The Shed

Pricey but Perfect: Cloning Peter Gabriel's 'Studio in a Shed'

So the link is a little article to Peter Gabriel talking about his "Studio in a Shed", for a mere 250 grand you can have a 240 sq. foot recording studio in your yard or garden. It's apparently modeled on the one has at home in his garden. Here's a link to the sales site if you want to see some specifics.

Some of you have been to my house so you've seen my Fortress of Solitude. Probably from the outside though, since it is still filled with unpacked boxes (Although significantly less so now that Melody has helped me clean it up a bit).

A backyard studio is one of the directions my Fortress is heading in. I recently purchased my own mixer, I've wanted one for a really long time. I was absolutely giddy the day it showed up. It's a Mackie 1202-VLZ Pro. It's an extremely popular mixer due to its high quality, and relatively low price. It has a lot of options, and the pre-amps are great.

Since getting it I've been putting out a lot more voice over demos. With all the traveling I've been doing I haven't put up for everything I wanted to, but I did get one of them. It was very exciting to get a job from stuff I produced on my very own equipment! Once things settle down some I'll be putting out more demos (Most of the jobs I'm going for require custom demos).

I've been producing most of them on my linux laptop using Audacity. It's cross platform (Mac, Windows, Linux), completely free and high quality. I plan to try Ardour as well once I have some more time. It's closer to what I'm used to using, Adobe Audition (Actually I'm more used to it when it was Cool Edit Pro, I still use the last version before Adobe bought them out.) Audacity has just about everything I need for most of the straight voicework (Noise reduction, normalization), but when I do sound design for a show I need a lot more of the stuff you find in the high end products.

To do voice work you have to have a microphone. I'm currently using a Shure Sm-58, it's a good mic. Really, it's one of the most popular in the recording industry. Is that why I chose it? No! I got it free a number of years ago, and its a good quality mic. That's why I use it. I want one of these though. I'm still saving up for that. Maybe after a few more voice-over gigs.

FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

The cruise is just a few weeks away, and many of us have been working out and trying to lose weight to look better in our swim wear. I was doing pretty well, and then as it tends to do work got in the way. It's hard to keep up my workout schedule while I'm traveling, especially when I'm working an average of 12 hour days. Like wise it's hard to keep up with good eating habits (something that I'm admittedly not good at in general).

Now, despite my working out I haven't made much progress weight wise (I think I may be a bit slimmer, but don't have much to gauge that by except my pants keep falling down.). One reason for this is I haven't made much of a change to my eating habits. I eat far too much fast food for one thing.

I came across the link below on Digg (I think). It is a free, web based Diet & Weight loss journal. You can set goals, and it helps you track them. You can also enter what you've eaten in a given day and it will help you figure out calorie in take. This can be a big help. Most people assume they have to make major changes to their diet, this isn't always the case. Sometimes just a small change can lower your daily calorie intake enough to make a difference.

Check it out, after all it's free!



FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

The Grief That Made 'Peanuts' Good - WSJ.com

The Grief That Made 'Peanuts' Good - WSJ.com

There is a new book about the life of Charles Schultz, and the development of his comic strip "Peanuts". The link above is to a review by Bill Watterson of "Calvin and Hobbes". The review is very well written, as you would expect, and the book sounds quite good as well. Even if you don't read the book, the review is well worth your time.