Tapes and Tapes and Tapes and Tapes



Today was transfer day, and by that I mean I finally got around to running a bunch of 10-15 year old cassettes to the PC. (I ran them at 48/24... i know it's silly to use such a high encoding bit rate since they're old tapes, but it's just a thing I like doing.) It was mostly some old 4track mixdowns from junior high (most of which is just bizarre), a tape of my metal band Malidiktor from the 7th grade - early 7th grade at that, and a MMDS show I taped from 2003. They came out pretty well for using the IdeaPad's sound card (which does leave quite a bit to be desired for pro-audio purposes) and Audacity (which I love and swear by).

The live show was in pretty bad shape, but it's cleaned up fairly well. I recorded it as an afterthought on a crappy 70's Panasonic school tape player (the same one I now use to listen to tapes on my bike) sitting in front of the tiny PA at Shooties' Lounge (no longer in existence) on Reno and Sooner in Midwest City, OK. It's actually a pretty good show for me having called Daniel and said, "Bring your drums, we're playing a show tonight." I know there are a couple of songs that he'd maybe only heard once and we just decided to wing it. I think that's a strong testament to what a great drummer my brother is when he wants to be. After soaping out all the motor noise and hiss, it's thin, and the vocals aren't quite as loud as I wish they were, but it sounds sort of OK. I'll post it after I cut it up and convert it to MP3.

On the whole there weren't really any "uncovered gems", but I didn't expect there to be. I do wish I had more live shows taped, but oh well. If you ever played a show with us that you recorded, let me know.


- posted by Mason @ 9:16 PM