More Tablet Fun

I mentioned yesterday that my wife wanted to shake up her tablet using ways. This directly affected me in two ways. First, as mentioned yesterday, I inherited a Nexus 7. The second, much more important way, is that I just inherited her iPad Air. Ah, retina display! I was using the second iPad 3. The one with the lightning connector. This one is newer, lighter, and smaller but with the same size screen. Jen, my love, has switched to an iPad Mini. So far we are both pleased.

I restored the Air with a back up of the 3 I made this morning. I’ve had some trouble restoring in app purchases. I hate those things. The big issue is that iTunes is telling me I can’t access iTunes Match for 42 days. Whatwhatwhat???

In unrelated news, while cooking lunch on the grill outside, I think I found the hawks’ nest. It’s really close to the yard. I’ll be camping outside with my camera soon.

No Posts?

What do you mean I haven’t posted today?

I did a tiny bit of recording tonight. Just a little. Hey, did you know that the amp software I’m using for April is called AmpliTUBE, not AmpliTUDE.

Yeah, I’m a moron.

I hope to do more recording tomorrow, but I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

Speaking of Amplitube, they have a Jimi Hendrix package for $15 bucks. I’m using the Fender Twin for this month. Maybe next month I’ll impersonate Jimi for 10 songs. Robbie want.

Recording… sort of

This little bloggie page got a hit today from some one looking for blogs on recording music. I guess this one counts, right? I do write about crappy demos a lot. Well regardless of whether it’s accurate or note, it woke me up to my desire to record some guitar parts. I did two rhythm tracks on one of the songs I started just before New Years in my iPad.

My playing is garbage at best.

So what.

RPM starts in a few weeks. I’ve got to get myself into some semblance of playing shape.

A New Flavor of Nerd

This is a picture of my television. See the image? It’s the MLB iOS app. I’m listening to the end of the Toronto vs Tampa Bay game (let’s go Blue Jays!).

The app is running on my iPad and while the audio is streaming to the TV via Airplay, it is also mirroring the image from the iPad screen. I’ve never tried that before, but it’s working pretty well. Of course the image is pretty static on this particular app, so I can’t say how much latency is affecting things.

Still… Cool, right?

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Happy iOS7 Release Day

Today’s the day. iOS7 will be made available at some point today. It’s not out yet, but it will be.

Are you looking forward to upgrading your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch with a user interface that looks like it was designed by a five year old with a box of crayons?

I know, I know… I’m going to upgrade both of my iOS devices. Maybe not tonight, but definitely this week. The new UI doesn’t excite me at all. In fact, it makes me a little sad. It makes me hesitate to upgrade. The screen shots I’ve seen look… well… stupid. I can’t stop imagining a five year old with the smallest box of crayolas scribbling away on the screen. Despite that, I am guessing that within a day or so I won’t even notice the changes anymore, and I’ll forget what iOS6 looked like. I mean, it’s only a UI after all.

Happy iOS7 release day. Come on and party down with the Apple nerds.

RPM Day 23

It’s almost 8:00pm here and I haven’t done my stupid daily update that is boring all of you to tears.  Never fear.  In the words of the Yardbirds, Here’s ‘Tis.

Earlier this week I had announced that this particular song:

was complete and done and finished.  Today I changed my mind.  I remixed it.  It’s not much different, just a little more care was taken with it.  Oh, and I put some seriously retarded goofiness into it as well.  Gotta love idiots who put flangers onto drums, right?  Am I right?

This little song:

Was not finished, but now it is.  I used a fuzz box.  How have I made it this far into life without owning a real fuzz box?  Fuzz boxes and Phasers are the big overused stomp box gimmicks for this year’s project.

This particular little ditty:

Was also not finished, but now it is.  This holds the distinction of being the only song in the batch of 14 that did not have any work done on an iOS device.  This was all done on the full GarageBand on my MacBook Pro.  I think you can hear the difference.  I am a little sad that I didn’t do the whole thing on a computer now.  The iPad and the iPhone are just so damn convenient   I mean it would have been tough to have written a song in the car in a parking lot waiting for a take out order to be ready if I had to do it all on an actual computer, right?  Am I right?

So that’s three songs that are finished, finished, finished.  There is one other that used to be finished but I have decided it will get a new vocal take on Monday.  There are two other songs that have vocals that I want to re-record, at least in part, that still need lead guitar parts.  Then there are seven (7) more that don’t have any vocals yet.  RPM requires 10 songs.  FAWM requires 14.  I have 14 in progress, I could call FAWM done now but I won’t.  Finishing the vocals for a total of 10 songs on Monday is definitely doable.  Getting up to a total of 14?  That’s a little more difficult.

We shall see.

RPM Day 17

My useless streak is over.  My stupid streak is in full swing.

I believe that I have all the rhythm guitar parts recorded.  I’ve been going pretty minimal this year.  Only one song has more than one rhythm part, and I’ve used my Les Paul for everything.  No acoustics or 335 at all.  I think I’m going to stick to the one guitar plan throughout, but who knows.

I still need to write one more section of the mini-suite thing (which still could be dropped in favor of using the A and C sections as a stand alone song) and to arrange the last five songs.  Those are tonight’s goals.  After that its vocals time, which is where my RPM projects normally die.  We shall see.

On the stupidity front, I did the recording last night in the dining room.  I cleaned off the table and gave it a quick wash.  Then I folded up my iPad’s smart case to use as a stand while I did my thing.  When I was finished I closed the cover and put it away.  Later that night I went to check my email and there was a spot of some kind of incredibly sticky Indian food sauce that I missed when I washed the table.  It got onto the inside of the cover, and when the cover was closed it got on the screen.  Crap!  I have to get something to clean the screen with, and I’m just going to replace the stupid case.  I’m pissed at myself.

 

Oh we’ll.