Last Blogger

I’m playing music again and it feels great! I first learned to play a bit of guitar when I was very young, then later became a bass player to fill a gap in my cousin’s band. I played with them for a few years playing cover tunes in beat up shacks in the middle of nowhere. It was awesome. After that I went on hiatus for a while. Then I teamed up with a couple of friends to write some original material. We never did play a gig but we had a great time and wrote some fun music that we enjoyed. Then came time to move away for University. I brought my bass with me but never really started playing again after I left home. Until now.

So what’s changed you might ask? Why would I start playing now? Well there are two main things that have driven me to start playing again. The first is that I’ve got a crazy creative itch that’s just not getting satisfied by coding php. The second is that I’ve been made aware that recording your own music on a PC is not all that complicated.

All that being said, recording bass lines alone isn’t as fun as it may sound.

Elvis Costello: Come on. Who’d like to be a bass player?
Homer: Out of my way, Nerdlinger. grabs guitar and knocks off Elvis’ glasses
Elvis Costello: My image!

So I started investigating guitars. Money’s pretty tight right now as we’re saving everything for the wedding, so I thought I’d do research now and wait until after the wedding and then see what I might be able to afford then. While speaking to a co-worker, he told me had several guitars and that he had a couple just lying around in boxes. He added that he wouldn’t mind lending one to me.

So then I had a bass, a guitar and a pedal he wasn’t using. I could now feed some sound into my computer which was pretty cool, but sort of pointless without some software to help put it all together. After a few quick inquiries I was told to check out Audacity and I must say that it works very well for someone at my skill level. It’s open source which is nice since I’m trying to do this on the cheap for the time being. It’s also pretty easy to use and has a few nice effects to let you get the sound you’re looking for. All in all, if you’re looking for something to get started recording your own music, I’ve got nothing bad to say about this software at all. That’s not to say that there isn’t better stuff out there. I did take the first suggestion I got after all, but it’s perfectly suitable for beginners.

I’ve already recorded a couple of things and I have to say that it’s been fantastic to be able to record a few parts, put them together and see what they sound like. So far, nothing’s turned out the way I had hoped, but at least I’ve been able to hear it all put together. It makes such a difference when you can step back and really listen to what you’re playing.

Although nothing’s turned out quite as cool as I’d hoped right out of the gate, I’m making progress and I’m having fun, the two things I was looking for.