Great Show tonight
Just back from a great show tonight. We played the last show on the West Coast for 10,000 Maniacs tonight. We only did a few shows with them this summer, but they anounced us as having done all the West Coast dates with the band this year. It was a great show. The band always sounds good. We, the horn players actually ran thru the charts before the gig tonight and fixed a lot of little chart errors and went into it much more confident. The horn section was really on tonight! Very fun gig.
Well, as I type I am bouncing protools files down to send Mars Lasar the second track I recorded here at my home studio. This track was smooth and slow - very nice. I did some Flute and Soprano parts along with an option take on Alto Sax. This is turning out to be a great project!
Mars has already sent the 3rd track and I hope to get in the studio tomorrow AM and knock this one out.
You might be asking what bouncing a protools session means?
Bouncing - transferring the track to an Audio format, most often a wave file.
ProTools - the program used to record on my computer. The files are .PTF and that's what I have to bounce to .WAV
Session - usually a single song, becomes the file you open to record the parts of that song.
One interesting note -
Back in the day we went to a studio and recorded on a song or movie cue and then went home. The session (then refered more to the recording event for a given musician) was in a studio, so the gear was all there and set up for you, an engineer did the set up to get your sound and do the actual recording, the producer worked with you to get a recording that was approved and paid for. You then took the check or filled out a W4 and maybe a release and walked out the door. It was all pretty simple but had a few limitations.
Today these limitations are gone. I can do a session in Russia and never walk out my door. No travel expense no distance to get in the way. But now I have to do everything. I have to set it all up, turn on computers, take an MP3 off my email and stick it on a flash drive, upload it to the ProTools session I had to create. Add tracks, organize the track as desired (markers for sections, click track, midi or audio, and and and), play around with mics and saxes to get the right sound for the track, levels, preamp, pushing it too hard?, finally ready to record. Tracking goes pretty fast for me these days. I can get a lot of tracks finished in a short time.
But then, I have to listen to, organize and edit the tracks as needed for the client. Bounce the required data down to wave files, file them so I can find them, copy them to the flash drive, transfer them to the online computer, find the location I am supposed to FTP the files to, get the FTP straight for this account and upload all the completed files onto the clients server.
Then you can get the - Hey, that's not quite what I was looking for. They weren't there. Now you need to track a new melody on the flute because they need fills between the lines too. Then, add some Alto Sax to this and can you change the EWI sound to something more scary?
Take 2 with all the same editing and uploading time follows.
Now you remember I said I was doing the bounces and then transfers right now. 13 minutes just wasted because I'm an idiot and just transfered all the session data to this computer and not the files you bounce tracks saved as WAVE files of each instrument playing.
You see - in the old days I would be getting some coffee handed to me with great appologies about this technical issue that was going to take a little while to straighten out. Now, it's my mistake, my wasted time, my headache!
It says 1 minute remaining - - - - - it lies - no, it's done.
Now, since I have this FTP set up, I won't have to go thru all the guessing to finally get that connected. It should upload here pretty quick. Now this is scary - Remaining - 40 minutes??? It should go down fast, but you can see what I mean on all the new jobs added to playing the sax. It can take me a days free time to get a track done and sent, yet only an hour or 2 was playing an instrument. Pretty amazing?!?
So, now I need to email the client and let him know that in about a half hour, the 3 tracks I just sent will be there. I'm going to bed....
Good luck little transfer...
I have to get up early, before it gets too hot and finish the 3rd track for MARS tomorrow before leaving for work.
SAXBOY
Well, as I type I am bouncing protools files down to send Mars Lasar the second track I recorded here at my home studio. This track was smooth and slow - very nice. I did some Flute and Soprano parts along with an option take on Alto Sax. This is turning out to be a great project!
Mars has already sent the 3rd track and I hope to get in the studio tomorrow AM and knock this one out.
You might be asking what bouncing a protools session means?
Bouncing - transferring the track to an Audio format, most often a wave file.
ProTools - the program used to record on my computer. The files are .PTF and that's what I have to bounce to .WAV
Session - usually a single song, becomes the file you open to record the parts of that song.
One interesting note -
Back in the day we went to a studio and recorded on a song or movie cue and then went home. The session (then refered more to the recording event for a given musician) was in a studio, so the gear was all there and set up for you, an engineer did the set up to get your sound and do the actual recording, the producer worked with you to get a recording that was approved and paid for. You then took the check or filled out a W4 and maybe a release and walked out the door. It was all pretty simple but had a few limitations.
Today these limitations are gone. I can do a session in Russia and never walk out my door. No travel expense no distance to get in the way. But now I have to do everything. I have to set it all up, turn on computers, take an MP3 off my email and stick it on a flash drive, upload it to the ProTools session I had to create. Add tracks, organize the track as desired (markers for sections, click track, midi or audio, and and and), play around with mics and saxes to get the right sound for the track, levels, preamp, pushing it too hard?, finally ready to record. Tracking goes pretty fast for me these days. I can get a lot of tracks finished in a short time.
But then, I have to listen to, organize and edit the tracks as needed for the client. Bounce the required data down to wave files, file them so I can find them, copy them to the flash drive, transfer them to the online computer, find the location I am supposed to FTP the files to, get the FTP straight for this account and upload all the completed files onto the clients server.
Then you can get the - Hey, that's not quite what I was looking for. They weren't there. Now you need to track a new melody on the flute because they need fills between the lines too. Then, add some Alto Sax to this and can you change the EWI sound to something more scary?
Take 2 with all the same editing and uploading time follows.
Now you remember I said I was doing the bounces and then transfers right now. 13 minutes just wasted because I'm an idiot and just transfered all the session data to this computer and not the files you bounce tracks saved as WAVE files of each instrument playing.
You see - in the old days I would be getting some coffee handed to me with great appologies about this technical issue that was going to take a little while to straighten out. Now, it's my mistake, my wasted time, my headache!
It says 1 minute remaining - - - - - it lies - no, it's done.
Now, since I have this FTP set up, I won't have to go thru all the guessing to finally get that connected. It should upload here pretty quick. Now this is scary - Remaining - 40 minutes??? It should go down fast, but you can see what I mean on all the new jobs added to playing the sax. It can take me a days free time to get a track done and sent, yet only an hour or 2 was playing an instrument. Pretty amazing?!?
So, now I need to email the client and let him know that in about a half hour, the 3 tracks I just sent will be there. I'm going to bed....
Good luck little transfer...
I have to get up early, before it gets too hot and finish the 3rd track for MARS tomorrow before leaving for work.
SAXBOY
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