Entering the Zone

Have you ever worked on your computers yourself?  After my vacation in Nashville, I tried to install protools and the mbox2 on my HP M7790e Media Center system.  It is a 4-month-old AMD x2 5000+ with 2GB ram, and should easily support protools.  Well, I ran into two problems right away.  HP designed the usb setup in such a way that there is not enough usb bandwidth to support the mbox2, and I don’t have an available slot to install another usb card .  Then, protools itself (7.4) won’t run on vista ultimate without an internal error.

I was able to install everything on a very old laptop for recording, but it is less than ideal.

I am in the process of transforming my media center pc into a dual boot xp/vista box and will see what happens with protools and the mbox under xp.

The part about the zone is that I have spent since Thanksgiving working on this in my spare time.  PC’s are great, but they can suck the time right out of the clock if you let them.

What is it that you are saying?  I should buy a Mac?  The voices are starting to make sense .  Perhaps a mac is in my future.

Have fun!

-Ed

I am now a Pro Tools Owner!

I am now a Pro Tools owner J!

Cool.

Before I gave all my recording studio equipment away to my sons, I used Samplitude as my primary recording software.  For those of you not familiar with Samplitude, it is a very high-quality recording package, used a lot in Europe.  I had Samplitude because someone had pity on me early on and gave me a legal copy they were reviewing for a vendor.

Well, for my upcoming podcasts I needed a way to get from my small Mackie mixer (1202) into my computer.  Guitar Center had a great sale yesterday (Black Friday) and Rick Chapman at the Nashville Guitar Center spent a little time with me and went through the pros and cons of the various USB interfaces (Thanks, Rick).  I ended up purchasing a Digidesign MBOX 2, with Pro Tools and their bonus software packs.  This is a very cool interface, and is all I need for the little bit of recording I will be doing now.  I spend some of last night downloading Pro Tools 7.4 which supports Vista, and I will get everything installed next week after I return home from Nashville.

The cool thing, and the point I am trying to make, is that for years I have used software that was not well known, and couldn’t exchange files easily with other musicians or studios.  Today, I will be able to easily work with most studios because Pro Tools is the standard.  I made some really good music with Samplitude, but today I will make really good music with Pro Tools, and not have to spend the calories and effort trying to learn and use something that no one else knows, or can’t interface with.

Its a lot like the suggestions folks make about modeling the behavior of someone who has mastered something you want to learn.  If you understand their core beliefs, underlying principles, etc. and can adopt those as  your own, then you stand a very good chance of being able to adopt their behavior in a certain area.  This is a huge savings in time, and effort, and sometimes make the difference in being successful or not.

For me, adopting Pro Tools will, in the long run, save me much time and effort in working with others.  Enough said.

Have fun.

-Ed

Unnoticed Limitations

Yesterday was spent with family, enjoying each others’ company, and eating together.  I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving, also.  One thing that struck me as my son was putting together a “Thanksgiving Mix” playlist as background music for the day was how I had let music slip out of my life again.  He was commenting that he had tons of room on is iPod (30 gig model) and while we were talking he purchased another album and a few singles that looked good to him.   He also samples other people’s playlists to find new artists he hasn’t experienced before.  As we sat and listened to new tunes, I realized that my Nano had filled up months ago (8 gig model) with mostly seminars, meditation and biography tracks, and that I had not listened to any new music in ages.

Something as simple as filling up a Nano had placed an unnoticed limitation on my life.  It kept me from exposing myself to new musical experiences, from continuing to experience the joy and peace that music brings.  I realized that I haven’t been playing background music while I work in my office any more.   Not because I made a decision to not play music, but because I didn’t have anything new.  My iPod filled up and I simply stopped growing.It makes me wonder how many other areas I have stopped growing in just due to inattention.  Hmmm.  I’ll have to think about that.  

BTW, I just ordered a larger iPod  . 

Have Fun.

 -Ed

Hello world!

Hi.

 My name is Ed, and I am starting this blog to share what I have found to work for me and others in the journey we are all on.  I know that is not saying much, and is ambiguous, but as I am just starting to write this, and I have only made the decision in the past few days, I am still gathering my thoughts and ideas about what to post and how it should be organized.

 Rather than planning this to death, and taking forever to make something happen, I decided to start earlier than I am comforatable with, and just get going….

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving!

More later…