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Sing! Sing a Song!
Sep. 14th, 2024 10:00 pmThe problem with tech that you don't use often enough is that the brain cells rot and you forget exactly how to set it up for any other case than the one that you usually use it for. That was the case today.
Gretchen and I had a scheduled concert at the Festival of the Living Rooms this afternoon. Last night, we selected the songs for the concert. This morning, I got up, got dressed, and put them into order.
I have lately acquired two cheap Chinese Android tablets which I use to give myself a two-page electronic songbook, linked together using the Mobile Sheets Pro app. Last night, I updated the PDFs on the computer with the misplaced song from 2000 and the new song from this year so that I could download the songs onto the tablets. Noting that the tablets only had about 30% charge left, I decided to juice them up overnight.
This would have worked better if I had succeeded in plugging in *both* tablets properly instead of just one. Oops. Anyway, having put the set list in order, I then created the set list on one of the tablets, synced it to the other, and put the not-so-charged tablet back on the charger to try again. I also printed out all of the music in paper copy for Gretchen to use.
So far, (mostly) so good. Off to lunch and back, picking up K from rehearsal for the fall play on the way home. Now it was time to set up the gear for the concert.
We had decided to be in the living room for the concert, it being the room in the house that was closest to clean. There was a little bit of debris from the dining room clean up on the couch and coffee table, but it was easily dispatched.
The recording gear lives in the basement, so the abominably heavy mixer, two mic stands, mic cables, and a pair of mics needed to come up. I hauled most of this upstairs, Julie grabbing the mic stands and following.
The problem is that I don't use the old Yamaha digital mixer that much any more, because Dave Ifversen bought a newer, better, and *lighter* digital mixer. (Not smaller, but lighter.) Unless Dave needs an auxiliary digital mixer, mine doesn't get pulled out, and when it does, it's hooked up to run house sound and maybe record to Cubase, which means bringing 16 tracks out direct digital via USB.
For this occasion, that was the wrong configuration. I wanted to take the stereo bus out via USB so I could mix down two mics and the direct guitar on the mixer; then pick up the USB signal on the computer for Zoom. There was obviously some way to do it. Obviously...
One of the problems with this mixer is that there is not a lot about the routing that is intuitively obvious. I eventually figured out that I had to change screens to another section of the configurator altogether, unmap the direct out settings for the first two channels, and then I could map the stereo bus out there. I ran a test Zoom, recorded it, and had sound. Yay!
I didn't have *good* sound though. Ick. I'd fixed the "Original Sound" setting on Zoom -- which now thoughtfully comes unstuck for each new session. But I wasn't getting any guitar in the mix. But not too much later, I figured out how to get this sorted and we had sound.
By now, it was 2:30 and we were going up at 3 PM. And I had cleverly made this all more difficult by setting up in the living room on what had turned out to be a brightly sunlit day, which made the meters and screens on the mixer really hard to read.
And made the tablets completely impossible to read.
Gretchen came up with the idea of putting a chair between the music stand and the window and putting a couch throw over the back of it to block some of the light. This helped. So did switching each tablet from white on black text back to black on white.
We also had to put Ruby the Dog out, because she wanted me to throw the ball for her while I was doing all of this setup work. So Ruby got to spend some time in the fresh air and sunshine, which she actually likes. She likes it *better* when I am outside with her, but that would have made the concert really difficult for Gretchen...
Anyway, the concert went well. We went up on time, finished on time, and folks seemed to have a good time, so that's all good. We listened to several more hours of concerting while breaking things down to go back to the basement.
And they can go there *tomorrow*, because it is late and I am tired. :)
Thanks to everyone who came to hear us!
Gretchen and I had a scheduled concert at the Festival of the Living Rooms this afternoon. Last night, we selected the songs for the concert. This morning, I got up, got dressed, and put them into order.
I have lately acquired two cheap Chinese Android tablets which I use to give myself a two-page electronic songbook, linked together using the Mobile Sheets Pro app. Last night, I updated the PDFs on the computer with the misplaced song from 2000 and the new song from this year so that I could download the songs onto the tablets. Noting that the tablets only had about 30% charge left, I decided to juice them up overnight.
This would have worked better if I had succeeded in plugging in *both* tablets properly instead of just one. Oops. Anyway, having put the set list in order, I then created the set list on one of the tablets, synced it to the other, and put the not-so-charged tablet back on the charger to try again. I also printed out all of the music in paper copy for Gretchen to use.
So far, (mostly) so good. Off to lunch and back, picking up K from rehearsal for the fall play on the way home. Now it was time to set up the gear for the concert.
We had decided to be in the living room for the concert, it being the room in the house that was closest to clean. There was a little bit of debris from the dining room clean up on the couch and coffee table, but it was easily dispatched.
The recording gear lives in the basement, so the abominably heavy mixer, two mic stands, mic cables, and a pair of mics needed to come up. I hauled most of this upstairs, Julie grabbing the mic stands and following.
The problem is that I don't use the old Yamaha digital mixer that much any more, because Dave Ifversen bought a newer, better, and *lighter* digital mixer. (Not smaller, but lighter.) Unless Dave needs an auxiliary digital mixer, mine doesn't get pulled out, and when it does, it's hooked up to run house sound and maybe record to Cubase, which means bringing 16 tracks out direct digital via USB.
For this occasion, that was the wrong configuration. I wanted to take the stereo bus out via USB so I could mix down two mics and the direct guitar on the mixer; then pick up the USB signal on the computer for Zoom. There was obviously some way to do it. Obviously...
One of the problems with this mixer is that there is not a lot about the routing that is intuitively obvious. I eventually figured out that I had to change screens to another section of the configurator altogether, unmap the direct out settings for the first two channels, and then I could map the stereo bus out there. I ran a test Zoom, recorded it, and had sound. Yay!
I didn't have *good* sound though. Ick. I'd fixed the "Original Sound" setting on Zoom -- which now thoughtfully comes unstuck for each new session. But I wasn't getting any guitar in the mix. But not too much later, I figured out how to get this sorted and we had sound.
By now, it was 2:30 and we were going up at 3 PM. And I had cleverly made this all more difficult by setting up in the living room on what had turned out to be a brightly sunlit day, which made the meters and screens on the mixer really hard to read.
And made the tablets completely impossible to read.
Gretchen came up with the idea of putting a chair between the music stand and the window and putting a couch throw over the back of it to block some of the light. This helped. So did switching each tablet from white on black text back to black on white.
We also had to put Ruby the Dog out, because she wanted me to throw the ball for her while I was doing all of this setup work. So Ruby got to spend some time in the fresh air and sunshine, which she actually likes. She likes it *better* when I am outside with her, but that would have made the concert really difficult for Gretchen...
Anyway, the concert went well. We went up on time, finished on time, and folks seemed to have a good time, so that's all good. We listened to several more hours of concerting while breaking things down to go back to the basement.
And they can go there *tomorrow*, because it is late and I am tired. :)
Thanks to everyone who came to hear us!