The Intangibles Band

This space for you! ;-)

2006-05-14T22:45:00.000-04:00

Did you enjoy a concert? Then feel free to post a message. Tell others what you think of us, good and bad. We can take it on the chin.

We enjoyed entertaining the folks at Le Café de l'Artiste located at 5200, Verdun Avenue. And our next performance will be at the 2nd Chance Café Annual Benefit Concert. Reserve your tickets while they last. Call (514) 259-1464. $35/person ($50.00 at the door). Say "Hi" to Nick for us.

We'll see you there Friday, May 19th at 6:00 PM.

Bob
The Intangibles

TMR Concert

2005-10-02T16:50:00.000-04:00

Well, the T.M.R. Concert came and went. We were a bit nervous; but I suppose that's standard. We got together and threw in a few new songs into the mix while changing the arrangement of others.

One thing I gotta get is a tuner for my guitar. Even if I can't hear myself through the monitors I'll be able to tune quickly. A detuned guitar impeded the concert's beginning. I'll fix that.

The audience thinned dramatically as we played. That was somewhat discouraging. But more people have to sing about God if others are going to continue listening. We need more places to exalt God's name.

Progress

2005-04-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

It’s in my hands
The VS-1680 has come to my home. This is Frank’s baby. I understand that he’s a bit uncomfortable with it not being at his home. But it’ll give me a leg up in understanding how this thing works. A lot of money went into it; to have it messed up wouldn’t be cool. I’ll be kind with it. I won’t treat it any worse than any other technojewelry I’ve got.

It’s not the latest…
I’m considering upgrading to something like BR-1600. This will be a great help to figuring out whether it’s a step up or down. My friend Marc suggested I purchase the BR-1600 and use it for flat track recording. Then we can port the tracks over into software on a PC’s hard drive and manipulate them there. The advantages would be:

Visual. Instead of using the BR-1600’s monitor, use the 19" PC screen. Hmm, sounds cool;
Monetary. To add effects and cards necessary to make the BR-1600 a mastering machine would likely be quite costly. Adding new plug-ins to a software program on the hard drive would likely not be.

It ain’t a Fostex (thank God!)
I’ve messed with my 4-track cassette recorder. But the accumulative hiss from 4 tracks playing at regular speed was unbearable. No doubt my microphones weren’t any help in that process. But a new day has dawned.

Upcoming Studio Time

2005-03-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s official, sorta.

We’re heading into the studio. I shouldn’t be nervous. But being on the wrong end of a merciless microphone is nerve racking. It just is.

We’re going to enter this with loops—little sound chunks we string together. It saves on recording time if we take drum loops and carefully paste them together. That’s nice. I guess I’m hoping we can do guitar loops as well from bars where good takes are done.

Thing is: I just get nervous. All eyes are on me, the hands get clammy, and things that used to be simple to do on guitar suddenly become licks only a pro can do. This is probably what it’s like to be in the Olympics. I get this feeling that records are broken all the time during practice times. But come the pressure of millions of eyes watching you—and you slip, you sieze up.

I used to get nervous when I recorded on my old Fostex 4 track taperecorder. It just never did a great job of recording. Well, it probably did… but I was the terrible technician. I suppose it didn’t help that I sat there with all the equipment by myself. You do a take, listen and reject it. You do another take, listen and reject it. Get up, change the mike position, rewind, try again… and it’s no better.

It was kinda like the people who do stop-motion animation: very little progress for so much effort. And now I’m going to be doing this while others sit and scrutinize.

Frank’s album is pretty cool. Praise God. It’s a work of art. I did so little on the album—just a few tracks worth of plucking and strumming. I left that studio so discouraged. I was truly humbled. I thought I was pretty good at my timing. But I wasn’t. I kept “flamming”, y’know: not quite coming in on time. After an hour I began to despair that I’d ever be able to play two decent notes for my friend.

Then came the part I’d had time to practice for. And what I practiced was wrong. Oh, it was what I was told to work on. But the key was incorrect. And instead of playing with finger picks (the original idea) the flat pick was considered less noisy.

I figured that was it. I’d best pack my bags now and not bother continuing. But I gave it a shot. God’s grace came pouring into that room. I sat and listened as my hand suddenly gained lots of skill. Even as it was being recorded I could tell this was different. Every note fell into place.

God: please grant that this be the case for the album.