The Song Fight Bulletin Board

BLT wrote: Emmaline

Oh my garshk, that is it! A quick search of the lyrics and a song clip verify it. Right on, Chris! Man that song bummed me out when I was a kid. The original is by Hot Chocolate who also gave us "Brother Louie" and "You Sexy Thing". Deliciously good 70s cheese there. Thanks!

Paco Del Stinko wrote:

BLT wrote: Emmaline

Oh my garshk, that is it! A quick search of the lyrics and a song clip verify it. Right on, Chris! Man that song bummed me out when I was a kid. The original is by Hot Chocolate who also gave us "Brother Louie" and "You Sexy Thing". Deliciously good 70s cheese there. Thanks!

Don't forget, I too had one of those little round ball AM radios that hung from a chain, when I was little, lol.

QotD: It's been scientifically proven to be 'Gloomy Sunday' (or should that be ? )

I don't normally warm to emotion in song, suspect it's all fake, except, like Jack said, when the song acts as a trigger. Personally it would be 'Stay Free' by the Clash the night I heard Joe Strummer died, drinking whiskey and having a little blub in his memory. Mick Jones sings the song, and it conjurs up a sad little tale about a lost childhood friend, and well, you can guess the rest ...

I met the big bosses son today. He reminds me of Screech from Saved By The Bell. His wife is a hot italian babe, though. Nice.

QOTD: Songs that I find sad, though are not really written as sad songs

Spinal Meningitis: Ween
Do You Realise: The Flaming Lips
Dr Menezra Deconstructs: Tism

if i think of some more, i'll let you know

QOTD: Oh, there's a ton of sad songs, but right now I think the saddest song I can think of is 'Loosens' by Sloan. 'Voices' by Cheap Trick makes me feel sad, but I don't know why.

[edit] Same thing with 'Dear Prudence' by the Beatles.

QOTD: Sonata Arctica - Under Your Tree

It's about the singer's pet dying. It's really emotional to listen to.

Another frenzy has passed (6.5). My kick sound is atrocious. I need to fix that.

I got Logic 8 today. What a long-ass install process. 7 DVDs! Plus another DVD of sample content!

The new UI is very alarming. I'm sure I'll get used to it in time but I was just ffinally getting the hang of Logic 7 and now they go and make it, you know, <em>intuitive</em>, without neutering any functionality. What the fuck, Apple.

qotd: "Add It Up" by The Violent Femmes, as sung in karaoke by my friend Jason. (He thinks he's a lot better than he is.)

Wow, 7 DVDs? That must be one heavy program. Is it a music program?

http://apple.com/logic/

It's my recording/mastering environment of choice. A few other people here use it too (e.g. Roymond).

The program itself is actually pretty small. Most of the 7 install DVDs is loops, samples, and softsynths.

From what I just read, it sounds like a great program. I don't know much about Apple computers, but from what I've learned about my own computer recording/mixing in the past year, it sounds like it has some things that I need. Do you know how it compares to Cubuse 4? Because from what I've seen of Cubase 4, it's going to cover a lot of my digi studio issues. Well, after I get a new fast computer with tons of computery goodness.

I haven't used Cubase much. The last time I touched it was Cubase SX or something. I couldn't stand its interface. Logic was a lot more, well, logical, while Cubase seemed to be designed mostly around people who were used to previous versions of Cubase. The inductive principle doesn't apply very well to software design.

Granted, Logic's UI had been getting somewhat like that too (though at least they cleaned things up over the years... 7 was way more usable than 6, though I never used 5 or earlier so I don't know how they compare), and Logic 8 really is a HUGE reworking of the Logic UI, <em>but</em> the underlying concepts are still the same so it still makes sense even coming at it from an older-Logic standpoint.

The basic concepts between Logic and Cubase aren't all that dissimilar (from what I remember of Cubase, anyway) but Logic's execution of those concepts is much more intuitive.

I still say Cool Edit Pro/Audition <=1.5 has the best UI of any DAW out there. I wish Adobe would've added the features of Cubase to 2.0 instead of just copying the interface (and ruining it, IMO)

Paco Del Stinko wrote:

BLT wrote: Emmaline

Oh my garshk, that is it! A quick search of the lyrics and a song clip verify it. Right on, Chris! Man that song bummed me out when I was a kid. The original is by Hot Chocolate who also gave us "Brother Louie" and "You Sexy Thing". Deliciously good 70s cheese there. Thanks!

You know, I thought of that song too, but rejected it since you said "Melanie", haha. I really like The Sisters of Mercy's cover of this, hard to find but worth listening to. They call it "Emma".
-bill

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I don't know much about Apple computers, but from what I've learned about my own computer recording/mixing in the past year, it sounds like it has some things that I need..

I started using a Mac from the "Don't Break My Heart Again George Lucas" fight on. Everything I did before that was done on Cakewalk. Garageband is the computer-retard's friend. It made everything so much easier. It may not be great for people who know what they are doing - but it provides me with the sort of idiot-proof recording environment that I require. It probably has less features than the old version of Cakewalk I used to use - but it still has far more features than I will ever actually use. (The only thing I actually miss from Cakewalk is the 'reverse' feature. I have to go to Audacity now if I want to play backwards guitar. And you can't change tempos in a song. For "Brownie Points" in Nur Ein I had to record 3 different files at different time signatures/tempos and join then together for the final song)

GarageBand started out as Logic for Retards. Then Apple started putting serious work into improving GarageBand, and for a brief time it was actually (in some ways) better than Logic. So now they've taken all the work they've put into developing GarageBand and applied it to Logic, and so now Logic is once again the non-embarrassing professional-level application.

The big things Logic has over GarageBand (in terms of digital music production, anyway) are track automation and much more flexibility in terms of mixing chains (buses, groups, inserts, multiple sends, etc.). It also comes with many many VERY top-quality effects and instruments.

Also, unlike GarageBand, Logic will control external MIDI instruments, though that's becoming less and less useful, especially since pretty much any physical module you can think of has a virtual counterpart which comes with Logic.

You know that sound of a bouncing marble in my "Bad Cat?" That was a Logic synthesizer. To simulate the sound of MARBLES BOUNCING. (Well, specifically it was a patch in Sculpture, which is an extremely powerful physics-based synthesis engine, and can simulate all sorts of cool things, like a violin with glass strings, or the wind blowing over fields of metal grass. I'm sure you could even make it do hand-farts if you tried hard enough.)

Pretty much the only things in my songs which aren't softsynths these days are vocals and guitar, and in the case of guitar it's more an issue of getting a convincing performance than getting the sounds right. Someday someone will make a MIDI controller which actually captures string bending and fret sounds and then I will start using a softsynth for guitar too. (Because the sound is <em>already there</em>, it's just that it takes more effort to get realistic performance data than it does to just play a damn guitar.)

Right now I'm using Cubase LE, and I cant believe when I'm told Cubase 4 is so incredible compared to LE. But I have been hitting the limits of LE in the past few songs and Cubase 4 has the answer to those limits. I did mess with C4 briefly, and I went right to my issues of my version and they thought of it. Id really have to use it in my studio to give it the proper test, but its around $800 right now. Ill get it when it drops to about half that.
But regardless, I need a new computer before I get a heavy program. 90% of my recording issues right now have been computer freezing related.

If you're getting a new computer anyway, consider getting a Mac. The current ones will also boot into Windows if you really want to (or you can run VMWare which lets you run Windows apps close to native speed without having to reboot - VMWare Fusion is pretty awesome), and of course they come with GarageBand, and Logic 8 is only like $500. The main downside is that with a Mac there's not a lot of choices in the actual system... for a desktop you're either stuck with crappy graphics (the Mini), a built-in monitor (the iMac), or spending $2500 (the MacPro), and the laptops are similarly divided (the MacBook is a great computer for the price but if you want a decent graphics chip for gaming you've got to pay nearly twice as much).

I don't play games and I'm pretty sure I never will......well, never say never. My only problem with getting an Apple is that I have finally gotten to where I can pretty much figure out how to fix problems and understand my PC. I'm no wiz, but I can finally visualize the paths I need to take to find things, etc etc.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I don't play games and I'm pretty sure I never will......well, never say never. My only problem with getting an Apple is that I have finally gotten to where I can pretty much figure out how to fix problems and understand my PC. I'm no wiz, but I can finally visualize the paths I need to take to find things, etc etc.

I've got no idea how to fix problems on my Mac. It's great! I've never had to learn! And, likewise - I don't play games. I wouldn't recommend a Mac if you did - there don't seem to be many available. Except for an FTP thingy, Microsoft Office and Audacity, which I use only for backwards guitar - my Mac has no extra software on it except what came loaded on it. I have no need for anything else - and it makes life so much simpler. That's what I like about it.

erin. wrote:Mercy Street- Peter Gabriel

This is one incredibly sad song.

Hoblit wrote:

erin. wrote:Mercy Street- Peter Gabriel

This is one incredibly sad song.

Yes. And beautiful. I loved reading Anne Sexton (who is what this song is about) and her death really sucked.

Oh, thought of another one, SF-related. The lyric to Steve Durand's 'Nothing Day' is so sad, I like it because it's not overly-dramatic or anything, just captures perfectly the absolute unmoveable flatness of loss. Also a great tune.

I reccommend checking it out, if you don't know it.
http://www.songfight.org/music/nothing_ ... and_nd.mp3

Did I mention I dida crappy cover of it a while back? No? Ah, well ... it had a good solo though, even if I say so myself.