Do do
Okay - don't is a word I wish I would use less.
We can't bring ourselves to use a double negative; "don't not take out the trash". Which in reality consists of 1 do and 2 not's presumably because the consecutive 'not' is somehow repellent to proper thought.
But EVERY time you wax parental, or otherwise affirm a verb you do nearly the same thing - to wit - "johnny, don't DO that!".
Do
Not
Do
A most illimitable haiku -
What I HAVE been doing, however, is a little different. There's a really cool free sound editor called Audacity and I've been learning to use it.
I realized two things about my recordings early on. Lo-fi is great, wonderful. I'm sure I'm the next Elliot Smith (uh, yeah - right), but add to my performance mediocrity an eraser sized microphone and we've got Trouble. That's right--I did capitalize that 'T'!
Anyway, the issues are that it's real hard-disk oriented memory (rather than the flash drive we've got on our i-pods) - and this means that when you press "record" you get about 8 seconds of whirring noise. Now, I wait patiently while the machinery spools up usually announcing track and take number information while I wait. Or staring out the window. I'm easily bored.
The other issue is that the 'off' button is WAY closer to the microphone than I am. When I press "stop recording" you (if you heard the unedited cut) hear a tremendous CLICK. The wave-forms for this sound scale off the charts.
So, from the beginning, I've been using Audacity to clip the beginnings and endings of the tracks and export the .WAVs into .MP3s. But, I thought I'd take it a little further. There's plenty of features there that I haven't used yet, and while giving my voice a wah-wah, or my accoustic guitar a reverb or echo haven't proven very appealing, I HAVE learned a few neat tricks.
For instance, you can isolate the hum going through these cheap electronics at almost 30dbs and effectively cancel it out. Pretty neat! And you can load multiple tracks, which is what I did for mirrors. There are 2 vocal tracks and 3 guitar tracks there (mostly) synced. That wouldn't have been possible without noise removal because layering in all those tracks would've just resulted in a huge ball of fuzz.
I haven't mastered my previously recorded tracks as well as I'd like, and 'Black Demon' still needs a little touch up. But, these represent about the best I can do right now, and it's really interesting to edit sound! Hey, I even faded in and out - just for you.
So, I got some new picks and finally a strap. Which neatly sums up my advice to you--strap in and get ready to rock it.
Rather than keep posting tracks here, I made a web-page that centralizes all the stuff I've written. And away we go!
We can't bring ourselves to use a double negative; "don't not take out the trash". Which in reality consists of 1 do and 2 not's presumably because the consecutive 'not' is somehow repellent to proper thought.
But EVERY time you wax parental, or otherwise affirm a verb you do nearly the same thing - to wit - "johnny, don't DO that!".
Do
Not
Do
A most illimitable haiku -
What I HAVE been doing, however, is a little different. There's a really cool free sound editor called Audacity and I've been learning to use it.
I realized two things about my recordings early on. Lo-fi is great, wonderful. I'm sure I'm the next Elliot Smith (uh, yeah - right), but add to my performance mediocrity an eraser sized microphone and we've got Trouble. That's right--I did capitalize that 'T'!
Anyway, the issues are that it's real hard-disk oriented memory (rather than the flash drive we've got on our i-pods) - and this means that when you press "record" you get about 8 seconds of whirring noise. Now, I wait patiently while the machinery spools up usually announcing track and take number information while I wait. Or staring out the window. I'm easily bored.
The other issue is that the 'off' button is WAY closer to the microphone than I am. When I press "stop recording" you (if you heard the unedited cut) hear a tremendous CLICK. The wave-forms for this sound scale off the charts.
So, from the beginning, I've been using Audacity to clip the beginnings and endings of the tracks and export the .WAVs into .MP3s. But, I thought I'd take it a little further. There's plenty of features there that I haven't used yet, and while giving my voice a wah-wah, or my accoustic guitar a reverb or echo haven't proven very appealing, I HAVE learned a few neat tricks.
For instance, you can isolate the hum going through these cheap electronics at almost 30dbs and effectively cancel it out. Pretty neat! And you can load multiple tracks, which is what I did for mirrors. There are 2 vocal tracks and 3 guitar tracks there (mostly) synced. That wouldn't have been possible without noise removal because layering in all those tracks would've just resulted in a huge ball of fuzz.
I haven't mastered my previously recorded tracks as well as I'd like, and 'Black Demon' still needs a little touch up. But, these represent about the best I can do right now, and it's really interesting to edit sound! Hey, I even faded in and out - just for you.
So, I got some new picks and finally a strap. Which neatly sums up my advice to you--strap in and get ready to rock it.
Rather than keep posting tracks here, I made a web-page that centralizes all the stuff I've written. And away we go!