Talked with musician Chris Zabriskie on my podcast this week.
He’s put out several albums and his songs have been used in many different places. From Cartoon Network to Nissan and even used in a porn movie. All while distributed under a creative commons license.
We’ve had him on the show several times and he’s a great guy to talk to and learn things from.
This time we had him on to talk about his new album Thoughtless.
During the conversation he told me an idea he was thinking of when he made the album. He wanted to transfer it to a vhs tape. Plug directly into a VCR and record the audio to it, using a stack of vhs tapes that he had.
I thought that sounded cool. I had this thought in my head as to how it would sound. Digital imperfections that would make it sound unique. Sounds that couldn’t be achieved through natural ways or effects. I got really excited that it!
I texted my guitarist who also runs a studio, asking him if he had ever tried that? Wondering what he thought about it?
He just texted me back, “Ha! Yes I have. Why?”
I explained what I was thinking and the conversation I had with Chris about it.
He just asked why would you want to do something like that? Said its more of a hassle and I would probably be disappointed with the result.
Maybe I would. But, Mark works on audio with people everyday. What I was asking him is the kind of sound he tries to prevent.
I guess I just like the way the concept sounded.
You get to tell people that you did something like that, transfered it to vhs. While maybe not a good idea, it makes a great story.
It worked on me. When I heard about this all I could think was, this guy really thinks outside the box!
I still want to try it. I think the way you do things can get people motivated about what it is.