MORNING
Nothing happened this morning anywhere in the universe.
Okay, who thought the airliner they just found was the one that was abducted by the aliens? From all the news hype, that's what I thought at first. Nope, it’s a different one that went down in similar enough circumstances. Folks, I’ve flown these non-IATA carriers and that’s like just not the chosen way to save money on air fares. You take your chances. That’s like expecting me to feel sorry for people living in San Francisco when the big one hits. Things don't work like that.
Alaine called, we are postponing “Exodus”. People have to work, you know, and she's got the New Year's shift. I spent the early hours repairing that scooter trouble with the starter. The only result of that was to further convince me I need the Honda 250. I’ve buzzed around on that one and it seems I can indeed afford this vehicle. One thing not in doubt is how much I would like to have it.
NOON
Rehearsal showed the customary progress, so we (Trent & I) met up at the local watering hole for an afternoon few. It’s become a better place over the past few weeks. Like the old Jimbos, there are a core of women regulars. We played a mess of country tunes on the jukebox, which stamps our presence in a boomer joint.
Hence you get the phenomena of fifty and sixty year old men listening to music that is more age-appropriate for their grandchildren. Old men who still “hate” country, but that’s why it is called a jukebox. People play what they want. And from the last shift, it was cranked up loud this afternoon. So everybody got to enjoy Alan Jackson along with us.
Our style is nowhere near complete, but we can play a few tunes well enough. We are months away from a standalone show, but just a few hours from doing something somewhere. Plus Trent brought over a brand new Tascam digital recorder, the type I am already familiar with. Like every other group in existence, we dream of going viral like a cat video. Then sit back and rake in the royalties. Gee, it’s all so easy, why didn’t I do this back in elementary?
We partied up to 6:00PM then called it quits. The crowd and the consequences are just not worth even listening to. Instead, we used the time to further look at a series of pub-type venues that advertise as country-music-friendly in this area. Odd, because I know every road in this town and there are no signs on the street that indicate such establishments. I suspect I will find places that only claim to be country in the off-chance of a customer walking in and staying in disappointment. There was a time in America this kind of nonsense was false advertising.
That’s the two topics of the afternoon. The new pub and the Tascam recorder. We’ve been in that pub a few times now, so we can begin to spot the women who told us they were single but lied. And other things like that. Although Trent is not as sold on coffee house gigs as I am, he has not played them either. If he attends a few, he may spot it as a shortcut to stage performing. You quickly learn to prefer them as the best place to meet people. It is the only place to go any more that is not centered on drinking and dancing.
NIGHT
The important development is the Tascam recorder, an eight-track unit, which like all others, can only record one track at a time. So while having 8-channels, it cannot simultaneously record all at once. Also, there is a better way to accomplish the same thing. By simply bouncing the tracks, you can get ten tracks out of a 4-channel, so calling these “pocket studios” an 8-channel is mainly marketing hype. This, I feel, represents collusion between manufacturers on a similar level as done with drum boxes.
Simply put, you cannot record the whole band at once. You are stuck with one input, usually a single microphone, and that is simply not good enough. Tascam and the rest know this. What you want to do is plug in 8 cables, adjust the trims, and record the whole band at once, using 8 separate channels. This is called mixing.
I can’t recall the title of this marketing strategy, where the manufacturers agree to introduce improvements deliberately slow so as to max out sales of substandard units at each stage.
Last, beware, these recorders do not work well right out of the box. While that can be done, it sure sounds like it. It is nearly the same model Cowboy Mike’s, so I should have it operational in a few hours.
ADDENDUM
This is a transcript of my report on the Tascam. Hang on, let me make sure it is blog-ready. Yep, here it is:
It is a very well-thought out little unit, although it suffers many of the drawbacks of it's obvious parent, the Boss model. For example, unless specifically turned off at the end of a song, it will continue to play or record to the capacity of the onboard SD card. By the way, that included card is a complimentary 2GB unit, which is nice.
The biggest apparent advantage is that SD card, though it still uses a mysterious MTR (master track record) format. (The Boss uses a rare and expensive proprietary card brand that was incompatible with a computer slot.) The Tascam card is easier to download and save as a computer file--however neither unit will produce a file that can be processed by software, that is, you cannot post-edit. The output is finished product all or nothing. All portable recorders seem to insist on that setting.
[Deleted] . . . the best innovations come from beginners. The output of the card includes a FAT (file allocation table) partition which I will be taking a close look at this morning. Some two-way communication is possible if the Tascam produces a WAV mirror of the file, though I doubt we'll need anything that advanced. Also, I do not know if the USB cable can be tossed and the card read directly on a computer. Sometimes that requires reformatting.
It is a workable unit, but like drum boxes, has certain features and defaults that the manufacturers have obviously agreed between them to not put in the unit--like the inability to record more than one instrument at once. This, I feel, is largely responsible for that bland "indie" sound all over the Internet where instead of a band, it sounds like a collection of individual instruments each striving for perfection. This is so, because the one-at-a-time approach means nobody can record while hearing a truly blended “live” sound.
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