Captain's log #43
Got the keyboards recorded, courtesy of Yoshimi. As usual with
keyboards, most of the time went to finding a good instrument; I always
feel as if I were auditioning people for a musical; "Saw+chimes" --
"Thank you, that's enough". "Space Ethereal #9" -- "Don't call us, we'll
call you". Etc. Once I got the sound, and the choice for the chord
inversions, the recording itself was trivial.
Got a hint of how my musical mind works in what has happened with the rhythm guitar; for more than 48 hours I've remained unaware of the fact that the track was still in a crude DI state, the recording that I used for the basic initial metronome demo. It's like, my mind knows the content is there so it doesn't care so much about the "dressing", it disengages. Although in this case it's understandable with so much stuff happening all of a sudden in the other tracks, with the new solos and all. Today I'll record it again with some nice Rakarrack setting that blends in well with the mix (currently that guitar goes Houdini the moment the final solo kicks in...)
I also advanced with the bass; performing with certain fidelity is still a challenge, but once recorded, a bit of processing has made the track much clearer and sweet. HPF, valve simulator, EQ, compression and limiter.
Of course performing using an emulator adds an additional layer of difficulty (it's like trying to play accurately while standing on top of a rubber ball), so the performance is less than stellar... I'd rate the bass a 7, and the guitars an 8.5. That's the thing, there's always the temptation of stopping and improving the performance, but where do you draw the line? It's like riding a bicycle, very dangerous to stop, have to keep moving.
I've also checked the hardware latency of my system with the option provided by Ardour. About 11ms! Why, oh why? I thought the bottleneck could be in the USB, so I've run the test connecting the GTrack to the USB2 and USB3 ports in the computer, and I get the same results in both cases (the GTrack is a few years old, so I don't think it can run with USB3).
I thought the latency wars were over with this new computer, I have all the boxes checked, i7, 16Gb Ram, SSD... The computer is way more reliable than my previous laptop, and I can add plugin after plugin without fearing for my life, but this latency thing is a killjoy...
Anyway. Let's keep learning what we can, and pushing stuff out there in the meantime.
Got a hint of how my musical mind works in what has happened with the rhythm guitar; for more than 48 hours I've remained unaware of the fact that the track was still in a crude DI state, the recording that I used for the basic initial metronome demo. It's like, my mind knows the content is there so it doesn't care so much about the "dressing", it disengages. Although in this case it's understandable with so much stuff happening all of a sudden in the other tracks, with the new solos and all. Today I'll record it again with some nice Rakarrack setting that blends in well with the mix (currently that guitar goes Houdini the moment the final solo kicks in...)
I also advanced with the bass; performing with certain fidelity is still a challenge, but once recorded, a bit of processing has made the track much clearer and sweet. HPF, valve simulator, EQ, compression and limiter.
Of course performing using an emulator adds an additional layer of difficulty (it's like trying to play accurately while standing on top of a rubber ball), so the performance is less than stellar... I'd rate the bass a 7, and the guitars an 8.5. That's the thing, there's always the temptation of stopping and improving the performance, but where do you draw the line? It's like riding a bicycle, very dangerous to stop, have to keep moving.
I've also checked the hardware latency of my system with the option provided by Ardour. About 11ms! Why, oh why? I thought the bottleneck could be in the USB, so I've run the test connecting the GTrack to the USB2 and USB3 ports in the computer, and I get the same results in both cases (the GTrack is a few years old, so I don't think it can run with USB3).
I thought the latency wars were over with this new computer, I have all the boxes checked, i7, 16Gb Ram, SSD... The computer is way more reliable than my previous laptop, and I can add plugin after plugin without fearing for my life, but this latency thing is a killjoy...
Anyway. Let's keep learning what we can, and pushing stuff out there in the meantime.
