I started using Synthedit to create my first VSTi. For those of you who don’t know what the heck a VSTi is:
A VSTi is a sound generating program that runs inside a host program (like Sonar, Cubase, Logic, Sibelius …) to create a tone. VSTi’s have been created to emulate and/or simulate pretty much every instrument known.
I couldn’t find one for Toy Piano. I needed one for the song “Kaboom!”.
I did, however, find a site that had chromatic samples of a toy piano. They were recorded well so I hacked each note out and started learning Synthedit today.
This is what I have so far:
I’m about halfway done so far. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but it works in Sonar! This is what the interface looks like:
I’ll post the file for the VSTi as soon as I get all 25 notes embedded.
The file will be pretty big - It used 24 16 bit-44.1khz wav files
Posted on April 21, 2008 by arman. Categories: photos.
A few months after I met Liz - I went to visit her in Spain. It was my first trip overseas. I started in Barcelona, where Liz was living with her brother Chris and then we rented a car and drove all over Spain.
I took along a super 8 camera and a Polaroid camera. I used my colored filters with the Polaroid in the same way that I had been using them with previous works on super 8.
Someday, I’ll string together the super 8 footage I shot while I was there. Sadly, I left my color super 8 in Spain to be processed and picked up by a friend of Chris’s. I never heard from this person again. Somewhere — I have four rolls of film I’d very much like to see again.
~70mb — HUGE — Let it stream for a while (like 5 minutes).
Double click the image below to play:
From the vault.
I shot most of this in my home town of Palouse in 1998 on a Minolta 401XL super 8 camera. It was the last year that Palouse hosted a demolition derby on Palouse Days due to competition from the Lewiston Valley (damn you Lewiston!!!!!).
I’m not sure why they still call it Palouse Days - it’s only one day.
I remember being in the parade as a kid in the 80’s. It seemed like there was about a hundred of us back then … ok maybe 50 … or 25. Now there are usually two kids in the parade and it just don’t look so good …
The Shriners are still involved and the town ussually hires some Eastern European biker stunt group or something to try and do something different. I’m sure the pancakes are still as bad as ever at 6:30am down at the Community Center. One year, our family decided not to wake up early and go to the own breakfast. That was fine until some unnamed person got on the town PA system and started screaming at us to get out of bed and get downtown to breakfast.
The color effects were all done with filters in front of the lens. It was edited with a film splicer, some tape and a clothesline about the same time I did Humanidad Aterrorizado.
When I would project the film, I would always use side two of the Hatari soundtrack composed by Henri Mancini. When I transferred the film to digital, I had to put it on there for good.
I picked up a used Blackheart 5 watt combo at Trade Up Music today. The build quality is great for such a inexpensive amp. I plugged it into my isolation cabinet and was pretty happy with the results. I have a different tonal pallet to work with now.
I’m going to sell off the redundant little Peavey Classic 20 to recoup the cost of the Blackheart and also install a Bitmo Triple Bypass to take the little guy to the next level.
Here is the same portion of “Atlantis” that I posted yesterday, recorded with the stock Blackheart. The guitar sits forward in the mix so you can hear it and there are no vocals (yet).
It may not sound different to you, but I like it!
I spent the day testing out the Axetrak on one of my more troublesome (guitarwise) songs - “Kaboom!”. I could never sort out the tone. Nothing I have tried has worked - so I’m thinking the part is just a little to dissonant. Not pleasant.
I even went up to Trade Up Music and got a Boss EQ-20 to try and shape the tone a little more. It didn’t do the trick. I’m thinking that I’ll have look into getting another tube head - maybe a low watt Blackheart. There is just something that is too raspy in the Peavey Classic series. It’s good for some stuff, but not all. I could easily lose one of the Peaveys and get something way different.
I moved on to “Atlantis” and got some more usable tones. I EQed the guitars in the mix. Added some upper mids. It seems that both my amps are just a bit dark and yet that preamp rasp persists.
Not the most productive day, but I’m making progress with the guitar sound.
Here is the intro of the song (less the vocals). Once again, the guitars are very dry and sit WAY up front in the mix to illustrate the tone issues I’m having.
Ok … the truth is I love recording, but I hate recording guitar. I can never get it to sound right. I have a 57, a Blue Ball, a 414 and various other mics that just don’t seem to capture the sound.
So I’ve been looking into isolation cabinets and …….
My Axetrak showed up today! It is really small and light.
I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed that my guitar wouldn’t sound like Steve Stevens jamming in a cardboard box through such a strange device - but my fears were unjustified.
The isolation cabinate houses a 6″ speaker and is completely sealed off - except for the bass plug.
When I first plugged it into my Delta Blues 210, I thought it was broken. It was dead silent. I plugged it into my SCA N72 preamp and loaded up a song in Sonar. It sounded pretty good in headphones. Then I realized … it’s totally isolated! I cranked up my monitors and for the first time in my life I was able to play through my amp and adjust the tone while sitting directly in front of my monitors. No feedback or bleedthrough.
It is my “missing link” in finishing “Bits”.
I played around with some higher gain distortion settings it sounded pretty good! Recording a six inch speaker in a tiny box sounds very dry, but I can run it through the toolbox for some spring reverb.
Booted up “Brain Games” and tried out some clean sounds. I liked it.
Here are the results:
No vocals yet - just a section of the beginning of the song
Guitars sit pretty forward in the mix to give you an idea of the sound. No EQ. The amp was set flat as well. I’m sure I can dial in better sound, but I wanted to grab some neutral sounds first.
I added a little toolbox reverb (couldn’t help myself).
