Birthdays and home recording studios

Happy birthday to my music partner, Jodi! Allison's birthday is this Tuesday, so I've decided to host a virtual birthday party on Livejournal. You're all invited...feel free to drop by. Happy birthday also to John Hall (whose birthday is today) and a belated happy birthday to Alisa Garcia (whose birthday was yesterday)!



Above: Allison and Jodi blowing out candles at a surprise birthday bash in Germany, at Filkcontinental last year. To those at Filkcontinental this year (right now, in fact): hope you're having fun!



Other big news:

My home recording studio is set up! "Epi-LJ" was kind enough to lend us his MOTU 828 to try out, but in the end we decided to opt for a more portable set-up, plus an audio interface with MIDI. Jeff, Ray and I visited Saved By Technology yesterday, and Jeff bought me the last part of my 40th birthday present (long story, but tendinitis and other factors got in the way up to now) as well as an early Christmas present:

- A Presonus Firebox (here's a review): 24-bit/96K Firewire recording system with 6 inputs, 10 outputs, MIDI, S/PDIF and Cubase LE software (I'm still opting for Garageband for now, tho)

- Audio-Technica AT2041SP Studio Pack: comes with two microphones -- an AT2020 side-address cardioid condenser mike and an AT2021 small-diaphragm condenser mike. I already have one other microphone (dynamic).

- Mike stand (I already have one, but figured two would be good)

Yes, I know we could have spent a lot more money for higher quality equipment, but music recording is a hobby for us, not a business. Besides, we can always upgrade later when my books start selling bazillions of copies.

;-)

Anyway, Jeff set everything up last night and YAY it all works fine with my computer. Jeff even made up a short fun piece himself using loops and my voice...it was SO great to see him play around with musicstuff again, and I'm hoping this set-up encourages more of that. Many people don't realize that my technonerdboy husband also has a pretty creative side as well. :-)

Now I just have to learn more about twiddling. Y'know, when you see sound engineers twiddle knobs and such during a recording session? I can see why learning more about The Art Of Twiddling Knobs could greatly enhance the quality of a recording. Thanks to those of you who have been offering recording equipment and recording advice in LJ.

And HUGE thanks to Jeff Bohnhoff for being our consultant throughout this process in e-mail, live chat and by phone. We called him yesterday before opening any of our packages; if he had said "ARE YOU GUYS NUTS THAT EQUIPMENT SUCKS" we would definitely have reconsidered our purchases, but he seemed to think our set-up is perfectly fine for now, for what I want to do.

Very excited! Not only will this be useful for Urban Tapestry, but I'm looking forward to experimenting more with my own instrumental recordings as well as doing recordings for other people.

Livejournal comments