For some time I've been looking for a recorder with folder capabilities to help me arrange the stuff I accumulate "when inspiration strikes..." Example scenario: the Muse wakes you up one morning delicately whispering a tune in your ear. With half an eye open, you unstick your humanity from the sleeves, creep as well as you can through the corridor, and reach for the guitar and the recorder, capture the thing in as intelligible terms as you can, then go back to sleep and forget about the whole thing for 6 days or 6 months. Then one day you remember that riff and it sticks, it "lives with you" for a few days; and at a certain random moment, you are singing it distractedly, or playing it in the guitar, just being silly, and suddenly do something that absolutely "suits" what you already had. Let's compose! Now where did I put that first recording? This process can become quite complex when songs and fragments start to proliferate. The workflow I've been using so far involved two programs; on one hand my tablet's original recorder, on the other a file manager to get to the files and regroup, rearrange... This is cumbersome for several reasons, as anybody who tries to use a touch device for something other than straightforward content consumption will soon notice. I've done several "raids" through the app store, in different moments, without finding anything suitable to my needs, and then one day it hit me: "hey, with a feasible push to my java-foo, I think I could build a recorder like that myself!" 39,214 coffees, 93,719 frustration head bangs against the wall and 13 million visits to Stack Exchange later, I present Ultrarec, a recorder for Android that helps you organize your recordings in folders. I've built it to fulfill 100% my preferences, so, considering that I tend to be Mr Unpopular Option in most of what I do (I don't do it on purpose, I swear), I don't know how useful it can be for other musicians out there, but I thought at least I'd provide the option by making the announcement. (Here I'm remembering that Simpsons episode where Homer has to design a car and he makes it with a glass dome and a horn that plays La Cucaracha... Well, at least Lisa liked it, if I remember well...) Anyways, in my particular case, the app has turned into my comfortable "dog food", and I don't think I ever need to use anything else. For my own practical needs, it rocks (in both senses of the term: because I love it, and because it is already full of rock songs!). Not only it has saved several songs already in those crucial inspiration moments... It also fills me with a peculiar warmth whenever I fire it; this must be the Homo Faber gene, deep inside our DNA: in the ancient times we had to build with our own hands cabins, rafts, ploughs... Creating your own software connects with that primal feeling; here's a tool that I know intimately, because I've created it, and it makes my life better... The app allows for unlimited folder levels, something that I was tempted to eliminate at first: "isn't it going too OCD?", I thought. Finally I let it in because, I reasoned, if it was superfluous it was enough with not using it, but still it could come in handy in certain scenarios. Well, guess what; short later, in one of the latest songs I've been working on, I had to decide between 3 different versions for a riff, and it was natural and intuitive being able to create the folder /nameofthesong, and inside the subfolder /riff. Here is the link to the Play Store in case you want to check it out. And remember: DON'T BE A KIRK HAMMETT, KEEP YOUR RECORDINGS ORGANIZED!!! :P
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Nacho Jordi
I have a guitar and I'm gonna use it Archives
September 2018
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