Category: Studio Diary (Page 23 of 23)

I am very happy to announce that the collaborative effort of many frequent readers of the alt.music.yes newsgroup is finally available to the public: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/amycd.

After 8 years of faithful service, it looks as though my audio mixer is dying. I thought the crackling and channel droppouts were caused by a computer audio card problem, but after some comprehensive detective work (duh – it happens even when the computer isn’t switched on) I discovered that the mixer itself was the culprit.

Because the problem is on the playback channels only, this is both good and bad: 1) it doesn’t affect the recorded sound, and 2) I can’t re-patch and avoid experiencing the problem.

I’m currently researching features and costs of a replacement mixer. This one is a possibility.

I have finally completed the process of archiving to CD the music that Walter and I recorded over the years, and started selecting choice tracks for a “best of” collection; updating the portion of our website that deals with our music; remastered a couple of tracks, and upgrade my studio computer’s sound card to a semi-professional 24bit/96kHz model: A Delta 66 PCI card from M-Audio. I wish I could say I had used it to actually record more music. Maybe this year will see a concerted effort from me to finish some of this stuff…

In my spare time (hard to find) I have been working through the cassette tapes of music that my brother Walter and I recorded while we were flatting together 10 years ago, transferring the tracks to hard disk, then doing NR and Peak compression and fixing pops, dropouts, equalisation (in the digital domain with a highly-regarded but relatively cheap audio editing tool), then burning audio CDs. In my naievity I actually thought 15 C90 cassettes would render down to two, maybe three CDs. Well, I’ve halfway through and just finished Volume 6 <g>. The thing is, I can’t bear to discard anything, even crude demos. I guess this way I can throw out the cassette tapes when I’m done, and not worry that there is a forgotten gem still on there somewhere. It’s all good to listen to, at least from my perspective.

I was wondering how many pressings to do. I’m currently doing four: A complete set for Walter, one for me/Lisa, a back set also for me/Lisa, plus one spare. If my parents would appreciate it, I’d send them a set. I may do this anyway for safe keeping.

I’ve been designing the CD covers on my PC and printing to a postscript file, then walking down to Kinkos (Kinkos is a chain of really amazing 24-hour walk-in photocopy and printing place, for those who haven’t heard of them before) and printing them out on a Xerox Docu-color “Fiery” high-speed colour laser printer. Excellent results, and it’s $4 for the “digital rendering” process, then .99c for each additional printout.

I may compile a “Best of Archives” two-CD selection when I’ve finished. Anyone who is interested in a copy should beam me an email.

Other Music Studio news:

I have filled the gap left in the studio from not having Walter’s D-50 synth with a Korg Trinity TR-Rack. I was planning to take my time over what module to get, and after some research, we found one in a local store going cheapish.

It has great drums, and rocking B3 organ patches! Lots of them! Emerson lives in my rack! Great realistic Leslie speed-up-slow-down effects… good pipe organs, not so sure what I’ll do with them though.