We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties -- Please Stand By

I did forget to mention in my last post or so that another contributing factor to the delay in completing the new Christmas song, "You Know It's Christmas Time," was that my recording studio, the BR1600, was no functioning properly.

While recording this song I allowed my free space to get to zero because I kept recording parts over and over and not erasing them and not optimizing the song. Optimizing is a feature that permanently erases everything you recorded over. The erase function only temporarily removes stuff you don't want anymore but it's all still there and all you have to do is use the "undo" button to bring it all back. Optimizing is the only thing that frees up space permanently. So when I got to 0 recording time I was forced to erase and optimize. That freed up a lot of space but it was too late by then. The BR1600 was not working smoothly after that point anymore. It would just stop recording while I was singing my lines or even playing some of the final instrument parts. There was a point I really thought the song was not going to be completed and in terms of making a final mix and then mastering it, I had to go through unconventional means to do so.

The good news is that it appears the hiccups are only on that song. I have not tried recording any brand new songs, though. But what I did have to do was play the final mix and record it into my computer, burn that onto a CD, import it into the BR1600 as a new song and then play it back through the mastering mode as I recorded it once again into my computer (which by the way is also on its last legs). This is the only way I was able to get the song mixed and mastered. Doing that normally would not work. The recorder would always stop recording at the very same point in the song. I was turning blue in the face.

I even started looking around to buy a new one of these. Surely, I thought, I've had this one for over 10 years and they must have made amazing upgrades and improvements to it. To my surprise, I found out they don't even make these things anymore. The only major company still making these non-computer based systems is Tascam which is the brand of the very first 4-track tape machine I ever had. This was really bad news for me. I have never used software and computers for making music. I still don't want to. I like having a standalone unit for music-making.

As I was looking at a 24-track Tascam recorder some of the reviews did not read so well. I recall multiple similar complaints about clicking noises that made it onto recorded songs. I don't want that!

So I'm really in trouble now. I'm hoping that the problem lies just with that song. After erasing and optimizing I relieved about 24 hours of recording time! From 0 to 24 hours. But I should have been doing this all along the way, after every new song.

The error message I get is "drive busy!" I looked all around the web for info on this and I found that Boss has 2 methods to temporarily fix this. One is to transfer all the songs in the BR1600 to CDs and then initialize the hard disk. That would take an inordinate amount of CDs to do. And initializing the disk erases everything that was on it.

The other method is to connect the BR1600 to a computer via USB and transfer everything that way. Again, you'd have to initialize the hard disk which erases everything. But it's all on the computer now so that's OK, right? Not really since my computer has been crashing scores of times since last summer.

I don't know what to do right now. I'm going to keep using the BR1600 for as long as it allows me to continuously record. Once it stops I will have to try one of the methods above. And those methods are not a cure by any means. Boss says you will have to repeat this process every several months. Why did they have to stop making this thing? This is similar to the iPod. I kept expecting that the iPod was going to perpetually increase in disk size as the last one I purchased was a 160GB and soon enough it was filled to the brim. But after the 160 there was no more. Then they came out with the iPod touch but only in smaller versions. Same thing with the Boss recording studio. I had the 16 track (which is technically not 16 tracks but actually 12) thinking someday I'd get me a 24 track. Perish the thought.

Even though I cannot get me a brand new Boss 24 track studio (which in reality would probably be only an 18 track), I can get a bigger iPod than my current 160GB. Although it's 256GB it is also still an iPod touch which I don't mind anymore. Actually I feel more comfortable now with the 'touch' technology so I'd prefer a touch iPod vs. the old wheel version.

OK. So this post was about my technological struggles of recording. I still plan to write about some of the goals for this year.

New Christmas Song Finished & Released

I find it mildly amusing that I had forecasted the completion of my new Christmas song within a few days of the end of November. I did not finish the final mix and mastering until December 11. And by the way, I'm still not thrilled with the final mix. I would have kept remixing and remixing until I got it just the way I wanted--were that possible considering it's an unattainable goal--but it's already so late to be releasing a Christmas song that I did the best I could under the circumstances. The good news is that it is now both at CD Baby and Bandcamp and also at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and everywhere else. I just hope it gets to those places well before Christmas.

I started this new song well before Thanksgiving. Mind you the intention was just to create some background music for videos. But as I really liked how it was turning out I thought it would be a waste to just leave it as background music, though it could still well serve that purpose. However, once again the vocal part is what created such a delay. Not getting everything sounding up to par. And unfortunately the released version is still not perfect vocal-wise but it's the best I can do under the circumstances.

I must admit--I seriously considered giving up vocal music during my many takes for this song. It became so frustrating to record the same lines over and over and not get them just right or even just good enough. I honestly cannot understand how some people can sing and hit the right notes every time. I started thinking along the way of doing instrumental music exclusively. I would definitely get more music produced more frequently if I were to only do instrumentals. But I also enjoy writing lyrics even though it's hard for me to sing them. And I cannot ask anyone to sing for me due to legal reasons. Whatever I create musically has to be 100% mine. The last thing I want to deal with is legal issues.

Anyway, here is the newly finished song found on my Bandcamp page:

You Know It's Christmas Time

Hope you like it. It's radically different from any Christmas song I've made before. But again, it wasn't initially planned to be such. The good thing is that not only is it a Christmas song but it also fulfilled the initial desire of being background music if I only remove the vocal.

Regarding the youtube issue--I tried to appeal the deconstruction of my Exit World channel but youtube only responded by saying that I need to get the Fred Rogers Company (FRC) to rescind their copyright strikes. Like that is going to happen. So as someone suggested I could move to Vimeo and carry on there, or I could just create a new email through Google and start my new youtube channel that way. (Actually I just found out I can create a new channel with my existing Google account).

I nearly forgot--this has also put a damper on my plans to release my old lo-fi recordings from many years ago. This makes me angry the more I think about it. I was not a multiple violator of their policies. I uploaded material that was not banned immediately. It was all up for quite some time before this happened. Had they taken all the FRC videos down initially I would not have uploaded more. All I received were copyright claim notices. Those are not bad. They serve to inform that someone has claimed the right to the video in question. But they gave me no chance. It was 1-2-3 and I was done. I blame both the FRC and youtube for this. I did not continue to upload claimed content after receiving any of the strikes. That's the part that is not fair. They make it seem as though I continued to upload videos after receiving the first 2 strikes. Why didn't they just take down all the Rogers' videos with the first strike? Why did they need 3 strikes to do it?

Anyway, I sent the FRC a few more emails with the final one giving them a piece of my mind. I stated that they handled this situation in a very unprofessional manner. I said a few more things as well. Surprisingly, I did get a response with an offer from them to talk to youtube about my Exit World channel. As I relayed this to youtube they refused to accept it and kept giving me the runaround. Like a broken record all they keep saying to me is that I need to resolve the copyright strikes on my Exit World channel when I don't have any on that one. Their reason for shutting it down was that it was linked to the channel with the strikes (JustGoodStuff). So I wrote them a not-so-pleasant email as well and I haven't heard from them anymore.

As far as I'm concerned that matter is done and I'm not going to hear from either party any further. So I'll just come up with another channel for my own personal music (which I will probably call "Millions of Me" as this is a possible new recording artist name for me). The other one I already made is called "AllTheBest". The only problem I'm having with the AllTheBest channel is that I cannot upload videos longer than 15 minutes since I'm not verified. My 2 most popular videos were just over 15 minutes each. Under 16 but over 15! I left the computer on all night long to upload one of them just to get a message that said it couldn't be processed since it was over 15 minutes. Couldn't they warn me ahead of time? So frustrating! And I'm hesitant to verify my account since that may lead to getting the new channel(s) shut down as well. I don't know what's involved in 'verifying' so I can't take any chances right now. I may just have to create a third channel with a brand new email.

Most importantly though is that I released a new Christmas song in 2019 and much earlier than in previous years. Also it's on my Exit World - Topic channel created by CD Baby.

In my next post I will discuss some goals for 2020, as is in keeping with tradition. If it weren't for "You Know It's Christmas Time" I would not have had a new song in 2019. I had a few background music recordings I made and I guess those should count especially if I am seriously considering working exclusively on instrumental music.

This post took way too long to write. It's pretty much after the fact now since it's been sitting here since mid-December.