Monday, December 27, 2010

Post Christmas Frustration

Now that the holidays, the busiest time of year with the whole music career thing, are passing I already feel the clench of that hand around my neck squeezing away my ability to relax and be comfortable.  Why am I determined to work without job security?  I traded one kind of stress with another kind just as paralyzing and lethal and I still like to think it was the right choice.

And then there is the recorder.  For Christmas I got a "Pocket Studio".  A digital recorder I can jot down ideas, play with current compositions, tape gigs or rehearsals for learning purposes.  After 24 hours of playing with overdubbing my voice 8 times and making little 30 second snippets my terrible impersonation of Bobby McFerrin, I decided to hook it up to the old piano and try my hand at a swinging number I wrote back in August and have been doing live ever since.

I layed down some piano, a bass track, some bad guitar and then organ track complete with wailing solo in the middle.  I put down the vocal track: so far so good.  I've got a little bug and I sound a little hoarse but I am pleasantly surprised with the recording.  Now I just have to mix it down and create my master track.  All this recording lingo is new to me as I have managed to remain completely ignorant to the entire process and what it actually requires.  I feel comfortable.  I punch up the menu and go to create the master track. I must listen for the entire play through and turn the organ up for its solo and back down after.  One and a half minutes into the four minute track the music skips, like a record needle jumped back, only once.  Then an error message "I / F Error : Please Power Down".  Which I do.  I have been running on batteries all day and figure it's a power issue.  I was on one out of four bars on the LCD display.  So I plug in with the wall adaptor (NOT INCLUDED) to discover that my entire project is gone.  Erased somehow.

I record again.  It wasn't as fluid as the first time.  Mistakes ooze from all but one track.  The piano part is sloppy or robotic.  Nothing ever truly find the pocket that we all hung out in first take.  And then...  Mother Puss Bucket...  As I was completing the organ track: The playback skips once and I am met with silence and my "I/F" bullschittake mushrooms.

Maybe this song is just plain doomed to fail.