Recent content by wblake

I put my stuff up on last.fm in all its flawed glory but not too many people know it is there yet.

I am your age and in the same boat. I went with the "what the hell just sing" approach and by recording myself, having my friend take some videos of me singing (and posting them on youtube and showing it to friends... shudder)... by doing all this I got over being embarassed to hear myself sing...

The legal concept applicable here is called "Fair Use" (in the United States). I leave it to you to look it up, read about it, and interpret what you read to in relation to what you want to do. I am not a lawyer blah blah blah...

Audacity's completely free and perfectly fine for what you want to do. I'd go with that or Reaper, anything more seems like overkill (and overspending) for your purposes.

I have a Rivera M60 from the early 1990s that really has a sweet clean sound and it seems from reading online the Riveras are in general praised for their cleans but the number of knobs, switches and levers makes me feel like I'm flying a 747 and they really ought to sell the thing with an...

It it could be the computer itself. My laptop's power transformer caused all sorts of problems for me and took me ages to figure out the source. I actually found that ungrounding it (using a 2 prong instead of 3 prong power cord) eliminated all the noise. Go figure!

Have you considered finding a vocal instructor or coach? I just started with one and in two sessions he has got me finding my voice in ways that would have taken me years (if ever) to accomplish.

Just as a follow up I've done some additional testing today, my rig is quiet once again and it was not the Behringer causing the problem.

Actually my setup is doing exactly what you are trying to do, I have a Tascam Portastudio 424 which I use as a mixing board, it is 4 channels in, 2 out through a Behringer U-Control UCA202 into the USB port of my computer. The weak link in this chain I think is the Behringer U-Control UCA202...

My work in progress: Too Cheap To Meter

Well here's what I'm doing, but take into consideration I am a complete noob and an awful drummer to boot. I have a kit in the basement, it is nothing to write home about but it is a real kit. I find sitting at the kit and noodling around to be the best way to get a "human" drum arrangement to...

Thanks for the reply. I think maybe my explanation of what I'm trying to do is probably flawed, but I'll try to explain further. Here is an example. I have a 4/4 drum loop used for a chorus, I want it to repeat 4 times for the chorus. Then, I have a different drum loop used for the verse...

I am playing with the Ableton Live demo version and I get the basic sample/loop functionality and have gone through a bunch of demos and even have RTFM. But there's one basic concept I don't get. Say I have a drum bit for instance in the chorus that ends in a cymbal splash. I want that splash...

In the songwriting forum, is it better to just focus on very simple demos (me & guitar) for feedback, even if my intention is to do full multi-track mixes of the songs? I agree with Armistice's feedback because I am a beginning songwriter so I am not ashamed that my songs are simple... though...

Oh diggy one more thing - and sorry for these repeat posts I'm just kind of excited to have gotten some feedback - as for room treatment - the room is my dingy basement, it's pretty awful, concrete floors, cinder block walls, bare pipes above, and tons of crap all over. Great ambiance but not...