So I'm totally new to blogging and really this is just a reminder tool for me to remember all the new things I'm learning about my new dock. By way of background (in case anyone actually reads this) I'm a professional musician who teaches. Don't we all? I bought ipads for everyone in the office for teaching and got the dock for recording students. In the past this has been kind of a pain so my hope was this would simplify the process. Ahh, the process... student learns the materials, students sits and plays the material, I record using steps that I've actually written out, teacher edits if necessary, uploads to something, creates a playlist and burns a cd. I hope that's the process but as I said this is all a learning experience for me.
So first. I should remember to turn the dock on bc I have better things to be frustrated about. I hooked up midi cables to control my Yamaha Clavinova and record from it. In the past the signal coming from the piano has been to big to process properly so I've had to turn it down as much as possible and pray I can fix the signal in the mix. Now, I don't have to. However, if I use Garage Band (from now on known as GB) I can only get the piano sound set on the ipad. Ok, that works sometimes. But my kids like to use the voices on the piano (over 500) so now what? Well, I used the headphone jack and then had to switch to using the audio recorder on GB. This works well. Except that now you can't hear what you are playing. Solution: high end headphones or plug in some studio monitors. I almost went to Guitar Center to buy some desk top monitors but as I walked thru my garage I saw my speakers with built in mixers I bought for last years recital ($700 apiece-HELLO!) Lugged and plugged one- count 'em ONE in and used that. Sounds great and already paid for. I'm not even gonna cover playing around with settings like reverb and echo bc I have bigger problems than dressing the tunes.
NOW- testing!
1st: PIANO
I started recording piano in GB. Using midi or the headphone jack either works. For whatever reason I can't get a signal from the Out jack in the back. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if there is an onboard setting that needs changing to make those work but I'll hopefully read this later and check out those possibilities sometime when I'm bored. Again, to use any of the voices I have to use the headphone jack and GB audio recording. It doesn't seem to matter if I use the guitar setting or the aux in on the second jack but it NEVER works on the first jack. EVER!
Next: GUITAR
Super easy. Set it up using the guitar setting in the back and go. I used GB first time with the amp setting and then I did it in the audio recording. Both work fine. Plug guitar into the back and rock.
NEXT: DIGI DRUM set
So again, plug from the mono out to jack 2 and record on either GB drum or audio. Got it!
Playbacks history:
On the the first 3 play backs everything is sounding fine. THEN freakin STATIC! ON EVERYTHING. Even the original plays. OMG! I tried everything. Except a hard reset on the ipad. What d'ya know? A hard reset on the ipad, min. of 10 minutes rest for the little bugger and we are back in business. Whew!
NEXT: VOCALS/ and karaoke tracks
My intention is to use my iphone which has my student's playlists on them and record those as track one and then add the students on top. GB makes this really easy but most of the other mixing consoles do to. Getting the music into GB not easy. I plugged a little to big adapter into my phone and then used an instrument cable into the iodocks jack 2 and recorded a test track. What the heck? MONO! Weird, but whatever. Interesting side note though and what a GREAT discovery this was! When I plugged in a stereo instrument cable I got karaoke from the original recording. So here I am accidentally playing Taylor Swift Sparks Fly cd version but all I hear is the music and her FAINTLY and by faintly I mean almost nothing but I have those big ol speakers, in the background. There's also a high pitched overhang in the sound but it's not bothersome. YAY! Now the students can sing with the artist slightly in their ears through the headphones while they are recording in my non sound proofed office. I don't have to do a coordinated playback so they can confidently sing along and the artist is buried under the louder vocalist but we get a nice reverb tone to the student. Also, the mic only picks up whats RIGHT in front of it so thats good too. For those interested I used an Audix something or other (the $100 one from Guitar Center).
I also used this same procedure for the digi drum kit. I laid down the track the kids were playing with and then recorded the kids with it. Just had to play with the volumes a bit and we were in business.
Ok I'm off for now because I have to go check on my turkey thawing. Did you know turkeys float? Hmmm.....
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