bitflipper

After 40 years, my grand is still a baby. I don't know if it's poor nutrition or neglect, but I've given up on the dream of seeing it grow up to be a concert Steinway. Good thing, I suppose - there'd be no room for the couch if it did.

Ironically, it's 80 degrees and sunny here in famously wet Seattle. (Psst. That rainfall myth is just what we tell Californians to keep them away.)

Nor do I, Ed. Nor do I. Geoff, looking forward to catching up. Let me know when you'll be in town. Today, in a celebration of life and a renewed confirmation that "you can't take it with you", I bought myself a new microphone. Some would have gone for a new pair of sneakers or a concert ticket, but I went with a new mic. A Sennheiser e945 to replace my old SM58 standby. These days I prefer a handheld dynamic over a condenser when recording my own voice. Mostly, though, this one's for stage use. I'm hoping its narrower pickup pattern will help with feedback issues - my vocal/keyboard monitor is an 8" QSC on a stand that sits to my left at ear level. It works well, but in some rooms I can't get as much volume as I'd like due to feedback.

You're making me feel guilty about neglecting my piano. I haven't played it in months. Or even dusted it, for that matter. Today, however, I did have a cute girl playing it for me. She's only 3, but she'll no doubt do better once her feet can reach the pedals.

Press CTL-A to select all tracks, make sure "what you hear" is selected in the export options, and try again.

Same here. My last drink was on New Year's Eve 1986. I can also pinpoint the exact date of my first debilitating hangover: January 1st 1987. It was an out of town gig so we had to drive hours to get home, through terrifying winter conditions. Though fearful of whether or not our bass player's erratic driving might get us killed, I couldn't help but wonder if death might actually be a relief. I was an undiagnosed diabetic at the time, which I'm sure contributed to the intensity of the hangover. It was unpleasant enough to deter me from drinking from then on. Yeah, sometimes I feel like the odd man out as the only sober one in a group. However, I do not begrudge others' drinking. They are enjoying life in their own way, and I am not so arrogant as to tell them that only I know the "right" way to live. Doing so would only give them permission to tell me all the ways I've gotten it wrong. Next thing you know, they're bringing me pamphlets. Noooo! So if you come to my house, you're welcome to have a drink. Just BYOB.

^^^ This. AFAIK there are only a couple manufacturers of 2" tape remaining. Vintage King is selling reels for $345.

Freeze the organ track, as Mark suggests. If there are still clicks in the rendered audio, re-do the freeze with the "Fast Bounce" option turned off.

That's because there is none. Think about it: you use a higher sample rate because it contains more information. After upsampling an existing file, where exactly would that additional information come from? It can't be manufactured out of thin air.

The Saffire and Scarlett are indeed identical units, the only difference being USB vs. Firewire. Either should do the job. I'll continue to prefer Firewire interfaces until it's no longer an option, even though the slight efficiency advantage means little nowadays.

The C414 has long been a favorite of mine, although I've never owned one myself. If, like most of us, you can only afford one good condenser then the 414's a good choice due to its versatility. I'm still content with my KSM-44, which is almost as versatile, about the same price, and offers that legendary Shure durability (it's survived multiple gravity-related mishaps). But if I could go back in time to when my original short list came down to the Shure and the AKG, I'd probably reconsider and go with the C414. I have to admit, the deciding factor back then was that I thought the AKG was ugly. Stupid.

So true, Craig. Why do we romanticize drunk girls? Sure, they're much easier to get the pants off of, but that's it. If there is even a remote chance of vomit being involved, I do not want them anywhere near my stuff. Or my electronics, either.

One of the best mic shootouts I've seen/heard. Only 4 mics in the test, and they're all fairly expensive. However, the least-expensive one (AKG C414) held its own against the clear winner (Neumann U67).

Yes, Dave likes that. Maybe 25 years ago I was playing a gig in which there was raised customer seating behind the band. A beautiful woman leaned over the railing behind me between songs and whispered "I've been watching you play and wondering what those fingers could do to a woman's body". She couldn't have halted the performance more quickly had she pulled the power cable out of the wall. Sadly, she left before the end of the set so I never got to encourage her to expound further.

Version 1.8 is a free update to owners of this plugin. All six of you. If you're not familiar with LF Max Punch, it's an oldie but a goodie and a secret weapon for kick and bass. Basically an exciter / distortion effect. Use it subtly to give your bass drum a satisfying thump, or crank it up for distorted bass. At its current price of $80 it may no longer be the bargain it once was, but if you ever have an opportunity to pick it up on sale it's a good tool to have in the kit. The update mostly involves improved CPU efficiency.

Especially now that I'm not allowed to eat it anymore. Such tragedy. I intend to adhere to the ban with the same diligence that I've applied to other prohibitions over the years

If those two images were taken at the same point in the project, and there are no hidden aux sends, then the message makes no sense. Both tracks are routed identically, but the program only complains about one of them being routed to a silent bus. Either there is a clue not visible in the screenshots, or the project file is corrupt. What do you hear when you play the project? Just "Guitar 2", or silence? Where is your Master bus routed? What happens if you route "Guitar" directly to the hardware outs?

I am reminded of George Burns' advice as he was approaching is 100th birthday, when asked about his secret to living to be 100. He said "It's easy. Just make it to 99, and then be very careful." I have no illusions about ever achieving that milestone, but today am somewhat more optimistic about my odds of surviving to at least age 68. October's not that far away. I think I can make it. Gordon Sumner (better known as Sting) and I are exactly the same age - we were born literally minutes apart - and he's still looking pretty good. Of course, he lives in a castle and has access to free health care, but other than that we live parallel lives.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure that face is saying "I will eat you when you're dead".

At least there are no cats in this thread.

Cakewalk will abort after a buffer underrun extending beyond a given period (IIRC, 250 ms by default). Could be the project was still loading samples, or there was some background process preventing the CPU from filling the output buffers in time. I have some very large projects where the only way to get them to reliably play on the first try is to open them and then go make coffee.

See? While any one of us may be full of it on a given point, collectively we're a frickin' encyclopedia. (Kirby, I gather you're old enough to know what an "encyclopedia" is. For the kids, it's like Google with less - but better - information.)

P.S. I'm not sure if F11 is still the default keypress for inserting markers. That may have changed at some point in the past and I've just reset it to F11 on my machine because I'm an old codger who hates change. If that's the case, somebody will correct me, I'm sure.

Lucky for you, you got the attention of an actual expert in this sort of thing. It's what Geoff (Gswitz) does. Unfortunately, experts can sometimes inadvertently talk over your head. If you're really lucky, he'll make a video for you. In the meantime, let me take a stab... It sounds like you've managed to get the original recording into Cakewalk. At this point you have a crazy-long file sitting there. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of horizontal scrolling to get the editing done, but it can be done. First thing I'd do is scroll the track until you get to the start of the silent part. Press F11 to insert a marker there (best to put it slightly to the right of the start of silence). Then scroll until you get to the end of the silent part and press F11 again to insert another marker there. What you're doing is specifying everywhere you want to split up the long file into smaller files. You can put in as many markers as you need. Right-click on the track and select "Split..." from the context menu. You'll be presented with several split options, one of which is "Split at each marker". Select that one and click OK. You'll now have multiple clips, one of which will contain the silent part. There will just be a thin vertical line showing where the boundaries between clips are. In the track header, there is a dropdown list that may say "Volume". Select "Clips" from that list, which will allow you to select individual clips. You can now click on that silent clip and hit the Delete key to make it go away. At this point you still have silence, but you can get rid of it by sliding every clip to the right of it to the left until it butts up against the first audio portion. Finally, use slip-edits to make gentle transitions between the remaining clips. Hover the mouse pointer over a clip until you see a little triangle cursor. A little experimentation will let you get the hang of it. It's non-destructive, so if you don't like your first attempt just press CTL-Z to undo and try again.

You're trying to bait me, aren't you? ? Well, thanks! That's the equivalent of slapping an unconscious guy while yelling "stay with us, dammit!".