I found another ribbon mic that is even cheaper than the Shinybox. Marking this for posterity.
EDIT: And another, even cheaper…. These mics are all basically the same mic, rebranded, but there is an interesting article on how to modify the ribbon mic which provides better sound, but makes the mic more fragile.
I’m starting to shift my thinking from getting good rhythm tracks (mission accomplished, apart from some light housecleaning type editing ahead of me) toward getting primo acoustic guitar tracks recorded for the Freakwitch album. I have a decent setup now in terms of recording, but one technique that has interested me for a long time is known as mid-side miking. It involves using 2 microphones, one of which has a cardioid (or omni) pickup pattern, the other of which must be a figure-8 pickup pattern. Sadly, none of my mics has a figure-8 pattern so this has remained elusive for me.
In addition, I’ve been intrigued by ribbon microphones, which have by all accounts a very natural sound, though they come with problems most notably that they are extremely fragile. Ribbon mics have been around for nearly 70 years and are definitely in the “vintage” (read: way too expensive) category. But recently, some manufacturers have begun to sell new units, though they are still probably out of my league cost wise. However, the import market has started to pick them up, and you can now get ribbon mics at reasonable prices.
Most interestingly, ribbon mics inherently have a figure-8 recording pattern, which means I could begin to experiment with Mid-Side miking as well. So I’m thinking about adding a ribbon mic to my mic collection. The one I’m interested in is made by a small company called ShinyBox, which has the added benefit of being slightly cheaper than the Nady, and probably of slightly better quality though they are essentially the same mic. Plus they have a cool name which helps.
So yeah, I have to decide if this is worth doing for the acoustic guitar tracks I’ll be recording soon. Hmmm…..
Yes, this is a joke:
Math teacher arrested
Associated PressAt New York’s Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math’s instruction.
“Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,” Gonzales said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns’, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘there are 3 sides to every triangle’.”
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math’s instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”
Well, the great Freakwitch recording marathon went well. There are now LOTS of tracks on the hard drive that I have to listen to. There are between 1 and 6 takes each saved of 18 different songs.
Coming into the weekend I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go. My guess was that it would take us Thursday to warm up, Friday to start getting good takes, and Saturday would be spent making sure we had everything we needed. That pattern was kinda right, except condense Friday and Saturday into the last 2 sets played saturday night. Thursday, Friday, and the first half of Saturday were spent warming up. After all, we haven’t played together much over the past month or two.
But, we stepped up when it counted. Time will tell, the recording marathon now morphs into a listening and editing marathon, so I can make sure I have solid, groovy drum and bass tracks for each song. Once that’s done, I get to start overdubbing guitars.
And that’s when the REAL fun begins….
But for now, I must sleep. It’s amazing how draining it is to focus one’s attention on the same thing for 3 days straight.
I’ve revised and added to my notes from the talk the other night. The resulting document is called On Pagan Activism and is available in my writings section.
I’m writing this from the desktop machine. Why? Because my laptop is currently booted into Windows, doing a software flash rom update on my guitar.
Huh? A software update on a guitar? Since when…
This is gonna be fun. Look at the videos on that page…
Last night my fever hit 101.2 and I resorted to Ibuprofen. It broke within the hour, and hasn’t come back yet. I’m feeling gradually better. This seems to have been a reasonably mild one, though I still have a ways to go.
The panel discussion was today. It seemed to go well. I was pleased that pagans were well represented on the panel, there were 2 of us (my wife and I), along with a christian, a buddhist, and a jew. The talk that I gave is in my writings section if anyone is interested.
But, I’m not feeling well, I just took my temperature and it is 100.2. So I think I’m going to rest now. Better now than Thursday, when The Mother Of All Freakwitch Recording Sessions begins….
So the trade is complete, my balance is paid off, I have the Pod XT Live in my possession (along with a case for it, and the special Variax digital guitar cable), and my Variax 300 (black) guitar is on its way to my local music shop. It’s a done deal, I just have to wait for shipping. The guitar should arrive sometime this week, hopefully in time for our mammoth recording session beginning on Thursday.
This guitar is the budget model, and it is available only in the somewhat plain and spartan black or red finish. Kinda ugly, not really my style. The selling point for the guitar, clearly, is the electronics which are state-of-the-art and allow for a huge variety of sound. I had hoped to get the natural finish model 700, but it’s cost-prohibitive for me at this point, especially given that the electronics inside are identical to the cheaper model.
Well, I just found out that Warmoth, a company that makes replacement electric guitar parts, is now making replacement parts for the Variax series. I’ve played warmoth necks before, and they are fantastic. Plus, I could get an unfinished guitar body and give it a clear finish myself.
Bottom line, if I find the cheaper Variax guitar to be unacceptable, I can upgrade it significantly for much less than the cost of the top of the line Variax model.
It was recently pointed out to me that this space has become little more than a log of my acoustics research and experimentation recently. And while the audiogeek in me continues to insist just how endlessly fascinating this topic remains (pffth!), I am aware that it represents a significant departure from the normal content of this channel.
It seems I am boring my readers. Both of them. ;-)
Ah well. I can justify it because this blog is supposed to be a virtual representation of what’s on my mind, and it is quite true that acoustics have commanded much of my hyperfocused attention as of late; indeed I have consciously resisted being distracted from this subject in the interest of moving Freakwitch forward as skillfully and rapidly as possible.
But, life goes on. Other things have been happening, I just haven’t written much about it. One interesting thing, I was invited to speak in a panel discussion this coming Monday, April 10:
“Spiritual Warriors,” featuring speakers from different religious denominations, 4-6 p.m., Woodbury Campus Center Amphitheater, Portland, free and open to the public, 228-8235.
So, come out if you can. I’m not sure what to expect, though it’s quite interesting to me that this panel addresses a topic that’s been on my mind for several months, namely the intersection of spirituality and politics.
In particular, I plan to talk about what it means, historically and metaphysically, to be a pagan, and why all pagans are activists whether they realize it or not.
