ClassicalCode

Inspired by the recording I made with my friends, I decided to record a non-barbershop song. I decided on “Were Going To Be Friends” by the White Stripes. I recorded in four passes, each of which required several takes. First the ukulele track, which almost gave me carpel tunnel, then the melody, and then two different harmony tracks. The harmonies were based on a harmony I remember my friend Rosie Steffy singing when she first introduced me to this song many years ago.

Have a listen to this cover of the White Stripe’s “Were Going To Be Friends”:

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Today my friend Alison, my room mate Noah and myself recorded a rendition of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles.

Ukulele – Jordan
Bass – Noah
Vocals – Alison

Listen to the result:

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Last Mother’s Day I recorded my mom a barbershop tag. This Mother’s Day caught me at a bad time, and I was gift-less when I saw her. So today, with my new recording equipment, I recorded a belated Mother’s Day barbershop tag. I have always thought this tag was particularly beautiful and have attempted it a few times before with little success. This time I feel like I have finally been able to do it some measure of justice.

Happy (belated) Mothers Day Lisa. I could not ask for a better mama.

Listen to the tag “To My Beautiful Life Long Friends” from the Classic Tags Collection:

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Since I began multitracking, my recordings have suffered from “recorded-with-the-built-in-microphone-itis” which has greatly reduced the quality of my multitracks. Recently I got my hands on a Zoom H4 “Handy Recorder”.

This thing is awesome. In one portable package its: a high quality USB microphone, a portable recorder, a four-track machine, an effects pedal, and much more. To take the new contraption for a spin, I recorded an old favorite tag. I did all the multitracking on the Zoom, and then transferred the individual tracks to my MacBook where I added reverb and adjusted some levels (which I could have done on board if I had wanted to).

I have recorded this tag a few times before on my MacBook microphone and the difference of sound quality is pretty noticeable. Have a listen to this new recording of “In Dixie Land Where I Was Born”:

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The awesome nerd over at Geoff’s Boring Programming Stuff gave me the biggest compliment a programmer could recieve. He wrote a program to use my program! As he points out in his post, it seems pretty clear that he is not the only one. If there is anything more rewarding than that, I can’t think what it would be. Thanks Geoff.

Edit: (May 18th, 2009)

Apparently my brother’s room mate took at shot a writting a bot of his own. You can see his progress here and his wins here.

My simple Refresh Cannon game got picked up by several high traffic websites. Unfortunately the large volume of traffic brought my simple server to it’s knees, so I had to take the link to the image down. Now that the bulk of the traffic seems to have passed, I am reposting the link. You can find it at the original post.

EDIT: Due to an excess of traffic, I have had to take Refresh Cannon off of this page. Please try again later. I am so sorry folks. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed. I will post it again when things cool down.

And… were back.

Inspired by the popularity of Refresh Hero, I am continuing in my exploration of the limits of avatar images. Of course the main challenge is developing ways for the user to have meaningful interaction with only their refresh button. The previous game used the element of time in binary fashion: either you got it right, or not. This new game uses time to allow you to adjust two different variables.

Avatar Cannon is the basic trajectory game of angle and velocity. The amount of time you wait before refreshing allows you to adjust these variable and attempt to hit the target. Each time you hit the target a new terrain is generated. The avatar also displays your standing against all other users. A full live high score list is also available.

Finally, if you would prefer to have your score listed next to your nick name, instead of your IP address, you can register here.