KVR Audio

loveless · Post by **loveless** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:33 pm

emdot, the recording process you described is how I started recording. Maybe a little less hi-tech! I had a cheap Yorx stereo and I'd record something awful into one deck...and then would mash the input and tape buttons together and record the input and the first deck onto the second. It sounded god awful, but provided endless hours of entertainment.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:37 pm

loveless wrote:emdot, the recording process you described is how I started recording. Maybe a little less hi-tech! I had a cheap Yorx stereo and I'd record something awful into one deck...and then would mash the input and tape buttons together and record the input and the first deck onto the second. It sounded god awful, but provided endless hours of entertainment.

Me too!!! From a Teac casette deck into my "ghetto blaster", round and round, over and over. My Realistic/Moog MG-1 had 2 RCA tape in's on the back so you could play along to music... so that was my mixer.

I actually looked for some of that stuff, but fortunately for everyone here I couldn't find any. I've played them for people, and when they hear the noise floor, they say "is that applause?".

loveless · Post by **loveless** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:40 pm

HA. The only wow those tapes ever got was from the tape itself.

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:10 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:...fortunately for everyone here I couldn't find any...

I have some very old tapes of stuff I did in college with a "party band" called Art Gower & The Slug Patrol. We'd get together at someone's apartment and everyone would bring something to make noise with. Then we'd party. We'd jam a little (very little), then start a cassette deck recording, often one with a built-in crappy mic, and record the results. Then we'd party more. There were a few jems in there (Little Kittens On Acid, for example), but most of it's horrible crap. I think I'll spare you all.

jens · Post by **jens** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:25 pm

when I wrote my first song the grammophone had not been invented yet so sadly I don't have a recording of it...

runagate · Post by **runagate** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:31 pm

emdot_ambient wrote:
AdmiralQuality wrote:...fortunately for everyone here I couldn't find any...
I have some very old tapes of stuff I did in college with a "party band" called Art Gower & The Slug Patrol. We'd get together at someone's apartment and everyone would bring something to make noise with. Then we'd party. We'd jam a little (very little), then start a cassette deck recording, often one with a built-in crappy mic, and record the results. Then we'd party more. There were a few jems in there (Little Kittens On Acid, for example), but most of it's horrible crap. I think I'll spare you all.

Little Kittens On Acid!!!
Little Kittens On Acid!!!
I want to hear it!

EkleipSiS · Post by **EkleipSiS** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:50 pm

Like said before its a very interesting thread:)
but a lot of you seemed to have some experience before the song posted;)

God i have to get myself a tape cassette...i have some very old tunes...but believe me its like the worst of the bunch...i was 13 (now 32) and had a radio shack keyboard,i could record 4 tracks on it,all live(no midi,no seq) so i had to play the drums live...loll
its very very crappy but at least i seemed to find some melodies easily...

I must get a tape cassette...

runagate · Post by **runagate** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:58 pm

runagate wrote: Little Kittens On Acid!!!
Little Kittens On Acid!!!
I want to hear it!

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:08 pm

jens wrote:when I wrote my first song the grammophone had not been invented yet so sadly I don't have a recording of it...

Hahah. My grandfather always used to say: "I'd like to look at pornography, but I don't own a pornograph!"

OK kids, this is kind of cheating, but I'm posting my 2nd and 3rd 4 track efforts as well.

http://www.admiralquality.com/mp3/AQs2nd4Track.mp3
http://www.admiralquality.com/mp3/MomoA ... 4Track.mp3

The first one I did the next night, after receiving my X-mas 4-track gift... so Dec 26, 1985. It's all JX-3P and TR-606 again, with a lot of help coming from the EQ, spring reverb and intentional overdriving of my Traynor PA's mixer, as well as a lot of tape saturation. I think my working title at the time was "Beatlesque", and it is. Was doing my best to fake guitars with the '3P. Listening to it now, it's actually not a bad little tune... just needs a bridge. I used that catchy chorus again in a couple of later songs as well.

The 2nd one is from a few weeks (or maybe even days) later, Jan '86, when I got back to university and got together with my synth buddy and original musical "partner", Momo

, and we made our first 4 track with our combined gear. Before that our recordings had just been through the air, recording our jams into my "ghetto blaster". Anyway, this one is VERY 80's (Hey AQ... Phil Collins called and says wants his chord progressions back!

). The gear we used was:

- Both my TR-606 drum machine as well as Momo's Korg DDS-1 (I think that was the name, can't find it on vintagesynth.com... anyway, crappy 8 bit samples) playing in sync and panned left/right. And again, no MIDI on them, this was sync with a trigger output!

- Opening arpeggios I THINK from Momo's Korg Poly-61 (either that or maybe his Mono-Poly) also synced to the drums! (EDIT: Oops! Almost forgot, the echo is an Electro Harmonics ANALOG bucket-brigade delay pedal. Another piece of gear we hated at the time that I would KILL to have back now.)

- Lots of my JX-3P and Momo's Juno-106 (particularly that bass sound at the end, using the Juno's distinctive, phased out, unison mode.)

- More Traynor spring reverb, we HATED spring reverb and were so happy the next summer when we rented an Alesis Microverb, then later in that summer I got a Yamaha SPX-90. But now I REALLY love spring reverb. Funny how you don't appreciate some of the good stuff at the time.

All this gear laid out on my bed in my residence room with us in chairs in front of it, headphones on. No wonder people thought we were geeks! Incidentally, I was SUCH a synth geek while living in residence that my nickname was Wave (we all were issued nicknames in the first week, Animal House style) because I wouldn't shut up about waveforms, etc. Seriously, EVERYONE at the university knew me by that name... and I still turn my head if someone shouts "Wayne" or "Wade". Heh! (The AQ name first appeared about a decade later, my stage name when I played in some unknown Toronto sub-indy rock bands.)

I met Momo on my first day in residence. Was playing my JX-3P for people, and this big, blond, jovial fellow (and probably drunk, we all were constantly that first week) bursts into my dorm room and says, "Alright, who's got the synthesizer?", and promptly pushes me out of the way, and starts playing it!

We then exchanged tapes (the same one of 2 track bounced music that I already mentioned! And he had one TOO! And was carrying it ON HIM!

) and we've been best buddies ever since.

Momo and I went on to produce something like 30+ songs together, before I went off to school in Toronto, a couple years later.

OH! One more funny residence story... at the end of song 2, you'll hear some guy come on and start singing "Happy Birthday to you... ASSHOLE!..." That was my roommate in first year of residence (we were plunked together with no choice) and he was obviously pissed at me for something (believe me, whatever it was was HIS fault

). So he attempted to ruin my song by doing that! I erased over most of it, but when I remastered these a few years back I intentionally left it in! It also helps me date this recording, as he apparently overwrote it on my birthday, which is end of January. So Momo and I must have done this immediately on my getting back from Christmas break with the new 4 track! (After 20 years, even memories of your own life become pretty blurry... not to mention that most memories from that period probably STARTED blurry.

As Chef says: "Children... there is a time and a place for everything, and that place is COLLEGE!"

)

runagate · Post by **runagate** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:12 pm

ROFL! HAHAHAHAHA!

loveless · Post by **loveless** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:16 pm

Admiral, awesome!

Borogove · Post by **Borogove** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:26 pm

Here's mine: Failure Mode - Impulsive, done around 1990, using a Roland U-20 keyboard and Bars And Pipes sequencing software for the Amiga, recorded to a consumer cassette tape deck.

The drum track is 10 variations on a single pattern, sequenced according to the roll of a 10-sided die. While the patterns were composed and auditioned on an Alesis HR-16 drum machine, the final version is played on the U-20, as I had no mixer. (Thank heaven for multitimbral synths, eh?)

All things considered, I'm pretty proud of the track.

My second track, Resignation, was composed in similar fashion. Both tracks feature my discovery that you can't hit a wrong note if you stick to the black keys only.

runagate · Post by **runagate** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:31 pm

Admiral... I listened to em about 8 times each.
They're cute! Perhaps not what you were going for,
but they make happy scenarios in my ear

Thanks for posting those up, though I note that there's no acid kittens yet

Salwa2 · Post by **Salwa2** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:43 pm

Here is one of my early songs.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... 434C6592EC

I'll be gentle to your stomaches and say nothing about my gear from this time (10 years ago or something). Well, mayby only this - I didn't have regular mic so i was using one from old telephone. Anyway - this song make me feel nostalgic and remind me time, when i was actually writing songs (not only buying gear). I was sooo proud of it... Luckily, you didn't understand lyrics...

Ahlyn · Post by **Ahlyn** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 7:49 pm

@ Ildon,

Sounds more like it.. haha, two edits. You've been busy trying to dig up your composing history.

It's great to know so much about you.

@ Admiral,

Nice first tracks! Good story behind them too.

The thread to post the first song you ever made!!