# Come check out my music! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 25, 2004, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925 "2004-05-25T03:14:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/21 "2004-05-27T15:12:34Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Thanks, man. It’s a great thing to have someone appreciate your music…as I’m sure you know. Oh I know. > [@](#): > > Yeah, that part will be completely overhauled. Among the things that make it awkward is the fact that I hit a passing note in there that was completely out of key. :rolleyes: Better then me, usually when I’m playing the guitar, I occasionally hit a note that’s _in_ key. 😃 > [@](#): > > Ever heard the original? It’s a moody, late-night-contemplation sort of song. Really dark and smoky (which my little version is not…a prime reason to overhaul the whole thing.) No, I didn’t even know there was an original, lol. Boy, I’m in touch eh? > [@](#): > > I’ve been looking for a solution like this too. Many, many thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been able to get a fairly warm sound to date, but it could be fuller. (And the Aphex is cheap!) Yeah, that’s the best part. IIRC both are under $150. I know a lot of people that use them as sort of a poor mans mastering. I personally wouldn’t recommend that, but they definitely make a well mixed song sound more polished. > [@](#): > > By the way, guys, speaking of gearhead talk, what kind of equipment do you use? Any secrets you’d like to share? Tips? Do you have a full-on studio, or what? Acoustic foam on the walls? The only secret I can think of is get good studio monitors. Also get good neighbors, or good headphones. One other thing, don’t fix things later. My partner is one of those “we’ll fix it later in Pro Tools” type of guys, fucking drives me up the wall. We always end up spending 2 hours using some overly fancy ass program to fix (and it doesn’t even fix it well) a pop, when we could have just re-recorded the track in 5 minutes. One last thing, that I always do, (in fact I’m kind of psycho about it) is erase any part if the track that isn’t playing, literally. I’m like a human noisegate. The nanosecond that a track stops, or pauses, I erase that line, and replace it with pure silence. We’re working on a track now called [Mr. Jones](http://www.subtechbeats.com/mrjones.mp3), and I just went through an erased ever single tiny breath between her words. You hear a single breath in that track and I’ll paypay you $5 😃 Anyway, I’ve found it helps, especially when you add effects, as whatever problems tend to become more noticeable. I haven’t yet found a noisegate that does it better then me, so until that day… As to my equipment, here’s my setup. Not pretty, but it does the job. Behold, The [Laboratorium!](http://www.subtechbeats.com/system.htm) The skull is the source of my power. [sub]shhhush, quiet fool, you’re giving away your secrets[/sub] Er… I mean the skull, is my dearly departed pet, it gives me good luck. > [@](#): > > Me, for “studio equipment,” I’m running a Marshall MXL 2003 condenser mic (very good 1" diaphragm mic, and [cheap](http://www.zzounds.com/item--MSHMXL2003) too!) into a Behringer 16-channel mixer, into a Dell XP box with an Audigy 2 sound card (I’d like to upgrade to maybe a Delta-44 or something when I get the money.) I run N-Track Studio, and usually T-Raxx for mastering. Nice, I’m wondering if we have the same board. I just swapped in my old Mackie 1202, because I needed more channels. My Behringer has worked like a charm. I’ve never heard of N-track or T-raxx, what are they? Nice mic btw, now let’s hear some lyrics. 😛 > [@](#): > > For noisemakers, I have the previously mentioned ToneMaster lap steel, a G&L ASAT (Tele, basically. Used it for the bright-sounding reggae guitar on SiS,) a 1970’s Ibanez 335 copy for a more rockin’ sound, and various and sundry acoustics (a Yamaha classical, a Washburn dreadnought, and a Taylor 422.) I also have a banjo my grandfather gave me when he died. Swore Scruggs owned it. Dunno how truthful it is, but he’s from the right area of the country, and the banjo is a Gibson Mastertone, like Earl used to play. Oh, and I have a G&L bass with a 115 watt Peavey Black Widow (what can I say? I’m not really a bass player.) My guitars all go through a Fender Prosonic tube combo…basically a discontinued Twin Reverb, only with Celestion 10’s in it, so it can growl really, really well. Very nice stuff. Which axe is the fave? Btw I hope you have homeowners insurance, I bet that gear adds up. I think the only decent piece of gear I have is my Hartke 410 with 200 watt head. I swear with those aluminum drivers, that thing could level a small city. I’m a bass player by nature, (although I can play a [little drums](http://www.subtechbeats.com//Hate_You.mp3) :D) so when my old band was playing out, I needed something nice. I have DBX compressor, a few effect units (quadraverb and a similar thing by Yamaha) a real nice drum machine by Alesis (DM12 IIRC), a Korg TR-Rack, an Aphex Aural exciter, and a Berhinger Eurorack with 24 inputs on it connecting the whole shebang. To connect to the computer I’m running a 24 bit Lexicon Core 2 card. I recently upgraded my computer from a Dell 600 Mhz P3 (win 98) to a home built 2.8 Ghz P4 (XP) with some neat tricks. I actually ran into a problem where my Lexicon card wouldn’t run on XP. I didn’t have the $500 or $600 to get something comparable, so I ripped out the 98 drive, stuck it in my new machine, and made it dual boot. For the software I _was_ running Cubase but I’ve switched over to Cakewalk 9, which has most of the functionality, yet none of the headache. Often I’ll make a beat in Reason, dump it into CW, record on it, and go back and tweak the beat in Reason. As long as I don’t change the tempo, the stuff always lines up perfectly. > [@](#): > > Oh, and incidentally, take a look here: > [http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/buildmic/buildmic\_16\_1.shtml](http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/buildmic/buildmic_16_1.shtml) > Instructions on building your own condenser mics and power supplies for dead cheap. I’m trying it. The guy swears by them, and I figure if I can get a good pair of room mics for $20, it’s so worth it. If they suck, well hell, it was $20. > > Actually, if they’re really good, I can see me building a full set of drum mics. The mic cartridges are cheap as dirt through a supply house like Digikey. Sweet! I’m off to take a look. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/22 "2004-05-27T16:06:18Z")
> [@Bruce\_Daddy](#): > > [twobirdswithonestone] > We go mic -\> TASCAM 428(USB) -\> Computer -\> Cakewalk Home Studio. How could we use those processors, **World Eater** , as the last step? Computer -\> TASCAM(Out) -\> processor -\> TASCAM(IN) -\> Computer -\> Cakewalk -\> 1 track? > > **Ogre** , did you check out the pictures on the website? 😃 We threw quilts over the booms around the drums! It actually kind of worked. > > [/tbwos] I tried to check it out the other night, but the picture page was all wonky for me. Wouldn’t load. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/23 "2004-05-27T16:06:49Z")
> [@Bruce\_Daddy](#): > > [twobirdswithonestone] > We go mic -\> TASCAM 428(USB) -\> Computer -\> Cakewalk Home Studio. How could we use those processors, **World Eater** , as the last step? Computer -\> TASCAM(Out) -\> processor -\> TASCAM(IN) -\> Computer -\> Cakewalk -\> 1 track?[/tbwos] You know, I have no idea. 😕 From what I understand of them, they each work in different ways to accomplish the same feat. They basically work with psycho acoustics, and alter the sound so we “perceive” it better. (So sayeth the marketing pamphlet, I don’t know if I believe all this shit, but I digress) The BBE “Sonic Maximizer” supposedly makes small corrections to the phase of the signal, and aligns them into some sort of perfect heavenly balance, making everything sound crystal clear. I don’t understand on a technical level how the sound gets “fattened” up, because correcting phase alone shouldn’t do that, so there must be something else at work too. Mumbo jumbo or not, there is no doubt that anything run through it sounds a hell of a lot better. The Aphex Aural Exciter works in much less mysterious ways. It essentially works like a parametric EQ, adding harmonics to a user specified frequency. Hitting the right Frequency range can really brighten up the track, and that’s all this thing is designed to do. It also has a feature called “Big Bottom”, where it does the same thing on the low end, and let me tell you, oh man is it sweet. The only downfall with the AA, is when used improperly, it can destroy as well as it creates. On the high end, I’ve heard it’s effect applied so much that it went beyond “bright”, and straight to “brittle”. On the low end, too much and well, let’s just say it was a horrific dirge of muffled low end shit, and not in a good tuned down 7 string guitar Meshuggah kind of way. 😃 It’s obvious that having additional effect processors after the Aphex or BBE unit in the chain would defeat it’s respective purpose, so keep it as far to the end as possible. If you plan to record it back onto your computer, you’ll lose a little of the effect, but still retain plenty to make it worthwhile. **Bruce** , what to you do once you have the one track in Cakewalk? Does the song remain “inside” the computer? If it does, then the way you illustrated above will be fine. If you dump it to MD/DAT or tape, then go computer ----\> Tascam------\> AA or BBE ---------\> MD/DAT or TAPE ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/24 "2004-05-27T16:11:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I just wanted to pop in and say that I’ve got Ship is Sailing in my iTunes playlist and I like it very much. I like instrumental-only things anyway (I know that this piece won’t stay instrumental-only), but anyway, I like it. Quite a bit. Thumbs up! I’m flattered! Thank you very much! ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/25 "2004-05-27T16:21:24Z")
Pardon the scatter-gun posting. Just wanted to let **Bruce\_Daddy** know the error I’m getting on his picture page: A critical error has occurred. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I’ll answer **World Eater** in more detail later. Gotta go work for now. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/26 "2004-05-27T16:37:07Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I’ll answer **World Eater** in more detail later. Gotta go work for now. Work? 😕 What the hell is this thing “work” you speak of? 😃 Just to make things more complicated, I’m not having any problems at all with that site **Bruce**. I’ll take a listen a little later and give you some feedback. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/27 "2004-05-27T17:28:43Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > **Bruce** , what to you do once you have the one track in Cakewalk? Does the song remain “inside” the computer? If it does, then the way you illustrated above will be fine. If you dump it to MD/DAT or tape, then go computer ----\> Tascam------\> AA or BBE ---------\> MD/DAT or TAPE I have a feeling that Cakewalk has the tools to accomlish the same thing. I mean, it has eq, gates, limiters, compression, fx, amp simulators, etc. Cakewalk stores our projects in it’s own format .cwp When we are ready to mixdown Cakewalk can take the project and create a .mp3, .wav, .riff (I’m not sure what that is) and some other formats. That’s pretty much all there is to it. > [@Ogre](#): > > A critical error has occurred. > Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 😕 Is it just the Photos page? That’s odd, nobody else has had a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/28 "2004-05-27T17:32:51Z")
> [@Bruce\_Daddy](#): > > .riff (I’m not sure what that is) I decided to fight my own ignorance. Cakewalk gives you the ability to import video. Apparently a .riff file is one way to go when you are finished with your project if it has audio and video. > **[Technical documentation](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/)** > > Search for in-depth articles on Microsoft developer tools and technologies. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/29 "2004-05-31T20:05:27Z")
Hey good stuff **Bruce** , I like your bass chops. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925/30 "2004-05-31T23:36:41Z")
I’m really enjoying the waltz. Good stuff! -Lil [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-check-out-my-music/246925.md?page=1)