The Fire Ant Gazette - A Midland, Texas Blog

Loco Lunes
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Monday, April 19, 2004 at 09:27 PM [GMT-6]

It's been, as they say, Monday all day around here. I've been busy with a half dozen projects and I can't see any discernible progress on any of them.

Well, that's not entirely true. I did a quick reskinning of the blog early this morning, only to find that one of my faithful readers thought that someone had performed an exsanguination on his monitor. (Maybe the skinning allusion is more literal than I intended.) I apologize if the color scheme is a little, um, dark. This, too, shall pass. Just give me time.

I spent several hours over the weekend tinkering under the hood of the Gazette, fiddling with the templates and style sheets. I made at least fifty changes, some of which you might notice if you're really perceptive, and many others which aren't intended to be noticed but which should make things a tad more accessible, usable or just workable.

I wish my graphic design skills were stronger. Heck, I wish I had any graphic design skills. That's not my forté ("your forté is a gift for stating the obvious!"). It might have something to do with my being just a tad color blind, but it goes deeper than that. I suffer from a basic lack of design creativity.

OK...I did accomplish something today, after all. I finally got organized and motivated and am now digitizing my LPs in order to burn the music to CD. I'm using Roxio's CD Spin Doctor to grab the signal via my PowerBook, then editing the resulting AIFF file in Felt Tip's Sound Studio, the most capable $50 sound editing software on the face of the planet, IMHO.

I tested the setup on a few tracks from a cassette tape by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, a perfectly awful recording. To call this a garade studio recording gives garage studios a bad name. (Even the label has a misprint: "I'll Change My Style" ended up being "I'll Change My Sty," which could be an ode to swine farmers, I suppose.)

Once I confirmed that the process worked, I got serious and have now recorded a mediocre offering by one of my all-time favorite groups, Blood, Sweat & Tears. The album is "New City," recorded in 1975. Overall, the album leaves much to be desired, but it does feature several excellent cuts, including a high-energy arrangement of the Beatles' "Got To Get You Into My Life" and another of "Ride, Captain Ride."

One down, 150+ to go. Perhaps this day wasn't such a waste of time, after all.

Permalink

Comments

I like the Aggie maroon. It shows Texas pride.

Suggestion : Next week - Burnt orange....

Posted by: shannon at April 20, 2004 08:39 AM

Suggestion : Next week - Burnt orange....

Shannon, don't make me ban your IP address! ;-)

OK...you're new around here, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Burnt orange shall appear on this blog when they peel my cold, dead, Aggie hands off the keyboard!

[I'm not one of those rabid Aggies...in fact, I'm probably what some would call a "2 percenter"...but I do have my standards.]

Posted by: Eric at April 20, 2004 08:46 AM

Please forgive me for my grievous error. I shall never again assume that one who dawns the colors of College Station would ever accept the presentation of any other color, esp. that shade of Austin. Lesson learned.

Gig'em boys

Posted by: shannon at April 20, 2004 04:34 PM

No harm...no foul. And, really, I'm open to *any* color, as long as it's not B.O.

Heh. I never thought about the fact that the abbreviation for burnt orange is B.O. That just tickles the 13-year old in me to no end! ;-)

Posted by: Eric at April 20, 2004 04:38 PM

Never used felt tip, but Audacity works great-and its free.

2% test- do you know what tomorrow is?

Posted by: Bob at April 20, 2004 06:02 PM

Aggie Muster, my good man...that's part of the 2% I retained! ;-)

Audacity, hmmm....free is good, but like I said, Sound Studio is really slick.

Posted by: Eric at April 20, 2004 06:06 PM

I had long been wondering what might be involved, hardware-wise, in digitizing my old vinyl. Whether it was a matter of plugging turntable into sound input jack on computer, or being quiet and using a microphone, or what.

Posted by: Jay Solo at May 31, 2004 09:57 AM

Jay, I assume that you've found the answers to your questions, but, just in case, here are a couple of tips:

1) You can't go directly from your turntable into the audio-in jack of your computer. You'll need to connect your computer to the tape-out connection on your receiver/amplifier.

2) If your computer has a stereo audio-in jack, all you need for the connection is a y-patch cable: RCA plugs on one end to connect to the receiver/amplifier, and a stereo mini-plug on the other end to connect to your computer. You can get such cables at Radio Shack or Best Buy; they'll cost anywhere from a few dollars for a generic cable up to $20 for a Monster branded cable.

That's all the hardware requirements there are. Of course, if you don't have an audio-in jack on your computer, then you'll have to find a USB/Fireware workaround, and they do exist.

On the software end, you need something to capture the music in AIFF format. Optionally, software to edit it into individual tracks and filter out the scratches is desirable. Much of the available software will let you do all of this and more. Finally, you can either burn the AIFF tracks to CD or rip to MP3. I recommend archiving the original AIFF files in case you ever need to go back to the source.

Posted by: Eric at May 31, 2004 10:48 AM

Post a comment [Take your time...we're in no hurry.]

Note: You must provide either a website URL or an email address...but there's no rule that says you have to tell the truth. If you don't want your email address published on this site, just input a website URL, or make up an email address.