Author: wjl

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Always experimenting with audio

I wrote about buying both Reaper and Harrison Mixbus, but at the moment I’m back to plain old Ardour for my audio mixes – and I still keep changing things, like:

  • I changed from the version 5.12 which is the current version of Ardour in both Debian stable and also in KXStudio to 6.6 which will be the second last of the 6.x versions of Ardour (with the latest version being 6.7, soon to be released). This looks a bit like Mixbus which is based on Ardour 6.x, except the bells & whistles and the built-in eqs, compressors, and such.
  • I also changed from using lots of Calf tools to alternative ones which are making use of better (programmed) DSPs – those Calf plugins look nice, and are easy to understand, but sonically there are better ones I think.
  • In my latest remix I experimented with using 96kHz sampling rate while working, and used plain old CD quality 44.1kHz (and even the mp3 format which Ardour now can also write) for exports, except my single bass stems which I still exported as .wav files. This ‘oversampling’ is done more or less automatically by some better plugins, so I’ll go on working with 48kHz which is the norm for video and also the one used by many mobile devices (like phones).

Just in case you’re interested, at the moment I’m using:

Beside these, I’m also using:

Of course, I’m also still experimenting with Harrison Mixbus, but can’t do everything at once and for all projects – I still want to make music a bit as well… 😉

So much to learn, so little time… but I still love it when/if I approach better output quality along the way. One important thing to keep in mind is for instance gain staging – make very sure to not saturate your outputs too early, and to get your signal into the next plugin already too ‘hot’ for it to handle that signal… drive it hot at the output, not while still working 😉

As always, thanks for reading 🙂 And also thanks to those who donate their precious free time into developing awesome tools like the ones mentioned above, for free. Help them with a little donation if you can, they need the nice feedback like every other musician/technician as well…

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Why don’t you call me?

I’ve made a rough mix of this one lately, but wasn’t really happy with it – so I sat down with it again, and also played a little bass on it. Hope you’ll enjoy:

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-217917.php

Again, thanks to tyrece and also to Shi for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening.

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More visitors

I’ve written about the neighbours’ cats already, and that some of them are now visiting us – which they do on a more or less regular basis now, at least two of them, “Milka”, and “Cookie”. They even come inside now that our old friend isn’t around anymore to turn them away. But we won’t ‘lure’ them in, or bribe them with food – we’re sure they would be missed by someone… anyway, here are some photos I took since late April:

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“Milka”
7e5_5073649-cookie
“Cookie”
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7e5_5083663-cookie
7e5_5093665-cookie

It’s nice to have them visiting us, but as I wrote above, no food, and the cat toilet and other stuff are packed away as well. At the moment, this isn’t a home for cats, sorry… still missing our Tuna too much…

As always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.

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Old soldier

I had downloaded Ardour 6.6 recently, and installed it onto both my Windows as well as my Linux partitions of my machine. Here’s a first mix job together with a bit of a bowed bass on a lovely template from Don, and with an awesome story from Shi:

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-216509.php

As always, thanks to my friends from Wikiloops for all the fun – and thanks to you for listening 🙂

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The full measure

A fun track with Dorothy and Frankie, but even with me it’s far from ready, just a framework for other things to come, hopefully:

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-216313.php

As always, thanks to my friends at Wikiloops for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening 🙂

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Two photos from last week

April 20th, 2021:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wjlonien/51138175748/
Looking out of the window in the morning of April 20th, 2021, this is what I saw

Today (April 25th, 2021):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wjlonien/51138734599/
Looking out to the veranda from my computer desk, this is what I see up close: my microphone, waiting for me to play my upright bass into it

As always, thanks for viewing.

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Anti Covid jabs

Got my first vaccination against the COVID-19 disease on Monday evening, with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Just like our chancellor and vice chancellor who both had the same as well.

Tuesday morning I felt nothing at all, no side effects – but that changed quite a bit during the day: first I felt cold and feverish a bit (didn’t measure anything tho), then I developed a real headache which also didn’t want to go away after taking an Aspirin 500, and around the evening there was also sickness involved, couldn’t really eat.

So I went to bed early, at around 9 or so, and slept through, dreaming some wild stuff, but next morning (Wednesday) I was back to normal again, and since then I’m more or less without any further symptoms.

Too early perhaps for a conclusion, but yesterday a friend from Paris reported almost the same – he wrote “i feel a bit like i’ve been trampled by a herd of buffalos this morning…”

My wife and a colleague of hers who both work in a Kindergarten had their dose a few weeks earlier, and just continued working, unlike their boss who suffered as she told me with a remark like: “Men…”

So let’s see. To feel sick and bad for half a day is still far better than catching that virus, that’s why I would recommend getting the jab to everyone who has the chance to, and is offered one of those.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Sunday morning visitor

We sometimes have other cats visiting us, and until recently Tuna was always showing them that they’re not welcomed around here. So those visits are rare, but some three or four different cats turn up once in a while.

This one is a bit shy (or still afraid of Tuna?), and usually gone as soon as we open the veranda door – so I took a zoom lens to take some photos through the closed door. Changed in post: set the camera’s white balance to “cloudy”, added a touch “clarity” and removed a touch of “haze”.

This one treads lightly:

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7e5_4183603-sunday-morning-visitor-2-2

As always, thanks for viewing and for reading.

P.S.: We have several cats visiting us as I mentioned above, and one day after this one came, a white one with grey patches (Zuleikha named her ‘Milka’ already) was here – and she even came in, and checked the whole flat. I’m sure that she could still smell traces of our Tuna, but no cat toilet, so the place seemed safe…

… and then there’s a tomcat whom Mitchie calls ‘George’, a tabby like Tuna, but he didn’t show up since a while, same as the Maine Coon one (one of two, we know the ‘owners’) which I had seen before sometimes.

Mouse population is growing with our chief mouser’s absence, so happy hunting to all neighbours’ cats…

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Anywhere you go

I had played on another branch of Niklas’ and Oliv’s track already, so I took my bass from there to see if it would also fit on Anne’s wonderful song… here you go…

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-215676.php

As always, thanks to my friends for all the fun, and for their wonderful music. And thanks to you for listening.

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Love forever feat. Mark Z.

I added fishi’s sweet sax and also my upright to a wonderful Canadian/German/Welsh and with the sax also American love song:

https://www.wikiloops.com/backingtrack-jam-215351.php

As always, merci, danke and thanks to my friends from Wikiloops, and thanks to you for listening.