Seasonistas general thread: yakking, joshing, news and pictures

[haberkow]

View attachment 135367
Woodstock Ukulele Studio (6305 SE 46th Ave, Portland Oregon) will be presenting an in person and ZOOM concert at 7pm (west coast usa time) on September 12. The driveway at Woodstock Ukulele Studio holds at least 40 people (even with distancing)

If you come to see the show, please arrive by 6:55, and bring a folding chair. Park on 46th or 45th. There is a bathroom facility. The show will be approximately 75 minutes.

To watch on ZOOM - join meeting number 622 972 7495 with password "WOODSTOCK" The session will begin at approximately 6:55, the show at approximately 7:05.

The event is free, but paypal donations to ferglow@comcast.net are welcomed!

The players: Brian Fergus and Borfus Wallaby of UkeFoote are joined by Andrew Morse for a concert of eclectic solo and ensemble ukulele music.

email Brian Fergus at ferglow@comcast.net for more information

Your concert sounds great, Brian - I don't think I can make the drive from Seattle next week, but will do my best to join via Zoom...

 

[Joko]

We Interrupt this channel with a word from I don't know who...

 

[TCK]

Thanks, I don't have a YouTube account and as I don't compose and have original music I only play covers. I understand that YouTube is enforcing copyright violations for people who upload music and don't hold the proper licenses to do this. So I am quite worried to do this and wonder if there is another way without going through third party. Can we post videos from Instagram or Facebook here?

I have over a thousand covers on YouTube with no issue yet…I have had a few slaps on the wrist but nothing other than that

 

[gugu & gorilla]

For those of you who watched and heard my birthday song for my friend Kelvin recently, you might be interested to know the music stuff Kelvin is doing.

I wanna share this video by my friend Kelvin and his friends, who call themselves The Oddfellows, an indie rock band from Singapore, formed in 1988. Their music is influenced by power pop, '80s American college rock and UK indie bands. After like 30 years(!) they are back making new music and they got a new album out on streaming platforms tomorrow.
Kelvin's own music is quite different from The Oddfellows's, he is very versatile and can write a great pop song if he wants to.

Ok. Here is the video!

 

[Joko]

What I've been busy with at the same time as 500.. (which will wrap today!)

 

[Joko]

As an impressionable pre-teen, I was inculcated into the idea that a court could not be left without successfully hitting a couple of shots from the Charity Stripe consecutively. 40 years later, I still hold to the tradition.

Speaking of charities, some worthy cause is seeing their 47,000 Burmese Kyats continue to plummet in value. Anyone seen RAB11 around?

 

[RAB11]

As an impressionable pre-teen, I was inculcated into the idea that a court could not be left without successfully hitting a couple of shots from the Charity Stripe consecutively. 40 years later, I still hold to the tradition.

Speaking of charities, some worthy cause is seeing their 47,000 Burmese Kyats continue to plummet in value. Anyone seen RAB11 around?

I'm here and I replied in-thread!

 

[Harmony Smurf]

Thought I would do a life update. had hernia surgery and am just recovering in time for harvest. I really need to find an orchard near me for some cider! I'll be back in the swing of things after halloween if things go well.

 

[Joko]

Auction for Myanmar Rocker’s Ukulele Breaks World Record

I'm glad the funds are going to a good cause, but that bit in P5 comparing the ukulele to a... a... ugggh... I can't even write it.

Auction for Myanmar Rocker’s Ukulele Breaks World Record

Big Bag’s lead singer Kyar Pauk auctioned his ukulele for US$27,500, with all proceeds going to the people’s war against the junta.

www.irrawaddy.com

 

[jtsteam]

I'm glad the funds are going to a good cause, but that bit in P5 comparing the ukulele to a... a... ugggh... I can't even write it.

Urgh. I've recently learned about the concept of the "second mention", whereby journalists can't bring themselves to use the same noun twice and will do all sorts of things to avoid it. There is, of course, a twitter account dedicated to them: https://twitter.com/secondmentions

Recent favourite: "Italy" ==> "Amazing boot shaped country" (

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1447941092557705228

)

 

[decaturcomp]

Oh, TD - you break my heart. Coconut is originally by Harry Nilsson. But my fellow Seasonista Alan and I did a version a while back. One chord, but you can jam around with that.

And Ginny - is it the words, the chords, or the combination that is giving you a problem? If it's words, just play, then play and hum, then play and the chorus, etc. I still find that there are songs which I can internalize easily with both, some with just music, and others not really at all.

Who ARE these guys??

 

[RAB11]

Urgh. I've recently learned about the concept of the "second mention", whereby journalists can't bring themselves to use the same noun twice and will do all sorts of things to avoid it. There is, of course, a twitter account dedicated to them: https://twitter.com/secondmentions

Recent favourite: "Italy" ==> "Amazing boot shaped country" (

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1447941092557705228

)

That is my new favourite thing. Thank you.

 

[chris667]

I'm going to play a tune on my ukulele, that fine baby guitar object.

 

[decaturcomp]

A frustration I have is that I can't memorize uke music. I need song sheets to play for anything. I keep batches of them on music stands both upstairs and downstairs, so I can sit and start playing at any time. I add new ones whenever I find a song I want to learn to play.

This limitation keeps me from taking a uke somewhere for jamming or sitting at a park or passing time in a hotel room. I'm tied to those song sheets. How can I be a more casual player?

To you have an iPad or the like? I keep all of the songs I write and covers we play on one and make folders for groups of songs like “songs I wrote” and “for the next gig”. I have a stand for it and a Bluetooth foot switch so that I can set it up to show a subset for a particular night, let’s say a 3
Song open mic plus one for the (non inevitable) encore. Adjusting the font size to a larger one and possible using white text on a black background is good for dark rooms with lights in your eyes, BTW.

 

[chris667]

Hello everyone.

Can I ask those of you who do multitrack recordings - how do you do it? I have started recording audio only adding the video afterwards but the videos aren't up to much. They always have mistakes because my PC isn't powerful enough to preview them.

Do you all have really good computers, or use some sort of device like an iPad?

I'd be really interested if you wouldn't mind sharing.

 

[jtsteam]

Can I ask those of you who do multitrack recordings - how do you do it? I have started recording audio only adding the video afterwards but the videos aren't up to much. They always have mistakes because my PC isn't powerful enough to preview them.

I don't know if the way I do is is "correct", if indeed there is such a thing, but here we go... I do this on a 2015 MacBook Pro that used to be my main work machine but is now relegated to my play machine. It's a few years old, but it has plenty of RAM (16Gb) which helps a lot, and helpfully it comes with a pretty decent (for my purposes) DAW in GarageBand and video editor in iMovie.

I record directly to the DAW, while simultaneously recording a video on my phone. I sync the video with the recording right at the end. There's usually enough clues in the waveform to be able to sync them pretty easily.

Once I've done the main track, I'll record any overdubs direct to the DAW - I suppose if I had more patience I'd also make videos for these and sync them up in iMovie later.

Finally I'll load the video and the mp3 into iMovie and sync them. Usually the video will include a few failed takes at the start so probably the most annoying bit is editing these out!

I assume there's similar reasonably priced software for PCs, but I don't know what it is...

 

[bird's eye view of my ukelele]

Hello everyone.

Can I ask those of you who do multitrack recordings - how do you do it? I have started recording audio only adding the video afterwards but the videos aren't up to much. They always have mistakes because my PC isn't powerful enough to preview them.

Do you all have really good computers, or use some sort of device like an iPad?

I'd be really interested if you wouldn't mind sharing.

I do pretty primitive multitracking, one way I do it is adding extra audio tracks in movie maker, the free video editing software that comes with windows, I have a cheap-ish acer Windows 8.1 laptop that's about 4 or 5 years old I think. The other, most primitive way I combine audio tracks is to record one track, eg. my voice and uke, I have a little dictation machine I do that on, then I play that through a little amp or my stereo speakers, and play say some Casio keyboard or whatever, and record all that stuff going on together. You can also play a vid on a TV or laptop or phone, and then record yourself playing along to that - that's fun plus you can get to see the video of the first track playing in the background

 

[bird's eye view of my ukelele]

Hello everyone.

Can I ask those of you who do multitrack recordings - how do you do it? I have started recording audio only adding the video afterwards but the videos aren't up to much. They always have mistakes because my PC isn't powerful enough to preview them.

Do you all have really good computers, or use some sort of device like an iPad?

I'd be really interested if you wouldn't mind sharing.

I do pretty primitive multitracking, one way I do it is adding extra audio tracks in movie maker, the free video editing software that comes with windows, I have a cheap-ish acer Windows 8.1 laptop that's about 4 or 5 years old I think. The other, most primitive way I combine audio tracks is to record one track, eg. my voice and uke, I have a little dictation machine I do that on, then I play that through a little amp or my stereo speakers, and play say some Casio keyboard or whatever, and record all that stuff going on together. You can also play a vid on a TV or laptop or phone, and then record yourself playing along to that - that's fun plus you can get to see the video of the first track playing in the background

 

[UkingViking]

I only occasionally record more tracks than one. But the procedure is almost the same.

I use a medium powered laptop that I bought last year. I believe it has 16 GB of RAM, which was a priority since I bought it for this purpose. I think that pro's will recommend 32 GB for video editing, but I figured that since I only do small 720p videos I should be able to get by. My desktop PC only has 8 GB, and I did manage to record stuff on that. That was in Windows Movie Maker, which doesn't take too much power.

I used to record audio with a USB mic on my desktop with Audacity (freeware), and a camera on the side. Then combine audio and video in Windows Movie Maker.
Before combining I would adjust the volume in Audacity so the level was decent compared to other Youtube stuff.
I would sometimes record audio with USB mic on a tablet for mobility. Then I would often need to turn the volume all the way up before exporting, then import to PC and Audacity to turn up the volume further before hitting acceptable levels - my tablet did not give the mic enough gain!

Since I got my laptop, I have been using the "Reaper" DAW with a USB mic. Reaper is $50 one time payment, so kind of cheap for a DAW. The new PC's don't come with old school movie maker, but I was happy to discover that Reaper allows you to add video tracks to the mix. Then when I choose to export to mp4 in stead of wav files, I get a video. So I record on a camera and import it into Reaper.
The video features are not many, but it generates a rather "steady" video compared to the free video editors I have tried. The weird focus issues in my videos are due to my camera, not the video editor.

When I do more than one track, I often give up on doing video. The videos look less cool to me when I have headphones on. It takes a lot of efford to get the timing right, which means many takes where I would need to turn camera on and off, or I might need to stitch the audio together from more takes. Sometimes I record myself with ukulele without headphones, then add more tracks without video. But I feel that when multitracking, I really SHOULD listen to a click track, record the bass first, and all those things that "real" studio people do.

I usually end up being happier about the songs I have done without multitracking than those with, since you cant hear how much my timing is off. Here are two examples where I went all in on the video editing part to get video of several instruments, but at the cost of some timing issues.

 

[DelGriff]

Hello everyone.

Can I ask those of you who do multitrack recordings - how do you do it? I have started recording audio only adding the video afterwards but the videos aren't up to much. They always have mistakes because my PC isn't powerful enough to preview them.

Do you all have really good computers, or use some sort of device like an iPad?

I'd be really interested if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Hi Chris

I use GarageBand on iPad and I take 2 approaches, depending on whether it’s a faster song with an even tempo or a slower song with more variation in tempo. Either way, the thing I would stress more than anything is that timing is critical, and makes the difference between something that sounds really good and something that sounds like a complete dog’s dinner!

Approach 1
For faster, even paced songs, I will usually lay down a rhythm track first. GarageBand does have a good number of preset rhythm tracks and loops you can use, but I love doing my own. Then I’ll work out a bass line and add that. I have a full size USB MIDI controller keyboard that I plug in to the iPad via a USB to iPad converter cable (pm me if you want to know details) and I play all the additional internal GarageBand instrument sounds (there are loads and most are pretty authentic) with this. Strings, piano, synth and other sounds can be added at this point too, or you can wait until after you’ve added your uke and voice track to the song. If you’re playing acoustic uke and singing, you can then plug in your external USB mic and play and sing along with what you’ve already recorded - I use my phone to video this part of the process and then later combine video and audio in iMovie (also on iPad). If you wish to add electric uke, that too can plug into the iPad using another type of converter cable (pm me for details of this too) and you can take advantage of a multitude of amp and effect settings within GarageBand! However, you can’t have a mic and electric uke plugged in at the same time as there’s only one input port, so the tracks for uke and voice would need to be recorded separately.

Approach 2
For slower songs with varied tempos, I’ll usually do the uke/voice part first, then add in GarageBand instrument sounds afterwards. Timing can be much trickier here as there’s no rhythm track to follow. You can, of course, add in rhythm afterwards too, but timing will be critical!

Using GarageBand on iPad is easier than it may seem from what I’ve written here - I’ve considered putting some kind of tutorial vid on YouTube outlining the above processes - is this something anyone would be interested in watching? (That said, there are plenty out there already, though I could of course tailor mine to what I do here on the Seasons). Or even arrange some kind of interactive Zoom session/s - would that be of interest?

Anyway, hope that helps in some way, Chris?