Is anybody else...

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:07 am

Just wanted to know how everyone is fairing?

I have found myself with a number of incomplete projects. That and tying up loose ends on my CD is HEAVY right now. But I am finally finding a "little" more time to visit each incomplete with the hopes of wrapping things before I get too deep into September.

Meanwhile, I just heard Exotic Creatures of the Deep, the latest release by the Sparks. Totally awesome. Perhaps their best work ever. Maybe it will be the last bit of inspiration I need to close a few things!

So....how is everyone else doing this month?

Jon

georgeinar · Post by **georgeinar** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:57 pm

Thank you so much for posting this here John. I am just freaking out right now. My best friend's 23 year old daughter who lives in Arizona (not Chicago like me) has just been diagnosed with very advanced lymphoma and her mom is just flipping out. I've known her family for like 30 plus years. Then when I called my mom to tell her the news as she knows them too, she was extremely depressed and sounded suicidal (which she gets on occasion from clinical depression). And my friend's nephew here in the city actually did commit suicide last week and I've been upset about that too. Also, on a better note my brother and his new wife of one year is coming down from Wisconsin so we can meet her and they're bringing his 2 teenage girls for a pool party and to sightsee around Chicago, which will be very fun as the weather seems it will hold up like low 80s and partly sunny. All this makes doing music a challenge to put it mildly. Problem is, I need to figure out how to add vocals to my m3 song which is basically finished except for the actual singing, i have lyrics finished. I'm having trouble getting the studio to trigger the m3 to play so I can sing along with the m3 while recording a sync'd vocal on the audio tracks on the studio, the m3 gets in a wait mode when i set the clock to external, but the studio doesn't seem to be sending any understandable signal to the m3, i have midi out on the studio to midi in on the m3. Anyway, I'm thinking it might be easier to simply use the in track sampling for the voice as I have probly enough memory to get thru it, if not I could do it in a few separate takes or something. Anyway, sorry for the blob of text here, but I am just a mess right now and I have to get the house ready for overnight guests. I believe in prayer though and will be taking out some considerable time for that and try not to worry about the stuff I can't control, but to be there for people suffering more than I am, as I really don't have any of the personal problems I'm seeing around me, and I need to be really grateful for my own good health. Hope you're doing well, I'm glad you're so busy with projects. Hey let's do a follow up contract after osam where we can continue our progress that wasn't finished by the end of osam. Like OSAM the wrap-up or something.

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:54 pm

Sorry to hear about the bad stuff there George.

Good to see you have a positive outlook as well as outlets to help you cope. I too feel that way about prayer and look there for guidance.

OSAM the wrapup seems like a great idea. It would have to be short and sweet (like a few months) to get the unfinished ideas pulled together without losing momentum.

Sorry to hear about the MIDI troubles. If I can squeeze a few moments to pull together how I have done it in the past, that might help.

Take care man,

Jon (with NO H)

georgeinar · Post by **georgeinar** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:06 pm

It seems as if I need to somehow create an exact song framework on the TS, like 97 measures at 90 bpm which is my m3 song, as the m3 when in wait mode shows the bpm and resolution to be -----, meaning its waiting for the signal of the master to dictate the bpm etc for the slave. but when i record just some garbage into a midi track on the m3 and then try to start sync both boards, there doesn't seem to be any start signal coming in there, i don't even need to mix both keybs as i can simply listen to my own voice as i monitor the m3 as all the music is on the m3. if this is a mess to do right now i may just try and use the sampler, i'm sure i could get that to work, but the 2 together would be rather awesome

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:13 pm

Wow...George!
Best wishes for all those around you, that are dealing with bad situations right now.
I'm sending my best "vibes" your way so please pass 'em on.

All is well in my little corner of the universe, but like Jon, I have some unfinished business musically speaking.

The biggest news there, is that I was forced to retire the KARMA from live performance, some of the buttons don't react well anymore, and I was holding things up as far as getting to the next song quickly while performing.
The good news, is that by spending a couple of days intently setting up keyboard splits on the TR, I have one less item to carry around, and am completely satisfied with how things turned out sound wise.
Plus, I learned a thing or two about splitting the keyboard, and how handy that can be for gigging.

I've added the Vintage Expansion pack to my EZ Drummer program, had a little time to spend with that, and I think it's got a lot of very useable Drum patterns.

Finally, I found a CD that I picked up at a drum clinic, that features Russ Miller.
You've heard Russ play, he's been voted in the top five studio/touring drummers in the world, has played with a large number of top names in the music business, and of course he blew me away while demonstrating how good the Yamaha drums sounded, believe me, this guy could make any kit sound good.
Anyway I stuck the CD in, and while listening to the demonstrations, one of the patterns he was playing caught my hear, long story shortened, I've used it in a composition, found a very funky bass pattern to go with it, as well as a neat little funky guitar thing, and I'm very excited, since one, I get to do a song with Russ miller

, and two, the music bed is really to my liking.
However, I haven't been able to please myself with the lead guitar part yet, and I'm thinking that maybe..... I've gone over my own head here!

We'll see, hopefully it'll get done to my satisfaction, and if so I'll use it for next months OSAM.
Well....that's just about enough of me for for today!

Regards,

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:46 pm

Stephen if you listen carefully you will find that I use Vintage Drums on many of my tracks. I don't use any of the patterns and I do process each sound separately (I divide the mixer to the maximum usable tracks) which makes for a greater variety of sound.

For my live performances all of my boards have splits. A lot of what we do requires many simultaneous sounds or quick switches that a footpedal could not accomplish. Splits saved my life on that. Glad you got it worked out. You will find the possibilities extraordinary!

Will check in later.

Jon

DrWho · Post by **DrWho** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:37 am

Ohh man! George - your getting hammered in external events!! Best wishes for weathering it out!

Good luck w/getting the M3 and TS to play together nicely in the midid world. I gave up - at least for now. Why don't you just record your audio directly into a track in your PC? Why even bother with the TS - maybe for efx? Even still, maybe forget the fancy synching.

EZ Drummer - keyboard splits - hmmm ....

I have a few unfinished tunes, and have started Aug. tune. I was out ALL last week for training, and was out all last weekend - so no music got worked on.

georgeinar · Post by **georgeinar** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:27 pm

ok, what's the best way to simply record to the pc. i know audacity can record, but someone said you can't just plug a mic into the pc and expect decent results, i have soundforge, does that do it? problem is i need to sync the singing to the music track and i could see singing along in audacity

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:28 pm

Transfer your audio instrument track into Audacity, or Soundforge, if you have version 9, (multitrack version),as an MP3, or wave file, then sing along, so it's in sync, then you can add effects to the vocal track as you like once it's recorded.
Can't you add wave files into the TS?
If so you could add your effects there, but Audacity can do that also, just go to Hitsquad .com, and find some nice free reverbs, and compressors, etc.

I haven't used Audacity, I use Sonar, and it's a breeze, so I'm assuming Audacity can do this, I just don't know what kind of effects it has, or if it's able to use, vst type stuff.

I sure wish you had chosen Sonar, I could be much more helpful.
Good luck.

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:37 pm

Without going into a lot of detail-

Record your music track into Audacity to to a multitrack session (stereo track). You can do this through the normal means you use to get your music dropped to your computer.

Then plug your mic into your TS as normal and instead of arming your sequencer to record the track, just let the vocal pass through to the output. This way you don't need a mixer or expensive preamps since you have a nice one built into the TS. The output should go into your computer the normal way as mentioned above for your music track, into Audacity on another track.

If you are having latency issues, make sure the you are using the latest ASIO4ALL drivers for your soundcard.

If you need more, drop me a line.

Jon

georgeinar · Post by **georgeinar** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:05 am

Jonsolo, that may work. I will try that. Actually, what I just did this afternoon, is copy my sequence on the m3 to a new song file and replaced a minor track (sound effects) with a in-track sample so I can just sing into the mic and make a track that way. The one problem there is you can't insert measures or do much editing, but I don't do a whole lot of that anyway, and I do my vocals in single takes most of the time, if there's any real problem somewhere I will just record the chorus again as a separate sample or whatever part I screwed up and recombine the audio on the pc. I did a rough version of my sept song and now have it on mp3. Actually my voice sounds really good, thank god, and now I can focus on the lyrical quality, and the overall effect of the combined tune and listen to what is working and what needs work. But I may still try recording into the pc thru the ts, actually I could do it thru the m3 just as well, it is even superior in many ways. I would just have to figure out how to hook up everything. But for now the sampling is working ok.

DrWho · Post by **DrWho** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:53 am

George - how do you get your audio tracks to the PC from the M3 / TS?

georgeinar · Post by **georgeinar** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:39 am

Ok, the method now, is simply to take the completed song, go to sampling mode and auto-setup 2chanel mix to my usb stick, so I have all or some of the tracks recorded as a wav on my usb stick. Then I copy the song to a new location and use a track that I don't really need to hear as my new audio track and then I auto setup for intrack sampling and sing a mono sample to do the vocal part, then I solo that track and do another 2channel mix to my usb, its just like 2channel mix to disk only its to the usb stick, this time i'm bringing in only the vocal. now i have 2 audio wav's. so i save "all" just to have it saved and I then yank out the usb and stick it into the front of my pc and copy the 2 wavs into a directory and then begin mixing and mastering

ellll · Post by **ellll** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:12 pm

Hey George,

Do Your best, friend...; Just wanted you to know..., you are on my mind...!!!

Will TRY...(

) to get caught up and posted soon...Sorry I have been absent...., but I am having some "What the H--- am I DOING..??" issues.....

I hope the best for you, George..

AS Always...Johnny...John...(ellll)

DrWho · Post by **DrWho** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:13 am

Hi George,

What a process - glad you got it to work. I always record my wavs directly on the pc.

Can't wait to hear ur next tune

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