Category: Recording

Intermittent Latency

I got up early this morning to ensure I would be able to watch episode four of Andor while doing my walkies, and also sneak in some guitar playing before I had to punch into work. Success. Sort of.

I added two rhythm guitar tracks to one song and one to another. I didn’t use my amp, I plugged directly into the USB interface and used an amp sim. Somehow doing so exacerbated a problem I have been having every now and then and made it almost impossible to get anything done.

I have a newish, M1 Mac. It’s generally lightning fast. When using GarageBand though, every now and then there will be a random, split second of latency that throws off my timing. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s concerning.

Today, while using the amp sims, it was happening 2-3 times every 20 seconds or so. It was fucking infuriating. That plus my terrible rusty playing had me swearing at the screen and feeling generally pissed off. I Googled it to see if it was a thing, and there are a lot of mentions of latency but no clear reason or solution. I expect it has more to do with my USB interface going through a USB hub and an adapter, rather than something with the M1 chip, but who knows. Maybe I’ll mess with the cabling next time.

Anyway, here’s a couple of gitter pics.

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A rare look at the clip on headstock tuner that I am usually embarrassed to let people see.

Music… Finally

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It’s been almost two months since the last time I played guitar. I’ve been so wrapped up in rediscovering my camera obsession that I’ve nearly forgotten about my guitar obsession.

Now that the weather is starting to get cold and I’m running out of places I want to try to take pictures, it’s time to dive back into the music. With five days left in September, I am clearly not going to pull off an album this month. I might pull off a single though. I wrote two really simple song ideas today. Music will happen, if it kills me.

Given the situation though, it might be safe to expect the bombardment of post-playing guitar pictures will be from the DSLR so the image quality (though not the megapixel count) could be improved. Here’s hoping, at least.

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Yes, Virginia

Why yes, Virginia. There will be car music tomorrow. Assuming I can get up early enough. It’s been over a month. Maybe closer to two months. I wrote a melody and some ultra shitty lyrics to three of the six songs that are in progress right now. I will try to add vocals tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Together at Last

I haven’t had my breakfast yet, but I did play guitar for an hour. I put rhythm parts onto two faux 50/90 songs.

For the first time ever, my new favorite guitar played through my favorite amp and it was glorious.

Well… the second song was glorious. The playing was sloppy as hell but the tone was epic. The first song… I might want to try that one again. It’s sounds good, but I think I can get it to sound better.

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Together again for the first time.

Fifty Songs Time

Today is July 4th. It’s a national holiday even though there is nothing left to celebrate here.

There is that summer music challenge thing that I’ve done the last couple of years. Write fifty songs in ninety days. That one. I am not signing up for this on their website because last year another user pissed me off. So I am doing the 50/90 thing but not officially. I guess I am doing a Faux 50/90.

I have one song under way. It’s just bass and drums, it’s in 7/8 times and it might possibly be a 2:55 rocker. We’ll see. I have no idea when I am going to get to play the guitar again, and my voice has still not really recovered from whatever happened a few weeks ago. I need to seriously hydrate on car music days. Things are different now and I have to learn how to do everything again.

While I am on the subject of music… I think I am going to ask the guys in Lizardfish if they want to get together. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I Broke My Voice

I am not sure what I did, but my voice is definitely broken. I worked through half of one song this morning but there weren’t any real high notes so I was able to reach everything, it was just a little off key and I felt like I was struggling. I stopped for the day the first time I hit a part that was even a little bit high and I could not physically get to it.

Was I just tired? Was there something wrong? Does it matter? Back at it tomorrow, right?

Then I was driving to my mothers for a visit and I put some U2* up on the ol’ iTunes and as I tried singing along to Sunday Bloody Sunday it became clear that it wasn’t just a bad morning. It’s like the top of my range was reduced by 75%. I was fine if I stayed low, but as soon as something high came on… toast.

So in summation, there will be no car music for a couple of days while my pitch pipes rest up.

*Harry was watching an episode of Friends the other day and a U2 song was playing in the background and it just sent me straight down the rabbit hole. I know Joshua Tree is one of the biggest albums in history but I am still really disappointed by it. I loved the four records they made before it, but I just didn’t like Joshua Tree. War and The Unforgettable Fire might be among the best albums I’ve ever heard, I listened to my cassette copy of Live Under a Blood Red Sky so many times back in the early 80s that it was stretched and mangled, and Actung Baby is a friggin masterwork… but Joshua Tree? Not for me.

Despite that, I almost never find myself listening to U2. I think this might be the first deep dive I’ve taken in the music streaming age. I was happy to see deluxe editions of all of my favorite records, and thrilled to finally hear the original studio version of 11 O’Clock Tick Tock.

Music Fail

I tried to car music today and it was a dismal failure. I was pretty dehydrated last night and I think it carried over to this morning a little. My voice just didn’t work. I couldn’t hit pitches and I was cracking all over the place. I got half a song done. I think I’ll try again tomorrow, or maybe Monday.

Remix

You know how each of the last two nights I wrote a post about how I mixed a song? Neither of the audio embeds will work anymore. I deleted the uploads and replaced them with remixed versions of the songs. I changed the reverbs on all tracks on both songs from plates to rooms. I feel a tiny bit better about the universe now.

ADDENDUM: Scratch that. I went back and fixed the two previous posts. I linked to the remixed versions of both songs. That’s better.