Well, here we go...another day to screw around with the acid program. But things are a little different now. I have given up on usking it as if it were a really nice multi-track studio (which is sad, because that's exactly what it's meant to be). It is too frustrating when the tracks won't slign proerly.
That's okay, though. It'll have to be. Now I'm using it as if it were a digital cassette recorder. Just like I used to record song ideas in the old days, only instead of work tapes I'll have "work mp3s".
Actually it will be much better than the ancient cassette method. I'll be able to use moderate effects, like reverb and just enough digital delay to get an "echo" sound. I can equalize the track, balance out the highs and lows. I can multi-track, using ather effects and panning, to give the song a more "full" aspect. It's easier to click and delete screw-ups than it is to rewind a cassette player to just the right spot to and record over them. One of the best advantages it has is that I can record for a long time, letting the ideas come to me, and afterwards I can sift for the good ones, cut them out and make an mp3 of them, then delete all the crap.
It won't be quite as fun as doubling vocals, overdubbing, inserting harmony vocals and doing extra guitar parts, but it will be enjoyable nevertheless. It will yield more actual songs, in a rough demo form, than the other method. Actually the people who asked me to record and post my songs wanted simple guitar/vocal arrangements, anyway. I guess that's part of my "style". At least that's how it's perceived.
In other news, I began reading Dean Koontz's "Intensity" a couple of days ago. I've not liked what I've read by him in the past, but there have only been a couple. My mother-in-law gave us a huge box of books and there were 5 or 6 Koontz novels in the lot. I figured it would be a good time to give the guy another chance. After all, he is one of the most popular authors in the country. Maybe there's something about him that I'm missing.
I am only about 80 pages into it, but I can already tell you I'm not going to change my low opinion of the man's work. It's like a B grade movie where the action comes from out of nowhere much too soon. You hardly know any of the characters at all when the psychopathic fly-eating killer begins his twisted, perverted handiwork. Sometimes it seems like Koontz is treading on territory that he's crossed countless times and is very likely bored with. "Let's see, how can we make a murder victim stand out from the rest? Oh, I know! Let's have the killer sew his eyes and mouth shut with a needle and some thread! That'll creep 'em out!" But it doesn't. It just comes off like he's just seen the movie "Seven".
As I said, I've only barely started reading the book, so there is the chance that it will pick up steam at some point. I'll see it through to the end. It wouldn't be the first shitty book I've read just because I wanted to see if an author appealed to my tastes the way they do the mass reading public (James Patterson's loathesome "Cross").
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