Saturday, 31 December 2011

babel fishh - the recording process


still very much attempting to cling onto the holiday spirit, we are delving deeper into the vaults to unearth treats from 2011 which tickled us the first time and are well worth revisiting. so, to that end here is a rather lovely piece, originally posted earlier in the year by our maniacal 667 chewing machine of unutterable devastation babel fishh, struggling with faulty technology and obsolete machinery and ranting away with his ten most pressing issues regarding his recording set up. now, anyone familiar with the sound of his work will keenly notice that his artistic environment  does perfectly mirror what you would expect to find, having safely navigated the local meth-heads, burning cars in the driveway and unwanted vagrants on the front stoop. so, sit back and let us take ourselves to texas. ladies and gentlemen, mr scott huber, aka babel fishh.

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it’s a lovely texas sunday indoors and i shall take a pinch of time to make a list of the ailments that plague my everyday creative areas. these said areas are pretty much just carved out corners of my parents guest room as well as their garage with my clutter of a life strewn about. this is partly a rant and partly a reminder that it may be time to finally upgrade some crucial components.

1. literally every single cord you own shorts out.

2. both inputs and output on the boss 202 are fucked, use the headphone jack as an output even if it’s fucked as well.

3. the receiver connected to one speaker that you have been mixing everything on no longer powers up. find an alternate way of getting another shit mix of what you do.

4. only one side of your dual tape deck works and it will only “play”. rewind and fast-forward are broken and it records at half speed because of all the cassettes it’s consumed and the amount of tape wrapped in its gears.

5. the boombox you have been using to make tapes because of the aforementioned tape deck being virtually useless will only power on if cord is pressed up against something. The power cord needs to be pried up and to the left in order for it to work.

6. mixer number one works except for the phantom power function and at times it likes to power off when it feels like it. (this can make for a greeeeeaat live show situation)

7. mixer number two won’t turn off on you but at times yelps an ear piercing hum when moved out of the perfect position. (this also makes for a wonderful live show situation)

8. your computer and the internet don’t get along and if you open more than one program at a time it will shut down on you. also, when error messages present themselves, just drag them to the side; everything works fine after that.

9. when using your headphones make sure to keep a roll of tape around because you didn’t fix the left earphone correctly last time.

10. the threads on the base of the mic stand are striped so when lifting, make sure to hold the base as well as the stand or it will come apart. last note: the mic connector is makeshift so you have to balance the mic perfectly or it will tip over.

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reasurringly unsettling indeed. babel fishh has been absolutely killing it all year, having loaded us up with a whole host of cassettes and slabs of vinyl to sink our teeth into. still, should you be somewhat behind the curve at this latening stage, do be sure to make friends with him on facebook, bookmark his blog, stop by and buy stuff from his online shop, be sure to pick up his limited edition hand-made release on decorative stamp and keenly anticipate a whole raft of new releases as the new year slowly picks up speed. there are so many more grisly scenes on the speedily approaching horizon, stay home, stay safe, stay 667 and... keep your eyes and ears open!

1000 cleats to the skull

decorative stamp

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