Vote for the May/Jun 2016 "Originals" festival

[Redler]

We tried to record 4 tracks and the noise was disturbing. I've lost the battery rack, but I had an old 12 V battery in garage! I found a similar power supply socket and connected it to the battery. Now, there's just normal hiss that can't be avoid entirely.

The recording session is over for this day, we'll continue it later.

ps. The adapter that I used now, wasn't the same I used in the 80's. A friend of mine borrowed it from me and fried it, lol. I can't remember when I've bought the current one...

[Ted]

To anyone who feels excluded from this: I don't think there is an expiration date on the old fests. (Is there?) There are plenty fests to which I never contributed (i.e. most of them).

Among these, there are a few to which I'd like another chance to contribute, without feeling like, "Yeah, I know this fest was four years ago, but here's a song."

What about an "Amnesty Fest?" Give people an opportunity to contribute to an old expired fest without shame, but also collect the Amnesty Fest submissions in a jukebox of its own?

As for the Old School Studio Fest: I love this idea. I've kept my old Ross 4X4 and my Roland TR 505 drum machine forever, but they are in storage halfway around the world. I'd like to have an Amnesty Fest about a year from know after I've had a chance to excavate that gear and dust it off.

But just looking at these photos reminds of the amount of time and luck it took to make a halfway decent recording.

(By Rwintle at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7526505)

I used to have a complicated bouncing process that involved a second tape deck and tweaking tape speeds:

I would record an A note on my 4-track. That would be my reference pitch for tape speed. Then I would turn up the tape speed until it was a D note (using a guitar tuner to calibrate). That way I could record at a higher tape speed for better quality.

After recording four tracks (say drum machine, bass, guitar, keyboards) I would return the tape to the slower speed (again using the guitar tuner to calibrate) and "bounce" the four tracks along with the reference pitch over to my regular tape deck. With everything playing at a slower speed, it was easier to make on-the-fly volume and panning tweaks. So rather than bouncing two or three tracks to a mono track, I could bounce four tracks to a stereo track.

Then I would take the cassette tape out of the regular tape deck, and put it into the four-track recorder. The stereo tracks would be tracks one and two which I would respectively pan full left and full right. I'd crank up the tape speed again and I would be able to record two new tracks (say, lead vocal and harmony vocal) on tracks two and three.

Then I could record my master back to the regular tape deck.

I still have a bunch of these old tapes, slowly deteriorating, and labeled if I ever wanted to recreate the process.

[Hilary]

I love the idea of an Amnesty Fest, Ted!

[bruno]

There's nothing stopping anyone posting whatever they want here (within the bounds of the site). I guess the only addition to the fest is adding to the juke box, which I'm sure that the mods will add if asked nicely (I guess an amnesty fest). The only thing I would say is the effort to add a song to the jukebox, so I guess (I don't know) how feasible that is. I guess we could have an amnesty day (say last friday in the month - call it Amnesty Festival Friday :-) ), when you can submit to another festival? However, the mods need to agree, as its them that need to do the work, and it may be impractical.

NB I see the fests as a way to be inspired to record and join in with a bit of fun. I really have never felt excluded from any fest here - despite many fests not being my thing (some music I've never really been into, so I'll sit that one out, simplez  ).

Peace.
B

[Hilary]

If you don't do a fest because it's not your cup of tea then that's your choice - if you can't do a fest because you haven't got the equipment it's not your choice which is why it's not very inclusive. You could chose to spend money on equipment specially for a one off fest then it would be inclusive. I guess you reap what you sew.

[bruno]

If you don't do a fest because it's not your cup of tea then that's your choice - if you can't do a fest because you haven't got the equipment it's not your choice which is why it's not very inclusive. You could chose to spend money on equipment specially for a one off fest then it would be inclusive. I guess you reap what you sew.

Lets agree to disagree then :-) Sorry. I don't see it at all.

[64Guitars]

I don't think there is an expiration date on the old fests. (Is there?)

Actually, we stopped accepting submissions for past festivals four years ago.

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=15467.0

We've had so many festivals (80 so far) that every song posted could easily qualify for one or more past festivals. Can you imagine the amount of work for the admin team to maintain all of those jukeboxes? Also, as the festival jukeboxes would get bigger and bigger with all the new submissions, I think they'd lose something. The new songs would take some of the focus away from the original songs that were actually submitted for the festival.

What about an "Amnesty Fest?" Give people an opportunity to contribute to an old expired fest without shame, but also collect the Amnesty Fest submissions in a jukebox of its own?

I'm not sure. My gut feeling is that it's too open. The idea of the festivals is to present a specific theme that challenges people to try something they might not otherwise try. If the theme is anything that fits any of the past themes, then there really isn't any focus. As I said, with so many past festivals, any song can easily fit the theme of one or more past festivals. So it really becomes an "anything goes" fest and I don't see the point of that. We already have the Latest Songs jukebox where all new songs posts are featured. It seems to me that the jukebox for an "anything goes" fest would just be a duplication of the Latest Songs jukebox except that the songs wouldn't expire from the playlist after three days.

We're certainly open to revisiting past festivals in the form of a new festival with the same theme, provided that it wins the vote. We've already done this several times with BeatlesFest, TributeFest, etc. So if anyone wants to revisit a previous festival, please post the suggestion in the festival suggestions topic and we'll consider including it as one of the choices for a future poll.

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=15502.0

[Hilary]

I completely understand it's too much work, you do enough already - what about an Old Fest Fest, where Admin pick a random selection and we can contribute to that as the New Fest?

[Ted]

Re. Amnesty Fest.

I understand too. Sort of.

Members like me lapse and then drop back in regretting the fests we didn't see when they happened, and the ones that slipped by because life was too pressing. But that would be the point of the Amnesty Fest -- to let us have a limited time to make good. Like when libraries waive overdue book fines for a short period. There's value in it for both the library and for the tardy book borrower.

More loyal members understand the evolving dynamics of the site better than I do. Admins of the site also know whether an Amnesty Fest would be a pain in the ass.

But I'm here in Madagascar with just my MBR, my acoustic bass, and my ukulele*. I'm pretty much back to basics at this point. I get a little wistful looking at the Fests I might have joined if life hadn't gotten in the way.

At least discuss it among yourselves, Admins.  If it's a huge pain, or would somehow dilute the legacy of the older fests, then I won't second guess you.

* And my crappy Malagasy guitar, and my kabosy, and this other Malagasy thing that's like a stunted hybrid of a banjo and a mandolin. My Mac is seriously ill, though. No access to Garageband. I'm using a Linux laptop. That should soften your heart, 64Guitars.