I’ve recently installed the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Logic Pro X on my computer. The sound engineer for The String Project has a card on his digital desk which allows us to capture our gigs as multitrack recordings and, since they are being saved to the install of Logic on Ben’s laptop, it made sense to get something readily compatible. I’ve done a certain amount of work with sound desks and recording software in the past so the learning curve, while steep, is not impossible and I’ve set to by extracting one of the tracks from our recent gig at The Cellar for closer attention.

Being able to listen back to each track I noticed that the stringed instruments are each capturing a bit of background noise so I decided that my first task would be to silence the regions where each instrument isn’t playing. Having done that, including the flourish of fades at the start and end of each live region (a tip picked up from watching sound engineers in the past), I sat down to listen to the whole lot and realised, to my horror, that I had inadvertently shifted one or more of the tracks!

It must have happened a while ago as I reverted to several previous saves without discovering the point at which the mistake occured. Fortunately Logic allows you wind forward as well as back. Instead, I hit upon an alternative solution, relying on a certain devious logic – all those years of programming standing me in good stead. I selected all the tracks and regions and sent them to their original position then put the play head at the start of the track and summoned them back to join it. Because the software maintains the relationship between them rather than butting each up to the start, this meant I had my work back and properly aligned again.

So, just a little way in and a useful trick figured out. I’m enjoying this!

BTW, you can see The String Project at the James Street Tavern, just off Cowley Road in Oxford, on Monday night from 9:45pm, when we round off their Bank Holiday weekend beer festival. Free entry and, I trust, more than the dregs of the beer – and the crowd – to enjoy.