'ON AIR'

I think the first #electronicears aired on June the 24th 2012. My blog is curiously coy on the subject until July the 8th, which references the third show.

So that's been seven years now including a hiatus between Indigo closing down and the show being picked up by Cando. Sunday will be my 188th show for the latter and I did 90 for the former, so that's 278 shows altogether. 

I'm confident that the show has improved over the years in terms of my presentational abilities and I've always been very happy with the music I've played, which is, of course, the main reason for doing the show. But I've never worried about the fact that I come across as being a bit amateur because that's exactly what I am!

But I've never wanted the show to sound amateurish - as far as is possible - in terms of the production. Up until recently I'd settled on a nice little arrangement of kit but Apple's disastrous release of Catalina meant that I could no longer use Audacity, which is the software I've used to record the show for as long as I've been with Cando. 

So, I upgraded to Adobe Audition, which costs about £20 a month but which is significantly better than Audacity, which has highlighted deficiencies in the rest of my set up. As a consequence, I've just bought this unit from Tascam which I hope will improve matters (once I've sussed out how to use it properly). 

Incidentally, Audacity still does not run with Catalina, although their website says you can get it to work if you employ a workaround. I guess this is the downside of open source software. I don't want to come across as a complete capitalist but imagine if they licensed this popular software out at even five dollars a year: then it could run as a proper business and, crucially, better support its users.

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Reading: 'Fatherland' by Robert Harris