Managed to get my fingers working again today. The pains in the fingers of my left hand are still there but have eased off slightly. I don’t think it is arthritis or anything like that, but probably the strain of lugging all those bundles of newspapers. I had a similar experience when I was a hack journalist mining the rockface in teletext for five years. Back in the day, I used to type a lot…and I mean a lot. My word count is up there with the professional touch typists (I think I scored 80 wpm when I was a student) and we used to do a lot of near-live stuff. Recipes on the screen for “This Morning” – yup that was us. Get the recipe faxed through from production at about 10.30, the item is on air at 11.05 with a mention five minutes later, so it has to be edited down, typed up, laid out on the screen and zap – on air within seconds across the various TV network regions of the UK. It was exciting stuff, but it takes its toll on the fingers. And so this familiar ache in my left hand reminds me of a different time when I was paid an awful lot of money to write with light.
Anyhoo, I rerecorded the “Super” track and gave it a new title – “The Sun Even Shines…” as in “the sun even shines on the dog’s arse once in a while”…
Oh look, a juggernaut…
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This little ditty was based on that “Super” jam I recorded last month. Unfortunately, my guitar playing is less that inspired as I have been have a few aches and pains in the joints of the fingers in my left hand. Now I have an excuse for my crappy playing – hurrah!
Direct download: CLICK HERE
Recording chum Andrew Osborne sent over the individual tracks he’d recorded for his cover of Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric?” and this gave me the chance to have a go at some production. His version was a more mono mix, whereas I tried to make it more “produced” if you know what I mean. I also dropped the old vox back in – but this time I think you can hear that I had a heavy cold when I was singing. Whoops!
Direct download: CLICK HERE
I have upgraded/sold off a part of my home studio. In an effort to conserve space, I have sold my audio mixer, FX processor, compressor module and PC audio interface/synthesiser. I have replaced the equipment with an EDIROL M-16DX digital 16-track mixer which seems ideal for working with Sonar. I’ve owned the new mixer for over a week but not done much recording with it. As with all new gear, there is a honeymoon period where you test it out and try and figure out how to get it to sound like your old equipment! I am having trouble with the levels in the M-16DX at the moment. Anyway, now I can recorded sixteen tracks at once if I wish, so I can have the drum machine running and jam live over the loop, which is a novelty that I’ve missed since moving from a 4-track multitrack recorder to PC recording back in 1997. I could only ever record a single stereo pair at a time. This morning, in about fifteen minutes, I recorded this little thing. It’s nothing serious – just a playful rhythm track for me to test the levels of my new mixer.
Direct download: CLICK HERE
Here’s the new Supergrass video:
You don’t want to have any Bad Blood, do ya?
Like every proud parent, I like to show off my baby. However, the BabyLockTM is a furtive creature who absolutely hates the video. Today, I managed to snaffle some secret shots of Verity during feedtime using my webcam on the PC. She was completely unaware that she was being filmed…
Direct download: CLICK HERE
My old recording chum Andrew Osborne emailed me over an instrumental cover of the Tubeway Army hit “Are Friends Electric?”. Unbeknownst to Andrew, it happens to be one of my favourite songs from my childhood – in those days us youngsters thought the likes of Gary Numan was cool. Anyhoo, I really got carried away by Andrew’s backing track so I decided to add my own vocals to it. I’ve probably ruined a masterpiece, but I really like it in all its wonderful lo-fi glory. Enjoy!
Direct download: CLICK HERE