I haven't been blogging lately- too many other things going on. I've been transferring/saving a lot of my old VHS movies to DVD, creating youtube videos from them, and transferring a LOT of original songs from my old writers tapes and 4 track cassettes, which desperately need to be preserved. The 4 track recordings began around 1985- and went until 1998 or so. there's a lot of material. It's a major work... there are at least 10 original songs per 4 track cassette- and I have over 100 of these 4-track writers tapes.
I also have maybe 100 or more 'normal' writers cassettes, with sometimes 15 songs on each side! so, it's really mega [instead of major] work. The 2 tracks go back to the early 70s- my Hollywood years and before. Unfortunately the sound quality [me w/an electric piano & old cassette recorder with a built-in mic] are not so good. Some of the songs are good...some very good... but would have to be re-cut from scratch.
A lot of the 4 track stuff is amazing [to me] and more relevant than I'd imagined. Some of the songs written in 1985/1986 are socio-politically "right on time" now. Luckily, i bought a Cubase/Steinberg unit which has 4 inputs, and records the 4 tracks at once into my PC, saves them as individual tracks, and files them. It also has a 16 track 'studio' so i can edit the tracks, add to them, etc. A lot of the songs have been professionally cut and gone onto my various cds- but a lot never did- due to genre issues. But, i am seriously thinking of editing and cleaning up the tracks and releasing them as cds soon. i don't really want to mess with them too much; i really like the sound and feel of them just the way they are: lots of old analog drum machines and synths. However, with modern technology, i can sample the best parts/sections and make them a bit more consistent.
[c]2007 doug duffey
