Better dig out your reel to reel Bapu.

[Bapu]

2 hours ago, paulo said:

probably got trashed anyway.

Or recorded over with Kylie.

(I'm lookin' at you Wibbles)

[Shane_B.]

8 hours ago, paulo said:

Yet you still want to future proof it.........?

I do understand though, I had a load of old cassette recordings that were dreadful quality really, yet I would love to able to listen to them again, but they were all stolen years ago. The thing that got to me most about that was that they were totally worthless to anyone else and probably got trashed anyway.

 

I'm sorry to hear they were stolen. I'd be out of my mind. My old friend/drummer has our old band practice tapes. He recorded every practice. We were together 9 years and practiced 2 to 3 times a month. They are in boxes in his attic. Hasn't touched them in 23 years and he won't give them to me. I despise shit like that.

I'm obsessive compulsive with personal recordings. I have hours of tapes of my early high school buddies and me singing dumb/vulgar teenage stuff. I'd die if anyone ever heard them.

But the crème de la crème of them all is the very first recording I did when I was 12. I did Bungalow Bill by The Beatles. The "zap" and all.  Hah. It's just on regular cassette. I should transfer it before tragedy strikes. 

[paulo]

11 hours ago, Bapu said:

Or recorded over with Kylie.

Nah. Kylie's for lookin at, not listenin to.

[paulo]

5 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

Hasn't touched them in 23 years and he won't give them to me

The guitarist had most of our better quality ones because he owned most of the gear, that was how it worked most of the time.....my speakers, my rules..... I contacted him a few years back to see if he still had them and if so would he let me borrow them to make copies and he said ok, he led me now when to come and get them, but I've never heard a word since that day and I've been told that he moved away from his area and nobody knows where to exactly, so that's that. There were a couple of tracks in particular that I would have loved to be able to try and recreate, but I just can't remember enough about them as they were written pretty close to end of band days, so they never really got played more than a few times outside of the practice room.

The memory can play tricks on you though, so maybe it's a good thing that I'll never find out that they were actually best left that way.

[Bapu]

10 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

when I was 12. I did Bungalow Bill by The Beatles. The "zap" and all.  Hah. It's just on regular cassette. I should transfer it before tragedy strikes. 

When I was ~12 I was playing Get Off My Cloud by The Rolling Stones. It was one of the first songs I learned on guitar. Taught to me by a guy name Mike Kidwell who has a Silvertone amp and some hollow body electric guitar. At that time I was oblivious to brand names but I suspect it was not a top brand.

Our first gig was at a youth detention center. 2 guitars and a drummer. I knew about four of the dozen or songs we played. For the rest I just turned down my guitar volume and essentially strummed away. Been doing that ever since. ? 

 

[InstrEd]

 Bapu if you keep giving away secrets we shall banish you upstairs to the main part of the former ??

 

[Shane_B.]

47 minutes ago, Bapu said:

When I was ~12 I was playing Get Off My Cloud by The Rolling Stones. It was one of the first songs I learned on guitar. Taught to me by a guy name Mike Kidwell who has a Silvertone amp and some hollow body electric guitar. At that time I was oblivious to brand names but I suspect it was not a top brand.

Our first gig was at a youth detention center. 2 guitars and a drummer. I knew about four of the dozen or songs we played. For the rest I just turned down my guitar volume and essentially strummed away. Been doing that ever since. ? 

 

That's awesome.

The first song I learned to play was Misery by The Beatles. I remember having this little red paperback book called The Pocket Beatles. It was really hard to keep open and I used to wedge it under the front edge of our TV to hold it open. My mom would yell at me for sitting so close to the TV but I didn't even have it on. Eventually it fell apart and I still have some of the pages but most are lost.

I was 13 when I did my first gig. Private Halloween party at a local dance hall. 150 people there and I was terrified. And of all things I played keyboard. We already had a drummer, 3 guitars, and a bass. It was messed up. When we practiced I played guitar because the lead player would never come. Live I played keyboard. It was really odd. There was a recording of that night but the guy who had all the tapes died and it's all gone now or at a good will in TN somewhere. He recorded everything and video taped a bunch. I was lucky to get copies of 5 of the videos but the rest are gone.

[Bapu]

When I was 12 (1965) all the band members were too poor to afford a movie camera (and they rarely had audio then). Audio recording? I had a radio shack 3" reel to reel. But it never made it to a practice or gig. Too bad.

[paulo]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

Our first gig was at a youth detention center. 2 guitars and a drummer. I knew about four of the dozen or songs we played. For the rest I just turned down my guitar volume and essentially strummed away. Been doing that ever since.

Were you in there for fraud by any chance? ?

 

 

[InstrEd]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

Our first gig was at a youth detention center

How did you end up getting that for a gig?

[Bapu]

3 hours ago, Bapu said:

Our first gig was at a youth detention center. 

 

1 hour ago, InstrEd said:

How did you end up getting that for a gig?

I think our (other) guitar player got the gig for us.
After that we played at a private party in Beverly Hills. IIRC it was mostly guys in Izod type sweaters so I'm guessing they were college age. I only recall seeing a few girls at that party.

Shortly after that the band broke up and the drummer and I went on to a couple more short lived bands, and then he went his separate way until we joined up again in junior year of High School.

Edited July 31, 2021 by Bapu

[Shane_B.]

3 hours ago, Bapu said:

When I was 12 (1965) all the band members were too poor to afford a movie camera (and they rarely had audio then). Audio recording? I had a radio shack 3" reel to reel. But it never made it to a practice or gig. Too bad.

I was in with all older guys with families and jobs. All in there mid 30s and 40s. My mother never in a million years would have let me play in bars and clubs at that age with more "traditional" musician types. She knew them all because my brother was an officer in town too and she trusted them. He still is 39 years later.

In my first band two were police officers one was a plumber and the other drove a dump truck and snow plow for the county. I don't know what the 3rd guitar player did but I know he was always too busy to come to practice and barely made it to the shows on time. Played a Tele through a little Mesa Boogie. The one with the EQ built in the front panel. My God could that guy play. We were bad. No idea what he was doing with us.

The VHS recorder was borrowed from the police station. It was to be used for interrogations and confessions but we lived in a tiny town and it was still new in the box. Never used except for our band recordings. Lol.

The drummer ran the PA and he used to take the line out on the Peavey 600 head and use a Realistic tape deck to record. 

Same with my second band. The drummer was a different officer in my home town. Same make and model PA and same cheap cassette deck recordings and the exact same VHS recorder. Between the 2 bands I played out almost 16 years straight. All through high school and up until I left NJ.

I found out the hard way after working with those more stable even keeled guys that the vast majority of musicians of the weekend warrior ilk are pretty shitty to work with. I've never been able to find anyone reliable since and that's why I got in to recording and gave up on the whole band thing. If I ever did it again it would be a solo gig with my own backing tracks.

My wife left for Hawaii again this morning for work. I'm getting the itch to record now after talking about this but have so much to do here. I upgraded to the latest S1 5 and Melodyne Studio when they were on sale. Haven't even had a chance to plug my daw in to download them. I cancelled Sphere.