In which the hamster gets something done after fiddling with stuff for a significant length of time.

[infintysquared]

All my musical friends who do their own recording, I have so much more respect for you right now. Not as musicians, we already know you rock, but as sound engineers to make Tab A fit into Slot A ad infinitum.
It seems like every time I want to record, I find a new stumbling block. Tonight I FINALLY cut through:

• Learning how a new operating system completely overhauled sound device I/O mapping. In about three different ways, each significant to my setup.
  
  
• Finding out that the onboard sound module of this otherwise awesome computer is known to be crap, and trading a tin of homemade cookies to my buddy in exchange for a new sound card.
  
  
• Trying new audio software, giving up, and hunting down my old standby.
  
  
• Trying about three different input ports on the computer until I found one that would recognize the line-in signal.
  
  
• Then learning how to make the input echo through the PC Speaker output. (There's still a noticeable delay that's bugging me, that's the next hurdle.)
  
  
• Then finding out that the audio signal that's being recorded is quietquietquiet, dammit I'm working with a passive pickup.
  
  
• Route things through an effects pedal as a pre-amp like I do with my fiddle? Turns out the AC adapter I thought went to this is the wrong size plug and won't work, so I've gotta go find a battery. Then it turns out the pedal doesn't pre-amp very much.
  
  
• Route first to the pedal, then to my bass amplifier, and THEN out to the computer's line-in port? Great, it works, and we have a reasonably strong signal! ... Eeeeexcept that the AC wiring is noisy as HELL on all but two circuits of this house. So there's buzz and fuzz, and I'm sick of trying to remove it in post-production.
  
  
• Schlep out a new extension cord so that I can get the amplifier on the one clean AC circuit, re-string all the eleventeen cables I've been switching around so that nothing gets tangled and everything is within reach of the computer.
  
  
• Finally lay down a decent improvisational track while recording, only to find out that I set the mono/stereo mix to the WRONG half of the stereo recording, so I just recorded five minutes of silence.

But Ahhhhh, the feeling of success. Don't get me wrong, I like to tinker, just as I like to bake. But once I've spent hours around the oven, I want to have my goddamn cookie so I know I've done a good job.

Carl has his cookie. Carl is musicking.