Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The weapons we use to make the strange things happen.

Someone asked me on twitter what DAW I use, after searching to find what he meant (digital audio workstation) I looked at my old Fostex multi-tracker and I had to reply nope I don't use one.  I basically use the multi-tracker as a mixing board for levels and combining the layers live.  Wait what live?  Yes, live session recordings unscripted unplanned live recordings.  It's based on free jazz and beat poetry but made with effects pedals.  We route an old Conn organ, Moog theremin, Alesis drum machine, didjeridoo, guitar, lap guitar, vox and anything else we can mic or plug a cable into through various effects pedals, hit record and start playing around.  We record live straight to cd a minimum of 30 minutes at a time.  Usually there are 2 to 3 tracks that are perfect as is the other stuff is usually layered straight together using Magix music maker 17 so I guess that is kind of a workstation but I don't use it in the traditional sense.  Obviously I am still learning about all my equipment and how to make noise and music but I am just teaching myself as I go.  The video programs I use are windows movie maker and Magix movie edit pro 17.  So we make music, make videos and then post them to the internet for the world to see, sometimes all in one day.  So even we don't know what is going to happen next time we start to make the strange.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

How we met

     My wife and I are high school sweethearts who have been together for 16 years but just got married in '09.  Music and radio brought us together.  We saw each other in the hallway for the first time while drawing on our chuck taylors across the hall from each other.  We made an awkward hello and then it was my turn to audition so we did not talk more then.  I saw her after that between classes, I would hold the door open for her (thanks for teaching me good manners mom).  One day after school she just came up to me and said "Do you want to go to the Cranberries concert?"  I replied "Yeah but I don't have money to go."  She said "No, I won some free tickets and I want to take you."  Apparently she liked my beat up old VW bus. (Last time I saw that thing it was a hippie's house in the middle of the desert in Northern AZ.)  So I of course said yes!  She won the tickets from a now defunct alternative station AM 1060 KUKQ out of Phoenix. (That station was amazing and very influential.)  Since then we won free tickets again to see the Cranberries and saw them a 3rd time the day before our 15th anniversary of seeing them the 1st time.  And that is the short version of how we met and we still celebrate our 1st date to the Cranberries.