Wulf's Web-Den

Is choice good or bad? Sometimes it does feel like there are too many options. For example, I recently presented a rough mix from the recent Peter and the Wulf recording in my blog with a Soundcloud widget. Is that a better or worse place than the ReverbNation one I am using here?

Each site does collect various statistics on track plays. According to ReverbNation, I am the #2 jazz artist in Oxford (which, apparently seems to extend at least as far as Reading and Milton Keynes!). The geography seems a bit questionable although it does mean that I'm not just a minnow looking big in a glass of water. I won't boast about it too much though until I start getting requests for performances based on my lofty status!

Technorati Tags:

music

widgets

reverbnation

peterandthewulf

Following up on something Steve wrote, I discovered that Soundcloud, a website for sharing audio files, is now open for signing up. Last time I looked it was invite only but I am now the proud owner of my very own Soundcloud account.

Therefore, you can now enjoy a preview of one of the tracks I recorded last week with Peter and the Wulf.

Technorati Tags:

music

recording

soundcloud

peterandthewulf

I could not resist sharing this gleaning from the day's surfing — Metallica's Enter Sandman performed in a smooth jazz style. What really makes it special is the care which has been given to syncing it up with a Metallica performance video.

Totally awesome, dudes!

Technorati Tags:

music

metallica

smooth jazz

video

youtube

I suppose that could be the lead-in for some kind of schlock thriller, where the aforesaid neighbours are found wrapped in latex cocoons. However, I didn't get the headline from a trashy book but from the New Scientist website.

Apparently researchers have devised a way to deal with the way bass sounds to travel on and on. If the technology works and can be cheaply produced it could have lots of applications. For example, it would become a lot less expensive to set up a band practice area.

Technorati Tags:

music

sound proofing

latex

new scientist

It has been a musical weekend: in the studio all day on Saturday with Peter and the Wulf and then playing at church yesterday morning and down at the Isis pub in the evening. One of the things I take away from the weekend are the session files from the recording as it turns out that the studio (run by Starling Audio) use the same software I do, the Open Source Ardour.

Some of the plugins don't seem to work properly, so I am having to make a few adjustments to settle it in my system, but this gives me the facility to listen to the details of everything we recorded and to create my own mixes. The only problem is that this takes even more time than when I work on the stereo recordings from my Zoom H2.

Technorati Tags:

music

recording

ardour

peterandthewulf

Last.fm is an online service that provides music to listen to and information about artists. For me, it's killer feature is scrobbling — the ability to catch music I listen to on my computer (from the Last.fm site but also Spotify and my own collection via various media players).

You can see what I having listened to or even what I am listening to right now (if you catch me at the right time) on my profile page. As of yesterday, they have also rolled out a fascinating tool in their "labs" area that can display a graph of all that listening.

Has this got any practical use? Not particularly (although it is fascinating to see how what I have chosen to play changes over time). However, it is a brilliant demonstration of using a browser as a graphing tool. Oh, and it turns out that Magnus (magnuscanis on the "compare with" list) has listened to as much music as me but in only about a third of the time!

Technorati Tags:

music

last.fm

scrobbling

graphing

I find it very useful to record rehearsals; it is an apposite way of taking notes of what needs to be worked on and to capture the state of a given song. Since getting a minidisk recorder several years ago, I have frequently used this technique and it has become even easier since getting a Zoom H2 towards the end of 2007.

The challenge is that I then need to find time to convert the raw recordings into a usable form. My editing tool of choice is Audacity, which is a fantastic little tool. However, it can not get round the problem that you cannot be sure what all your manipulations have done until you have listened to all your finished tracks.

Last night I created versions of my latest session with Peter and the Wulf only to find that one of the tools had been a bit too zealous in automatically adjusting the faders. That avoided overloud passages at the cost of several apparent flutters. Tonight's reworking seems to have turned out better. Therefore, my two important Audacity lessons are:

1. Listen to everything
2. Don't throw away the original recording until you have done the above

Technorati Tags:

music

peter and the wulf

audacity

recording