I've begun tuning up some of my mixes and posting them on MySpace again, along with videos. It may be just holidays which let me believe I can put the time in. Mastering has been a fun hurdle, because I'm taking the chance of being fooled by my monitors to a point. Every control between a microphone and a speaker provides an opportunity for me to bamboozle myself. I came very close to doing so today, but I think a few test listens on other stereo's will help me with that.
Word to the wise: between mouse-clicks, take the headphones off! Ow. Gotta change some system sounds I think (the few that remain).
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
New Links Site Under Construction
Everyone has to have one of these. I'm not into random social-bookmarking - I force myself to edit and annotate my links. Anything less is just an irrelevant pile. You can watch the progress at SodasoundLinks. I'll drop it in the sidebar once it's fleshed out.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Abducted by the Year
I have read that apologies for a languishing blog are a waste. People who know me personally may take interest, while others searching for useful info are left to sift through blather. My update to the circumstances will be simple this time because of that.
Music Recording: I'm still using Ubuntu Studio, now upgraded to 9.10. This time I needed to use my Acer Aspire One netbook as a network host, and piggyback off it's wireless connection for the upgrade. That was a fun trick, especially when I learned I had to reaffirm the network connection everytime I reboot the network. I'm sure I'll figure out the mistake by the time I get a hard connection again (which is another story I'd rather not tell). The Netbook is also running Ubuntu Studio, but it is clear music distros for AAO's aren't ready for prime-time yet. I have done a fair amount of graphic design on it though.
Live Audio: I have a new employer who has given me the chance (job) to get used to the Yamaha line of digital mixers, and I have been working with a few other folks as well. It doesn't yet add up to a lifestyle that will stop me gritting my teeth or wearing my eternal street-corner thousand yard stare, but I seem to have reached a point where I'm willing to put up with that for a bit.
Everything Else: My recent involvement in the performance-poetry and visual arts worlds has softened a little, but really it just makes room for me to come back to the woodshed. The Ardour team is hard at work on both the upcoming 3.0 release and a NEW manual, so I'll wait and see what they come up with while I continue other pursuits. I am already exploring other programs in more depth, and it may be that I will keep things in the zone of blog based tutorials for now. No consolidation of the Linux web will ever stop us from Googling now.
Music Recording: I'm still using Ubuntu Studio, now upgraded to 9.10. This time I needed to use my Acer Aspire One netbook as a network host, and piggyback off it's wireless connection for the upgrade. That was a fun trick, especially when I learned I had to reaffirm the network connection everytime I reboot the network. I'm sure I'll figure out the mistake by the time I get a hard connection again (which is another story I'd rather not tell). The Netbook is also running Ubuntu Studio, but it is clear music distros for AAO's aren't ready for prime-time yet. I have done a fair amount of graphic design on it though.
Live Audio: I have a new employer who has given me the chance (job) to get used to the Yamaha line of digital mixers, and I have been working with a few other folks as well. It doesn't yet add up to a lifestyle that will stop me gritting my teeth or wearing my eternal street-corner thousand yard stare, but I seem to have reached a point where I'm willing to put up with that for a bit.
Everything Else: My recent involvement in the performance-poetry and visual arts worlds has softened a little, but really it just makes room for me to come back to the woodshed. The Ardour team is hard at work on both the upcoming 3.0 release and a NEW manual, so I'll wait and see what they come up with while I continue other pursuits. I am already exploring other programs in more depth, and it may be that I will keep things in the zone of blog based tutorials for now. No consolidation of the Linux web will ever stop us from Googling now.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Housecleaning Sodasound
For the mysterious strangers who have visited this blog more than once, I have decided to remove some of the useless bits in my sidebar: Adsense, some of the decorative gadgets, and the guitar links I had which turned out to be more than a little juvenile for my tastes. One of them in particular provided what I consider to be bad advice, so I have withdrawn my endorsement. It could be said that I attempted to build this blog a little too quickly.
I have accumulated a personal collection of useful information sources, and over the next little while I will begin populating the sidebars with the best of them.I may also place links for a few of my pet projects, to the extent which they are current.That part seems fair. I am generally not one to soil the path to my pantry, so people can take that for what it is. However, the Ubuntu community is not fond of bloggers who lead their guests in random directions for the sake of an advertising kickback and I understand this. If it is any consolation, I don't anticipate that Adsense would have paid off for me, and actually I never did. I was merely testing the waters.
The remaining links are ones which are current and appropriate to the content. It seems that some of the blogs I have been following have been at least temporarily abandoned. I have been blogging since 2005, and writing about Ubuntu for a little over a year. In that time I have seen myself become weary of blogging, because it is something I normally do at an hour when I really should be sawing logs, like now - its 2:30AM. Can't blame anyone else. Eventually I keep at it because writing prose gives me a jolly or two which I can't get from songwriting - and I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer.
I have accumulated a personal collection of useful information sources, and over the next little while I will begin populating the sidebars with the best of them.I may also place links for a few of my pet projects, to the extent which they are current.That part seems fair. I am generally not one to soil the path to my pantry, so people can take that for what it is. However, the Ubuntu community is not fond of bloggers who lead their guests in random directions for the sake of an advertising kickback and I understand this. If it is any consolation, I don't anticipate that Adsense would have paid off for me, and actually I never did. I was merely testing the waters.
The remaining links are ones which are current and appropriate to the content. It seems that some of the blogs I have been following have been at least temporarily abandoned. I have been blogging since 2005, and writing about Ubuntu for a little over a year. In that time I have seen myself become weary of blogging, because it is something I normally do at an hour when I really should be sawing logs, like now - its 2:30AM. Can't blame anyone else. Eventually I keep at it because writing prose gives me a jolly or two which I can't get from songwriting - and I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
SooperLooper, a Guitar and a Phonecall
This is one of those gags that made more sense to me than it probably will to anyone else, but it includes some playing near the end which demonstrates the theme without giving away the story. Gotta go to the show for that.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Preppin' Papa Wheely
Since I don't perform near as often as I imagined when I was younger, I decided to do something special when I was invited to both provide sound and perform at the Papa Wheely show on April 10 at Art Gallery Calgary. It involves long intended experiments with Linux's looping programs, Sooper Looper and Freewheeling. Freewheeling comes recommended in posts I remember reading on other blogs. Trouble is playing guitar and holding a trigger on my laptop at the same time.
I'm also playing around with themes related to personal responses to "modern times," because that's how I get my jollies sometimes. There is an extent to which the show has inspired material which will debut on that day (I just rattled off a lyric, with another one already planned out). An arpeggiated guitar groove I've been carrying for years recently inspired a title, and the title has fed several passes of improvised lyrical performances. I haven't done things that way in the past, but I've gradually become more daring with it over the last couple of years.
Another part of my intentions is to finally finish off my patches for the Zoom A2 I bought last fall. I'm not sure if there is a way to design an effects unit so that programming a patch matrix could be less time consuming - perhaps a usb port and compatibility with an open-source patch librarian? What do I know: I'm a guitar player. I suspect what I will do is merely work with the things I know I will need. I'm just not up to programming forty patches over the weekend and planning the audio support.
At the fundraiser for the show a couple of weeks ago I got my second chance to work with PK sound's QSC i122 powered speakers and I have to say that they're pretty sweet. On the first occasion at Soda Lounge, one of them was used as a stage monitor and it put out tone that our poor overworked Mackie couldn't keep up with on a good day. We used a pair for fronts at the fundraiser, but it was in a small house so I couldn't really put them through their paces. I've spoken with one of PK's techs who mentioned that they use them as center fills when they do the Shambala festival each summer in BC. That's probably what I'll get for the show at Art Gallery Calgary as well.
I'll also get a second stab at working with the Mackie CFX16 mixer which I used for the 1111 show. I liked working with the mixer for that show and the effects were a no-brainer, but I did find myself wanting different mutant cables for a recording feed. The reality was that I was asking my Laptop to do too many jobs - recording and providing background music - but I was also borrowing the sub-mixer I use with it to use as a makeshift stage DI. I probably won't have to do that this time. I won't even have room to use a snake.
I suspect the most unexpected addition to my kit on this show will be a young apprentice who has quickly infiltrated half the rooms in the downtown circuit. If only I was that charming fresh out of school...
I'm also playing around with themes related to personal responses to "modern times," because that's how I get my jollies sometimes. There is an extent to which the show has inspired material which will debut on that day (I just rattled off a lyric, with another one already planned out). An arpeggiated guitar groove I've been carrying for years recently inspired a title, and the title has fed several passes of improvised lyrical performances. I haven't done things that way in the past, but I've gradually become more daring with it over the last couple of years.
Another part of my intentions is to finally finish off my patches for the Zoom A2 I bought last fall. I'm not sure if there is a way to design an effects unit so that programming a patch matrix could be less time consuming - perhaps a usb port and compatibility with an open-source patch librarian? What do I know: I'm a guitar player. I suspect what I will do is merely work with the things I know I will need. I'm just not up to programming forty patches over the weekend and planning the audio support.
At the fundraiser for the show a couple of weeks ago I got my second chance to work with PK sound's QSC i122 powered speakers and I have to say that they're pretty sweet. On the first occasion at Soda Lounge, one of them was used as a stage monitor and it put out tone that our poor overworked Mackie couldn't keep up with on a good day. We used a pair for fronts at the fundraiser, but it was in a small house so I couldn't really put them through their paces. I've spoken with one of PK's techs who mentioned that they use them as center fills when they do the Shambala festival each summer in BC. That's probably what I'll get for the show at Art Gallery Calgary as well.
I'll also get a second stab at working with the Mackie CFX16 mixer which I used for the 1111 show. I liked working with the mixer for that show and the effects were a no-brainer, but I did find myself wanting different mutant cables for a recording feed. The reality was that I was asking my Laptop to do too many jobs - recording and providing background music - but I was also borrowing the sub-mixer I use with it to use as a makeshift stage DI. I probably won't have to do that this time. I won't even have room to use a snake.
I suspect the most unexpected addition to my kit on this show will be a young apprentice who has quickly infiltrated half the rooms in the downtown circuit. If only I was that charming fresh out of school...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Upgrading and Recording Some More
Since the last post I have added some RAM to my box and upgraded a few programs. I felt if I was going to write about Ardour I should get as current as possible, so after looking at the website and chatting a little with Linux Journal's Studio Dave on Ardour's IRC Chat channel, I navigated through a process which now has me running Ardour 2.7.1, and the fresh version of Hydrogen. I'm glad I did. the menu structure of Ardour is more focused and the plug-ins are dressed up quite a bit nicer. Hydrogen is better set up as well. I have yet to discover many of the feature changes, but I decided to do a little methodology testing today.
I recorded a personal "jam" in Ardour by repeatedly recording takes on a single track. Each one appears in the region list after recording, so I can just drag them into another track if I want to work with them.
I then tried the notion of reviewing and marking a track of combined bits, then selecting ranges within the track as I listened along and creating regions from them, then naming them for their editorial content. This was a quick and dirty blaze through on one of five recordings within the session.
I then created two tracks: "composite" and "music". In "composite" I spliced together bits of banter, and in "music" I hosted the music file. In this way I could easily apply different acoustic treatments to different parts of the recording, and mix them independently.
The recording was from a single condenser mic which danced around the room a little. I can get a few dirty tracks out of it, which is the point of the exercise. Audacity isn't working for me at the moment.
I will post the track on my MySpace page soon. Facebook has found another way to screw up Facebook Pages so that they are basically useless, and I think I'll just use Facebook for social networking and to blazes with any involvement with my music or publishing. I've got new ideas about that as well, but its in alpha right now. It concerns the notion of withdrawing participation in the aggregating sites, since it is so easy to get buried in them. To quote CSNY's Wooden Ships, "you don't need us."
I recorded a personal "jam" in Ardour by repeatedly recording takes on a single track. Each one appears in the region list after recording, so I can just drag them into another track if I want to work with them.
I then tried the notion of reviewing and marking a track of combined bits, then selecting ranges within the track as I listened along and creating regions from them, then naming them for their editorial content. This was a quick and dirty blaze through on one of five recordings within the session.
I then created two tracks: "composite" and "music". In "composite" I spliced together bits of banter, and in "music" I hosted the music file. In this way I could easily apply different acoustic treatments to different parts of the recording, and mix them independently.
The recording was from a single condenser mic which danced around the room a little. I can get a few dirty tracks out of it, which is the point of the exercise. Audacity isn't working for me at the moment.
I will post the track on my MySpace page soon. Facebook has found another way to screw up Facebook Pages so that they are basically useless, and I think I'll just use Facebook for social networking and to blazes with any involvement with my music or publishing. I've got new ideas about that as well, but its in alpha right now. It concerns the notion of withdrawing participation in the aggregating sites, since it is so easy to get buried in them. To quote CSNY's Wooden Ships, "you don't need us."
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