Schlagwerk Cajokick

A very interesting new product by Schlagwerk: With this device I could replace my frame-drum. On the other hand I wanted to keep my set-up acoustic. Maybe I will donate it to myself on christmas

Cajokick

The Who program

I started the project mainly, because I love to play songs of The Who at home. Meanwhile I have worked on many songs of them and today I created a possible track-list. A friend of mine encourage me to play live. We will see. Here is the list of songs I can play meanwhile:

1. I can't explain

2. Young man's blues

3. Substitute

4. Happy Jack

5.  I can see for miles

6. Shakin' all over

7. My generation

8. Amazing Journey

9. Sparks

10. Eyesight to the blind

11. The acid queen

12. Pinball wizard

13. Baba O'Riley

14. Bargain

15. Love ain't for keepin

15. Behind blue eyes

16.Blue, red and grey

17. Music must change

"Who are you" is still on the wishlist. also "Boris the spider" and something from "Quadrophenia"

"Can't explain" by Pete Townshend/The Who

"Happy Jack" by Pete Townshend/The Who

Breakthrough

Today a breakthrough happened: After several tries I found a practical solution to record my little Who-project properly. The sound of the AKG C-1000 was too thin and harsh. At last I placed my cheap Ribbon mic in a slight angle between me and the foot-percussion. One side of the mic points to my head and the other side towards the percussion. The result is very warm and old-fashioned sounding. I like it and will go further this way.

Recording problems II

Meanwhile I have found a way to go: After some experimentations I think, that the best position to record is close to the singer with a cardioid microphone pointing directly to my mouth. At all other positions the vocals are overpowered by the drums. I will try first the cardioid mic (AKG C-1000) and as second choice a bi-directional ribbon mic.
Approximately I will record in Mono to make it not too complicated.
Using an adapter I could set the camera and the mic on one stand, but I want to record the video from another position, so I have to use two stands.
I have found a free software to convert the mts.-files of my Panasonic. With handbrake you can easily convert to mp4 and you can also remove the audio-part of the video-file.
At last I will attach the audio-recording to the video using imovie.

I hope that this will become a big improvement of my recordings.

Recording problems

After I have recorded now four songs I am still not happy with the sound of the videos. It's not a wonder, because I used just the internal mics of my digital cam, a Panasonic DCM-TZ10. While the guitar and percussion sound acceptable, the vocals are sounding very weak, maybe because the cam was placed in front. I have experimented with other angles, but the results are all not convincing. So now I will try to record the audio with a good microphone using my Boss BR-600 and at the same time the video with the Panasonic. After that I will try to combine audio and video. It sounds not so hard, but I have made bad experiences, when I tried to work on mts-files. Probably I will need additional software.
If there is still time I will try it today ...