#ALSO I can't use them with my audio interface when I'm recording

[obstinatecondolement]

Genuinely fucking loathe my bluetooth headphones.

[magentagalaxies]

sometimes being the director of the buddy cole documentary is an emotional rollercoaster for reasons entirely unrelated to actual controversy with the character

basically. this morning paramount took down the comedy central website and made every link redirect to paramount plus (which i do not have). previously you could find clips from every time buddy cole was a correspondent on the colbert report for free on the comedy central website, but not only are those free clips no longer up, paramount plus doesn't even have the colbert report.

so even if this craven attempt to get people to pay ransom subscribe to their streaming service worked, they didn't even take the clips with them!!!

so i was in mourning for a solid few hours this morning bc like if i'd known this was going to happen i would have at least screen-recorded each of the segments even if it meant the audio sync was a little off. but i had no idea this was going to happen and now yet another piece of buddy cole media was lost forever. and i'm used to having gaps in my timeline. stuff like scottland and the lowest show i've only been able to watch bc bellini happened to have a dvd he could digitize. and stuff like the buddy cole funny or die clips, out on the edge, and the ctv royal wedding special i may never see. but when something like this happens in real time after i've already dedicated myself to preserving and documenting the works of buddy cole, it really stings

i know i shouldn't feel like i somehow "failed buddy" for not preserving these episodes. i had no idea comedy central's parent company was going to throw out so much of their content, we're just in a literal hellscape with regards to how corporations value art. but i can't help but feel a little protective of buddy - not protective in terms of controversy, per se, controversy is a natural reaction to everything scott does with buddy cole and i don't always have to agree with everything the character stands for. i've already gotten a taste of being in my own buddy cole controversy, and it was horrible but it also felt like this is what's supposed to happen because we're now able to have this conversation. but being completely forgotten? that doesn't feel natural one bit even though it keeps happening to so much of this character's timeline.

anyway, i pasted the links into the wayback machine and even tho it could load the interface it couldn't load the videos. i found a record of each episode on the internet archive but they're all chopped into 1-2 minute clips, there's an option to "borrow" full episodes and have them mail you a flashdrive but i have no idea how that works and if i'd then be allowed to copy the episodes onto my own computer. i eventually found the colbert report is still available to purchase on itunes for $1.99 per episode - i'd need four specific episodes so that would be more like $8, which isn't too bad, but still stings just on principle. plus, what if that iTunes interface goes down someday? the only colbert report dvds are "best of" and even if i think buddy cole is the best part of anything he's in, the people making the dvds probably don't.

[frenchiefitzhere]

Both of your series give me art zoomies, but I was wondering if you could enlighten someone who plans to start their own va stuff (eventually 😓). What does your recording/editing process look like?

Big caveat: I'm not an expert. Entirely self-taught. All trial and error and YT tutorials. But I'm happy to share what I've learned 🌻 1. Set-up: a. Microphone: Rode NT-1 with a Focusrite Scarlett audio interface b. Software: Garageband (for most things) + Audacity (for fixing things) c. "Studio": I have the microphone on a floor stand in my walk-in closet. I also recently added a sound blanket as a curtain on the outside of my closet. I found it does make a difference which way I point the mic: away from the window that opens to the street.

A fancy microphone matters far less than the recording environment, I have found. It's important to check for things like appliances, fans, vents, etc. that might make extra sound. I'm pretty picky about getting a clean, crisp recording. (For example, if a car passes on the road as I'm recording a line, I do it again.) The reason the closet is a good place to record is because the fabric absorbs the sound. 2. Recording a. I record each character on her own track in GarageBand, and whenever I can, I will record as much content for the same character as I can (i.e. over multiple episodes).

b. It's much easier in the editing process to record A-A-A, B-B-B, C-C-C style for lines rather than A-B-C, A-B-C. In other words, if I mess up a line or think I might want a different take, I just immediately redo it as many times as I have to (rather than recording the whole script in one go, getting to the end, and starting over). c. It's helpful to have a nonverbal signal that shows up as a spike on the recording. (I learned that from Erik's little Audacity tutorial video.) So, if I know I have a section that I want to mark for some reason (ex. I know I messed up, I was doing foley, etc.), I just snap my fingers. d. Foley: If I have to make my own sound effects, I usually do not record them simultaneously as I act. It's much easier to make changes later if they're separate. It's not easy to 'extract' sounds. 3. Editing a. First, I export each track/character from GarageBand to Audacity and run the Noise Reduction and Declick plugins. Then I save those and bring them back into GarageBand. This step gets rid of most of the background noise. b. Then, I start lining everything up and clipping the recordings into regions. I usually make an extra track I call "Discard" so I can line up my back-up options for certain lines. (Usually, I'm just deleting the things I don't want but..sometimes I can't decide so I line one up in the Discard track in the same position/timestamp.) c. I usually add the sound effects and soundscapes at the same time. It's a bit more tedious to line everything up all at once, but much prefer it over going back and adding sound effects later, after I finish the voices. If you just have a few effects, it's doable to add them afterwards, but...timing matters for everything.

I get most of my sound effects and soundscapes from Freesound.org and sometimes I get them from Pixabay. Pixabay is also good for finding royalty-free music. Every once in a while, there's a specific sound I need that I can't find for free. For those, I get a license from Pond5 (which I like because it has a subscription like most stock libraries, but you can also buy what you need à la carte). d. Because I'm used to accessing MIDI for my musical projects, I've also found that that's a fun way to make special effects, especially when I need m a g i c. I just sift through the MIDI library in GarageBand (or use some plug-in instruments) until I find the sound I want, and I can change it up by playing different combinations on the MIDI keyboard. e. I spend a lot of time (probably too much) making micro-adjustments to the Automation. For example, I like the soundscape to fade in at the beginning and out at the end. And I make corrections--mainly Volume and Gain--for the main vocal tracks. That's also my way of keeping the SFX tracks down to just one or two: I can change the volume of each individual section. I'm not sure how helpful it is, but if you're curious, here's a screenshot of the next Ruby audio. (This is an unusually high number of tracks, even for a Ruby project.)

4. Finishing

I do not consider myself a 'video editor'. I like designing the thumbnails, but I wanted something where it would be super easy to make an interesting still image and just stick a sound file with it. Canva is good for that, and it's what I always use now. The only time I broke down and used iMovie to edit was for the Ruby vs. Carol puppet show, and I still finished that up in Canva. These are just the basics, but there are some other tips and tricks when it comes to different effects and stuff. (Musical projects are a completely different method. In a lot of ways, they're easier because ✨tempo✨. I still use GarageBand, and my recording set-up is the same, but how I record and edit is much different.) Note: You do NOT need to have all of this equipment right away to get started. A decent microphone does make a difference, but other than that, everything else is extra.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary18

9/22-23/2023

listening to brainiac before bed.

i did 5 songs today but only 4 are like things i redid, i got a new short song down, exciting. have to wait a bit before i can listen to it and think about lyrics for it i think, it's fresh and i'll want to mess with the guitars too much i think.

i just spaced out listening to the guitars in 'this little piggy' i'm so fucked right now. thankfully the process of fixing everything will be over soon, hopefully, probably, and hopefully i'll fall in love with everything.

i should think about reverb a little, if the record needs it or not. i really avoid it cuz it feels cheap, not like it sounds bad, i mean i feel cheap using it cuz it used to be such a crutch for me i feel like, when i was making jungle and stuff.

thinking about cheapness, and jungle i guess, apparently people spend huge amounts of money getting synths to make "ps1 jungle" now, i didn't ever consider that. it's massively fucked up, all the music i've made i've never spent a dime on, making everything i've done super cheap, which i think is sort of cool. it's fucked up to me how people will spend huge amounts of money on equipment without ever really putting anything out with it. i just don't understand having really nice things and not really doing anything outside of putzing around with them. it's not like it would become okay if they did make anything though i guess, if someone spends 2000 dollars on a synth to imitate a sound that came from a sample pack that a japanese dude used to put a song together in a day, they are wasting their time. it's also fucked up because, at the time at least, in 2019 when i was making this stuff, it felt basically liberating to make that stuff because it let you be cheap, now it's gotten super particularized. i can't really touch breaks anymore, not because of these people who i never considered until today, but more because so much mediocre breakcore is being put out, and so many people love sewerslvt, it makes me feel dire, and i decided to just give up i guess.

i went looking for old mp3s of my jungle stuff so i might put it here or something and instead i found a bunch of other old stuff. reminded me of how much i miss having access to my cousin's audio interface for recording bass and guitar.

here's some stuff from when i was trying to do guided by voices in 2021.

these kinds of songs are so fun to make. i'd like to do it again some day. it's easy to hear how bad i am at guitar, but i really did love playing at that time. i still do, i just can't record it, i just get tabs/ ideas out and transpose them to midi, so i'm basically playing fucked up hardcore only right now. or not that fucked up. i love octave chords, and then sliding up a note so it's two notes right beside eachother. i think that's such a pretty sound.

anyways. the current state of jungle makes me sad. guitar music has always only ever made me happy, even when i was sad.

what does it mean, what does it mean.

well it's not entirely true anyways. some guitar music blows and it pisses me off like all the sewerslvt adherents. some electronic music has only ever made me happy. i love everything at the end of the day and it makes me sick i guess.

it's 6 am! i spent all this time reminiscing about my old music, but i have new music, i have to keep its heart alive too. i want to keep every heart i ever found alive. i'm an awful doctor!!

okay anyways #byebye!!