spellchecker

Well, I think it would be a great idea to get a couple of bands to be some test subjects for you, so that you can iron out any difficulties you are likely to encounter from working on location. the price would reflect the sound quality, which is why i think it would be good to ask some bands to be test subjects, for a very special introductory deal/price. if the demo quality turns out to be great, and apart from the sort of quality some of the local studios are doing, then i think you should charge a day rate, or a half day rate. it's up to you, but if it was me doing it, i wouldn't charge a fixed price for two songs, as you could end up with some super sloppy band that doesn't take recording seriously and will eat up all of your time. while a day rate can seem a little more expensive to some people, it does usually ensure that bands are much tighter so that less time is wasted when recording.

i think the reason tryptych saw many new faces was because it advertised to many new faces. for example, my brother and more importantly my sister-in-law-to-be got sent a tryptych thing through the post (don't know why or how). they didn't actually go to any of the events because they didn't have the money, but at least they were talking about it - they would have probably chosen to see roots manuva. so the point is maybe that local music events need a lot of fresh blood, and/or new methods of advertising? neither my brother or his fiance would ever go down to the tunnels or snafu to see a gig unless i dragged them along, yet they would have gone to tryptych had it not been for the cost? i think the shift events have the great potential to bring in this new blood, because of their different approach, venue style and atmosphere. hardly something to complain about, but there sheer fact that there are so many gigs worth going to is at times a deterrent. at the moment i'm very much choosing "gig of the week" to go to, because i've no cash, and i find it hard to go to a gig and not have beers.

sounds like stripey to me. steve, i heard this and for some reason thought you might like some of it. http://magnatune.com/artists/wretch check out also the guys website http://www.endmusik.com/ he does loads of different kinds of music

hmm, found this http://magnatune.com/artists/music/Rock/Ammonite/Reconnection/ you can stream the whole album, heard about 3 tracks so far, sounds really good. aberdeen's full of hidden little treasures. is that what will be played at the gig or will this be something / someone else?

the downloads don't appear to work for me. was everyone else streaming them? i tried this last night as well, and it didn't work then either:

http://cdexos.sf.net it's free (legally!)

some of my favourites are pulp fiction, mulholland drive and the crow.

well, i just put a bet on for the conservatives to win. so if the worst comes to the worst, at least i'll have enough money to get totally wasted. and on the flip side, paying three quid for the conservatives to lose seems a great deal to me.

not entirely related, but a tool i use a lot when fixing friends and relatives computers is HijackThis: http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ Gets rid of loads of spyware, but you run it as a one-off, it's not like a taskbar app. gets rid of all those annoying toolbars, .ocx's and stuff that fluff up your windows computer.

martyr

wow, painstaking! that's why i suggested the soundfont, because then you can use a program like cubasis or cubase or cakewalk (i think) to plot the notes in the midi sequencer, and the soundfont will do the rest.

You should be fine, the cd will simply contain the wav file samples that you can do as you please with. Remember to copy the ones you want to the computer. You may have to set them read/write because they typically copy from CDs with their read-only attribute selected. It's easy to do, by right-clicking on the file and choosing Properties, then unticking the "Read-only" tick box. Other than that, you should be able to import them straight into Cool Edit, or any audio software for that matter. ahah, but looking at the cd i can see that you probably DO want to use these with a sequencer. do you have a MIDI keyboard that you'd like to use these samples with? ideally you would be better looking for some sort of mellotron VST or soundfont to use, as from the looks of this page, you are getting a sample for each note of the mellotron, is that correct? in which case you'd either need a hardware sequencer to load this stuff into, or a software one that you'll have to load up manually with these samples. perhaps the CD has some instructions, i've never done something like this before. edit: e.g. something like this mellotron soundfont from sonic implants: http://www.sonicimplants.com/ProductDetail.asp?Item=MellotronVintage

i think there's definitely a space in the market place for some young guns to start a new studio. 2 or 3 of people in aberdeen i know thought about doing this a couple of years back. i've still yet to hear a really good drum sound come out of aberdeen, it's always what gives away local band stuff to my ears, and that's what i think would make a studio stand out from the crowd! maybe i'm just thinking rock market here. perhaps there's just not enough bands wanting to record in aberdeen to make it worthwhile.

hah, well, considering i'm able to do about 1.5 times as much with the same processing power than i could in windows, i'm not complaining. i am generally moving more to hardware from VSTs these days anyway, e.g. instead of amplitube i use my line6 pod pro rack, and the LADSPA reverb and stereo echo delays are amazing, they are just a total bitch to use at first, and have no default settings. it's a martyr's life, but it works for me. i have always used drum machines for recording, whether hardware or software, and that is why i'll never go back to windows, because the drum machine software on linux is so amazing. the synth software is amazing too - no nasty hard edged saw sounds (though you can create them), beautiful effect laden synth noises that sound like they come from a virus-c or something! at the end of the day, all the software is free, easy to get hold of, and updated regularly.

yeah i'd want it in hardware, there's nothing like twiddling nobs with two hands whilst loops are playing in the background. also, i'm not sure if ardour handles VST2.3, i've certainly had trouble trying to get the autotune VST to work so far. i think the midi implementation is a bit shaky on the filterbank, it can have some settings restored (i.e. written to it over midi), but certainly not all of the settings. getting more VSTs means having to get more CPU power anyway, so either way money would be flying out the window

they are used by loads of people, from william orbit through to nine inch nails to the chemical brothers. you can get some amazing gain out of them, really transform sounds with them. unfortunately they cost around 500 squid new, though i've seen them go on ebay for just over 350 (though not very often). supposed to be great for livening up synths and guitars, but can be used for anything that you want to really mangle. i spend a lot of my time putting the nord through my line6 to warm it up, add stereo delays, etc., but sometimes it just doesn't seem enough. it needs uber gain.

There's also SAE in glasgow, sort of near kinning park http://www.sae.edu

does anyone have one, or has anyone any personal experience of using one?