February 12-14- The Enchanted Attic

Dates On-Clock: February 8-14

Performance Dates: February 12-14

Strike: February 14

Audio tracks run through ProTools into 16-channel Yamaha mixer in the audio booth in Alumni Auditorium. Pre-show music played by CD. No mics. Supervised playback, hands-off.

There was one problem where my hard drive wouldn't power on due to an overdrawn and nearly tripped circuit, but I plugged into another circuit and was okay.

Overall, I'd say that the production went well. My role was plagued by miscommunication, leading to one of the directors not realizing that I was a contracted employee and not merely a student "techie." I do not blame anybody for this miscommunication, but I do not think that the situation was handled well at the time. Details will be withheld, as they are professionally confidential, but after working with her, I could not in good faith offer a positive reference for the director in question. 

Upcoming events:

February 19- Shop training, ETS

Private event, ETS

"Mull of Kidrun"

Written and recorded by Boyd Mayberry

Produced by Joshua Coughey

http://www.myspace.com/woadwarriorsmusic

I used one of my Stageworks mics, since my condenser is back in Pennsylvania for a chorus production, but I was still pleasantly surprised by the results.

I took two takes: one for the chanter, and one for the drones. For the chanter, I set the mic maybe 1-2 feet away from the chanter, about at mid-fingering height, angled slightly above 90°. I can't hear any ambient noise, but for maybe a slight bit (i.e. none) of natural reverb from the room, and a hiss after the chanter stops playing (which was obviously removed).

Had it been up to me, I would have shot the stand for the drones up behind him and caught them from above, but he said that the best way to do it was about the same distance away, 90° angle, maybe two inches below the top of the shortest drone. It worked, though it meant that I had to turn up the gain a bit more than I would have preferred. Either way, I can't hear much in the way of ambient noise here, either.

Boyd had a problem with air leaking while I was recording the drones and the pitch dropped a few times. I tried to splice a different section over it to take out the problem, but it just didn't mesh together properly. I do need to look into a better way of doing this, but for now, I'm just going to leave it the way it is. The slips aren't very noticeable, and I don't want it to be too perfect, either; a recording that's too clean sounds too processed, and loses any natural sound that it might have. (The one exception being the Dream Theater album Images and Words, and I am dying to know how they got the sounds they wound up with there.)

I experimented a little bit with different delays and choruses, and I came up with some really interesting sounds, but I finally decided to leave it with just a stereo reverb, and panned the drones far right and chanter far left. It came out with a very interesting effect to it, and we both liked the sound. I didn't even put a compressor on it. I'll definitely keep in mind the pipes with a chorus over it; it has a tonality that's just meant for a rock song.

I keep hearing different sorts of percussion over it, but I think I'd just leave it the way it is, maybe used as an intro track if we were to do an album. Maybe do a crossfade into an electric guitar on a Bb chord. But at this point, I'm just tossing around ideas. We'll see what ends up happening with it.

Multimedia message

I haven't been writing much for guitar lately. It's mostly been synth-heavy things. A couple industrial tracks, and most recently a bass-driven dance rock tune that's actually turning out pretty well. Otherwise, I've hit a creative slump. Maybe I just need to give guitar writing a break for a bit. I've been thinking about pulling out my bass again, just playing with a pick until I'm done school and don't need my nails for classical. I do need a new bass, though... And a new amp.

Oh, and I have a ProTools interface. And a MacBook Pro will be here by next month. Exciting.

Computers...

Okay, so here are my options.

MacBook

2.4GHz Intel Core2 Duo

2GB RAM

160GB Hard drive @ 5400 rpm

Intel graphics processor; 144MB of RAM shared with main memory

with iWork preinstalled

$1,287.00

IBuyPower

2.5GHz Intel Core2 Duo

4 GB RAM

200 GB Hard drive @ 7200 rpm

NVDIA 256MB graphics card

4-in-1 media card reader

64-bit Windows Vista (or $42 more for XP Pro)

Microsoft Works '08 (would get Office later)

$1,277.00

Any suggestions? I really don't know which I should go with (or, if I choose the PC, if I should get Vista or XP).

Both have Firewire, so I'd be able to use the better audio interfaces. The Mac isn't quite as good in specs as the PC, but, well, it's a Mac. But is that enough to automatically make a recording notebook that much better? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I Love This Job

I got to work five minutes early, set up everything I needed, and still had a minute left before I was suppose

--
==================================================================
This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Band?

Red. They're from Nashville.

--
==================================================================
This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

BusyARGH!!!

The recitals went well, which makes me happy. Capricio Arabe came out smoothly (though I played a few major chords when they were supposed to be minor, and the ensemble concert was apparently very good; all of my professors keep congratulating me, telling me that it was very good. Multiple times. From all of them. Well, except Dr. Rhodes, but I don't remember if he was there or not.

So now I have to work on... Umm... Something else. I can't remember the name of the piece, and I still have to order the book for the music. Anyway, it's a romantic piece, which leads to some non-traditional harmony, which means it doesn't sound right until I play it at full speed. Eh. I guess it'll work out.

And other than that, I guess things are alright. I'm looking at maybe doing a few shows over the summer, somehow. Filling in for a session, or maybe acoustic... We'll see.