Frustrating Days.
Originally published at The Null Device Blog. You can comment here or there.
It has been an annoying past few days in the studio.
Some things have gone quite well, of course. I’ve re-engineered backing tracks to make them cleaner and punchier in the live environment. I’ve been able to do this quickly and efficiently with the new machine, since I don’t have to freeze tracks to be able to play back my mixes. I’ve also got a new rack of DI’s en route, thanks to a lovely tip from Mr. Wade Alin. They’re not Radials or anything, but they look to have better build quality than the ones I’ve currently got. Also there’s a new ATA rack to put them in coming. I decided that the 6-unit full-depth rack I’ve got is entirely unnecessary for my 3 units of shallow-depth gear, so I’ve got a 4U Gator on the way. Also, being ATA, I feel a little safer about it than I do about my current rack. Plus that extra space leaves a little room for expansion.
The things that haven’t gone right? Well, yesterday I opened a newish track that I had recently transitioned over from the old system. I hit play and…it sounded really weird. That wasn’t right. I popped open a few of the plugins I was using and noted that every. Single. Instance of PODFarm Plat had switched back to its default setting, which happens to be an emulation of a Fender Jazz amp with reverb. Basically, the entire song sounded like each part was being played from inside individual cardboard boxes. And I used PODfarm a LOT on this track to get grungy synth distortion, so the track was pretty much hosed until I could fix it. I spent much of the afternoon switching as much as possible over to Logic’s native Amp Designer. It doesn’t always sound quite as nice as PF for some of the emulations, but I can at least be assured it’ll work next time I open it. I get to look forward to the next few days of recreating settings and rebuilding tracks. Grumble.
A nasty headcold coupled with my usual overactive sinus-based ick has kept me from recording any vocals for the past week and a half. This is particularly annoying, since I have stuff stacking up I want to record/rerecord/fix.
Aaand finally, I plugged in my MOTU 828 (mk1) yesterday, to test out my backing tracks and…kernel panic. I rebooted, and…kernel panic. I unplugged it and…kernel panic. Some online searching demonstrated that hey, whaddya know, the new MOTU drivers under snow leopard don’t like the old 828 all that much. I dug out one of my archived installers and put an older driver on, and it seems stable. For now. Nonetheless, this makes me kind of twitchy about relying on a nearly-10-year-old audio interface. I do have plans to get a new one but…not for a while yet. I just bought a new car, I’m a little low on petty cash.
Sigh.