About iTroubador.com

Most of the music on this site (left sidebar) was recorded at my home. I began experimenting with recording in July (2004). The reasons were part curiosity, part sanity maintenance for an out of work software developer and partly to get some demos to help land some gigs in local pubs.

Once I had a few cuts it became tedious to roam around delivering CDs. It was fun having a "business" excuse to visit pubs and have a couple of pints but one doesn't know if the tunes actually get heard or even get to someone who does booking. And the more I learned about capturing sound, the sorrier I was I'd etched and distributed what I now considered to be crap. Like, "Oops, please, please, give me back that crap I begged you to listen to last week; this is better crap"? I'd wasted too damn much time and energy making crap and delivering it the first time around. For that reason I began playing with a web site to make it "easier" to deliver tunes to folks I wanted to give me a listen. That was a spotty proposition too.: "... I'm not a computer person ...", is a frequent refrain. Ah, but I'm learning and that's its own reward.

Recording Equipment and Process

I get asked about my 'setup', what equipment I use, etc. First, there's no 'studio' in the sense of sound absorption, isolation boothes, control room, etc. It's done in a small room full of computer gear and reference material that I do 'normal' work in. The recording is done with the same gear I use at gigs: Martin HD-28 and Carvin C850 acoustic guitars, Fishman Aura - mostly for a little compression to even out the pounding on my guitar a bit, Shure mics, and Peavey stereo (rq200) and Carvin (PA620) mixers. And my endlessly noisy mouth (alas, a lass has declared home to be a no yodeling zone). The stereo mixer plugs into the stereo input L/R channels of a Creative Labs Audigy 2 sound card in my home computer. I try to get the mix the way I want it before recording and also, for some ethos I can't quite articulate, I impose a 'gig mode' in that I limit a track to one take - unless it's so bad that I break down swearing or laughing at myself. I pan the stereo mixer hard left and right for guitar and vocal so I can fiddle with volume balance and stereo image while mixing down. The Carvin PA/mixer is used only when additional monitor oomph for checking the mix in various circumstances seems like a good idea but I've found the computer monitors to be surprisingly 'ok' for mixing and checking. Usually, I can burn a CD and take into the living room and play it on the house stereo or in my car and can't tell what I might have wanted to do differently. That, of course, could be ignorance or that the constant ringing in my ears makes anything else sound 'ok'. When recording a band (only the Flying Turtles, so far) I do pretty much the same thing but would like to get a sound card that can handle multiple tracks simultaneously. This will capture a band at once, provide separate channels for all instruments and vocals and provide more degrees of freedom when mixing after a take and eliminate the need to be too finnicky about the mix up front.

In addition to my own tunes, you'll find ones by some friends. With the exception of the tunes by Brian Parks, those were also recorded at my home. Brian, who has also been learning the ropes of recording, posts from his home a couple of states North of here.

Two Music Genres: Celtic and aCeltic!

That's the way it sometimes seems to me and trad Celtic is what I like best. But I do some aCeltic music and some of that will start showing up here soon. Also, there are more genre-challenged originals I want to record ... eventually.

The changes

Unlike most things I've designed, I had no preconceived idea of what this site would be like. It just evolved sort of the way one writes an unplanned story; one thing leads to another. If you've visited before, you may notice some differences. Things aren't so eye catching but they should load faster. Splitting images helped and so will copying most of the affiliate logos to minimize references to other servers. But I've seen enough of modem connected visitors who leave, apparently annoyed waiting for their browser to load. So I've moved most images off the initial page - and am using that to tell a little about the evolution of iTroubador.com. It's probably transitional enroute to a complete revamp but for now, I confess, the text is to fill up the holes left by moving the images. It's not as though I'm closing my eyes and holding down varius keys to generate meaningless filler but I admit I did need something so I decided to blog a bit. By the logs it's clear most visitors are after the chords and lyrics and the music so they won't miss the pictures and their experience will be better. I liked laying out the page and looking at it myself but this isn't a magazine page, apparently isn't just for me anymore and, for anyone interested, the pictures (and links) are still there via links on this page. The good news for picture gazers is that I've decided to put up photos from my gal's visit to Ireland and a bunch of neat drawings ... in due time.

Future Objectives at iTroubador.com

Since I'm still learning, it's entirely possible that subsequent visits will find a new version of an early cut I can no longer stand. But my long term objective is to get the chords and lyrics for most of my Irish repertoire up and to complement that with a recording of all of it. It wasn't that long since my first open mic experience (very horrible, indeed). Having several years of bands, solo gigs and hosting open mics under my belt and a decent collection of tunes, it pleases me to hope my site will serve as a resource for other emerging troubadors. I've already heard from some and it made me smile. I hope the college kids in Wisconsin do earn enough playing Irish tunes to improve on their diet of Ramen noodles.

I hope you find something you're looking for or enjoy now and something new when you stop back.

May you have plenty of uisge beatha (yep, threw all my Gaelic except, "Well oil beef hooked", into one sentence - and the black hole is about filled). Slainte,

Dan

P.S.: I now get thousands of visits a month but still no gigs. Back to the road!