Monday, September 18, 2006

an almost utter waste of time

I've spent the last month practicing like mad, & this last week in particular driving myself insane trying to get a good recording of at least one piece to send in on an audition CD. I didn't want to use my old mp3s because I wasn't sure they were an accurate representation of me at this point. I probably spent 20 hours this week trying to get a 2 minute piece sounding acceptable with the crappy iPod attachment (more on that later). Today I finally, unwillingly, decided that a recording from 4 years ago actually sounds pretty much like me now. The good news is, I was at my peak then & apparently I've practiced so much I'm that good again, & I don't have to worry about the CD making me sound a lot worse than I really am. I'm still kind of pissed (& I'm sure my neighbors are too) that I had to play that little piece hundreds of times & now I'm not even using it. Well, maybe I'll play it at the live audition.

The bad news is, I thought this Belkin TuneTalk would really be CD quality as advertised & it most certainly is not. I can still use it for lessons, I'm sure, but whatever I play comes out sounding very choppy & uneven. I know it's not what I really sound like because I taped myself with a minicassette recorder simultaneously & it sounds fine that way. I guess I got what I paid for - it was $69.99 at the Apple store. Thank goodness I had those professional recordings on the computer.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I hate to break it to you, but your TuneTalk probably worked as advertised. When people say "CD Quality Sound" they are usually talking about the sample rate. This does not take into consideration how much and whether the mic will pick up room acoustics, where the mic has to be placed to pick up the optimal sound, etc.