1955 - 2011.

You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

~ Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005






Dude - you changed my opinion of computing. With your OS X system you had me hooked. I remember it - the moment I realized working on a Mac was awesome - beautiful - revolutionary. I've got a dozen or so now all humming away none very new most old still going. Still going.

Wish you were too.

studio update.

Not sure how it came to be but back around the end of 2008 I decided quite matter-of-factly that I was going to invest in a way to record my music. Not sure how I landed so matter-of-factly on Logic Pro but I don't remember it taking long. Maybe cos I work on Macs. I remember being surprised I could pick up a copy of (at the time) one version back for around a hundred and fifty. A whole recording studio more or less for a hundred and fifty bucks. Cool.

And then I got lucky finding a controller. I went into Guitar Center to take a look at the one I had in mind and discovered a much nicer one in their used section (had a scratch but who cares) for the same price so I grabbed it. I also remember having a fun time trying to carry this sixty or seventy pound keyboard out the store and opening the door (it was a little awkward) while two dudes that worked there sat and watched me have a hard time. Sigh. Guitar Center sucks but whatever. I make a point not to frequent it, and less of a point of ever actually buying anything from them.

Anyway.

So with a pretty sweet controller tossed on top of the Bechstein and Logic installed on my aging but still rocking G4 dual 1 gig, I grabbed a little desk from Ikea that sorta worked and plopped it in the corner of my living room behind the Bechstein and set up shop -

It worked. Kind of. But as I recorded more and learned Logic more it got old standing to play the keyboard. And not being able to reach the top octave and a half or so on the Bechstein cos the desk was kind of in the way. And having to look sideways while recording. And having all that stuff on top of my piano. And so on.

So I scrawled out a wishlist for this year. Another 23-inch Apple Cinema Display so I can see even more of my arrangements. Bigger near-field monitors (it's amazing though what even sitting and, well, actually facing the ones I have is and how much better that sounds - yeah, I know - brilliant). And a burlier computer since my trusty G4 was showing its age.

So I scored a five-ish-year-old G5 (not the one I wanted, which would be the dual quad-core two-and-a-half-gig monster) but for next to nothing and it seems to do the trick for now. And then set out to find a keyboard stand or desk that would suit my workstation needs. So (sigh) I headed back to Guitar Center to check out what they had (before ordering from somewhere cheaper online of course) and it was while roaming through their stuff that I realized hey - I could make a double keyboard rack work by just leveling the top tier and using a shelf from Lowes I already had set across the supports. Done.

The next complication was finding a stand that put the height of my keyboard as close as possible to the height of the Bechstein so I could just swivel between the two. Apparently they don't really make stands to be played at while sitting as in - like - on a piano bench. But moving past the too-tall X-type stands and onto the (thankfully even beefier, according to the reviews) Z-type stands - there were two options and I found a screaming deal online at Musician's Friend for one under a hundred bucks. So it's now in my living room corner -

At its lowest height it puts my controller's key tops about an inch higher than the Bechstein's. I can live with that. Next - those bigger monitors (either KRK or M-Audio - the KRKs sound flatter which is perfect for mixing, while the M-Audios have a bit fatter bass and treble which sounds better for sound reinforcement while playing ... ). They'll probably need to go on stands but I already have a pair picked out. And that second display.

And to keep working on this next arrangement ...






cheers

upgrade #1.

So with the recording and mixdown of Ferocity And Fragility it became painfully clear my trusty 1.0Ghz dual G4 - my first Mac and the one that has been my Trusted One - was spent. Well, not entirely spent. But not up to the task of thirty-plus Logic tracks all loaded down with effects and such. And I really want to move on from the supplied Logic samples to much better ones for piano (namely, a particular Bechstein sample I have in mind) and orchestra (and possibly symphonic choir) which require significantly more CPU and RAM. Significantly. They are enormous.

So an upgrade to The Studio was in order. Namely, a beefier Mac and bigger monitors (to come soon) to properly monitor and mixdown.

This is not the one I really have my sights on (which is the G5 2.5Ghz quad core - read EIGHT processors on four chips loaded with 16GB of RAM) but I could not pass it up and hopefully it will work in the meantime -

A 2.0GHz dual processor with 2.5 gigs of RAM that I will upgrade to eight gigs if it passes the test ... which is to run through F&F without having to freeze every track (the test will be to leave all of the non-piano sample tracks unfrozen while at the same time being able to leave at least one of the, uhh, three piano samples running unfrozen and ready for editing).

So time to pick another element from the periodic table in which to name it and to properly add it to the family ... And I still will likely get that G5 quad monster in the near future but without loss of this one - I can enable Logic's node capabilities and use its two processors over the LAN to help with the computing.

...

Oh, and Uranium passed the test (all tracks unfrozen CPUs operating below redline with some headroom even to spare) -

And without fail I am working on another song project incorporating more instrumentation and orchestration to be uploaded when it is finished (or as a sample beforehand once it is at least a bit further along).

cheers

mastering.

So I originally got this dual 1.0GHz PowerMac G4 I call Carbon, what ... seven years ago or something? So I could learn InDesign and Photoshop. It came pre-installed - Photoshop 7 and InDesign 2. The Apple 17" Studio LCD monitor is now the proud display for my 800MHz PowerMac G4 server I call Iridium (the minimum G4 CPU that boasts gigabit ethernet). Upgraded last year to a 23" Apple Cinema so I could have some more screen real estate for Logic (should have gotten the 30"). Done with Photoshop and InDesign. They aren't even loaded on Carbon, kept lean with minimal apps (OS 10.4.11 is enough of a resource hog) to keep Logic humming with twenty-plus instrument tracks, busses, masters and such.

And so tonight, a new art ... mastering.

The subject is that minute-forty I posted a couple weeks ago (even though I have continued working on the multi-track adding more and more music to it but have not yet bounced that down to two tracks). Brought in the two-track mixdown and then bussed in an adaptive limiter on top of a multi-band compressor to the stereo instrument track then some linear EQ on top followed up with a second adaptive limiter to eke out just a little more headroom to the master channel. Just trying to bring up the noise floor and dynamic range. Awesome. Called up the spectrum analyzer to check out the frequency range as I looped the loud intro and the quieter middle. Over and over. Add a multimeter to really check out the frequency distribution. And Logic of course lets me save all of my plug-in settings so when I ultimately finish the song I can re-apply all of them to that new mastering session. Maybe tweak them a bit more.

This G4 never fails to amaze. Neither does Logic. Seriously. I get made fun of periodically for my older Macs and my three-versions-ago software. Whatever. I keep my machines lean and mean. The fact I bought this piece of software on Ebay for something like a hundred-forty and it is seriously a recording studio inside of my Mac is incredible. This particular song is definitely taxing that very Mac, but I am making sure to run the Onyx cleanups and keeping it at peak performance. Have to go in and periodically freeze tracks but all is well.

Hmm ... now I would like some bigger monitors. Yes, definitely. The key to mastering is listening on lots of different speaker sets. Headphones. In the car. Little speakers. Big speakers. But it is decidingly difficult trying to master on little M-Audio 4" monitors. They're good, but not that good.

Soon.

apple and other such musings.

Okay, so to start this out I am going to throw out there I am a devoted Apple user, although in my frugalness I tend to stretch technology out rather than jumping on board and getting the latest and greatest. Currently, we have a G4 PowerMac running constantly as a server (with 17" Apple Studio LCD), a G4 PowerMac I use in the home studio running Logic Pro 7 (with a 23" Apple Cinema), Julian's G4 iMac, my G4 PowerBook, an iPod (2nd Gen) and iPod Nano (1st Gen). And I love them all. I am a devoted Apple user for two reasons:

1. First and foremost, the OS
2. For Apple's form and function - their machines are both beautiful in design and intuitive and easy to use

Okay, now let me just say there are also plenty of things that irk me to no end about Apple, including (but not limited to and not really in any particular order):

1. The fact you cannot replace the battery (which inherently will fail) in an iPod, so when it does it becomes something that must be discarded in a landfill and forces us to buy another one (well, or go without)
2. DRM
3. The way Apple controls and forces all Mac users to accept and use iTunes
4. iTunes
5. It seems for a looong time after OS X was released, Apple supported OS 9 (all the way through 10.4 I believe) - but now seems to be quickening its pace to drop support of previous OSes in an attempt to get all users to upgrade to their latest one

There is more, but those are the biggest ones. So now that I have laid out what I like and dislike about Apple (at least to some degree), let me back up and give a thirty-second spiel about "My Story."

Rewind maybe eight years or so. I had a Windows laptop for which I paid Jeff fifty bucks. I had a Windows PC that he had built from spare parts and gave to me for free. I had Netzero. I used the PC for surfing the web (albeit slowly), sending the occasional email, and writing the occasional resumé, letter or the like in Word. I had gotten a copy of InDesign 2.0 (Windows) at a garage sale for five bucks so I installed that on the laptop and started teaching myself InDesign. At work, I was just getting into graphics stuff but the Macs there were still running OS 9 and the likes of Photoshop 7, InDesign 2, (gasp) Explorer (for Mac, duh), and such.

But I never liked working on my Windows machines. Granted, they were hand-me-downs. But fast-forwarding for just a second, all the Macs in this house are hand-me-downs at least as old now as those PCs were then. But back to the PCs - the key was I just did not like or relish working on them. They just were. And I accepted that, since I did not really use a computer all that much back then.

And then things changed at work, and I started getting myself more involved with graphics stuff. And at the same time, our IT department bumped all the Macs from OS 9 to OS 10.3. The only woman working on a Mac in our department at the time did not know OS X, and so I can still remember the meeting we had all of us standing around a table my boss at the time throwing out there "So who wants to learn how to use OS X?" Expecting this to come up, I had already done my homework. I presented a couple pieces of paper from an online OS X class I had found that cost something like fifty bucks and said I did. He gave me the thumbs up, and so I did. And in a little over a year took that lady's job (she actually left to be a stay-at-home mom so it wasn't like a hostile takeover or anything).

But one word about this newfangled OS 10.3 Panther deal, at least for me: Exposé. Yes, now that probably seems lame. But when I first sat in front of a Mac running 10.3 after all those years of totally blasé PCs not being able to multi-task without freezing and discovered the new Exposé feature I was sold. Sold! Well, and OS X also just looked prettier. Much, much prettier. The fonts looked beautiful (uh, anti-aliasing - something Windows did not do). The drop shadows. The scaling and graphics were just incredible (a combination of the graphics card and engine - both of which PCs lacked unless of course you had gone out and bought a higher-end card but Windows still did not have an engine like Apple to drive it in the same way). I could navigate and browse through Finder so much easier, faster and more intuitively than I ever could after years and years of using PCs and Windows Explorer. It just fit, and I loved it.

I was sold.

So back to present day and the fact I do not go a day (unless I am climbing or out backpacking or, well, you get the point) without being on a Mac, and our myriad of (albeit slightly aged) Macs. And there is now ... the iPad. And this is the thing that actually - in reading blogs and other tech sources for reaction to Apple's latest incarnation - spurred me to write this post.

I think one word can be used to describe my reaction to the iPad: disappointment.

Disappointment for actually a lot of reasons. It is locked down. It does not run OS X or some mobile version of OS X. Only applications from the app store (and since I do not own an iPhone I am not sure how the division of profit goes for developers vs. Apple but I would suspect it favors the latter vs. developers being able to sell their software directly to consumers) can be used on it. It has virtually no interconnectivity. No USB. No SD. No eSATA. No HDMI. No nothing. No built-in camera. Seemingly, no upgradeability. The battery is 'built in' so I can only assume that when it fails, the iPad becomes a one-and-a-half pound paperweight. A $500-850 paperweight. Along with the zero interconnectivity (except for the camera accessory Apple sells that lets you plug in a USB connection to your camera or SD card, so I do wonder if that will let you connect just any old USB device - my bet says 'no') comes the lack of (well, lots of things, but an important one) connecting an external HD for expanded storage. Or really any peripheral. So no expandability, either. The keyboard dock is a good idea, but it should have a tilt function so I can watch set the screen to the right angle like I can on my PowerBook. And on and on and on.

But Tuesday is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning, and I do think that given several (yes, several) generations - the iPad could be great and quite revolutionary. It needs to come a long way. It needs to bridge the gap between what a Smart Phone and a laptop both do best (meaning, most likely, a compromise of some sort - it will never be a full-fledged laptop like a high-end MacBook Pro and also, except for possibly Skype, never be used like a phone someone would hold up to their ear if only because of its size). It may morph into a 16:9 format, or have a screen ratio like that as an option. It needs to run a real OS. It needs to be able to be expanded and have options to connect peripherals. It needs to run apps that I do not have to buy from the App store. In short, it needs to be more like a computer. And on and on and on.

But in my reading, I came across a blog from when the iPod was just being introduced back in October 2001 and it was actually really quite amusing if only because of the similarity to blogs being posted now. The comments included some gems like ~

1. Great, just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! (and you know WeezerX80 has owned several iPods since posting this)
2. Apple, are you really aiming to become a glorified consumer gimmicks firm?
3. I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
4. OH NO! Just checked Apple Store - they want $399.00 for this thing ... Ouch!!!
5. $400 for an Mp3 Player! I'd call it the Cube 2.0 as it won't sell, and be killed off in a short time ... and it's not really functional. Uhh Steve, can I have a PDA now? (uh, wonder if this guy bought an iPhone? Or two)
6. All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off. (I love this one)

And then some others, a little more prophetic, chimed in ~

1. No other mp3 player has a harddrive like this ... 5gigs... **** yeah. This is revolutionary ... plus it's just the beginning. This device literally beats anything on the market by about 100x.
2. Y'all are saying it sucks before you have even held it in your hand. I mean 5GB in a little tiny thing like that, it's amazing. I don't see anyone else making something like that. Do you?
3. The reason why everyone's disappointed is because we had our hopes up for this incredible device that would do everything you could possibly use the word "digital" in and most of the things you can't. The truth is that it really is revolutionary. 5 gigs? Where do you see 5 gigs in an Mp3 player? If Apple had gone with something completely and utterly new, it would probably go down the hole that the Cube and the Newton went down ... they were ahead of their time, and suffered because of it. Apple can't have another disaster like the Cube, so they decided to stay just a bit ahead of the game. As long as Apple markets it effectively, I think it's gonna do really well. (this one is good, and quite fitting IMO)
4. This thing's too cool. It's beautiful. It looks too easy to use. It has all sorts of cool features that I will never live without again. This is a home run!
5. No matter what Apple does there are always people who are NEVER happy. Give it a rest. It's a great idea and the first of many. Why don't you give it a chance.

I agree with the last one. The iPad is a good idea. And just like the iPod and the iPhone, before them there were MP3 players and PDA/Smart Phones but over time, well ...

The iPad has a lot of shortcomings, but it is just the first generation. I think it also has a lot of opportunities, more than either of its 'i' predecessors in the capabilities it could do and the change it could bring to our lifestyles (like one of the comments said, and I have heard many utter, about not being able to live without their iPhone) and the industries it impacts. In five years, all newspapers may just be gone and gotten on board with maybe something similar (who knows in five years?) to what the NYT is leading today. Maybe soon enough the eBook idea will take off because prices for the iPad and similar tablets will come down, as will the prices for books (still cheaper to go to the library - read: free - and not much less than a brand new book today). All Apple is doing I think now is laying the groundwork for something much, much better in the future.

But only time will tell. Until then, I know I won't be rushing out and buying the first generation of this thing because of all the reasons I mentioned. It needs to grow up some first. I just hope enough people do to keep Apple developing or it will go the way of the Cube and the Newton.

template.

So after a couple of months of getting up to speed in Logic, I finally sat down tonight to put together a master template file that includes a drum kit, piano, bass, guitar and a synth – all setup and leveled and panned and effected ready to record. This will be my first real stab at serious multi-track work with my G4 and – as is apparent in the screenshot – the CPU meter for one of the processors hovers at around the 50% mark even when idling and then revs to overdrive when I play the grand piano sample (all other samplers do not invoke the same CPU-melting power evidently) so I may have to record the piano track(s) in a separate file and then copy them into this template (assuming they will play back, but tracks already recorded can be frozen or bounced to help out the CPUs). I will also test this on my Powerbook to see if the results are any better (only one CPU but 50% faster).

core audio.

So tonight I was mixing one of the first tracks I recorded in Logic and kept getting the audio overload. Hmm, so I froze the bulk of the tracks which freed up 90% of my system resources (BTW, Activity Monitor on a Mac is wonderful though Logic also has its own CPU and disk I/O meters) and all was well, but ... I was still curious as I have other songs with loads more tracks and do not get an audio error so I took a peek at the Audio Object layer in the Environment to find (much to my surprise) – forty-eight instrument tracks, two aux sends, eight busses, and two master objects (monitor and fader). Most of them obviously unused on this arrangement, but that was the default setup for Logic when I first installed it and I had not tweaked it yet before tracking this song.

Fortunately, Logic provides an easy way to select all unused objects and delete them which is what I promptly did. But admittedly it looked really cool with a screen full of faders.

gigabit.

Sweet.