Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Lowest of the Lo-tec Boys

Despite the fact that back in the day, dabbling in a bit of phreaking was not unknown to me, I am now the lowest of the lo-tec boys. Between moving from something as physical as the 2600 Hz whistle to engineering the world in ones and zeros, I got hopelessly lost. Now I struggle to even fix the DVD recorder.

Spurred on by both the desire to capture certain events for posterity and make my first spoken word recordings, I have obtained kit. A Sony MZ-RH1 sleeps on my desk. The feeling of inadequacy this black metal box inspires in me is upsetting.

It is few days before I want to make my first sonic sampling. If I do not blog until then, it is probably because I am locked in a deep struggle to tame the MZ-RH1 to the level where I can obtain a passable recording. Despite its theoretical ability to deliver CD-quality sound, all I can manage from the wee beast is a disconcerting hum.

3 comments:

T S Munty said...

I'd prefer to hear a hum rather than listen to my recorded voice, but I hope things have progressed with your technical and vocal equipment.

When I got a computer I knew nothing, and managed to uninstall all the software with no intention of doing so.

Nina said...

As my kids would say, sweeeeet! That is a cool little gadget. I will be following your progress with interest, especially when you learn how to post it to your blog.

Scary. ;)

David said...

T S Munty – I am hoping the addition of a microphone may help.

Nina – The prospect of me actually getting to the stage where I can post teasers of the spoken word CDs to the blog seems very remote right now. However, your kids are rifght, it is a sweet bit of technology.