Okay..it’s not really a CD…we gave that up after year one, but we’ve been collecting Christmas tunes for the past six years and hosting them on a special site so technically you COULD download them to make your own personal CD. Anyway, as we do every year, we are putting out the call for anyone who would like to contribute a tune or two or three to our little endeavour. This all started with those of us who chat in the chatroom but all forum members are welcome as usual to add to our collection. I always look forward to this as it’s become an annual Christmas ritual for me and I really enjoy listening to the tunes contributed from years past ( which are still online).
So…anyone interested can let me or Alan know. Alan does the hosting and technical stuff and I’ll have him post some links from the past years. All you need to do is record something as a wav. or mp3 file and send it to him.
A little off topic, but as I’ve been away so long, and have recently come back to the chat room… where is it? With the new forum setup I can’t seem to find how to get in and the IceChat is not working at all. I don’t know what I did to it If I can find a decent mic, maybe I’ll give it a try this year and contribute. It’s been a while.
Tunes have started rolling in and if you want to have a listen to get you into the holiday mood…and of course motivate you to send your tunes in… here’s where you can have a listen…
I’m using Adobe Audition and a “Fast Track” mic recording interface by M-Audio, but you could just as easily download SourceForge Audacity (AFAIK it’s still a freebie) and record through your computer’s sound card.
As far as mixing instruments, it’s fairly easy. Record your backing track first, then set a new track to record your whistle (or whatever) while you play along to the backing track.
When you get through recording, apply stereo effects and fool around with the sound level of each track until the whistle is neither too quiet nor too loud. I usually get the stereo effects by copying each track and panning the original and copy to opposite sides.
I have an M-Audio FastTrack Pro into which I
plug my guitar and an Apex415 condenser mic.
The FastTrack then plugs into a USB port on
my Mac and I use GarageBand to record and
mix.
I have also put the same setup on my XP
laptop, using Cakewalk Music Creator 4 and
Audacity with similar results.
Thanks to all of you who contributed to our Christmas musical project this year. We had some wonderful original compositions, lovely singing and a variety of selections, arrangements and instruments ( including guitar, dulcimer, whistle, flute, banjo, fiddle, and more) and I enjoyed listening to them all as I know so many others did. I hope you all had a great Christmas and look forward to see many of you in the chat room again “next year”…
The tunes will left up on the site for some time to come..possibly until we do this again for 2009.
And thanks to you, Moon, and to you, Alan, for the annual prodding and the effort to keep things organized. Every year I go back and listen to the whole collection. It is by far the most meaningful Christmas music I have!
If I can find a decent mic, maybe I’ll give it a try this year and contribute. It’s been a while.
Thank you!
