May
03
Filed Under (Ethnomusicology, General) by Rob on 03-05-2006

On Friday, 28th April, the whole family travelled to Azove, about 2 and a half hours north west of Cotonou. We left soon after school was over and arrived around 6:00pm, at the home of our SIL friends the Hams. Then, on Saturday morning, Rob travelled out to Kojaxwe (pronounced KOH-JAH-CHWAY, with the ‘ch’ pronounced as in ‘Bach’) There, the group arrived and we recorded 10 songs, which they had been composing over the past few months. All the songs are based on Bible verses and each track was between 5 and 6 minutes long (so that the whole lot will fit on a C60 tape).

Here are some of the group recording:

Choir & singers.jpg

It was the first time Rob had used his new recording equipment in it’s entirety: two Behringer C1 microphones, a unidirectional ‘T-Bone’ microphone, three mic stands, a phantom power supply, a Rolls 54S mixer and an Edirol R1 MP3 recorder. Phew! And, of course, lots of leads! The recording went really well and the quality is great (want a copy – drop me a line and I’ll send you the 10 songs on tape or CD). We had to wait a few times for passing motorbikes and braying goats. There was also some big gathering in the village, with speakers blaring out, so someone had to go and ask them politely to turn the music down.

Here’s Rob recording (amazing how small the equipment is these days – 10 years ago, the stuff would’ve filled the whole table!)

Rob recording.jpg

So now, Rob’s in the process of duplicating the cassettes and designing the inlay card. At the moment, he only has a 2 tape copier, which operates at double speed. However, he is looking for a fast copier which takes 6 cassettes at once, which will speed up the job.

Sorry, no photos at present – the same problem seems to have recurred (any ideas, Reg?)

Some great pics waiting to be posted soon, I hope. Watch this space!

Thank you for visiting our blog,

Rob et al



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