanup in AA3.
More tomorrow.
Regards,
djp
Parallels – 060712
Sponsored by “Added 2011”.
PANIC IN THE SUBURBS OF NAYNAGH, BOYS…
That’s how I felt when I was attempting to record a session of Ebow parts on the Tascam. I had the Strat all tuned up and ready to go and the Pod 2.0 plugged in and, well, also ready to go…
…all I had to do was do up a rough mix in CE5, transfer it from my PC to the Tascam via my laptop and get cracking. Sounds simple (if a little Heath Robinson perhaps, but don’t laugh, it’s worked for me for years…).
Trouble was, when I played the mix back on the Tascam, all I got was feedback and noise. Thankfully, my tinnitus is such that the noise didn’t bother me a bit. But what did bother me was the fact that I wasn’t getting any music in my playback.
I checked the rough mix in AA3 and it sounded fine. Transferred it back and forth a couple of times onto the Tascam – still no joy.
This is when the panic started to set in. Was the Tascam finally knackered after all these years? I do have a spare, which I bought on Ebay a few years back, but which I’ve never even taken out of the box, so I’ve no idea if it actually works (how zen is that?). Anyway, I didn’t really have time to worry about the Tascam(s). I had to crack on and do my session. So I was compelled to record directly onto CE5, using the Phonic Firefly and the Behringer Xenyx 1202. I don’t like recording onto computers – they were never designed for the purpose and there’s just too much to go wrong. But needs must when the devil drives and that, so I just got on with it and recorded three tracks of Ebow – more feedback then anything musical, to be honest.
I was still perplexed about the damn Tascam though. If the rough mix was fine in AA3, then there must be something wrong with the output side on the Tascam. I tried loading the mix onto different channels – no joy. I formatted the disc – still no good. Then I got the notion of plugging my iPod into the Tascam to see what would emerge. Perfect playback – so at least there wasn’t a problem with the Tascam. Went back to CE5 to check the mix, and discovered that I’d rendered it in 32-bit. As that Tascam maxes at 24-bit, I re-did the rough mix in 24-bit and re-imported it on the Tascam. Perfect play back – problem solved – panic over.
This is a typical of what happens if I don’t keep hands-on with the studio equipment for a few weeks. I totally forget how to do the most basic studio functions…
Now that I was satisfied that the Tascam was working OK, I went and recorded five extra Ebow parts. Worked fine. Audio cleanup in AA3 and inserted into the relevant project file in CE5. Time to move on to another track, I think.
I have another recording session scheduled for this p.m., which would’ve been almost impossible for me if the Tascam had been knackered. I guess I’d’ve had to bite the bullet and break out that other Tascam – I know, “first world problem…”
Regards,
djp
143 – 180112
Sponsored by “Last Played 2012”.
Re-recorded the 11 Les Paul Studio parts I recorded last week (was it really last week?). As mentioned at the time, I decided to record directly onto CE5, so that I could match the parts to be re-recorded both from an audio and a visual perspective. It’s not my preferred way of working, as I don’t like recording directly to the PC. Don’t trust computers for recording audio. However, things went well enough today.
I recorded via the Pod 2.0 and the Phonic FIrefly. I monitored the guitar parts while tracking by running a line from the phones output on the Pod into a mono channel on my Behringer Xenyx 1202 mixer and playing against a stereo output from the Firefly which was input into a stereo channel on the mixer. Everything worked fine, although there may be some pops and clicks which will need to be dealt with using AA3.
Saved a bit of time in not having to transfer files from the Tascam to the PC (which takes, like forever…), but it is quicker to record on the Tascam. I’ll only record directly to the PC in cases of emergency.
Normalised in CE5. I will need to do audio cleanup in AA3 at a later date, but soon.
The more I listen to the track, the more I think it resembles this song…
…completely unintentionally, and one of the joys of not being a “proper” musician – I’m not good enough to copy anyone very well, so what I end up is filtered (joyously) through my own ineptitude.
I had planned to add some extra guitar, but since a sparse vibe seems to be developing (both the Felt track and the Passions track sound pretty sparse to me), I may just leave things as they are. I still need to edit the Les Paul parts into a coherent and cohesive “line”. I’ll probably do that over the weekend.
Tackle something else tomorrow, I think…
Regards,
djp
Hellhole 