h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

look, look in that tree!
There's a small rgoldfish looking down at me!
blackcat>
I'm bored.... can you tell? Whaja doing?

Fear not the leggie one, I'll sort it!

I just so happen to have an infeasibly large fishing net in my back pocket for just this type of situation...but, I'm not sure it's your colour *tilts head*

Ooo purr-fict oh... the colour...
It is a bit.... err orange?

Bah! Knew I should have brought the green one

Never mind, we'll just have to shoot the goldfish down.

Why aren't you out getting horribly drunk and falling over? Look, it's Saturday o'clock!

I've not been out ... since last weekend when I was away for the weekend, my useual* drinking partner here is off away for a while and to be honest I don't know if I've the energy I've a bit o work I really* have* to finish by Monday so I'm working up to getting that done and dusted tommorrow... and taking of dusting finally* getitn round to cleaning my bedroom up a bit all bery boring really

*aims teh spud gun at the fish up the free ooo I got one!

*picks up the shot fish and frames it*

There, forever immortalised in Ikea's finest plywood!

Dearest leg of twoness, might I have a probe of your brains about muso geekeryness pliz?

The son & heir was on about obtaining software that allows him to do recording magic on the puter and I recalled reading but not understanding some postings by you and *that* Roymondo fella about such things a while back. Might you be so kind as to recommend something, preferably of a non cost nature that might allow himself to record his guitar, keyboard and drums and that. Please and thankyou

(obviously, once fame and fortune is realised you shall get album credits and front row tickets to all his stadium gigs)

(Oh and VIP access to all showbiz parties natch)

The one I use is quite expensive... But it just works well for what I do... Roymondo started using one that was although not quite* free very cheap, a shareaare one, so I guess £30 or therabouts, and which seemed to have a lot of features in common with the more expensive ones... err can't quite remember what it was called, I'll try and find out
He'll also need a half-decent soundcard for the PC otherwise it won't work at all, or not well at all....
He's probably already got an internal soundcard chip, that won't really do waht he will need to do for the recording.
If he's into guitar playing then ther eis a very inexpensive soundcard that I bought recently designed mainly for guitarists, and which to my ears at least sounds as good as the more expensive soundcard I have fitted to my PC.
The soundcard I have is a Line 6 guitar port; if he can get the one with either the 'silver' or 'gold' 'gearbox' software, then that is very good for makign the guitar sound right
I think they also odo slightly more expensive versions of the 'guitar port', ther eis an UX1 and an UX 2 but I've not used them (though am considering getting the UX2 at some point when the calms down a bit)

Do you know what kind of PC system he's got at the moment?

I'll try and find out what the software was that Roymondo uses, I know he was quite impressed with it and its price

I understand nothing of the 'soundcards' of which you speak, I'm a total fumbley blunderer when it comes to all things technological. But, if you say he needs one, then he can figure out what to do with it himself

I Googled something called 'Audacity' which says it's free and appears, from what I can tell, to record stuff n'that, you know anything about it? http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/

He's still very much a beginner, he's only been playing guitar (self taught plus a wee bit of instruction from my limited ability) for the last year and drums for a few months. He's taking it all very seriously mind and doing well. But I think initially he'd do with something basic with just the essentials to help with his GCSE wotnots as he's now having to perform and record his own stuff, once he's got to grips with it and my finances allow, then I'll kit him out with something that's all singing and dancing....or do you think I'm in denial about the inevitable and need to fork out spoons now?

Really appreciate you letting me bend your ear about this by the booKeep the knowdgeables coming

So, how the hell are you anyway? I trust life treats you well you young dandy you

No need to spend a great deal.... I think* the soundcard I mentioned is less than £40, and its dead simple as its USB connection to the PC.... Audacity is good for some things, but for what he'll want to do he'll really need something a bit more designed for it, but again there is this free/cheap one Roymondo uses, which is pretty good... and I've still not been able to remember waht its called though

Me ... Bit board at th emoment, now my job has finished and I'm out of work again, so just trying to settle into a new routeen.... Looking foward to Xmas though this year as I'll have more time to spend at my Dads I'll try to remember to ask Roymondo what the one is he uses, or see if I can find mention of it on here

So long as he's a half decent modern computer, and with a soundcard like I mentioned, and this bit of software... When we find out what its called, he' be pretty much set, There are then plenty of free bits of software to help mix and put effects on to sounds, like adding reverb and chorus etc to what you've recorded, and there are millions of those effects about and plenty all of them are free And I'm Of course he might want other stuff, like microphones etc., But thats a differnt matter and depds on waht he's recording and how he's recording it

Looks like he's going to have to get a soundcard added to his Chrimbo list then and whatever the Roymondo thingy turns out to be.(Do pass on good tidings to young Roymondo when you speak with him, hope all's good with him )
He already has a microphone, not brilliant, but sufficient for the time being. Looks like I should start trying to forage for other bits and bobs he's going to need as time goes on...does look like this is going to be more than a passing fad.

The pc he has at the moment is my old one, powerful and tons of memory, has XP Pro but it's pretty temperamental, it's died and been resuscitated a few times. But, I think it should be okay.Really can't afford for it not to be.

So, yeah, no more job then? That's pretty shite really, didn't they know you were King? Anything else on the horizon or is one taking it easy for a bit and watching Jermy Vile in bed? I'm a great fan of Dickinson's real Deal myself, but that's for when you're hardcore unemployed...give it a few months and you'll be ready

I don't even own a TV!

Yes the whole musicy thing can get quite expensive.....
I've not got that* expensive gear, but to give you a rough idea , and some of my stuff is really great for what I'm doing;;
Microphones.
1 £40.
1 SN57 (don't like it) £80.
Microphone/instrument preamp (absolutely great), err I think about £180.
Soundcards:
Internal soundcard; £57 (great sound, plus came with a whole bunch of software free).
External soundcard, £30, (second hand),
MIDI keyBoard, £70 ()fine does waht I want ).
additional soundcard (that I don't* need for the music stuff), £20.
Guitars, £3,000 (one does tend to collect them somewhat as time goes one )
Cables... BoB knows..... £50 or so woudl get you enough cables for just about any circumstance that arrises, but less woudl probably do
PC: £700 ish a while back now though

I guess he's got a half decent set of PC speakers? or does he already have an internal decent soundcard... have a look in 'sounds and audio settings', in err, control panel, and it shoudl say what the soundcard is....
How good on teh computers is the son?
There are some great internal soundcars, but you'd need to fit them yourself really (which sounds a lot scaryier than it is)

Yeh.... In some ways I'm kinda pleased ot now not have a job.. free time... but nothing to do with it... and the potential of somethign new.... I'm kinda taking a bit of a break now until the new year, though I'm still looking about for stuff in the meantime, but I think afte rXmas I'll start applying for a lot more stuff, rahter than as at the moment being quite picky about what I'm loking at

I guess I@m lucky, more so than many people at the moment, in the last three years, which includes my bit over a year of work, I've managed to save nearly the equivelent of a years wages before* tax, adn I alreayd had some savings before that
Though... I'd previously kinda hoped the job would continue and so I could get a ton of work done to the house that needs doing
Right.... its nearly 6 AM< I really oughta go to bed

No telly? That'll never do, unemployed slob police'll be after you if word gets out

Well, I told himself to have a look at this thread and what you'd said and he said that he'd like all of that stuff and more besides but has downloaded Audacity and was playing around with it, making odd noises for most of the evening
He seems happy enough with it at the moment, but I'm sure it won't be long until he outgrows it, so it's still good to know all this stuff from someone who's familiar with it all....thank you by the way, much appreciated n'all that
Himself also said that he'd happily accept an aluminium neck Travis Bean bass in place of soundcards and microphones if I didn't mind! That's all your fault for showing off about your guitar collection!

Oooh, there's a thread for doing that isn't there?

Don't suppose there's much point looking or much about at this time of year job wise, unless you're up for being an elf or back end of a reindeer
Hope you do find something that you actually would like to do though, makes earning the money all the more sweeter

I've managed to build up a fair bit of guitars and other equipment, over the years mind, I hardly had anythign when I was younger, just a Strat and a bunch of old second hand amps really
Currently I have in terms of guitars and bass gutiars:
Variax 700 Electric six string (bought new this year).
Variax 705 5 string bass guitar (an absolute bargin off EBay, looks as good as new).
Fender Bullet (second hand bought it just after Xmas just gone).
Yamaha pacifica (second hand, got it quite a few years ago now, customised pickups put in it )
Washburn Tonewood electric guitar, (again dates back about ten years ago I bought second hand),
Yamaha six string electro-acoustic (got it a bit over ten years ago new, keep thinking about selling it as I don't use it).
A honer 4 string electric bass, (really cheap second hand, but actually a very good playible bass).
I've a very old now marshal valvestate amp, that I don't really use any more
On the PC I've got:
EMu 0404 soundcard fitted internally in the PC,
External Line 6 Guitar port soundcard (that I mainly use with guitar),
Transit USB soundcard (just a cheap one I use for one thing in particular),
Then I've a Keystation 49 MIDI keybaord, that I also use to do drums through software synthesisers.
I've a very* old Casio keyboard somewhere in the loft
I've a pair of DX4 monitor speakers, which arn't that good and I just use for PC things, and then I've a big new* set of Alesis monitor speakres which I use all the time for playing the guitar and bass through these days...
I've two microphones, a cheap £40 one, and a sure SN57, oh, actually I've also a sony microphone that is tiny and really for use only in recording speech on location...
ERr, what else...
microphone stand, half a dozen gutiar stands, five gutiar hooks in the wall to hold guitars on, a whole bunch og tuiar cases (some of them are rediculusly expensive for some reason)...
And probably with all* the audio cables a good couple hundred quids worth of cables
Oo, headphones, seinhouser (however its spelt), one pair at about £50, another at about £100, and a new little pair of in the ear ones at about £50 for when I'm listneing to the MP3 Player
I've also a load of ... actually not that many anymore, guitar effects pedels, but they're all so ancient that they're awful

Oh, an Alesis SR16 drum machine, which is a good twenty years old I think
Oo, an fairly* new cheap four channel mixer, that I don't use really anymore but I keep as its handy shoudl I ever need it
A monitor volume control/mixer thing I use on the big monitors to regualte the volume
A uite nice sounding Focusright preamp that I've used with the guitars, and bass, and with microphones
Oo, and at my Dads I've a really* ancient falling to bits acoustic guitar and an ancient awful electric cheap guitar, plus my Brother has my Strat which I've loaned to him
Plus...
In teh house lodgers guitars; an antique vintage Strat, a telecaster, a spanish guitar, and a hand built steel strung acoustic, plus his big* fender HotRod delux amp (which makes my marshal amp look like a little kids toy ),
err,
Oo plus I've the Cuica drum (that I wrote the guite entry about), a sambra whistle, castinates, maracas, tamborine, Gillows (think that is what they're called) ,erm>
And somewhere* I have the body of a bass guitar, the neck for which is sitting in teh corner of this room
Oh, and two boxes full of old pick ups, guitar bridges, and other parts

And then of course the software I use on the PC including some which I had to buy, some which was free stuff to downlaod, and a few illegal things I err wanted to test out

I've almost as extensive a collection of HiFi equipment
To be honnest, though, at the moment, I'd be quite happy guitar wise just to have the two variax guitars/bass, I rarely use any of the others now, but mostly the others arn't worth selling as I'd get less than I paid for them and the bullet is something that will eventually* go up in value

Pfffft! Is *that* all?

When you next going out?

*poke*

Unknown Twitter weirdo following you is moi