it’s all meat at the end of the day

So I was going to edit the mix CD last night whilst the better half went out with her mate R. However R turns up and is seriously worried about a presentation she has to prepare for today ‘cos her scanner’s knackered.

Always being a helpful sort, I offered my assistance – kind of forgetting what R does for a living.

Dr R is in sexual health, so instead of mashing up beats last night, I spent the time scanning in lurid colour photos of diseased genitalia.

I started off being slightly flabbergasted and intriqued by the whole thing, but ended up in techy spod mode, wondering if there were enough shades of red-pink in photoshop’s “save for web” function.

My message to you, dear reader, is look after yourself!

shards, fragments and contradictions

Paul Meme on me:

“As to wanting to do your mixes all in one — your pathetic insistence on authenticity in your production of cultural artefacts is obviously a deeply conservative position which only serves to reinforce cultural hegemony.”

Paul on The Bug:

“Mostly I like it cos it’s a proper ragga album […] Really good record. An unexpectedly traditional record too — proper craft. ”

So I guess the message is that desiring a certain level of skill in your mixes is a bad thing, whereas if you are involved with the production of musical commodities such as albums, it’s to be praised. Heh heh.

No biggie, particularly as Paul doesn’t actually mean any of it in any case. He is of course right to the extent that what matters is the sound and not how it got there, but ultimately mixing is something I would like to be better at just because I enjoy it so much.

mixing finga

Phew! Not only has Paul started blogging again, he has also commented at length on the entry below. [see Paul’s entry at 6:53AM – how come I can’t link to specific entries at blogspot.com?]

It is all good stuff, with some handy suggestions at resolving my, uh, “issues” (not all of them, obviously, though to be fair to him, Paul has a long and mostly unrewarded track record of doing that as well).

Certainly the ragga mix CD will be in stages, not least because some of it is nicked off CDs I got out of the library. Unfortunately I lack a way of bunging audio files together on my computer in any sensible fashion. The freebie pro-tools is undoubtedly the one, but I ain’t even got enough RAM to run it.

Soundedit is great for recording but its crossfade function is pish. So I use it in the same way that one used to use a razor blade with cassette tape… hardcore.

The other problem with doing mixes in stages is that the daughter is normally asleep in the next room, so there’s a limit to the amount of bass and jumping around that is possible. Plus I do like the ritualistic aspect of getting all the stuff together and DOING IT, IN ONE GO. All or nothing, me…

And I have a resistance to complicating stuff, really.

[archive] How Not To Record a Mix CD

Originally posted to UK-Dance April 30th 2002:

1. Arrange day off while partner and offspring are with family.

2. Spend night before getting wasted after lengthy train journey sitting next to random suicidal (yet surprisingly conversational) teenager.

3. Drag Mac into living room and connect to temperamental mixer via dodgy cable that the bloke in Dixons swore blind was just what I needed.

4. Fire up hooky version of Soundedit and marvel at the vast array of buttons, files and so on. Errrrrrr?

5. Scratch head a lot whilst playing music into computer.

6. Note that nothing is happening. Turn up the volume. Turn down the volume, realising that this might blow soundcard.

7. Muck about with settings. Play back recording and note that it is muffled, and also features upstairs’ dog barking. WTF?

8. Consider emailing UK-Dance for help, but then realise this entails dragging Mac back to the other room.

9. Persevere. Get sound in mono. Make sandwich. Wonder if people will notice. Decide that, given past threads on mixer quality and all that, that they probably will.

10. Sort out stereo. Wash up, noticing that flat is still a tip from night before. Also develop lovely “between the eyes” headache.

11. Get records together. Start to see problems with mental tracklist.

12. Kick off!

13. Do first mix, cocking it up left right and centre. Attempt to remember last time actually touched cross fader. Damn.

14. 70 minutes later, play back on computer and go “oooh” a lot. Save as .wav file and burn to CD. Play back on CD walkman and marvel at how mix has transformed itself into an industrial glitch screechfest.

15. Re-save file as an AIFF instead and feel foolish. Worry about having two 600meg files on titchy hard drive.

16. Burn to CD, whilst hoovering. Nearly knock CD Burner off its precariously placed footstool.

17. Go out for a walk, trying to get rid of headache, but also listening to mix. Notice that have stopped in the middle of the road, hands over eyes, moaning “No noooooooooo! NO!” at numerous gaffes.

18. Come home. Find two teenagers smoking weed in entrance hall. Resolve to do the whole thing again later, after Eastenders. Properly this time. Oh yes.

19. Get to work. Restart after a few early cock ups and telephone call from partner.

20. Decide that beer will help. Open can, spraying Mac keyboard, and next record, with lager.

21. Make a few on the hoof decisions about tracklist.

22. Finish, burn, tidy up, bed.

23. Listen to mix on the way to work and realise that “exciting new” penultimate track is cheesy as you like.

addendum!

ok ok, so there ISN’T a cut of “Throw Me Corn” on Studio One Roots.

My credibility lies in tatters (like I had any to start with). I think I was probably getting it confused with the excellent Winston Jarrett’s “Fear Not”, which chugs away in a similar vein (especially when combined with lawnmower noise and being woken up 5 times in the night by a distressed daughter).

I shall retreat to lick my wounds…

f*cking mix CD b*llocks toss

Forgive the profanity. Heh-heh.

So the betterh half and daughter head off to Wales for the weekend to see da family and get rained on heavily and I find myself in the almost unbelievable situation of having the place to myself for a couple of days. After all the running around is done (haircut, defrost fridge, have a ruck in Argos, spend a fruitless hour in Dalston Oxfam, that sort of thing) it’s time to get serious with the decks.

I’d been meaning to do another mix CD for aaaaaaaaages. The first one I did was a sort of UK steppers, electronic dub thing, mainly to show people who bang on about how if it ain’t 70s and it ain’t JA then it’s automatically rubbish. I did that one with a blinding headache. This time I had come down with a really serious cold (at least I hope it’s a cold – can’t be too careful these days, eh?)

I was going to do a ragga one, but Paul’s just done one of them. Whilst it would be highly amusing to BLOW HIS SELECTION OUT OF THE WATER with my own effort, I wasn’t really feeling up to it. So 21st Century roots all the way, then.

I don’t know about you, but I always think about these things in advance far more than is healthy. So for probably about the last 3 months I’ve been subconsciously planning the mix – I’d be there, superstar DJ, seamlessly mashing it up in the living room. Inevitably there’s a few false starts with this stuff, but the combination of my crappy decks and mixer, and the somewhat less than pristine nature of your average Jamaican 7″ lead to some “interesting” additions to the mix. All the snot didn’t help, either.

My crossfader doesn’t really work, so there’s all sorts of random bits of the wrong track in the left channel. Plus the arm on the right deck has a tendency to skid off the combination of dirt and vinyl which IS the run-in on some of the sevens (and the resulting scrunchy noise of needle on slipmatt also ends up in the mix because of the dodgy crossfader).

JA pressings are like they just wave the tune in the vague direction of the vinyl, and then add various bits of hair and bumps. This obviously goes down a treat with fanboys the world over, cos it’s, like, really authentic. (People cream themselves over the possibly apocryphal story about someone getting an LP with ganja leaves pressed into the vinyl). Obviously I’ll hold my hand up and admit to falling prey to this on occasion, but it mostly pisses me right off. It’s another one of the eternal contradictions of being a white bloke from the home counties who is into reggae.

I thought about leaving all the noise and errors on there and overdubbing some random bits of Merzbow, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and my Jonathan King flexidisk from when he was running as a independent candidate in Heathrow (not quite sure how I have ended up with that one) in the vain hope that I could then pass it off as a sort of DJ /Rupture, Coldcut megamix type of thing. But basically, it just sounded like really bad mixing, even for me.

The tunes, however, are excellent. So I’m going to give it another go tonight.

Revolt Against an Age of Plenty

And indeed, continuing the theme of pamphleteering/the end of zine culture, there are some fine texts at Revolt Against an Age of Plenty.

Would be good to have an overview, (so correct me if I’m wrong) but I guess it’s fair to say it’s part of the UK post-situ, BM Blob, No War But The Class War, milieu.

“We have resorted to cyberspace in presenting our texts simply because we have had no choice. Most bookshops that once stocked our pamphlets have folded succumbing to the relentless assault of grotesque real estate values.
Certainly our presentation here has nothing to do with the often senseless arguments between the purists of cyberspace and hard copy (print).
It seems obvious that it is better sitting back and reflecting while reading a book or magazine than staring insanely at a screen in an uncomfortable position. Moreover, seeing none of the people who have created this website have any professional status no book company would be prepared to touch us unless we wangled ourselves a few fine sounding letters after our names. For us our only form of “reaching out” communication is either the occasional leaflet or what we have here. Otherwise all our thoughts and ideas would merely remain as talk among ourselves.”

update!

Soon come:

Uncarved vs The Bug. John Eden interviews Kevin Martin about his latest excursions into mutant dancehall and hallucinogenic dub.

In fact, the dubplate of the text is already on the site if you want to do a bit of detective work. 🙂