The guitar was played tonight. It was played through an amplifier, not through a digital amplifier simulation. It was glorious, as always.
I redid the rhythm guitar parts for three of the five NaSoAlMo songs that I did with sims over the weekend. In all honesty, the sims probably sound better than what I can get with my meager skills, but the real thing feels better when I am playing and that’s what really matters for me.
Sunday has been eventful so far and it’s not even 10:00am yet.
I got out of bed around 5:30, went to the cellar and took care of my exercise ring while watching the second to last episode of The Midnight Club. I still haven’t decided whether or not I like that show, but it looks like I am going to finish it. I then ate breakfast. Just a protein bar. When that was done the clock told me it was 6:30 and the Google told me the sunrise was at 6:42 so I put on a coat (it was 26 degrees out, yikes!), grabbed Dad’s camera and out the door I went. I took a few pics at the Walnut Grove Cemetery and the camera didn’t have any issues. Curse broken? I then went to Greycourt Park and took a few pics of the castle ruins. I was thinking of getting a couple of downtown pics too but it was so cold out I decided not to. I went to Market Basket instead. I walked in the door at 7:20 and it was mobbed. What? 20 minutes after opening on a Sunday morning and it’s mobbed? I guess everyone is doing Thanksgiving today? Crazy. After the shopping was home and put away I washed some dishes in preparation for our faux Thanksgiving and then retired to the cellar where I put rhythm guitars (with amp sims, sadly) onto two songs and then came up with a third song. That brings the NaSoAlMo pipeline up to eight songs, all of which have rhythm guitars (though only three used a real amp).
Now I’m sitting at my desk typing this masterpiece, waiting for Jen to call me upstairs to start cooking the five-day-early-feast.
It’s been a pretty decent morning so far, wouldn’t you say? I might need a nap today.
Oh, I’d post some guitar pictures, and a couple of quick point-and-shoot snaps I took at my two photo shoot destinations this morning, but both my DSLR and my point-and-shoot are on the charger. The DSLR was about to die and the point and shoot did die. I could use my iPhone but… aw, hell, I’ll take one with my iPhone…
I said in a post from earlier today that I was thinking about just saying screw it and recording some guitar tracks via direct input into Garageband so that I could play while people were sleeping… and then I did it. I added guitars to two NaSoAlMo songs. They sound okay. I am so rusty that the playing was just bad. Who knows, if I get a burst of energy at a time when I can make noise I might redo the tracks from today through the glory that is my Deluxe Reverb. Until then, this will do.
Tomorrow is November 1st and November is National Solo Album Month.
Should I do it? I should, but will I? I’m undecided. I haven’t had the energy for music lately. I want to get myself back on the ball but I’m having a tough time with motivation.
I’m going to tell myself I’m going to do it this November, but I’m not sure if I will stick to my guns.
Stay tuned.
Two things that I have been wanting to post here just so that I could find them if I need them in the future. One music related, one marriage related.
First, the music one. I plugged one of my USB audio interfaces into a USB-C adapter and then into my iPad. It works perfectly. I can bring up the mic input in GarageBand, pick an available channel from the interface, and record without lag or errors. Sigh of relief. Now I actually have to have a song to add guitars and vocals to. Maybe I can still sneak in a Record Every Month Challenge song for October. There’s NaSoAlMo next month to think about too. Also, I haven’t played guitar in ages and I am starting to get the shakes from guitar withdrawals. You know how it is. I still haven’t tried GarageBand on my MacBook since taking the last OS top off update. It shouldn’t make a difference. I don’t think anything audio related was included in the update. I am still thinking about wiping the whole thing and restoring from a backup and seeing if that fixes whatever crap was wrong last month. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Yes. Have you tried killing everything and reinstalling it? Not yet.
That’s the music thing I wanted to write down. What’s the marriage thing? My wedding ring is in the shop. I took it back to the jewelry shop we bought it from back in 2009 to get it resized. It was a size 14. It will be a size 12. I mentioned the cause of the weight loss and asked if it will be okay if I need to get it resized a second time. They said sure. We did that on Saturday, October 22nd. They said I could expect to be without it for a week or so. Jen also dropped off her engagement ring as one of the clasps that holds the diamond in place is broken. Hopefully they will both come back at the same time. I seriously miss my ring. I keep absent mindedly reaching for it and being surprised that it isn’t there. I am looking forward to not having to wrap yard around it to make it fit better though. I won’t miss that annoying little thing.
There. Now we’re all up to date.
Here’s one of the four awful songs written and recorded in September 2022. It’s probably the best of the four, but that’s not saying much. Maybe I’ll redo it someday in the future when I have an actually functional home recording setup and when I’ve actually been playing the guitar for a while and not on a five month break.
I put leads on four songs before work this morning. It was a bad experience in three ways. First, I am so rusty it’s embarrassing. Second, the interface problems left me on the verge of screaming in fury and frustration the whole time. Third, I have no callusses on my finger tips anymore and I am in searing, burning agony right now. I played for about 45 minutes and oh my god the finger tip pain.
Fun.
I have four songs to mix by the end of the day. I don’t have an album-in-a-month for September, but maybe I have an EP in a month? At the very least I’ll have my first RPM Challenge Record Every Month song since RPM ended in February. That’s nice. The four songs I have to pick from are AWFUL and the guitar playing is AWFUL and the singing is AWFULAWFULAWFUL, but at least they exist. I guess.
My iPad has a USB C input. I am thinking of trying to use one of my USB interfaces with the iPad to see if the same problems with lagging will happen on that machine. If not, then I can keep writing and recording without wanting to punch holes in the wall in furious angry anger as the input signal drops out for a fraction of a second and fucks up a solid take… again and again and again and again. That would be nice. If the iPad work around doesn’t work… I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll need to upgrade to a faster USB interface but I most definitely do not have any money for that. Two kids in college, you know? Urgh.
Pics…
I’m still pretty upset over the whole laggy GarageBand shit from earlier so here are a couple of leftover Les Paul pics from this morning.
May your home recording setup fare better than mine, said the sad faced red head.
I spent my lunch break trying to convince my two USB audio interfaces not to fuck up in GarageBand. I failed miserably.
I guess I must have got the M1 MacBook Pro around the time of my surgery because I haven’t tried to do very much recording since then. I’ve done some, and definitely had lagging issues, but nothing even remotely as bad as it was today.
I tried using different USB adapters and it didn’t help. I tried bypassing my USB hub and it didn’t work. I tried different USB cables and it didn’t work. I tried only using the interface for input and using the Mac’s headphone out of output and that actually made it worse because the input lagged but the output didn’t so the tracks ended up out of time.
I actually have four songs that are a lead guitar track away from being finished. They are bad songs with really bad performances (especially the vocals) and they have timing issues everywhere because of the lagging. I’d still like to finish them off before the end of September, but I’m at the point where my recording setup is basically useless.
I think the solution is a USB interface that outputs directly into USB C. I think the old USB connections are too slow and the MacBook is too fast that the two can’t work together.
I am so fucking pissed off right now.
I guess maybe the next OS update might include a software fix for my issues, but I doubt it. I think my amazing 16 channel interface is now obsolete.
Shit.
I did some music this morning. The infuriating problems I had with my interface yesterday were worse today. I used different cables and adapters and eventually used a different interface all together and it just kept getting worse. I don’t know what I am going to do. I did manage to get through guitars for one song and vocals for two, but it left me so effing mad, and the performances were complete shit.
There’s two pics though, so I guess that’s okay?
Inside the Red Head's Head 