Watching people on devices

This is somewhat about story. It's part of my story. From a long time ago!

I have never really been into video games. Ever. To me Pong was interesting to play once or twice; by the time the Sinclair was set up with the tape machine, I was bored and ready for something else other than staring at a screen. I was never still for long growing up. Now I look around and it seems everyone has their heads facing down at a device.

I was talking to someone who seemed to me, spending a lot of time just racing and crashing a car on their phone. I told them that we did not have that sort of distraction when I was a kid - in the UK we had three channels, or stations to watch on the telly, and at 11pm (well, maybe a little later than that when I was a young whipper-snapper) they would shut down and a picture of the Queen appeared and the National Anthem played. And my Grandad always stood up when he heard it. Then t.v. ran later at night, then all through the night and we got Channel 4! The fourth t.v. station! Two (BBC1 and BBC2) were commercial free. So we had that, the movies, and playing for what we would do. I remember making a tube radio set. It wasn't very good, but I made it and at the time it was a sort of magic. We made forts. We made a go-cart and raced it with the one my step-dad had. I think that spurned a couple more on the street. My step-dad had a rel-to-reel Grundig tape machine which my brother Colin and I would play with for hours pretending to be police, or radio d.j.'s. When someone got a new bike on our street, we all rode it. That's how I got the chip on my two top front teeth (another story for another day). We walked everywhere, or I ran everywhere, and when it was too far to run, I would ride my bike or take the bus.

Forts and go-karts

I got to thinking about what I did on my own. I wrote stories. None from those early years are still around. Same with the first poetry I wrote. I would go on these clean-ups and thrown anything out I thought was rubbish. Apparently I thought most of it was rubbish, and probably was! But I would also draw and paint, and make things. I played the drums and fantasized about being in a famous rock band. I wanted the band to be mine. I came up with titles for songs and write sleeve notes about the songs. Then I would SOMETIMES write the lyrics to these imaginary songs. Then I worked with some musicians and we put music to some of the lyrics. I would also make fake album covers. I still have a few of them, and some other pieces of art which were concepts for these fake albums.

I was talking to my son about time being lost playing video games. They are fun, and they are stimulating, but there is nothing to show for it, apart, maybe, a score on the web which shows your best game, and rarely people know, or care, who you are. I pulled out one of my double album gate-fold covers  I had made - one of my fake album covers. (Yep, I did a daddy thing!) It was for a real band with real people - my friends and my brother. The band was short lived, but quite good and was called Grover Bass (as in base, or bass guitar). We never made it into a studio, and I think we played, in that incarnation about twice! But that's not my point.

With a 35mm Yashica camera (or maybe by then it was the Pentax Spotmatic), some Letraset (letter transfers - each letter painstakingly placed and transferred from the film to its its proper place, or rubbed out and done again), a photostat camera, an old typewriter, and scissors and glue, after a few prototypes I created this:

 

 

The front cover and...

The back cover

Yes, the chap in the white shirt at the front of the very top photograph is the same young man on the front cover - my brother, the latter photo taken around 1983. This work, to me, was something I loved to do - create. I loved my camera and taking photos and processing the films and printing in our cold cellar. It wasn't until I went to college when the art of printing came easy to me - it clicked one day, and I could print! And there was something I had created, something I had made. It was not just me, but other people around me were doing the same thing. Painting, pottery, writing plays, songs, poetry and stories. Creating.

Playing games on devices is fun, but you don't get time back. There is nothing added to your existence, or to the existence around you. You learn nothing but reflexes and hand-eye coordination. I have some mediocre artwork which I quite like (the inner photos of the gate-fold were not all that great!) which I made with friends and family. I can still hold it in my hand and show my kids. My son went and dove into his sketch book. I smiled.


There are still some songs/poems I have not written yet from the titles on this album cover. One day I might have them done!

Recording with PreSonus' Studio One DAW

For those of you who are new to using a Digital Audio Workstation or DAW, I have been using Studio One by PreSonus for over a year now and have found it to be very good indeed.  There is a lot of functionality and free tools on board.  It is very intuitive, and does not cost an absolute fortune.  I have discovered many things on my journey of recording and it's taken me a while to figure out some of the short cuts.  I have put what I have found in a document to share with others who might want to try it.  You can get a free trial from the PreSonus website.  This also includes tips on recording punch and roll, where you can easily fix mistakes. It is a lot faster than keeping on recording and going back to edit and fix later.  There is a learning curve but it is not steep!

My simple set-up

Studio One Quick Start for narration (for Windows XP)

Open Studio One

1/. Starting from scratch

Click on ‘Create new Song’ and a dialogue box opens with Empty Song on left highlighted. On the right enter Song Title.

Choose where you want song to be saved in next box down.

Sample rate: 44.1 kHz

Resolution: 16 bit

Timebase: Seconds

Song Length: leave at default

Tempo: leave at default

Time Signiture: leave at default

Make sure Stretch audio files to Song tempo is unchecked

Click OK

2/. If you want to save a Template

You cannot save a template until you have first created one! Create a song and save it as a Template.  This will automatically create a folder within Studio for Templates.  You cannot make your own folder or save an existing Template until this is done.

3/. Short Cuts

Short cuts are listed in the top bar: Studio One > Keyboard Short cuts…

There are some handy number keypad shortcuts!

Number pad *: Record

Number pad -: wind time bar back

Number pad +: wind time bar forward

Number pad Enter: play

Number pad 0: stop

Spacebar: play and stop

I added Number Keypad 5 to make a new Mono Track

4/. To Start

Once Song is open, make a new track: Top bar - Track> add new mono track

Click on the solid circle to activate record mode, and playback is automatically opened at the same time.  If you want speakers/headphones muted, click the speaker button so it is no longer blue, or ‘M’ for mute.

Position white time bar at beginning if not already there.

Click the Record button on the bottom tool bar.

5/. Snap time bar

When editing you will find the white time bar will snap into place which is not very handy for narration.  On the top tool bar under the shaded ‘Adaptive’ button, you will find a small box with ‘Snap’ next to it.  Click on the box.  If you open up the ‘Editor” (F2) you will find the same button and will need to click there too.

6/. Punch and roll

On the bottom tool bar there are counters and to the right of those are what look like thumb tracks or map pins.  Click on the top ‘Auto Punch’ button for auto punch!  If you want to have some pre-roll, then click the ‘Pre-roll’ button beneath.  Pre-roll can eliminate the click of a keyboard and give you a lead-in.

To select how much pre-roll you have, to the right of these buttons is the Metronome. Click on the ‘Metronome Setup’ button (the spanner/wrench) and under ‘Options’ choose number of bars.  Two bars is usually fine but you might want more if you are just staring to learn this technique.

When punching and rolling with pre-roll, place the white time bar where you want to cut in.  Hit the record button.  The time bar will jump back your set number of bars and play.  Listen along and jump in at you chosen spot and keep going.

7/. Making Corrections

When I have made corrections, I have opened another track below the ‘finished’ track. By cutting the ‘bad section’ so it is separated, you can use the Mute tool to mute that segment, then record on the second track you have opened. By using a separate track you do not record over what you already have that is good.  But if you do go over you hear it when you get to the ‘okay’ and none muted section.

8/. Multiple takes

If you want to try multiple takes for a section this is fairly painless. Using the ‘Loop Active’ button, you can keep re-recording non-stop in that area until happy.

            To create a loop, hover mouse over the very thin light grey line above the time digits so you get a ‘pencil’ icon as the cursor. Clicking once on the thin grey bar will bring two lighter points.  Dragging these to the left and right creates your loop.

            Click on the Active Loop button on the bottom tool bar, immediately to the right of the record button so it is lighten up blue.

Hit record.

Record until happy and stop.

            If you right click on that new recorded section you will see “Select take”.  Beneath that will be a number of ‘takes’, the most current being ‘checked’. Beneath that is “Unpack takes” and if you hover over that, you can select “Unpack Takes to Tracks.” You can then mute each track, listening to each in turn to decide which fits the best.  This is an option, and is okay for small bits, but can take up more time than you want to spend.

9/. Mixdown or create WAV or FLAC file

When you mixdown it will automatically mixdown between the loop and this needs to be set up. (See: 8/.  multiple takes)

Studio One automatically mixes down a mono track to stereo. To this fix this:
Go to Song> Song Setup> Audio I/O Setup.
Go to the Outputs panel and click on 'Add (Mono)’. This will create ‘Sub 1’. Click Okay.
You can now do one of two things. Make it the default, or just click okay to exit.
If you made it default you are all set.

Go to top bar and click on Song > Export Mixdown which opens a dialogue box.

Location

Choose where you want file to be saved.  It will automatically save to a mixdown folder within the song folder.

Filename: FileNumber_BookTitle_Ch_Number_NarratorName

Publishing: (depending on version): Do not publish

Format (depending on version) Wave File, click on arrow to get to FLAC

Resolution: 16 bit

Sample rate: 44.1 kHz

Export Range

Click circle for Between Loop

Options

Output: Sub 1 (for the mono mixdown) should be default if you made is so earlier.  If not:

Click 'Main' with arrow. Click the arrow to 'Sub 1' and highlight/chose it.

Check the ‘Close after export” box.

Then click OK to mixdown.
Once file is mixed down a folder will open with your file in it (for Windows XP).

Have fun!