Thursday, April 23, 2015

Silas - Possible Recording Set Tonight

Vandengroef will play from The Netherlands at 2pm SL time at Cat's Art MusikCircus.  I'll definitely be there for that show and may play a recording set after.  Cat and I talked about it a little while ago and she's ok with it.

Cat didn't think so much of the idea it's for her if it's not for her.  What I failed to make clear is the song was recorded somewhere between about 2002 and 2006 and the story in it is in the video, it's the freedom of sailing and what a beautiful place to do it.  That's what it said then but adding the lead guitar line and the intro are what it says now and specifically to Cat.  That's what I will record tonight.

Audio levels are crucial as the recording has to be immaculate.  There is zero distortion in it and none needs to be there.


The problem, if there is one, is that it's not a 'set' and I have one specific objective.  However, the CD is short about thirty minutes as I did some slashing.  There is no adequate recording of "I Love Rats" and that one has been an ongoing riot.  Since "Ride the Dragon" wants some hard rock, along with some exceptionally delicate stuff, "I Love Rats" needs to be on it.

Something that may just be for video is to play the guitar and the synth at the same time.  If hammer down on notes with your left hand, that will keep the guitar alive.  That frees your right hand to play the keyboard.  It's halfway between being a trick and being cool.  What I want is a lead duel with Ophir but he ain't here.  No possible chance of approaching his skills with my feeble skills and only using one hand but it may be worthwhile to try again to get a taste of that.  The drawback is that it trashes the one live recording of the song if it blows as there are no second takes.

It's great if you want to be there and, as I said yesterday, I'll send out notices to my group, I Love Rats, and also to Cat's Art MusikCircus but not elsewhere.  You're welcome to come for the vibe of it but sorry there's no way to record audience sound.

Uh oh, hold it on that.  If an avatar is capturing video from within Second Life, the audio from in-world is captured as well.  That includes gesture sounds, etc (i.e. applause).  I won't try this tonight as I don't have software licensed to do it but this approach should work.  The reason it would work is that audience sound would be in-sync with the audio from me.  It captures audio at the time they hear it rather than the time I play it which is about 20-30 seconds earlier.

Therefore, with one more avatar and $100 in software, this could be done.  That audio is merged back to the audio captured one my end and, presto, a Second Life live recording has audience participation.  There is no lie as it's a faithful recording of what really happened, the only question is the best way to record it.

Note:  if you try this you damn sure better make sure your audience knows the gestures / sounds as someone could heckle and ruin it.  Removing a solo heckler is easy but removing heckling from amid other sounds is probably close to impossible.

Best move is to fill the audience with ringers (i.e. known good guys) and then close the sim for the recording.  Doing this wouldn't just capture audience participation, it would invite it.  Note this can easily get way, way out of control.  People with noisemakers at a party can be fun ... or a blazing pain in the ass.

This stunt isn't for tonight but it needs to be tried at some time.

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