All Mixed Up

It has been a long time, hasn't it? Glad nobody missed me!
My thesis remains incomplete. How much longer? I can't be sure.

Well on the music front things have been good. My wife spoils me to the nth degree so for Christmas I got:

-1 Presonus Firebox
-1 AT 3035 Condenser Mic
-1 pair AKG M80 Headphones
-1 Mic stand and cable
-2 Firewire cables

and so I now have a studio!


(Insert Picture here).

Several months ago I started a ska cover of "The Sign" by Ace of Bass, single-tracking everything through my laptop audio card. I finally did the vocals two weeks ago with my new gear. I set up in my "isolaton booth" (closet) which actually gave me pretty dry acoustics. The performances were ok and I pieced together the track.

Friday I tried my first attempt at mixing. I just finished reading "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio" by Mike Senior. It is an excellent book. Unfortunately I didn't have the equipment to do any of the exercises in the book so I didn't really get the full experience it offers. Even now, contrary to the books admonition, I lack a decent monitoring system. I'm waiting for next Christmas, hoping for some Blue Sky EXOs. Until then all I've got are the M80s. And computer speakers. So... ya. The headphones sound pretty good for $30.

I was fighting some bad recordings so I tried to cut my losses and not spend forever on it. Needless to say it was pretty disappointing. I don't think I want to continue with this since its a cover. I really like the idea but it turned out sounding like a $30 recording job. Its all mixed with Ardour and the guitars are direct with Rakarrack effects.

Have a listen...
Um...

After reading through the terms of use on YouTube and SoundCloud and a bunch of others I decided this low-fi recording really isn't worth posting. I try really hard to be legal about stuff so, sorry. Lamo. I know, but stay tuned and soon I'll have an actual post about an actual song I actually wrote and actually recorded and you can hear. Aurally. And Actually.
Later.