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The Theory
| Back in the old days of tape, an engineer didn't want to roll tape till he was sure that he was likely to get a decent take because the expensive tape degraded with each pass and quality was lost. So everything that happened in the studio wasn't recorded.
In the early days of digital, the same engineer was hesitant to record till he was sure of a decent take because of habit, cost and fear that the drive would get "thrashed". So everything that happened in the studio wasn't recorded.
Even now when drives are solid and cheap, engineers still don't start recording till they are sure of a decent take because of cost, habit and who would ever want all that noodling and general buggerizing around that musicians do when they are not being productive? So everything that happens in the studio still isn't recorded.
Many musicians and singers clam up and go all gummy as soon as they know that the big flashing red light goes on. They can run around like idiots in front of 20,000 people and be comfortable but as soon as they know that the engineer has gone into record they cease to be truly emotive. An old trick was that the engineer would be sneaky and record practice runs without the artists knowing (even going so far as to break the knob off the recorder so the red glow couldn't be seen) in the hope of capturing the real soul of a performance.
I was talking to a couple of self-recording guitarists on the internet and they complained of their lack of inspiration as soon as they hit the record button. I told them of the old sneaky-engineer trick and they said how clever that was but seeing as they record themselves they can't help but know that they have just pressed record and can see the red light on the screen. Bye, bye passion.
If they moved away to break the spell, the computer would keep recording till the drive filled up and crashed. What they wanted was to be able to wander in from the kitchen, grab up their guitars (or voices or keyboards) and play without pressure; and that if they struck gold it could be recovered. All without being reminded that they were being recorded.
Enter PreRoll Recorder.
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How It Works
The challenge here was how to create a continuous recording without having the hard drive fill up and choke or get thrashed. I realized that in actual fact humans are really only truly creative in short bursts so a long recording time wasn't necessary. What I needed was a continuous loop similar to security video, something that recorded for a short period of time and then started again without wiping what had come before till the set amount of time had passed. Given some brain teasing I nailed it down to this:
PreRoll Recorder records forever but it switches between two wave files. The chances of having desired events falling on the joins are statistically unlikely as a pop song is generally only 3 mins long and a solo or verse is less than a third of that. But it could happen so the two wave files overlap by about 5 seconds which means that if your moment of inspiration did fall on the changeover point a single take could be re-constructed in an audio app or your sequencer from the two wave files (so long as your whole flash of brilliance was shorter than the total recording loop).
PreRoll Recorder comes with options for:
- 15 mins Loop (2 x 7.5 mins)
- 30 mins Loop (2 x 15 mins)
- 60 mins Loop (2 x 30 mins)
PreRoll Recorder files can be placed wherever you like (they will default to an auto-created folder in your Plug Ins folder).
| I would suggest that you place PreRoll Recorder early in your audio chain to capture as clean a signal as possible. Generally it's the notes and feel that you want more than the whole effected sound and this leaves your options open for alternate processing at the mix level later. Putting PreRoll recorder at the beginning of your chain will also help you to be less aware that it is there and so maximize it's effect.
You might also have noticed that the on/off button is blue and oddly titled "Rockin'" and "Snoozin'". Well this is quite simply to help minimize the fear-of-the-red-button syndrome. You will of course know that PreRoll Recorder is there to start with but if you insert it into a template file and always start with that template then you will soon forget that it is there and settle back into being fully creative with the confidence that off-line flashes can be recovered.
If you are the engineer recording someone else, consider not telling them of your wonderful new toy (even if you used it) as knowing that they are being recorded at all times can make the studio experience more scary as to them there will not be any (relatively) safe times. Of course please don't use PreRoll Recorder to do bad, spooky, perverted things to your sister.
PreRoll Recorder will likely be most useful earlier in the composing and tracking stages than later at mixdown. Some people will find ways to use PreRoll Recorder actively as a way of recording jam sessions and noodling for later cut-ups. Feel free to set the blue button to Snoozin' or even remove PreRoll Recorder from your project to save resources once you have got to the mixdown stage.
What to do when you realize that PreRoll Recorder captured a moment of greatness
1) Either cut the power (virtual that is) to PreRoll Recorder if your sequencer has this feature or press the blue button so that it says Snoozin'. Either of these actions will finalize recording of the current wave file (shown by the light to the right of the file name text box) allowing it to be opened.
2) Make sure that you move the wanted take file/files to another folder so that they don't get overwritten the next time PreRoll Recorder becomes active. Re-naming will work too if you want to leave them in the same folder.
3) Open the file in either an audio application like Sound Forge/Audacity or your sequencer and crop to the desired portion. If the 'magic moment' occurred at the changeover point between the two wave files then import both .wav files and line them up (crossfade or butt-join) and merge to one file (see instructions in your audio app/sequencer for how to do this)
4) Turn PreRoll Recorder back on.
5) Praise yourself for having the foresight to have purchased PreRoll Recorder and encourage your friends to be as wise as you :-)
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Demo and Purchase for $5.00 Australian
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PreRoll Recorder
Insert PRR across one of your inputs (or outputs) and save that workspace as a host start-up template and then PRR will always be there to save you when you do something great (or something silly).
Rockin' - means it's recording
Snoozin' - means it's offline |
Testimonials
Hey Benedict, just thought I'd pop in and say that PreRoll Recorder has become quite indispensable to me as part of composition. I like to improvise a lot of the time (find it gives me a better flow than trying to think "4 bars of this, 8 bars of that" all the time). I usually leave my computer on with a nice tone set up and PreRoll Recorder running, then I just pick up and jam whenever I feel like it, confident that if I do something good, it will be captured for me to 'learn properly'
Glurgle
I demoed and after 10 minutes realised I had caught something useful and the beeps had to go.
PreRoll Recorder sure isn't collecting any dust in my studio.
Paul
Does what it says on the box...this will get used a lot I'm sure. Excellent creative/productivity tool. And congrats on a fine new product.
Bobsled
Honestly- PRR has written songs for me. I swear- stuff that would never have been captured has become (if not as a whole, at least in part) songs. PRR is parallel in nature to the way I work: While there is a lot of preparation, once all the "moving parts" have been developed, I do 'on the fly' improvisations that I'm fairly sure I could not easily repeat. PRR captures every sound that I make and it does it transparently. Sure I have to stitch together files 1 and 2 sometimes, but that's a tiny tiny price to pay to actually have captured an improvised performance....Now If I could only remember to hit the red button so that I might capture the midi parts too ;P
BlortBlort
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