Whinge

I've not had a whinge for a while, and mostly the whinge is, once again, about recording. Well, a small amount might be about my playing (tunes that I know that I know that somehow I nevertheless keeping making a hash of; connector tube flipping out - too much hemp means it won't sit in well, and if it does it's too tight to move so the other end comes adrift instead; stacks of constant air through the bellows needed to keep the drones going).

I thought I'd try recording direct to Chirbit. It's nice and easy to do, but the sound quality is awful. The fan says this will be down to the soundcard on my laptop. It sounds like an electric keyboard on "smallpipe" mode, recorded at the bottom of a tank full of water.

So then I tried the other recorder. This plugs in to the mains, so no worrying abut batteries or booting up my laptop. That's the good news. The bad news is that you have to assign channels, set the balance and levels and give your track a name before you can even hit the record button. I'm told I can then chop up bits out of a long recording, but how easy that is or how easy it will be to transfer it form the machine to my laptop and here, via Chirbit, I know not. What I couldn't manage was a half decent shot at any tune at all. So the recording is the Chirbit direct one, which I thought was nice and lively but has, as so often, come out as a dirge - slow as you like, and hesitant to boot.

Playing Flett mostly. Hopeful that I might manage it at the session at the weekend to give a bit of variety. Failed to append the Rocks to the Tree or Teribus to Galloway today. Only a so-so attempt at the King. Waterloo coming on OK, I think, yes, just about OK.


Check this out on Chirbit