Hola friends-
I have posted some of my latest 4 track dabblings. Why? Because it is bturnip.com, thats why, and if I can’t get my music published here, where the hell else can I find fame and fortune?
The clips are all pretty rough- these are warts-and-all offerings. I have figured out how to combine multiple tracks, but that is the extent of my audio editing acumen. So clicks, pops, etc., are all intact.
Good stuff Dan. (Lost Highway link doesn’t work, btw, but I listened to the others) So what kind of equipment do you have these days? I guess a 4 track. I’ve always wanted to play with one. I hear there are some kick butt software tools out there too, but alas, I haven’t picked up a guitar in ages.
damn typo- fixed the lost highway link.
I don’t really have much equipment. I have an acoustic, an electric, and a relatively cheap, low-end digital 4 track machine. It writes out to Smartmedia flash memory, so I also have a USB Smartmedia reader. Very simple software comes with the 4 track to convert tracks in between the native file format and wav/aiff. The only other thing I use is software to convert wavs into mp3 format. Pretty crude, low end setup, really.
How much did the 4-track and USB Smartmedia cost you? (new or used)
I can’t remeber how much I paid for the recorder. I think retail is around $200 If I remember correctly, I bought it on sale for quite a bit less, maybe around $125-$150 at AL&M in Virginia. One of my former in-laws of mine works there, and I bought the 4-track, which is a Zoom MRS-4 on his recommendation as the best choice for entry level recording gear. Here are some decent and balanced reviews. I glanced through the first couple, and it seems that my experiences were about the same.
A 32mb Smartmedia card came included in the package. I can’t remember how much I paid for a Zio brand USB card reader/writer to interface with my PC. I did notice that Office Max had USB reader/writers on clearance for under $5. Fancy models that read a variety of different card types are $20 and under. In a burst of consumerism, I bought an additional 64mb smartcard. Again, I can’t remember how much I paid, but a quick price check shows a 64mb card runs around $20, with cards with capacity up to 512mb, with cost rising accordingly.
I forgot to mention that I mic my guitar amp. So to the gear inventory , add one smallish Peavy amp w/ reverb and a Shure mic. Not the legendary Shure PG57(~$100), but a less expensive model. I could run the guitar straight into the 4 track and use the built-in effects in place of the amp, but I haven’t tried it.
I think I have covered all the equipment. By no means a trivial investment, but still easily on the low end, cost wise.
It’s probably cheaper than I would have guessed, and low-end stuff is fine for what I would want to do. Your stuff sounds fine when I download it and it’s already been processed a few times by then.
Sounds like a fun thing to jack around with. I think if I ever tried to set myself up, after having got everything wire, I would sit down to record a session and stare blankly into space thinking, “Hmph. So what on earth should I play?”