What Did You Work On Today? 8/3/11

[Gregg Juke]

Have been transferring a bunch of Jazz (& other) vynil to digital.

Tonight, finished mixes on a new band demo (and a couple of covers that will be on the next album). Also, some experiments with some simple live vocal and acoustic tracking in our "new" room (a new purpose for an old room).

GJ

[Chris_Avakian]

alot of cleaning. fall leaning, i guess. dusting knooks and crannies, organizing stuff, cleaning cable runs, etc.... and my 72 yamaha at1

[Gregg Juke]

I almost forgot... I did a drum-tuning job for a church this week. An old CB700 set or something, stock heads. But they were so happy-- It sounded like a brand new set after getting rid of the plastic in the bass drum, putting the tom mount on correctly, taking all of the t-shirts off of the toms, and tuning-up the snare and toms...

GJ

[joelpatterson]

Back in the day (this would be the days of 1949) if you were in the right place and it must have been the right time, at your high school dance someone would show up with a Duotone recording apparatus-- and you could sing a song and someone would cut a little 7 inch 78 rpm record, then and there. (Cost you twenty five cents-- you could pack four one-minute songs onto the two sides of the disc.)

Sixty two years later, you'd take it to your local recording studio and they'd burn it onto a CD for you-- fortunately I have a record player that will play 78's.

Scratchy and skippy, yes indeedy, but talk about a priceless gem to bequeath to your children and their children-- here is grandma, voice sweet as a nightingale, crooning out a pop tune of the day.

I hate to plagiarize an upcoming mic review I'm working on, but there's just something about the disembodied sound of the human voice... when you're watching an old film, say of your parents or grandparents, you are very aware this is a relic from a distant time-- but when you hear a recording of them, they are alive again-- right there in the room.

[Gregg Juke]

So you are poetically saying that you transfered some 78's?

Joel, do you have a special rig for that (with a 78 needle, and/or a TT with a rigid old-school tone-arm), or do you just play them back at 78rpm on your regular TT? I have done the same thing, but I hear it can destroy both your needle and the 78 (?).

I've been transferring a bunch of vynil (my own). Also, last night, my buddy and I were practicing some different miking techniques in anticipation of an upcoming acoustic session (M/S mostly). The figure-8 thing is cool, but I'm wondering if we need a figure-8 condenser rather than a ribbon (a lot of hiss when the gain is turned-up with the ribbon in more of a "room" application than a close mike-- before anyone asks, a Shinybox ribbon and a Grace Design preamp, so I think we're cool there).

GJ

[joelpatterson]

Poetry in motion-- that's me.

Well-- they handed me the thing, said it was a 45, it looked like a 45, but when I fired it up, sounded like Boris Karloff singing, so that's when I started digging around in the closet and lo and behold, an old turntable! A Garrard, or something... didn't ask alot of questions... the surface noise/music ratio at 78 rpm's, that's a thing of beauty right there.

Hiss with a ribbon?

[Gregg Juke]

I have a Garrard out in the garage, I think! (Probably where it should be). Maybe that will be our new, dedicated "78 transfer machine."

Yeah, weird, but when you goose the pre way up to get necessary gain. A lot of it did blend into the mix when the M/S was decoded, though...

GJ

[fancyhat]

Mixed tracks from yesterday's session, worked on recalls from sessions in September, and spent a whole lot of someone else's money on a PA rental order for an event i'm mixing this weekend