Technological Chatter

Good morning everybody.  Here we are, very early on Tuesday 28th of January 2013, and it's hard to believe that Christmas is already more than a month ago.  Time flies doesn't it.

The 12-track digital recorder.

Since Christmas I have been looking at things to buy with the money that I got as presents, and am happy to report the arrival of a 12-track digital recorder, which will be very useful to me, especially since it has 250 what are called "virtual tracks", which is fascinating.    It's bloody big though that'd for sure, and has a little bit of noise to it, but that can be sorted with a useful tool called compression.  Oh yeah, I know the technical terms.  I've done a sound engineering course and everything...  In analogue recording!  yes, big big difference there for definite.

Back then there was no Old Library Recording Studios, but there was Bandwagon Studios.  It was a great 24-track analogue recording studio, that was so much fun.  I loved it.  Took ages to do some things though, but still so much fun.

I've digressed there haven't I?  Actually, what you wouldn't know otherwise is that I had written another two paragraphs to follow that which digressed even further.  You don't need to know my recording history, because I've already told it to you!

All I need to say is that I am going to have some fun with it.

The Audio Interface that is
on it's way to me.

One problem that I hadn't counted on though was the fact that even with that, I still need a flaming audio interface to connect it to the laptop!  Why don't they have them built in for crying out loud?  I mean at a push I could have just got an audio interface and connected my old four-track tape recorder in to do the same thing!  I thought all the Audio Interface business would be unnecessary, but no, I still need one.  Whatever!  I will still have fun, and in some ways there is the possibility to take the recorder away to record multiple tracks without the laptop with me, and then transfer them across to the laptop.  I'm worried about filling up the hard drive on the recorder you see.

I am really looking forward to actually using it in conjunction with the work I do on my music blog series.  It will be good to be able to actually use my microphone for recording rather than the laptop's microphone.  All these years of having that microphone, and I've only been able to use it with the four-track recorder, which I couldn't at the time connect to the laptop.  The funny thing is, and I have just realised this, that once the audio interface arrives, I can now connect the four-track to the computer and put the recordings I have on tape onto the laptop.  That might be interesting.  It also means that I can go into old material and do stuff with it, which will be fun.  Recording to me is fun, have you noticed?!?

Beaucoups of Blues album cover.

Actually that reminds me...  I have actually finished the posts about Ringo Starr's Beaucoups of Blues album, which gave me a great feeling of satisfaction.  Now I only two more albums to look at that were issued by ex-Beatles in 1970 (the year I was born).  Those two are George's triple album opus All Things Must Pass and the John Lennon album Plastic Ono Band, both of which I am sort of looking forward to.  The fact that there is so much material on George's album is incredibly daunting to me, and John's album is daunting because it is an incredibly emotional set of songs that includes some profanity in places.

Anyway, let us get onto some other subjects because I have just noticed that the previous blog mentions the digital recorder a lot!

I used Skype for the first time over the weekend.  I know, I am late to the game aren't I!  Well, I am there now.  I had fun chatting with my aunty and uncle on there, and also with my brother in Japan.  That is a great thing about working night shifts - Japan is nine hours ahead, so while I'm on a night shift I can talk to him while he is getting ready for work, on his way there using public transport, or between classes at the schools he teaches in.  Being able to talk to him over the weekend while he was off was great.  I've missed him like I do all of my family, but him more because he is another country altogether on a distant continent, with a culture far removed from our own.

During my time off I am hoping to get to chat to the manager of Morrison's near to us (for those who are foreign and don't know, Morrison's is a big group of supermarkets).  I'm not going into great detail, but I've had qualms about the whole "salad bar"thing for a while, but lately even more so.  I have felt the urge to see if something can be done about it, because there is far too much possibility of food hygiene problems occurring for my liking.  It is a prime area where food contamination could arise, which I see as a problem for vegetarians, pescatarians, and people with allergies.  Bits of other salad meals get dropped into other salad meals, and there are other aspects. but as I said I won't go into them... Needless to say I have an idea how to rectify it, and I am hoping to chat to Dan while I am off about it.

If you are a "friend" on Facebook, then you can look on my profile and find more information on the subject.  I may have to extend into the realms of starting a petition and posting links on other sites that I am sure would add weight to the argument.

A sine wave

The wonders of technology hey (I bet you were wondering about the title weren't you).  Firstly sound recording has been altered by the fact that digital trounced past analogue recording (although some still record using analogue set-ups), albeit a long time ago now, you can contact people across the world in the blink of an eye without obvious signs of trouble, and you can also get a point of view across whilst trying to change the way things are.

Technology is a double-edged sword, with good and bad.  In some ways I am still tempted to keep hold of the four-track tape recorder, because some old fashioned things are still great, with analogue having a different sound and feel altogether - a warmth.  Sometimes digital can be "too clean".  I know that I was talking with someone about recording in stairwells and things like that and they said "why would someone want to do that when you have stairwell echo settings on effects processors and things, but in a way that misses some of the fun of creating.

Other than that, I had other ideas of what to write about in the blog, but I have plain forgotten it all in the two hours that I have been typing for now.  So I'll sign out.

Thank you for reading, and please take care.

January 29 2013 (42 years, 2 months, and 3 days old).