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pseydtonneFirst, I'd really like to thank all of you that posted nice things when I needed it a week ago. I wound up feeling a lot better after I went out Saturday night (the Fourteenth). It was good.
Sometimes my paranoia rides me. When I was in high school, I had it bad. It goes with heavy endocrine cycles.
So, news... ummm... yeah! I started volunteering at Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD) in Cambridge. I had an information session on the Fourteenth and did my first trainee session this past Saturday morning. The editing equipment is easy to use and I had a good experience to break myself in.
I sat at the controls while another guy, a six-year veteran of the place, had to read an appendix from a textbook on elementary education. He got seated in the recording booth and I got set up at the computer, opening the book (we each had a copy of the textbook) and the recording file. This was my first time behind the controls, so I didn't have time to read all the preliminary warnings.
When he was ready, the gentleman (let's call him Sir) said "okay, first thing is to wind back the last five seconds for playback, get a feel of where we are." So I hit the rewind key on the edit bay. It backed up the track clock one second. So I did it seven more times. Then I hit play. After a second, a woman's voice began to read from this dull list of children's books, their respective authors and their reading-grade levels.
I was immediately into the equipment. If only we'd had something like this small editing console (about fifteen buttons and a shuttle knob on a box the size of a hardcover book) and this computer back in the radio station in college. I bet the new station has one now.
Sir was immediately into a problem. The previous reader wasn't spelling the last names of the authors in this list of authors, a requirement in the main guidelines. So all of her work had to be scrapped. We wound up about four pages ahead of where we were supposed to start because we had to ditch twelve pages.
I learned how to get smooth results from the equipment. I was rewinding fast and talking the guy through errors. I was back in the studio. It felt like home. Actually, it felt like a Public Affairs gig -- ignore the content, just run the dials and make sure errors get amended rapidly.
I saved the file and prepared to go home. As I was signing out of the computer, I checked it specs. This was a Pentium III of probably 800 MHz with only 128 MB of RAM. I just about flopped back in the chair! I had four times the RAM and a faster chip at home; I could plug in my stereo microphone from my MiniDisc and record stuff the minute I get home. I don't need any new equipment to get some professional work done (maybe I could use a nicer mic after I burn a few demo discs).
I was just surfing Broadcast Supply West's web site. We used BSW at WHRW for our goods. They now sell eight-track portable recording decks with analog sliders that save onto Compact Flash cards (the kind you use for a digital camera) instead of cassette tapes. Solid-state random-access storage of an entire recording session for a punk band can now be done with a $400 kit. Why don't more bands know abut this? Record in the practice space, mix down on the home computer, and distribute your crap via web site!
Think about it: you can do all the production and distribution work for your music, spoken word, or any other audio, for the same cost as a monthly car payment. Soon, video will be possible for less than a grand. Who will need the RIAA cracking down on youngsters when bands that never signed to major labels will have more throughput to customers? The war will be over soon. The Twentieth Century will end in our ears.
Now all we need is something to say. Oh yeah! "Democracy starts with you." That's a jumping point.
-lo-fi without the lo, Dante
Sometimes my paranoia rides me. When I was in high school, I had it bad. It goes with heavy endocrine cycles.
So, news... ummm... yeah! I started volunteering at Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD) in Cambridge. I had an information session on the Fourteenth and did my first trainee session this past Saturday morning. The editing equipment is easy to use and I had a good experience to break myself in.
I sat at the controls while another guy, a six-year veteran of the place, had to read an appendix from a textbook on elementary education. He got seated in the recording booth and I got set up at the computer, opening the book (we each had a copy of the textbook) and the recording file. This was my first time behind the controls, so I didn't have time to read all the preliminary warnings.
When he was ready, the gentleman (let's call him Sir) said "okay, first thing is to wind back the last five seconds for playback, get a feel of where we are." So I hit the rewind key on the edit bay. It backed up the track clock one second. So I did it seven more times. Then I hit play. After a second, a woman's voice began to read from this dull list of children's books, their respective authors and their reading-grade levels.
I was immediately into the equipment. If only we'd had something like this small editing console (about fifteen buttons and a shuttle knob on a box the size of a hardcover book) and this computer back in the radio station in college. I bet the new station has one now.
Sir was immediately into a problem. The previous reader wasn't spelling the last names of the authors in this list of authors, a requirement in the main guidelines. So all of her work had to be scrapped. We wound up about four pages ahead of where we were supposed to start because we had to ditch twelve pages.
I learned how to get smooth results from the equipment. I was rewinding fast and talking the guy through errors. I was back in the studio. It felt like home. Actually, it felt like a Public Affairs gig -- ignore the content, just run the dials and make sure errors get amended rapidly.
I saved the file and prepared to go home. As I was signing out of the computer, I checked it specs. This was a Pentium III of probably 800 MHz with only 128 MB of RAM. I just about flopped back in the chair! I had four times the RAM and a faster chip at home; I could plug in my stereo microphone from my MiniDisc and record stuff the minute I get home. I don't need any new equipment to get some professional work done (maybe I could use a nicer mic after I burn a few demo discs).
I was just surfing Broadcast Supply West's web site. We used BSW at WHRW for our goods. They now sell eight-track portable recording decks with analog sliders that save onto Compact Flash cards (the kind you use for a digital camera) instead of cassette tapes. Solid-state random-access storage of an entire recording session for a punk band can now be done with a $400 kit. Why don't more bands know abut this? Record in the practice space, mix down on the home computer, and distribute your crap via web site!
Think about it: you can do all the production and distribution work for your music, spoken word, or any other audio, for the same cost as a monthly car payment. Soon, video will be possible for less than a grand. Who will need the RIAA cracking down on youngsters when bands that never signed to major labels will have more throughput to customers? The war will be over soon. The Twentieth Century will end in our ears.
Now all we need is something to say. Oh yeah! "Democracy starts with you." That's a jumping point.
-lo-fi without the lo, Dante
