Posts tagged with “geek”
Musical setup
Posted at 4:49 PM
I’m currently playing with my new FireOne, which means that finally I can actually use Logic, software I’ve been wanting to get to grips with for years now. The stuff I’m playing around with isn’t exactly relevant to my degree currently, but will be next year.
For the sake of Google, and anyone else who might be interested (feel free to skip if this really isn’t your thing), I’m using the following equipment:
- MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
- LaCie 250GB Firewire external hard drive
- Dell 20 inch LCD monitor
- Tascam FireOne audio/MIDI interface
- Logic Studio (including Logic Pro 8)
I’m also looking to buy a condenser microphone in the near future – probably a Røde NT-2A, which seems to be able to lend its hand to all sorts of things.
Hopefully the musical fruits of this setup will be forthcoming; first, though, I’ve got an exam to do and a piece of coursework to finish (involving vocoders, singing backwards, and possibly a Wiimote).
Reading the manual
Posted at 10:45 PM
Thought it was probably time for something slightly less serious. I’ve recently been reading my way through the manual for Logic Pro. Yes, this doesn’t sound like the most interesting thing to be doing, or indeed the best way to learn how to use the program. The idea behind it is that this way I get to figure out exactly what Logic can do (as a newcomer to the program, I don’t know the extent of its features), so that when I’m using it and want to figure out how to do it, I know it’s possible and even where to look for help. So far, it’s been very useful. Occasionally, though, you get little comic interludes in the text which help lighten things up.
In the section on time-stretching:
You can make an audio region play at half-speed by stretching it to twice the original length, or at double-speed by shortening it to half the original length. Great for Darth Vader or Munchkin impressions.
In the project management chapter:
If you have made some really serious blunders (as unlikely as that may be), or you decide that in the 15 minutes since you last saved, your creative efforts have resulted in material too unpleasant to describe politely, you may find the Revert to Saved function very helpful.
Talking of the problems with having only one MIDI output:
Each MIDI tone generator will play the incoming data with the sound assigned to channel 1, which may be:
- Bagpipes on module 1
- A drumkit on module 2
- A helicopter effect on module 3 and so on
While this would be colorful, it would hardly be musical, unless your tastes lean towards the avante-garde.
Almost as good as the stuff you get reading a dictionary, and it takes a lot less time. (Third of the way through now!)
(Okay, maybe I’ve just got a music tech geek’s sense of humour…)