'Untooned'

Stumbled across a website called Pixeloo. It's a guy who adds real skin tones and textures to cartoon characters to make them look real, using pictures of famous actors. Pretty amazing.

Jessica Rabbit (made mostly from Angelina Joli's face)

Here's how he does it.

GarageBand

I've wanted to own my own multi-track recorder for some time. Ever since my friends and I formed a band in high school and bought our own 4-track recorder I've enjoyed recording songs.

When I moved back to the UK I bought a stereo which had a 'mixing mic'. It allowed me to mix in a track via a line in whilst recording from one tape deck to the other. It was a straight forward process, though the end results sounded a little crude. With each new track the overall sound quality would degrade and slow down due to the drag of the tape. But I recorded a lot of songs that way, and even sent some back and forth to my old band mate Wayne to add in his own tracks. Great fun.

I wanted to buy another 4-track recorder but I could never bring myself to part with the cash. Then, somewhere along the line, computers started taking over from antiquated tape machines, and I became aware that there were programs on the market that you could buy to turn your computer into a sort of home recording studio. However, they seemed a little daunting and complicated, and cost prohibitive. Not long after I bought my iMac I downloaded a 'lite' version of Cakewalk, a well know piece of recording software. But I didn't really have great instructions with it, or the patience, to really understand how it worked, so I never really used it.

Time passed and I'd heard that Apple had brought out a new program called 'GarageBand'. Now this seemed to be the ticket. Apple programs are know for their user-friendliness, intuitiveness and nice interfaces. Best of all it came free with the operating system as part of the new iLife package (which rolled iTunes, iMovie and iDVD into one package with GarageBand). The trouble was that my old iMac didn't have the capacity to run it. So I was stuck.


Then, when I started my current job, I was given a mac. One of the better aluminum tower G5 models - and sure enough, it had GarageBand on it. I used to check it out from time to time, but there was no way I could really use it at work. It's not like I could bring my guitar into the office or anything (unlike Dom's work where it seems to be commonplace). They key came when I was told that I also had a mac laptop. An older model, a G4 iBook, but a better model than my iMac - and it had GarageBand. So I was in business. Of course I used the computer mainly for work stuff, writing reports etc., but it seemed a shame to have this program and not use it!

Over the years I'd built up a small arsenal of instruments and recording equipment: a steel string acoustic; an amp; a drum machine, which was a 21st birthday present from my parents; a classical guitar from Costa Rica, a gift from my friend and former bandmate Wayne when he and his family came to visit one summer; a second hand bass guitar bought off a friend; a guitar FX unit; a Wah-Wah pedal, and a harmonica. Unfortunately, I'd sold my beloved electric guitar when I finished University as a broke student for £100. A difficult but nevertheless necessary sale. To do some real recording I really needed a couple more items.

About a year and a half ago I saw a review of an electric guitar called an iAxe in an electronics magazine. This was a Fender Strat-style electric guitar that you could use as normal, but crucially also had a USB connection to allow you to hook it up to a computer. Perfect! I added it to my birthday wish list that year and sure enough Laura got it for me! :) It's great, even came with its own FX simulator program.

GarageBand allows you to record in one of two ways: real or software instruments. 'Real' meaning something which you plug into the input, like a guitar, or a mic for vocals, and 'software' meaning a MIDI device, like a keyboard. Either way Garageband has an impressive array of preset and modifiable effects that you can use to modify the sound of whatever you record.

I started to try and get to grips with the program, but never really gave it my full effort. There were so many features that you could only really tap into with a MIDI controller. But last Xmas Laura got me just that - a MIDI keyboard. So I was ready to go!

I downloaded a very helpful video tutorial to help me get to grips with the program. Pretty quickly I was up and running and started working on a song. One of the great things about recording electronically is the ability to easily see, access and edit just about anything. It really is lightyears ahead of recording by tape. And, best of all, it's digital! So you know you're going to get great quality at the end of the day.

I spent a few months working on a track, adding bits here and there when I could, getting to know the program better. I'd even add working versions onto my iPod to listen to on the way to work. It got to the point to where I was just about finished my first song. Then, a few months ago, disaster struck. For some reason my work laptop crashed...and wouldn't wake up. Luckily, I'd backed up the Garageband track onto an external drive, but it was at an early stage. Always backup. I must remember that.

A while passed before I bought my new laptop and I couldn't do anything. But a couple of nights ago I copied the saved track off my hard drive and started to re-record what I'd done on my new mac book. I could actually use a copy I'd saved onto my iPod, but it's just not the same given I'd mixed all the tracks together - it just wasn't at that stage yet.

So, I'm sort of embarking on a little project. It's been over a year in the making so to speak, and it may take a while to finish yet, but it'll be fun making it. Watch this space.

Euro 2008 - Updated

I'm not a huge football (soccer) fan, but when international tournaments come along I get sucked in. We're nearing the end of Euro 2008. It's down to the semi-finals. Turkey are playing Germany tonight. It's 1-1, but Turkey are playing the better game I'd say. (Unfortunately something just went wrong with the transmission so there's no picture at the moment. They've switched it over to BBC Radio 5 for a better commentary! Oh, it's back.)

I'm also more interested in watching as I have a bit of a financial investment resting on the tournament. We run a, somewhat complicated, sweep in the office. It costs £6 to play. There are 8 of us playing, so the kitty is £48. That's split 2/3 to the winner and 1/3 to the runner up. I'm tied in first with 2 others - a nail biting finish to the tournament. I've bet on Germany to win tonight and Spain tomorrow. My gut told me Russia would win, but I ended up going with Spain. We shall see.

____________________

I won first place! Excellent.

Clouds

One of the cool features on our new camcorder is the time-lapse recording function. You can set it to take a shot a second long at various intervals over a long period. I wanted to try it out while we were up in Strathyre so I set the camera up on my tripod and filmed through the window for a few hours. Here's the result, called simply, Clouds. It features an original soundtrack I put together on garageband this morning. Enjoy!


Clouds from Steve Malone on Vimeo.

I'm a Mac

I've been an Apple fan for a long time. I think my first recollection of an Apple computer was in middle school. I can't remember when exactly, 6th or 7th grade maybe. It was the all-in-one kind (what other kind was there back then?) with the green on screen text and the colourful, stripey apple simple with a bite taken out of it.

Then somewhere along the line other models took over: Texas Instruments (a big favourite with my some of my friends); Commodore; and my own computer - the Atari 400 (which I basically used to play video games on).

Strangely I don't seem to remember much about computers during high school. I guess I was too busy playing guitar. But when I got to Architecture school I really started to use computers for stuff other than playing games - and we used apple macs. Thinking back to first year, 1992, the computers were incredibly basic - we used it for basic type setting, and some graphics. We were introduced to the world of 'scanning' in 2nd year. The computers were still all-in-one, and the screen were black and white - no colour.

Next door to the 'mac' suite we had the super-duper Sun Lab - unix based systems used for AutoCAD drawing - in full colour. It was in this room that I sent my first ever email to my friend Wayne, via a friend's account (I didn't even have one at that time).

Meanwhile, the macs were starting to catch up. They brought out 'Power PC's' which had full colour screens. They were kept in the new 'multi-media' suite. In fourth year I joined a graphic design class. We were given our own special room which had a big Power PC Mac with Quark Xpress, a professional desk top publishing application which I still use today.

I've used Macs in my professional life too. The first office I worked in in my year out in Dublin used Macs. Then an office in Edinburgh, where I started to draw on computer professionally on an iMac; then another in 2000 where I graduated to a slick G4. A year later I was having to spend a lot of time working on my professional exam and decided it was about time I invested in my own computer - my first since the Atari 400 in the 80's. I walked to my local Apple store, about 10 mins down the street, and financed my very own iMac, in indigo. An exciting moment.

I still have my trusty iMac. I've upgraded it many times over, used it to write hundreds / thousands of emails, produced 7 years worth of SEDA Magazines, even met my partner Laura on it! So I guess it has sentimental value. But it's a little old - and it has its limitations.

When I started working for my current employer they gave me a mac - a G5, and my very own mac laptop - a 14" iBook G4. With the laptop I was introduced to the world of remote working - and I don't think I ever looked back. When we moved into our new place we got a wireless router so we could both sit on the couch and be on line. It was great for a while. But disaster struck a few months ago when my iBook died on me. I was - laptopless.

Luckily I still had my trusty iMac next door. But, with the arrival of our daughter, the days of the spare bedroom being an office / store room were numbered. Last month she moved into her own room. I knew it was about time to bite the bullet and buy a new laptop. I knew I was due a one off back-payment from work and when that came through last month I went for it.

I now own my very own 13.3" 2.4 GHz Macbook. Nice! It's great. It's new and fast - and has lots of cool applications - like iLife. I've been trying to persuade Laura to get one too, and chuck her old noisy PC. Incredibly, her brother bought her one this past weekend as a present! So we now both have one. Sweet.

Deil's Caldron

I've started to download and edit some of the footage we took with our new camcorder while on holiday recently. Here's the first little 'movie' to come out of it. This is nothing special really, just a little waterfall we found one afternoon not too far from where we were staying. It has a creepy name though - Deil's Caldron (Devil's Kettle). In Gaelic it's Slocha'n Donish and legend has it that it was the favourite haunt of a brownie or water elf called Uris-chidh who enticed victims down into the huge natural pothole to their deaths.

Nice!


Deil's Caldron from Steve Malone on Vimeo.