Technology and Summers does not the best of partnerships make.

However, an awful lot of considerations are being looked at currently. How to get a system that will simply provide a decent platform to record the self written songs. You can’t run before you walk with the current technological choices being made. Well….I can’t. Hours spent reading up on what works or doesn’t is essential. Expensive mistakes can happen when considering technology incompatibility and compatibility. So, I’m going from crawling along stage to doddering on my feet stage presently. Yet seeing light at the end of a long tunnel.

Having now received the Apple set up of Studio screen monitor, Mac M2 Pro mini desktop computer, Qwerty keypad and WiFi mouse, the next step was to find a decent set of headphones to listen to what is being recorded, produced and mixed in a clear and clean effective audio way. Getting clarity to the bass, middle and top note/tone/frequency sounds. Also, a linked in keyboard to add little musical extras played on ‘piano’ keys.

The intentions are to record virtually everything on external microphones. Acoustic and six stringed electric guitar, my bass guitar, main and backing vocals and voice harmonies, drums, other instruments (djembe drum, tambourine, percussion, brass, etc.), and work alongside other musicians with their specific instruments of different nature. Ukulele, harmonica, banjo, cello, violin, squeezebox? Maybe they will be considerations. Who knows. I don’t know where my songs will go. I may write a song about a circus and need to emulate the sound of the Calliope. Where will that be found!

Guitars recorded externally on mic would probably produce a whole different sound to that of being plugged straight into a computer. My guitarist brother, Steve, has a Variax guitar with a Helix system alongside. The systems’ holistic possibilities for sound choices seem endless.

LINKS BELOW TO WEBSITE REGARDING VARIAX AND HELIX.

https://uk.line6.com/variax-modeling-guitars/jtv-us/

It is the equivalent of having a guitarist with a foot pedal system to change guitar dynamics on stage. But also much more too. Your one guitar can become another make of guitar sound. Flick a switch and you go from a gutsy raw Les Paul to a Rickenbackers’ unique sound in the blink of an eye. Switch…Six to twelve string guitar. Switch….Electric to acoustic. Switch….Banjo to ukulele. Switch. Switch. Switch…..I was mesmerised! One guitar does all. And sounds pretty amazing too. When we spent a day rehearsing, the Helix ‘floor’ system was used to change dynamics through a small speaker on a tall stand that had an output of sound equivalent to a huge stack of speakers in the past. The volume achieved whilst he was playing through the small speaker was phenomenal.

Below. The MV88 has three capture choices of left, right and cardioid centre captures in both mono and stereo. Ideal for podcasting interviews too.

And here begs the question. Do you record the speakers with a microphone or choose the option of ‘direct to the computer’ for recording sound? I have no idea which would sound best. But certainly cannot play in ‘The Den’ at home with the six string electric guitar volume ramped up to ten to capture energy and bite. The neighbours down the road would come knocking. Musicians definitely live in our village. I know because I can hear them from time to time from distance!

To be honest, when we used the Shure MV88 microphone (such a tiny little mic plugged into the iPhone) and recorded a couple of songs when rehearsing recently, with a ‘one mic to capture all’ scenario, it was a phenomenal result sound quality wise. We simply placed the mic to catch guitar, bass and drums all at once. That Shure MV88 and its equivalent MV88+ are phenomenal microphones. My old school Shure SM58 (made in the USA) vocal mic from the mid 1970s is pure class. Essential for live gigs. But it couldn’t achieve the sound that the MV88 did.

Example below of a band recorded playing in rehearsal with the simplicity of the Shure MV88 and an iPhone.

Which of course comes to recording the drum kit to get a decent result. Steve, my guitarist brother, has the Shure MV88+ and I have the MV88. I also have a MV5 Shure microphone too which plugs in to a USB port. So capturing the drum’s qualities with three decent mic sources should be fine. Then, once recorded, send the results to the GarageBand app to add to the songs already worked on. I have put off getting the Logic Pro system. Too complicated as yet. Too expensive too. GarageBand is free and very efficient when viewed on and used within the Apple Mac system.

So much to think about to create the sound as a ‘we are musicians playing and doing our thing’ ideology. With modern technology making life easier than when we were capturing on a four track tape system back in the 1970s/1980s. But the idea is to capture a human touch. No inbuilt add ons to be used. Or as sparingly as possible. You can get an electronic ‘clapping hands’ option in GarageBand. I’d rather clap my hands into a microphone and smile at the vibe of doing so.

Also, I still sit for hours on end practicing playing my self written bass lines whilst singing the vocals at the same time. Watching it come together and becoming more fluid produces a fantastic feeling of achievement. That is priceless. Of course, to play live at an open mic session in the future will need the human touch still.

Currently? There is an Akai keyboard ordered and arriving tomorrow. Photo above. Also, Beyerdynamic headphones are arriving today. I have suddenly left my comfort zone of an acoustic guitar and warbling vocals captured by a simple ‘turn on the iPad and capture my songs/ideas with its generic internal microphone’ scenario. I want to release songs to the World. Not for success. But for personal aims to actually do something decent with my songwriting/songs in my retirement years.

So, with my heart willing and my brain befuddled, the project is going ahead. Marvellously well for optimism and motivation……but with a large pinch of trepidation alongside too.