Category: Recording

Remember When I Used to Post Music All the Time?

Hey, remember the old days when I used to post music all the time?

Neither do I.

This is from volume four of the re-recordings project. I recorded it in January (mostly) and mixed it today. Is it good? Eh. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever worked on. That’s about the best praise I can give it.

Music: MIA

I haven’t done any music this month. Well, I put new strings on my SG but that’s it. I still plan to contribute to the Record Every Month thing the RPM Challenge folks are doing. I just haven’t done anything for it yet. Have I been too busy? Am I burned out? Am I kind of in a rut? The answers are probably yes, yes, and yes. I don’t know.

I have a bunch of things that are ready to mix. Two from the last round of re-recordings, and a few leftover from last month. I could do those this weekend, but I’m at my parent’s house keeping an eye on my mother and I get nervous when I put the noise canceling headphones on. Is she going to call for me for something and I won’t hear it?

I’d like to get the ball rolling again this weekend, but it’s more likely I will just doom scroll twitter all day. You know, like you do.

Record Every Month

The good folks at the RPM Challenge came up with a new thing for us to mess with. Record Every Month. One song per month for the rest of the year. I was hoping to have 10 but here we are on the 31st and I’ve got one. Count me as a winner for the first month at least.

Finally Played

It’s been like three weeks since the last time I played my guitar. Finally, I got back to it tonight. Therapy… it is definitely therapy.

I used my new Speaker Soak/Attenuator thing with my huge amp for the first time. You need to turn it WAY down in order to tame the volume enough to really crank the amp without instantly going deaf. It sounded good. A little squishy and compressed, but I only turned the volume up to about eight on the 30 watt channel. I liked it. I recorded rhythm guitars for two songs, just to have something to mess with. The first song was just guitar and nearly cranked amp. The second used the Ryra the Klone as a boost to get a little more overdrive. I liked both sounds. Also of note, the 30 watt channel is usually super trebly, but with the attenuator down low and the volume up high it sounded much better. Granted, the treble knob was on about two and the bass and mids knobs were dimed. Still. Pretty cool.

Dig those glowing vacuum tubes. World War II tech at it’s finest.

Music Still Kind of Alive

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. All days that I promised myself I would play guitar and then did not play guitar. Ugh. Tonight.

I haven’t touched this month’s music in over two weeks. Have I given up? No. Not entirely. I added a song last night. I have six now. Two with rhythm guitars, four with just MIDI. Hopefully I’ll do some recording tonight and maybe write some lyrics and do some car music over the weekend? Maybe? I wonder if I could still get through 10 songs with less than a week to go.

I wonder.

Tomorrow

Earlier today Jen actually told me that I needed to play guitar tonight. I told her I was planning on it. The new attenuators thing was delivered today so I had extra incentive.

Guess what I didn’t do.

You guessed it. I didn’t play guitar.

Tomorrow. I promise. It’s a moral imperative.

A Hero of the Pandemic

I took this picture yesterday with dispo because I don’t know why I use dispo but I still do and it bugs me a little but that’s irrelevant.

What was I saying? Oh yes. I took this picture yesterday when I was thinking about how I want to play guitar more than I do.

This Tascam US-16×08 is one of the great unsung heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic for me. This is the interface I use to record guitar parts. I used it for vocals a couple of times too, but for car music I use a different interface. That’s another pandemic hero, but this guy… this guy has been a huge part of me recording about 130531531 songs over the last year.

I bought it to record Lizardfish rehearsals because if I mic up all of the instruments we need a ton of inputs and this can handle 16 at once (only 8 mic cables though, I need xlr to 1/4 inch adapters if I need more). I took it home before the last gig, though I don’t really remember why. I think I was considering recording the 2/1/20 gig. I didn’t though.

Larry and I were looking at digital mixers on amazon yesterday. We were talking about a really nice one that runs about $2k. That would be awesome to have, but it’s overkill for me. I just need the interface. GarageBand handles the mixing. Still… the thing was really cool. I can’t start GASing about PA gear though. I do that enough for guitar and camera gear. I can’t make it worse. Nope, can’t do it.

Anyway, three cheers to this 16 channel USB audio interface. You’re doing good work, my friend, and I am glad I bought you.