IN NEED OF A NEW CAMERA

And I think I have found one.

If you have noticed that all my images on the blog are from my childhood, this is because I don't have a working camera or even a smartphone. So in hopes of fixing my current camera, last weekend we went by Wolf Camera for someone to look at my digital camera. The lens is stuck out and it won't power on.. what I figured and from what the guy told me is that it will prob cost about as much to fix it as get a new one. This is the perfect time to finally upgrade to a quality camera and after researching I have decided on a Nikon D40. It is rated fairly well and for the price it is a very good deal. I found a package with an extra lens for under $600. Now all I have to do is pay off my credit card (which will take about a month) so I can charge this new toy. Finally I will be able to take photos of my crap like paintings, music equipment, etc to get my blog more up to date.

Now about new music. I wrote/recorded a rough version of a new song I wrote last night. I badly want to record my collection of acoustic songs I have wrote over the past couple years and I would like to record these serious tracks at good quality. Now most of the time I use the MR-8 and it is decent, but I do have a M-Audio box which allows me to record straight to the computer. I am lacking the software I need to make the quality recordings that I truly want. I could use Garageband.. but I know there are better programs out there and getting a hold of Pro Tools (M-Audio version) or Apple Logic is becoming a diff task. I used to have a working Logic, but I recently noticed it does not start-up anymore.

So time and software are keeping me from updating my blog with new music more often. I also need to knock out the recording from Denton, which I really hope I can do this weekend. The tracks sound great through headphones or my amp, but I am not very pleased with the volume of the recordings.. but I will try my hardest to get what I can out of the MR-8.

In the meantime, enjoy two of my top tracks from the psych-pop sounds of Woods tour only cassette 'Some Shame'. I am getting excited that they will be in town on the 22nd at The Loft.

Woods - Born to Lose
Woods - Military Madness

POOL HOUSE

About a month ago, I recorded four songs on the MR-8 outside on my back patio. Each song consist of about four tracks that I recorded one after the other playing along with the last ones recorded and all of them were made up on the spot.

I finally got to work on two of them last night.. the other two were recorded at too low of a volume to hear good enough. Now bear with me, I am learning how to use the MR-8 better and now I know that the tracks need to recorded at a higher level instead of just adjusting the volume on the output. The tracks are full of crickets chirping and ambiance that makes it hard to hear my playing.. so from now on I prob do more recording indoors.

You prob will have to turn up your volume a bit to hear these at the level they are meant to be listened at.

Enjoy Pool House (Click to DL)
Personal Favorite: Pool House

P.S. Tuesday I got my new toy, the Boss SP-303 Sampler, but have yet to play with it very much.. trying to finish up other stuff, like my current recordings before I can move on to learn how to use the sampler.

TRACK A (EARLY VERSION)

Now this is my first time mastering a track and pulling it off of the MR8, so you prob will have to turn up your volume to hear the track well.. but beside that it is a pretty good interpretation of how the Denton recordings went. The track needs to be remastered to find a better volume level and also the recording jumps right into the middle of a song, so prob will fade it in.

The tracks were randomly titled with letters, mainly because the MR8 is slow to type tracks names (think old school texting). There are 5 other tracks that need to be mastered and they range anywhere from 2 minutes to over 10 minutes. After listening to all the tracks today and messing with effects on most of them.. I have an idea of what effects I will be adding and that a lot of the tracks will be split up in parts based on the different songs played within them. I am hoping to get to work on these tracks within the next couple weeks.

ENJOY (Click to download)

Charles if you are able to get this blog to your roommate, Tori, I could put up some pictures from last Monday to go along with the tracks.

HERE COMES THE ARK

I thought I had everything AC, until a couple months ago when I discovered 'Ark'.. which is an early recording of 'Here Comes the Indian'. Ark was very hard to track down and I had to do some name switching, by listening to both albums to get the track order correct. I enjoy listening to these two back to back.. there are new tracks and repeat tracks from HCTI but in a different order. HCTI was another AC album that took a long time to grow on me, but I def have grown to love.


Another discovery about AC that I found at Wikipedia, was how on 'Feels' they tuned their instruments to an out-of tune piano:

"All the songs on feels are tuned to our friends piano which was out of tune to begin with. Dave and I made loops from recordings of him playing her piano and we used those loops in the early songwriting process for feels. So since those loops are premade and can't be tuned, the guitars have to be tuned to the loops. it's not out of tune in any tradional whole step/half step kind of way...we're talking microtonally out of tune after years of not being professionally tuned and subtle natural detuning. Kind of like if you played guitar in standard tuning for years but never once re-tuned it to make sure it was right. It would have it's own unique out-of-tune tuning based on what strings you played most often, how hard you played it, the temperature in the room, the humidity, etc... When we went into the studio it ruled over everything we did. Even doctess's live piano playing required us bringing in a professional piano tuner, playing him a minidisc recording of our friend's out of tune piano, and having him try to de-tune the studio's piano in exactly the same way our friend's was. Without those recordings or the loops dave and i made, you wouldn't be able to get it exact unless you tune to the album while it's playing, and even then, you'd have to know which loop in the album we use to tune, which one chord it is, and because of the way we mixed the loop in, it is almost impossible to separate from dave's guitar. I'll never forget when the tuner finished (we had to wait to start recording until he finished) and he stood up from the bench and went 'there you go, the piano's perfectly out of tune.'"

PLANS WENT BETTER THAN PLANNED

While I was in Denton, I tried really hard to watch my ebay bids. even tho his laptop was floating around, even tho I had one too many, I was lucky enough to barely win a used Boss Dr. Sampler SP-303 Drum Machine.. kept typing o's instead of zeroes on Charles' unfamiliar keyboard. This is another piece of equipment for me to add to my collection of recording gear, along with my Fostex MR-8 (8-Track recorder with effects) and laptop if needed (which I prefer not to use too much).

Tonight I was working on transferring some songs that were recorded in Denton this past Monday night and I will have them uploaded shortly.. took fooooorever trying to figure out how to bounce tracks/transfer to my mac/convert/move from the MR-8 to laptop.

Lots of ppl were involved in the recording so as soon as I post the track, I hope to get this site out to get the songs out to whoever want to listen to them. I will post more tracks as fast as I can pull them off the MR-8. The explanation of the state of the recordings: they are not anything close to perfect.. the mic which I had sitting on the floor in the middle of Charles' living area, picked up all conversations and all melodies happening at once. I can't adjust the levels because it was recorded on one mic, on one track. And I had probs with flash cards so most tracks jump right into the middle of playing and can cut off abruptly. It has a great living-room recording feel and to help control the voices, I added reverb, so they would become more of an ambiance.

I finally upgraded my digital recorder for a better one with a usb hookup!! So I can transfer files.. hopefully I can find a way to use this with the new sampler!

RADIO SHACK, HOW ARE YOU STILL OPEN?

Oh yeah.. people like me.

Today While Kristin and Evelyn were shopping I ventured over to good ole' Radio Shack and threw down more money than I intended. I ended up buying a 1 inch mono cable for my effects pedals, extension hand to my microphone stand, $30 Olympus digital recorder (512 kb), a $10 dollar mic for the recorder and an extension cord for my good mic. After one day of having at it with the recorder I figured out that it is not meant for me. First off, I was given the impression that I would be able to transfer the recordings to my mac.. but that is not the case so gotta return it and get something fitting. So I will do my research and purchase something that suits me better. Might try to do some research tonight and return the recorder tomorrow and exchange it for a new one of my liking. Anyhow, went to my sister 30th birthday bash today and she seemed to have a great time, lots of ppl there. So onward I go to research handheld reocrders with some sort of sd card or whatever they have to offer.

One too manyy,
Aa

PLANS FOR DENTON RECORDING

On my Friday, my favorite day of the week. Don't have to worry about waking up to Sunday, with the thought going through your head that the next day in Monday. Tomorrow I am visiting the mall and Fry's to purchase a SD car for my sister's b-day. Also I am getting some compact flash cards for my trip to visit my buddy, Charles, in Denton to record some trumpet material to jam with. We plan on staying for the day and would like to bring some instruments, but I must narrow it down to the essentials. More or less, I better bring only instruments that I can play. We are bringing guitar(s), amp, laptop, 8-track, drum machine, the melodica, sax(?) and tamporine. I would really love to capture some trumpet playing so I can try to play along with it at home, to help so I can understand his style to play along with him later. Not sure what Kristin wants to bring, but I am up for whatever.

I think I ha e had one too many.

DUCKTAILS/DUCKTALES

Also have been into Ducktails.. and because of this watched the Ducktales movie with my gf on youtube last weeekend. anyone a fan of Ducktails will prob be interested in 'Predator Vision' or 'Real Estate' also.. same guy, different projects. Predator Vision & Sun Araw split LP. Loving the trumpet part on 'Hey Mandala!'.. really getting me in the mood to record some material with a buddy of mine in Denton.

Who thinks Matt should cover the Ducktales theme song with his guitar and no vocals? I can't be alone..

enjoy.
Aa

AND BREATH IT OUT SLOW

Really getting in Kurt Vile's 'Constant Hitmaker' lately. I have music overload pretty often, trying to keep up with everything and totally missed this gem I downloaded last January.. until I read that Spencer Krug and co. mentioned him in a Pitchfork story. Picked up his lasted EP, 'The Hunchback', and older LP on Mexican Summer 'God Is Saying This To You'.. but yet to really given a real listen, but love his LP, 'Constant Hitmaker'. For some reason totally unknown it reminds me of old Ben Kweller, but only because of the playful lyrics.

Constant Hitmaker. Props to the late ill-formed.

RENNNO

Reno 911! Go rent it!! Great cameos if you are a fan of Paul Rudd or Patton Oswald. Who wants Clean House!

I'M THE PHANTOM, I'M THE PHANTOM

Just listening to some Animal Collective, again.. Recently have been listening to Spirit They Gone.. Spirit They Vanished (Click to DL) while painting.. and the album is great for headphones. I would like to offer my blog more than just music insite.. but I will be uploading many things here. One side-project will be my personal music. While another will be selections from my graphics designs.. I want to upload new logos for my AM logo. I would love to get it up to every week, then hopefully everyday just to get some ideas out of my head, I will try to create a logo for my brand AM (Aaron Martin). Sometimes it might be 'am' sometimes it might be 'AM'...... and sometimes I might misspell words or mess up grammar, but please forgive me I am in creating state. So I prob will post a new post later tonight with some ideas.