Geeky “what I do” video
KeithHandy posted in Producing, Tools on June 19th, 2007
Heads up: you can now watch parts one, two, and three of my newest YouTube experiment, in which I demonstrate how I restore an old multitrack recording. There should probably be at least one more part forthcoming, when I put the final touches on the song.
The guinea pig for this experiment is Nicole’s Thoughts (featuring Kim Pinegar), the final track from my rock opera, Through Forbidden Black Doors. There’s no particular reason I chose it for this presentation, other than the fact that it was one of the remaining few that had not yet been transferred from the original reels into the computer. When the remixing is done, I’ll upload the song too, to give some context to all those little fragments you hear in the video.
I have absolutely no idea how boring this ultimately is; all I know is that filming it was extremely challenging on many levels, including (but not limited to): keeping busy with the camera breathing down my neck, speaking coherently while in my “flow state”, whittling the hours I spend on this kind of thing down to a digestible half hour, and managing to edit it in a way that helps you understand what you’re looking at, what you’re hearing, and what I’m doing with it. (Oh, yeah, and holding the camera steady too — thanks for pointing that out, Mom and Dad.) I’m not sure I succeeded at any of this.
It’s not totally dry, mind you; in fact, it kind of reveals how “by the seat of my pants” my working process is. Problems arise that might not have if I were more self-disciplined in the first place, but I deal with them — okay, I eventually deal with them — and move on. In that sense, there’s a wee bit of the human factor. That said, though, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who didn’t at least have some interest in the tedious realities of recording.
So who am I to tell you not to watch it? Enjoy!
