So I have been pondering getting a computer recording setup. Maybe firewire for my Mac… I was prepared to burn a couple hundred dollars, but I had a stroke of brilliance last night on my way home from work last night…
I went over to Radio Shack and purchased one of these: 1/4" Mono Jack to 1/8" Mono Plug Adapter
So the moment of truth was when I got home, and plugged my bass directly into the 1/8” microphone jack on the back of my laptop. Mind you, my basses are all passive with no electronics… I turned up the sound, launched Garageband, and voila’. Sound!!! The sound wasn’t half bad, and there was no latency that I noticed, and I was able to use all of the effects that Garageband has… Pretty cool. The only noticeable problem is that if I am playing too close to my computer, I can hear an electrical hum in my headphones, but that’s about it… This weekend, I’ll try adding my boost pedal into the mix to get a stronger signal, but I’m overall happy with my discovery and decision… Now I can start recording stuff on my own time just for kicks…
Now, my next question is does anybody read this silly blog???
Friday, January 9, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Realizations for 2009
Hope you all had a Happy Holiday Season, and a very Happy New Year!
So for 2009, I have made a resolution not to make any new year resolutions, for fear of breaking them in the near future out of laziness or forgetfulness…
Sometime late last year, or early this year, I read a blog entry from Bay Area bassist Jeff Schmidt on his Myspace page called: Not sucking Donkey Balls Isn’t enough for success. It includes a video of Malcolm Gladwell interviewed by Charlie Rose. Basically the gist of it is that in order to master something you need to do it for about 10,000 hours under the right circumstances… Watch the video and you’ll understand…
Also, last year, I was pondering selling my bass rig in order to get something smaller and less cumbersome to move around, and to get some cash back… Well that sort of happened, but not really… I ended up selling most of my pedals that I don’t use… So I’m left with the following:
Barber Electronics Launch Pad Boost Pedal (my preamp)
QSC PLX 1804 (power amp)
Dr. Bass 1580 (speaker cabinet)
Let me preface this by saying that my band Har Ik Zehr played a show on December 26th for some sort of Paki Cultural/Political Event in Long Island City, Queens… We had to bring all of our equipment, etc… We were promised a 30 minute set, but were cut off after not even the end of our 2nd song… Anyways, we as a band decided that this show never existed… But I came to the realization, that my amplification set-up is fine, it sounds good, it’s a little bigger than I’d like, but it sounds great, and is loud enough for most venues…
Also, to go off on another tangent, I had dinner with Yves Carbonne and his wife last night in NYC… It was so nice to actually meet him in person, and to see how passionate he is about music…
So anyways, more about Yves later… But I’ve come to realize that more gear, even better gear doesn’t make you a better player or musician… More life, more practice, and finding yourself and your own musical voice/style make you a better musician… So, to make a long story short, I better get on with those 10,000 hours of practice…
So for 2009, I have made a resolution not to make any new year resolutions, for fear of breaking them in the near future out of laziness or forgetfulness…
Sometime late last year, or early this year, I read a blog entry from Bay Area bassist Jeff Schmidt on his Myspace page called: Not sucking Donkey Balls Isn’t enough for success. It includes a video of Malcolm Gladwell interviewed by Charlie Rose. Basically the gist of it is that in order to master something you need to do it for about 10,000 hours under the right circumstances… Watch the video and you’ll understand…
Also, last year, I was pondering selling my bass rig in order to get something smaller and less cumbersome to move around, and to get some cash back… Well that sort of happened, but not really… I ended up selling most of my pedals that I don’t use… So I’m left with the following:
Barber Electronics Launch Pad Boost Pedal (my preamp)
QSC PLX 1804 (power amp)
Dr. Bass 1580 (speaker cabinet)
Let me preface this by saying that my band Har Ik Zehr played a show on December 26th for some sort of Paki Cultural/Political Event in Long Island City, Queens… We had to bring all of our equipment, etc… We were promised a 30 minute set, but were cut off after not even the end of our 2nd song… Anyways, we as a band decided that this show never existed… But I came to the realization, that my amplification set-up is fine, it sounds good, it’s a little bigger than I’d like, but it sounds great, and is loud enough for most venues…
Also, to go off on another tangent, I had dinner with Yves Carbonne and his wife last night in NYC… It was so nice to actually meet him in person, and to see how passionate he is about music…
So anyways, more about Yves later… But I’ve come to realize that more gear, even better gear doesn’t make you a better player or musician… More life, more practice, and finding yourself and your own musical voice/style make you a better musician… So, to make a long story short, I better get on with those 10,000 hours of practice…
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