The new equipment arrived yesterday afternoon. After a swift installation, some minor set up of hardware and running of cables, I played with the additional components and am left with a feeling of giddiness. =D
Jeff came over last night and we got some ideas down in Ableton Live!. The guitar input into the Alesis sounded oh-so-clean, and paired with my old Korg foot pedal FX and some Ableton Live! processing we recorded a few tracks of guitar over an organ loop we had recorded last week. It was shaping up to a nice "wall of sound".
After he took off and before I went to bed I tried some quick recording of my gut string guitar... I was VERY impressed! I'm excited to be working on new materials and inputting some guitar and vocals into tracks as well. Once a few songs are completed expect some form of storefront and purchasable downloads of EPs and Albums (including my older works!).
Back to my day job.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Little More Serious Now
I have some equipment on order from zZounds!
I decided to pick up the Alesis IO-26. The ADAT in will be useful in the future, and the Harmony Central review thread (I didn't save the link, sorry) was great. 8 excellent pre-amps will provide plenty of versatility in recording and live performing.
I also ordered a Shure KSM27 Mic. I'm going to try it out and see how I like it (and how the rubber shock mount ring works) and am hoping that I will not have to make a return. It had great reviews overall. I really couldn't pass it up from zZounds because it's a solid mic, comes with the shock mount, cable, stand, and a $25 zZounds gift card. Pretty slick!
To help with space restrictions of my current "office" set up I ordered a keyboard rack to hold the MIDI keyboard when I'm working. It will store nicely by my desk along w/the keyboard while I'm not using it, but won't be far to pull out and start hammering away.
I decided to pick up the Alesis IO-26. The ADAT in will be useful in the future, and the Harmony Central review thread (I didn't save the link, sorry) was great. 8 excellent pre-amps will provide plenty of versatility in recording and live performing.
I also ordered a Shure KSM27 Mic. I'm going to try it out and see how I like it (and how the rubber shock mount ring works) and am hoping that I will not have to make a return. It had great reviews overall. I really couldn't pass it up from zZounds because it's a solid mic, comes with the shock mount, cable, stand, and a $25 zZounds gift card. Pretty slick!
To help with space restrictions of my current "office" set up I ordered a keyboard rack to hold the MIDI keyboard when I'm working. It will store nicely by my desk along w/the keyboard while I'm not using it, but won't be far to pull out and start hammering away.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
It's Been Awhile
It's been awhile since I have been up this late because of work.
I remember the first few times being somewhat fun and exciting. Now that I am in a more relaxed position that isn't draining my soul (work-life balance actually exists!), it's not so bad.
Yes, I would rather be in the warm bed up stairs somewhere in la-la land dreaming about music, travel, cars, or something of the sort, but staying up late to help people solve some problems and assist with a few system changes doesn't cramp my style if it's just a once-and-awhile thing.
-
After making my last track I can't nail down the next song I really want to work on to even 'match' the sound.. I think the adjustment of my workspace, and of course ordering the new Firewire interface and a mic will help out a lot. I am itching to record more vocals and get into some new styles to keep up the production value.
I remember the first few times being somewhat fun and exciting. Now that I am in a more relaxed position that isn't draining my soul (work-life balance actually exists!), it's not so bad.
Yes, I would rather be in the warm bed up stairs somewhere in la-la land dreaming about music, travel, cars, or something of the sort, but staying up late to help people solve some problems and assist with a few system changes doesn't cramp my style if it's just a once-and-awhile thing.
-
After making my last track I can't nail down the next song I really want to work on to even 'match' the sound.. I think the adjustment of my workspace, and of course ordering the new Firewire interface and a mic will help out a lot. I am itching to record more vocals and get into some new styles to keep up the production value.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Geek Habits of the Best Kind
Okay everyone.. These two items passed to me by my best buds are just entirely too cool to NOT share via a blog post.
Seriously.. If you don't bother to check these out there is something wrong with you (or in the case of the first item, you own a Mac.. )
Digsby - Remeber Trillian? Me too.. especially when it didn't become bloat-ware ;P Digsby is a very Web 2.0 styled all-in-one client for ALL IM communities as well as amazingly cool integration with FaceBook, MySpace and more! Imagine if Meebo had their own stand-alone software client.. this would be it.. but it's even better! Currently in private beta.. you can request to join beta though, so good luck!
PicLens - FireFox addon to dynamically view photos in a 3-D display. This is simply amazing! Try it! Read the tutorial and about pages when you install or after you install (and are brought to the PicLens website).
Seriously.. If you don't bother to check these out there is something wrong with you (or in the case of the first item, you own a Mac.. )
Digsby - Remeber Trillian? Me too.. especially when it didn't become bloat-ware ;P Digsby is a very Web 2.0 styled all-in-one client for ALL IM communities as well as amazingly cool integration with FaceBook, MySpace and more! Imagine if Meebo had their own stand-alone software client.. this would be it.. but it's even better! Currently in private beta.. you can request to join beta though, so good luck!
PicLens - FireFox addon to dynamically view photos in a 3-D display. This is simply amazing! Try it! Read the tutorial and about pages when you install or after you install (and are brought to the PicLens website).
Thursday, February 14, 2008
13 Candy Hearts
Smile
Be Good
How Nice
Be True
So Fine
Wild Life
Melt My <3
My Pet
IM Me
Let's Kiss
Kiss Me
Nice Girl
(and one that is yellow and unreadable)
Be Good
How Nice
Be True
So Fine
Wild Life
Melt My <3
My Pet
IM Me
Let's Kiss
Kiss Me
Nice Girl
(and one that is yellow and unreadable)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Retail Therapy, A Music Breakthrough, and zomg Firewire
I have decided that I not only love retail therapy for myself, but I love retail therapy on behalf of other people as well (aka. shopping for people). I admit, however, like most "Americans" that sit in the middle class tier of the young(er) United States I worry about money more than I should.
A close friend of mine told me once that people who incessantly worry (aka stress) about money live shorter lives than those who don't. I have been much better about it as of late (promotions at work certainly help ease the looming fears), and discovering that just setting a savings goal and balancing my bank account twice a month really helps me put the worries of the impending economic doom plaguing our nation on the back of my mind.
With this new mantra of taking things as they come and working towards financial goals, I've found that I have a bit more freedom when it comes down to being able to shop. My hobbies lend themselves to big ticket items that I won't let other people gift to me (it has happened on rare occasions, and I commend the loved ones in my life that support my hobbies and passions).
Anywho, moving along:
I made somewhat of a 'breakthrough' track last week that has set me off in a firm direction for producing my new materials-- ultimately working towards a new album that I intend on full professional release. In doing so I realized that I needed to take a hard look at my home studio.. if you can even call it that.
I run a very rogue set up composed of hardware I have obtained in 1-off purchases since I was about 16. I will spill the guts on what I have in a later post, but let's just say that I have hit the limits of my USB bus on my PC.
During a session in Ableton Live! I was attempting to record some electric guitar parts in 96khz. I'm using a small Edirol USB interface that has a guitar-level input. It works farily well, but at 96khz I seem to get some periodical buffer-crunching (crunchy sounds). Everything is configured and updated, however, after digging around I learned something new (which made me feel like such a llama [nub/n00b for you new-schoolers] ):
The most generic way to put it is that USB allows devices to send and receive data whenever they want within any 'spectrum' of the bandwidth. This means that if I have a bunch of devices doing USB data stuff back and forth while I am recording music, there is a possibility I can have data collisions that drop my data in the middle of my recording session-- which is exactly what was happening given I have just about USB-everything.
Firewire, on the other hand, has established relationships with each device such that each device carves out its own bandwidth for communication.
So rather than eyeing some of the cheaper USB 2.0 audio interfaces, I'm going to invest my money wisely into Firewire interfaces that will give me the most reliable performance capacity for home recording and live performances.
You really don't realize how unequipped and ill prepared your "home studio" is until you sit down with a pen and paper, write everything out that you have, take inventory of what is all connected to eachother, and to the brains of your opertaion (in my case the PC).
Why the sudden need for more equipment? Well in said track that was a 'breakthrough' for me, I managed to track vocals to a song-- but seeing as how I have no interface with any music mic inputs I ended up hacking and recording vocals on my crappy Logitech headset boom mic-- oh my god it is craptastic.
Here goes the first major step towards beefing up the audio arsenal.
I am currently looking at adding the first pieces below:
Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) 8PRE 16x12 Firewire Audio Interface
or maybe...
PreSonus Firestudio Project FireWire Interface
AKG C 1000 S Condenser Mic - I will probably buy a 2 pack.
A close friend of mine told me once that people who incessantly worry (aka stress) about money live shorter lives than those who don't. I have been much better about it as of late (promotions at work certainly help ease the looming fears), and discovering that just setting a savings goal and balancing my bank account twice a month really helps me put the worries of the impending economic doom plaguing our nation on the back of my mind.
With this new mantra of taking things as they come and working towards financial goals, I've found that I have a bit more freedom when it comes down to being able to shop. My hobbies lend themselves to big ticket items that I won't let other people gift to me (it has happened on rare occasions, and I commend the loved ones in my life that support my hobbies and passions).
Anywho, moving along:
I made somewhat of a 'breakthrough' track last week that has set me off in a firm direction for producing my new materials-- ultimately working towards a new album that I intend on full professional release. In doing so I realized that I needed to take a hard look at my home studio.. if you can even call it that.
I run a very rogue set up composed of hardware I have obtained in 1-off purchases since I was about 16. I will spill the guts on what I have in a later post, but let's just say that I have hit the limits of my USB bus on my PC.
During a session in Ableton Live! I was attempting to record some electric guitar parts in 96khz. I'm using a small Edirol USB interface that has a guitar-level input. It works farily well, but at 96khz I seem to get some periodical buffer-crunching (crunchy sounds). Everything is configured and updated, however, after digging around I learned something new (which made me feel like such a llama [nub/n00b for you new-schoolers] ):
The most generic way to put it is that USB allows devices to send and receive data whenever they want within any 'spectrum' of the bandwidth. This means that if I have a bunch of devices doing USB data stuff back and forth while I am recording music, there is a possibility I can have data collisions that drop my data in the middle of my recording session-- which is exactly what was happening given I have just about USB-everything.
Firewire, on the other hand, has established relationships with each device such that each device carves out its own bandwidth for communication.
So rather than eyeing some of the cheaper USB 2.0 audio interfaces, I'm going to invest my money wisely into Firewire interfaces that will give me the most reliable performance capacity for home recording and live performances.
You really don't realize how unequipped and ill prepared your "home studio" is until you sit down with a pen and paper, write everything out that you have, take inventory of what is all connected to eachother, and to the brains of your opertaion (in my case the PC).
Why the sudden need for more equipment? Well in said track that was a 'breakthrough' for me, I managed to track vocals to a song-- but seeing as how I have no interface with any music mic inputs I ended up hacking and recording vocals on my crappy Logitech headset boom mic-- oh my god it is craptastic.
Here goes the first major step towards beefing up the audio arsenal.
I am currently looking at adding the first pieces below:
Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) 8PRE 16x12 Firewire Audio Interface
or maybe...
PreSonus Firestudio Project FireWire Interface
AKG C 1000 S Condenser Mic - I will probably buy a 2 pack.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Continuing Efforts
In my attempts to learn Ableton Live! while using Reason 4.0 as instrumentation as I integrate live instruments into my music, I managed to record a nice piece that may lead into some more house-type music akin to Kaskade. I know the "guitars in techno" thing has been done for years, but you have to admit in the right tracks it is infectious and easy on the ears (Chemical Brothers' Star Guitar, Kaskade's Steppin' Out).
The first pass is completed at City Shadows remastering. I have run into a few issues with some of the low range bass being clipped when trying to adjust the EQ and applying maximizing to the songs (Calm Control, for example). I will hopefully make time to work on it again this week.
Through working with Jeff and Matt, I have amassed some extremely useful Combinator patches for Reason 4.0. Some are from mining the ReFill kits we have and applying our own touch-up effects and what have you, while some are completely built from the ground up. I've gotta say, that I am super excited to have the best sounding Rhodes emulation I have heard come out of my speakers in a looooong time.
I suppose the next thing on my list should be equipment to get vocals and my gut-string guitar into the computer. I know jack and shit about microphones so that's going to be a quick learning process. Now that I think about it, I have a laundry list of things to accomplish this year-- hmm..
Anywho, 'till next time.
The first pass is completed at City Shadows remastering. I have run into a few issues with some of the low range bass being clipped when trying to adjust the EQ and applying maximizing to the songs (Calm Control, for example). I will hopefully make time to work on it again this week.
Through working with Jeff and Matt, I have amassed some extremely useful Combinator patches for Reason 4.0. Some are from mining the ReFill kits we have and applying our own touch-up effects and what have you, while some are completely built from the ground up. I've gotta say, that I am super excited to have the best sounding Rhodes emulation I have heard come out of my speakers in a looooong time.
I suppose the next thing on my list should be equipment to get vocals and my gut-string guitar into the computer. I know jack and shit about microphones so that's going to be a quick learning process. Now that I think about it, I have a laundry list of things to accomplish this year-- hmm..
Anywho, 'till next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
