Myscootmusic

"Scooterist Tunes" Music CD
by MyScoot

This webpage is basically a bit of history about how I came to record a music cd instead of working on one of my scooter projects or any one of the million other things I could (or should) have been doing. Like a scooter that "needs a bit of work" the project kinda snowballed on me but was thoroughly enjoyable. Just like a scooter that's been rebuilt, modified, tuned and being driven, my mind immediately starts thinking of the fine tuning or what I'd do differently next time.

When it comes to music associated with motor scooters, most scooterists seem to think of the movie Quadrophenia or music from that time. While I enjoyed the movie, some people seemed to have taken it to an extreme. One member of our local scooterist club insisted that every member should dress in the 60's "mod" style and only listen to 60's era british pop. The golden Age of scootering was not the 60's anyways but the late 40's and 50's. So when was the last time you heard Bo Diddley music at a Rally? I decided it was about time someone made some music specifically about scootering. Whether you came into scooter ownership because of a desire to follow a trend, rising gas prices or because your neighbour was cleaning out his garage, the one thing that usually becomes clear after the first ride is that driving a scooter is damn good fun. It really defies reason that something so small, relatively slow, and in some cases downright ugly can be so useful, enjoyable and economical. These songs are the product of a scooterist who works on his own scooters ( down to 9 at current count) and isn't stuck on any specific music genre ( or scooter brand). I just plonk at my guitar and open my mouth and have little control over the results.

Scooterist Tunes Audio cd song samples are available at my CafePress store. The links to the shops are at the bottom of this page or you can click here. You can listen to previews of the songs and judge for yourself. It's a collection of songs inspired by scooter riding and ownership. You can also view some music videos I made at this Youtube link. The videos don't come across too well on my computer but others say it works fine on their computers. If you think "hey I could do better than that" then the following page will attempt to explain how to go about adding your contribution to the limited supply of scooter themed music.

A simple plan goes amok

Marie, a local scooterist, had written me to ask if I'd look at her 1995 Honda Dio as it had lost a lot of power and was no longer capable of driving in traffic. As usual I was busy, but told her I'd be happy to come over and have a "quick look". Compression OK, plug gapped and OK. Belt width OK. Airfilter covered in Goo. A replacement filter was ordered but next weekend after it was installed, the scooter still ran sluggish. A quick look turned into a third day with disassembly of the pulleys, clutch, etc. etc. and Maries scooter was in parts and spread all over her driveway. It was early evening and from the house I heard a set of drums being adjusted and a guitar tuned. Marie said they had some instruments and would play once a week with friends . They'd record the music for posterity but it was "just for fun". Hmmmm, I had done the same thing with friends before mortgage, spouse, children and mastercard and remembered how much fun it had been plonking away with friends while under the influence of a variety of things meant to stimulate "spontaneity " although they generally resulted in musical chaos. The tapes had been long since lost in a move .The scooters problem turned out to be a clogged muffler from using inexpensive ( OK I'll say it, cheap) two stroke oil. I had a used one that looked like the previous owner had done the same thing but bolting it on improved the scooters top speed substantially. I left vowing never to take another "quick look" as a favour and with thoughts of homemade music in my head..

Opportunity knocks

While picking up some dinner to go from the local Fish n Chip shop, I noticed a new musical instrument shop a few doors down with a guitar fastened to a sandwich board. My kinda place. Strolled in while waiting for my order and found a used Ovation guitar that was priced almost exactly the amount I had in my almost depleted scooter savings account. I quickly left as I'd wanted an Ovation guitar ever since the first time I'd heard one being played. After much deliberation I went back a few days later and bought it. The guys I'd played with a long time ago had long since dispersed around the world and "grown up". Only two guys I knew (who still had an interest in music) hadn't "grown up". One was in London managing a night club and the other was in California with a successful acting career . Seeing as I am in western Canada that wasn't going to work. So I'm on my own and want to do a bit of recording; no problem just fire up the computer and go to eBay to see what some used equipment might cost.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

    Originally I had a 4 track reel to reel tape recorder, half a dozen microphones/stands, maraccas, tambourines, bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitars etc. and an amplifier. Over the years they disappeared or were "broken" in storage or from being used as children's 'toys'. The most recent experience had been some years ago when a friend showed up with a "recording studio in a box" which consisted of a Fostex cassette 4 track recorder, microphone and a "rockman" for plugging in an electric guitar . An ebay search showed they were still available used but not cheap. A Google search showed a lot of complaints for the newer models and cautions against buying older models as they were never meant to last 15-20 years.   Time for plan "B".

    During the initial google search I'd discovered a lot of sites about recording music on computers. I went back and did a more comprehensive search to find out what I needed as I didn't even have a sound card on my home computer as it was gov't surplus and the proles aren't supposed to be listening to music while working. . There seemed to be two types of sites . One type was about recording on a home computer and usually covered copying old vinyl records and sound samples and turning them into "digital" format so they could be stored and played on a computer or CD player. The other type covered recording music and varied from recording a live performance to multitrack "studio" type recording and editing.

    It was readily obvious that a lot of the sites on multitrack music recording looked pretty professional. and the products being used were extremely expensive. One quoted a low end built setup at around $3000 if you built it yourself with "low end components" sort of like buying a stripper car with no wheel covers, radio etc. There were a few sites that looked like they'd been published some years ago when windows 98 first came out and I decided to concentrate on those sites as my budget was more like $150 and, the way computer technology progresses, the windows 98 "super system" would be obsolete by now and fit my budget. I mean if I had $3000 I would be spending it on restoring a Lambretta project that has languished in my workshop for years due to lack of funds. The points made over and over again in any of the sites on recording emphasized the following parameters for a computer:

Two hard drives; one for a "basic" version of the operating system with only the recording software, cd burning software and up to date drivers for the sound card installed. The second hard drive should be as large as you can afford as sound files are very large. "Archived" sound files can be burnt to cd
A sound card that will meet your requirements for recording music. This will vary according to your needs but if you want to eventually record to a CD the sound card should be able to record sound at 16 bit and 44,100 hz minimum. Aside from the PCI sound cards you had to install internally, there are also a number of USB port and firewire port sound cards now being sold.
A minimum RAM size of 500 mb
A CD burner
A processor with a speed of 350mhz minimum; I was aiming for a 500mhz PIII which was a fairly common speed but still inexpensive as it used older PII motherboards. The higher the processor speed the better it could handle multi-track recording but I was looking at only recording two tracks at a time as it was just me producing music. If you wanted to record 4 sources at once (i.e. a garage band) then the higher processor speed would give you a better result.

Opportunity Knocks

I live in a city that is the seat of the regional government so when they decide to "upgrade" equipment a lot of the surplus is sold locally, usually in large lots. One such larger lot of computers was bought by a local company that sold on ebay and I was able to pick up a Creative Live! sound card, 500 mhz PIII IBM computer and a box of microphones/headphones for well under $100. I bought some extra RAM to bring my total to 500 mb. Disassembling older computers I had lying around the house I'd used a 8 gb hard drive for the main operating system etc. and a 13 gb hard drive for the music tracks.

The only thing left was to get a software program capable of recording soundtracks as well as adding subsequent tracks. I wanted to first record a guitar "melody" track, then vocals, then lead guitar and bass. So it was on to Google to search. I was amazed to find some "freeware" and decided to download these first to get an idea of what I could do. Some had "minimum requirements" for computer systems so compare any of the program needs with your system. A list of some of the possibilities is at the end of this page. I ended up trying the Audacity software as it had the least "minimum requirement" (64 mb ram, 300 mhz) to run and looked like it would be able to run on my computer. I would suggest for multitrack recording that 256 mb is the minimum for "glitch free" recording. Basically get as much Ram as possible.

MyScoot Recording Studio
( also referred to as the TV room)

Now that you have your recording studio set up and before you start recording the "scooter theme" for all time , just play with the mechanics of recording a simple sound track. Record the rhythm track first without any vocals or melody. Then go back and add another track like a vocal (doesn't have to be "inspired' at this point) and then a third track. Like any software I've owned, it will take a while to become familiar with it. Generally I visit the FAQ section of the software's homepage and then start clicking on the menu bar to see what is up there. I experimented with each of the functions on my 3 stereo tracks to see what the effects did. You can also experiment with just altering volumes of the various tracks to begin with. Even the simple act of altering the volume of individual tracks makes a big difference in the final mix. If nothing else, it gives you an appreciation of the producers part in making the final result that's released.

Do check out the "preferences" section (under the "edit" pull down menu on audacity) to see what options exist. As you become more familiar with the process you may want to change the programs default settings.

I also kept in mind what I'd want to be doing with the soundtracks eventually like "how do I convert them to MP3 or WAV files so I can make a CD?" The Audacity site link above has a good FAQ site and message board to help get you acquainted with the program and there are also various users boards on the internet. Try searching "Google" if you run into a specific problem.

You can keep it simple to begin with by recording one track and then taking it all the way through to making an MP3 file. Each software program has its strengths and weaknesses. The Audacity program is fairly simple to learn compared to others but still takes a bit of time to become familiar with.

Good Luck!

Doug
May 2006

Links For home recording and home studio:

My Scoot Graphics Shop

Scooter themed merchandise from T-shirts to babies clothing to coffee mugs, to music CD's to handbags. Lotsa swag for the scooter enthusiast or for gift-giving.

Monies from this site go the continuing maintenance of this site and the promotion of useful scooter information on the internet. Any surplus goes to scooter restoration.