Loscon 2006 set list and concert report

[mdlbear]

Now that I'm home with my software running on a real computer, I can post my setlist for Loscon:

Set list: Loscon-2006

1. Ta(l)king Preorders
2. Silk and Steel
3. The Last Train
4. Cicero in the Twenty First Century
5. Guilty Pleasures
6. The Mushroom Song
7. The World Inside the Crystal

You'll note that it's pretty short -- total about 20 minutes. It was a 30 minute slot, but I spent some time at the beginning fussing with my new recording gear. That probably ate 5 minutes, and the other 5 went into patter and a little too much audience interaction. The chairs were all arranged in a circle, so people in the audience apparently felt free to talk among themselves between songs the way they would in a chaos circle. There were only about a dozen people in the audience.

Note to self: make sure concert seating is appropriate; rearrange chairs if necessary.

I don't think most of the recording I made will be of much use except for reference, though the sound quality appears, on a brief listen, to be excellent. There were a number of places where I simply got distracted and the chords went off into the twilight zone, and of course "Ta(l)king Preorders" was only two days old and still pretty rough. I sang it several more times in circles.

Comments

[tagryn]

At the risk of being banal, better to have the stuff and be able to record over it, than have one of those magical sets come along and say afterward "darn, wish I'd had the recorder running!" That's my philosophy when it comes to photography as well, once I switched to digital cameras.

[hms42]

I know that feeling... The only concert at Worldcon this year that was not recorded somehow was the one for the person I am working with on doing a CD for. (Live recordings.) If I had known, I would have asked Steve for a hand and to record the concert. (Didn't realize no official recording was occuring.) OOPS.

I did get a chance to record the person again at Philcon and get enough live audio for their CD.

Harold S.

[mdlbear]

The recording I did at Worldcon was really inferior; I've invested $300 on equipment since then.

[hms42]

I did some open filk recording and that turned out to be inferior.. (Built-in Mic on the MacBook Pro and Audacity which was getting used for the first time.) If I get 1-2 salvageable songs from the 3 hours of dead dog filk, I am going to be amazed.

Your recording sounded much better than what I did blindly. Its also the ONLY recording of your concert that I know of. A friend of mine spent all day recording filk concerts and only missed yours and Roberta (which unforuntately was not recorded by anyone.) :(

My post worldcon investing has been more of time than hardware, but replacement mics and a music stand is definately on the purchase list. I think the only things I have purchased since then have been a mic stand and a RCA to 1/8" wire.

Harold S.

[mdlbear]

What I used at Worldcon was a Griffin iMic (16 bit) interface and a Griffin stereo mic. My equipment this time was an Edirol UA25 interface and a Behringer C2 stereo pair (which set me back all of $50). The C2's are condenser mics and require standard 48v phantom power.

Aside from the fact that the UA25 has a preamp and is powered off USB, the important thing is that it gives you 24-bit samples. That means that you have an extra 8 bits of headroom to work with.

I used a clamp-on mic "stand" on the handle of my rolling suitcase instead of a conventional mic stand.

[mdlbear]

I've come to that conclusion myself, and stopped relying on other people's concert recordings. Unfortunately setup requires a fair amount of fiddling around with levels; I still need to work on that, since I'm not always travelling with a sound person.

[ifics.livejournal.com]

Did the recordings pick up the loud banging from the workmen in the lobby?

[mdlbear]

I haven't heard the whole thing yet; I assume so. It picked up the gamers on the other side of the airwall...