Saturday 2 September 2006
The studio is indeed going to rock, but it’s going to take longer than I’d anticipated. My computer, the 4-year-old Windows XP box on which we recorded the Stars for Searchlights EP, started to act flaky a few weeks ago: it stopped recognizing the DVD drive and the big recording drive, then found them again… and now it’s completely lost ‘em. Something wrong with the motherboard’s built-in drive controllers.
This may have something to do with the cat wee liberally spritzed through the inside of the machine near the back ventilation grille. Thank you ever so much, Cobweb. (To be fair, he’s been in distress lately - he’s got bad gums and slowly lost one of his canine teeth during the week following the move. For a while he had a sort of walrus-tusk that he wouldn’t let anyone touch.)
I’m not about to buy a new computer, though - good monitors are taking priority over that. The new studio machine will most likely be my SO’s old PowerBook G4, with my old drives moved to FireWire enclosures, and an MBox for sound I/O. And when I get a new machine, I don’t think I’m going to go the Windows route again.
So the fancy new quiet case I just got for the Windows box will most likely go to J. (If you’re setting up a studio and prefer Windows, or you just can’t stand screeching fans and rattling hard drives, check out Antec cases - my other roommate’s got the same model, the Sonata II, and I’m quite impressed. Thoughtfully designed and easy to install, too.)
Meanwhile, the house is still a bit chaotic, but we’re starting to settle in. The weirdest part is having three floors plus basement. The studio, on the top floor, is going to have to be kind of self-sufficient, since it’s separated from the kitchen by two slippery, narrow staircases.
I’m hoping that at some point I’ll be able to go up there and actually make some music…
Tuesday 20 June 2006
Midsummer’s closed Saturday - a great show, and cast and crew were wonderful. Glad I had the chance to be involved.
No time to rest, though… I was at the office until 11 last night doing a Flash piece at the last minute (a trivia kiosk for the grand opening of a new TV channel headquarters).
So tonight I’ve been taking a bit of a breather and, uh, reorganizing the studio completely. The turntable is now no longer above eye level, and no longer requires me to stand on a chair and put my head in the path of the ceiling fan to find a track. (I’m also happy to report that the bruises and swelling have gone down.) The Electrix units are now stowed in a small rack along with my other dusty effects units. (Yes, I bought the EQ Killer - it looked so lonely there by itself at the shop, and this way I have a dedicated preamp for the turntable rather than madly swapping cables all the time.) And drums and effects are all plugged into a little sub-mixer of their own. Finally, a use for that little Behringer that’s been sitting power-supplyless for months!
So of course, I’ve had random vinyl records playing through the FilterQueen while I work. And when I realized iTunes was still on, in Shuffle mode, I brought up my computer on the mixer to see what was playing. Well, this was it:
Night.mp3
I’ve always loved it when two completely unrelated things happen to be in the same key, or otherwise complement each other musically. The other day, sitting at a restaurant, I was totally spellbound by the sound of a baby squealing with laughter a couple of tables away, overtop of the jazz tune on the sound system.
“What’s up?” asked Sean.
“That kid. Just did the most awesome solo,” I said.
Perhaps I am easily amused.
Saturday 10 June 2006
The other day, I stumbled across a used Electrix FilterQueen in a store, and snapped it up - a bit of a treat for myself. Instant musical fun!
I spent a couple of hours today playing my basses and guitar through it (using my POD as a preamp), and playing with long delays on the POD. So liberating to play with sound in realtime like that, instead of recording things and poking at them using software. Haven’t been able to use my Roland hihat pedal as a foot controller, though - not sure why not, since it seems to work fine as an expression pedal with my Alesis QS synth. Got to experiment.
And if that weren’t enough, the FilterQueen also takes a phono input! So I’ve finally got my turntable working again, and am currently listening to some traditional Japanese music from my grandparents’ collection. I have no idea what it is - I think it’s a Noh play, but I can’t enter Japanese text on this computer to look it up. In any case, it’s quite interesting and sounds hilarious when I filter the bejesus out of it. ^.^
[Addendum, some minutes later: wow… this thing can turn anything - especially weepy Japanese enka ballads - into early Yellow Magic Orchestra. This thing has totally paid for itself already.]
If I weren’t running sound for the play tonight I’d totally be here all night making weird noises.
Saaaay…
