Live Recording!
I started to do my Live recording with the instruments / gadgets available at the place. I wanted to help my fellow musicians / sound engineers / hobbyist to learn 2 cents out of my experience on live recording. Intially I thought it was a easy stuff to do a live recording. Later I came to know the problems we should understand before getting on with Live recording.
Tip 1:
Always try to maintain the master level in your recording software / gadget between -6 to -4 db. It always helps us to avoid clipping of audio data. It is very hard to restore a clipped / badly distorted audio data.
In my first Live audio recording with the help of 16 Channel Allen & Heath -> USB Audio interface (MAudio FastTrack pro 4×4), I was able to make a good recording of the Live Worship. There were ofcourse some grey areas where I have missed few things because of clipped data.
So always maintain audio levels at the optimum between (-4 to -6 db).
Tip 2:
Try to use a powered public address system if you feel that there are some ambient noise at outdoors. The sound from the powered public address system would reduce some amount to ambient noise from outside.
This idea I gained when I was recording a live worship. It was raining heavily outside. The recording did not happen in a recording studio, rather it happened in a house. because of the Powered PA system the recording went on fine. Nothing wrong in trying it, if you felt that this tip was useful. leave me a comment.
Tip 3:
If padding option is available in your audio interface. Better use them when you do live recording. It may look like your recording volume seems to be very low. When you normalize the audio data then it would become a clean recording.
Tip 4:
For heavy metal, rock music / aggressive vocals you may consider using a compressor / limiter.
As my knowledge improves I would try and update this post 
Happy live recording!
Blogger: No more FTP support!
Yes, blogger a famous blogging platform is going to stop their FTP Publishing services on March 26, 2010. I was using the FTP solution of Blogger. I was happy using them. Unfortunately this announcement made me feel that I might lose my blogs. I was aware that I would not be able to continue using Blogger as they do not allow subdomains to be added to their custom domain service. I never got down as I had my wordpress handy.
You know what I did? I deleted all my published blogs. Downloaded Wordpress and started to install on my subdomain. It took a total of 12 minutes to move all my blogs to my new wordpress layout. Yes, now I am running Wordpress 2.9.1 and I am enjoying the same.
I like the new wordpress layout as it is very much sophisticated and easy to install and use. Google Blogspot is coming up with new changes shortly in few months let me wait and see what they have got for me.
Are you Genuine?
Remembering the days 10 years back .. I was using all the latest version of software. I used to hack around the products and make sure they are cracked and available for me to use it. I dont remember so far that I have earned few bucks out of it. But now I feel guilty that I was not genuine. Do you feel what I am trying to say? Are my words pricking your mind? Till 4-5 years back I was happily using pirated software. No one in the world knows that I was using pirated software. No one managed to ask a question to me that I was using a pirated software.
The Lord my Saviour put a thought in my mind. It was kind of a question which raised in my mind. The question was “Are you Genuine?”. I have heard many people saying that Microsoft is a big company, they have lots of money and they are stealing money from people and it is not a problem if I use a pirated software. But the actual issue is not with the question people ask.. rather the genuineness people need to maintain.
I started to use genuine software and I am kind of feeling confident about the thing I am using. I feel I am genuine! It is really a great experience to have a genuine software. We are earning a decent amount for our living. We don’t steal clothes, we don’t steal food for living, we don’t steal money for spending rather we work hard to get all those. The same holds good for getting a genuine software for your computer.
There are great products available for Low cost. I am listing a few which will make your lives different from others. For Sound editing instead of getting on a costly gear you can go in for Ardour, Reaper, Audacity .. it ranges from free to very low cost. When it comes to video editing you can get premiere elements, Final cut express and so on … likewise for image editing you can use Paint.Net, Photoshop elements, gimp and so on .. there are lots of alternative for you to get genuine. Control yourself from this kind of lust and make yourself clean and genuine.
Happy Computing!… hope this blog would have a small entry in your heart. Leave me a comment if you want to change yourself. God bless you!
Looking back at 2009
Year 2009 was quite challenging. I was able to do lots of new things at 2009. Here are the list of things I have learnt over 2009. First I have started with iPhone programming and for that I have bought a new macbook for working in iPhone programming. I had a Canon FS100 camcorder and I wanted to download my videos on my macbook. I was attracted by the iMovie and started to learn very basics on Video editing.
The passion for Video editing kicked off and I started to carve for more on video editing. I bought Final cut Express to get into editing. By the time I took few videos I understood that I need some good quality sound. So I went for an inexpensive external audio interface (MAudio Fast Track Pro). I did few Live recording of Audio. This put me a flare on Audio editing. I was not able to afford for a Mac pro / Macbook Pro for my video / audio editing stuff. I bought a Mac mini which is really helpful to accomplish my video editing tasks.
By gods grace I was able to edit 2 Christian Video Albums as a beginner and the outcome was so professional. I was wondering how I was able to make it and finally understood the person behind my work. The person is no one other that Jesus Christ. He was kind enough and by his grace I was able to accomplish great things with minimal resource available.
And on my spiritual side of my life I was bit slow due to some personal reasons which put me down always when I tried to come out of it with my strength I was not able to get out of it. However God didn’t let me go down. He lifted me up and gave me a new strength and his love. The turbulence in my life made me lose all my loved ones but by the end of 2009 things were back to normal and my loved ones came back to me and now I am happy and thankful to my savior who has done this work for me.
The promise that Lord has given me this year was “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6 ~ KJV )“. Here is me wishing you a peaceful year 2010.
Working from new Facility
Here is my new facility located 5 kilometres from my home. It is located at Manapakkam, Chennai. My previous facility was located 25 kilometres from my home. It would be a tiresome journey when I used to drive 25 kilometres in traffic and now just less than 7.5 kms and I do have shortcuts which leads me to the office in 4.7 kms.
Google Chrome Extensions: Blog This! (by Google)
Posted by Abe in Tools / Utilities on December 9, 2009
I just happened to see the cool new Chrome extensions available online. Currently the extensions does not have too many extensions but it was really awesome to see the extensions at work and how it was placed on Chrome.
Zoom R16 – Audio Recorder/Interface/Controller – Working in OS X 10.6
I own a Zoom R16 Audio Recorder / Interface / Controller. I love the product as it is extremely portable. I use it for recording live programs and music. I was happy with the output and performance I got from the entry level recorder. The drivers worked well on Windows XP machine. I installed Cubase LE 4 and checked the performance of the interface and controller. They were flawless.
However the real problem was when I had to use my Macbook running Snow Leopard 10.6.2. The drivers were simply not working. I was pretty unhappy about the drivers not working on Snow Leopard. I did some googling and found few posts which mentioned they have the drivers working fine.
Unfortunately as mentioned by them I was not able to install my drivers for Snow Leopard. Yesterday night I sat to hack and see if I can make it work for Show Leopard. Finally after a little hacking I found a way to fix the issue.
Here is how I got it.
- First I downloaded the latest driver that was available on the Zoom.co.jp website.
- Then I extracted the contents of the drivers to a folder. After little more digging I could find an archive within the package which has got the kext required to run the audio interface.
- I used kext helper to install the driver.
- After installing the driver using kext help I restarted the machine.
- I was able to see my “Zoom R16 Driver”
Ready Reckoner for Chords
Posted by Abe in Quick Tips on November 17, 2009
I am learning music and wanted a quick reckoner for chords. I found some piece of information on a website and thought of making it little better. Here is a quick reckoner to find out chords.
| Major | 1 – 3 – 5 (M, maj) |
| minor | 1 – 3b – 5 (m, min) |
| Augmented | 1 – 3 – 5# (aug) |
| Diminished | 1 – 3b – 5b (dim) |
| Suspended 4 | 1 – 4 – 5 (sus4) |
| 6 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 6 (6) |
| minor 6 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5 – 6 (m6) |
| 7 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7b (7, dom7, dominant 7) |
| Major 7 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7 (maj7, M7) |
| minor 7 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5- 7b (m7, min7) |
| 9 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7b – 9 (9, dom9, dominant 9) |
| Major 9 Chords | 1 – 3 – 5 – 7 – 9 (maj9, M9) |
| minor 9 Chords | 1 – 3b – 5- 7b – 9 (m9, min9) |
Trip to Top Slip
Top slip is a tourist spot located near Pollachi. My wife, I along with Bro. Babu Muthusamy booked a taxi and went to the spot. The taxi driver was very friendly. He helped us getting the tickets for camera and entry tickets. The road which leads to the spot was very bad.
After a journey of 60 minutes we reached a place very near to the spot. We enjoyed the green pastures and tiny stream flowing across and wanted to take few snaps. We got down the taxi and to take photos. A naughty monkey rushed to the taxi and escaped with a parcel. We were not able to guess what it took. It opened the parcel to see what was inside. It was the drivers coat. It threw it away to a deep pit (I am assuming it was stinking badly). After this incident, we were getting into the taxi. The monkey was not allowing the driver to get inside the taxi. I driver walked away few yards and I drove the taxi for few yards.
The forest was green and natural. I enjoyed the natural sounds. I wish I had a audio recorder with me so that I record the natural sounds from the forest. After a long journey we finally reached top slip. We went there in a odd time that there was nothing there. But it did not make us lose the spirit we had before. We shared with 3 families a trip to elephant camp. One of the family head was speaking to me saying that he was a tour cabs owner and never seen elephants in the forest in 15 years of service. He said that it was waste of money to go to the elephant camp. But contrary to his views we were able to see lots of wild elephants in the forest which were descending to drink water from the stream. We took snaps and I got some footage on my video camera. It was total fun that we had on the drive to elephant camp.
After coming back from the drive back to top slip, we were hungry and wanted to have some food. Unfortunately the cook in the hotel did not turn up. As a result, no food was available in top slip. We just started our taxi and wanted to go till Parambikulam (Kerala) tiger reserve. As we reached there the security was asking for entry tickets to be purchased. Our driver told the security that we are going to take food from the canteen inside. We were allowed to drive inside the Parambikulam tiger reserve till the canteen. There we say beautiful peacocks, deers, crocodiles etc. Parambikulam was more deep inside the forest and was well maintained. We had good lunch there (Kerala style food) and drove back happily home. While returning we took lots of snaps on the sunset and nature.
A Trip again to Pollachi
To release the stressed out brain, I thought of taking a break. So I took off couple of weeks from my office and started out to Pollachi. As it was a long weekend there were no tickets on the bus / train to reach Pollachi. So I was forced to take a flight to Coimbatore and go for a drive to Pollachi.
We reached Coimbatore after 50 mins journey from Chennai. The flight was small but good enough for us. We reached Pollachi around 10 ‘O’ Clock. I was hungry at the moment and had tasty food from a small hotel out there in Pollachi. The good was hot and good to taste.
I had a chance to eat Pollachi style veechi paratha which was nothing but stuffed paratha with egg fry. After eating tummy full we headed out to Aathu Pollachi which is 8 Kilometers away from Pollachi.