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I picked these two up for my Christmas presents:

The Alesis Multimix 16 Firewire & the Korg nanoKONTROL ($400 via ebay and $60 via Thinkgeek.com respectively)

I’ve yet to do any extensive work on it, but I have been playing around with them. The Alesis performs wonderfully using Ardour2 (free) and Logic Express (not free.. but *wink*), but i can’t get it running correctly in Windows XP via Boot Camp. When i plug it in and turn it on, i hear the Windows notification that something was plugged in, but the computer still doesn’t recognize it even though i must have uninstalled it and reinstalled it a billion and a half times. I’m trying to figure out what the problem may be and i’ve looked online for similar problems but no cigar. Alesis tech support is a joke, by the way.

It’s a damn shame. I had hoped I could use this mixer on Windows with software i’m used to but hey, trying out new software doesn’t always hurt. I’m liking Ardour so far too.

The reason for the firewire console? I bought this thing to make miking drums much less of a hassle. Before, i had a cheesy 8 channel mixer (with only 4 XLR inserts) and i always had to direct-to-stereo record, making editing drums a huge pain in the ass, since i can’t go in and change the sound of the kick drum or the hi hat. With this FireWire mixer, every input goes in and claims its unique channel on the computer for a total of 16 or 18 seperate, descrete channels.

But hell, i didn’t even own proper drum mics before this. Although I just picked up a pack of 7 ‘proper drum’ mics yesterday (5 dynamic mics and 2 condensers) and hopefully these will turn out nice. I don’t need a perfect mix, just a damn good sounding one. I’ll see what i can do.

Tips from my Audio Engineer professor that i’ll be sure to use:

• If the drums don’t sound right, change the placement, do not resort to EQ. If you have to EQ, do not boost frequencies, but cut them instead.
• EQ can not compensate for a crappy recording.
• EQ can not make a bad instrument/drum set sound good.

I definitely want to experiment with this to get the best possible sound.

Anyway, i also got to mess around a bit with the Korg nanoKontrol. It isn’t too special, but during a mix down, hopefully this will help greatly. The controller itself is made of plastic, and sliding the faders up and down do feel kind of grainy (slightly though). That familiar sliding against plastic feel and sound. But other then that, i like it. You get what you paid for. I personally like the small form factor.

That’s it for now. I’ll come back later to inform how the drum mics worked and how the mixer and korg nanoKontrol performed. Be safe for the holidays!

Why do you even bother giving the option to track shipments with “updates” if:

1. You claim you only update every night
2. 3/4ths of the time, the only “update” you get is “Electronic Shipping Information Received”
3. The “Delivery Date” is always unknown.

I mean geez USPS. Why bother?

[/impatient]

One of the main reasons why I haven’t been able to produce music like I should be doing is because of my recent transition to the Macintosh platform. I thought moving to a Macbook Pro would increase it, but in fact, it has dramatically decreased it. It might have something to do with the Mac operating system. And the fact that FLStudio is Windows only (If Imagine-Line offered a Mac version of the program, I would gladly throw down $500 for it). And that I have to restart my computer to boot into Windows (via Boot Camp). Restarting my computer is a chore. If i’m in the mood to make music, I should be able to click the little icon and get right to it, but so is not the case. By the time Windows has already loaded, I’m in no mood to do so. (Do not question my music producing skills)

That’s not to say there isn’t wrong with my mac. I love it dearly. I prefer OS X far more than Windows (Although I am looking forward to the release of Windows 7). It’s just that my all time favorite DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is exclusive to another operating system. It’s like being on a completely different continent than the one my love is on.

One thing I could do is run Windows exclusively on my mac. But I already made OS X my home. And quite frankly, I love it here. I could also run FLStudio via methods of virtualization (i.e. Parallels, etc.), but don’t even get me started on that topic. Audio production by means of virtualization, while possible, is a joke. Let me run my programs natively, thanks.

That being said, I do believe it’s time to move on and while FLStudio will always have a place in my heart, I will continue to move on. Off to experiment with new tools for the mac. First, Logic Express.

It’s snowin’ everybody! (Last snowfall in Houston, TX - 2003)

When you’re applying for a passport.

Because 2009 is coming ever so close, we’re doing what we can to make sure everything is smoothed out. I’ve already mentioned our current plans and all we need to do now is to hope for the best.

So i visited the online USPS store to find some media boxes to ship our CD’s in. Hey look! They’re free! So i saw the maximum order was 20, I figured ‘Okay, that should be enough boxes for me’. It wasn’t until i got them that I totally overlooked something. I didn’t see the part that each package consisted of 25 boxes, so I ended up ordering 20 packages of 25 boxes by mistake. You do the math. That’s 500 boxes in my room. Well.. at least i won’t ever run out..

That being said, we’re a little stumped on what we can do with the album covers. I have a package of 50 matte preferrated sheets, but to be honest, they just don’t look as good as typical glossy album covers (Y’know, when you buy an album online or at the store). I prefer these because the correct dimensions are already preferrated for me and all I have to do is print on to them and fold the edges and tear off the extra paper (without scissors). But the thing is, i can’t find glossy versions of these anywhere or in mass amounts that we need. And while we can make glossy copies at the store (or print them at home, but that requires ink, and ink is expensive), we still have to cut them by hand and i’m worried they won’t come out as perfect. Any recommendations? Help us out here.

I just spent 30 minutes cooking up hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and sausages thinking it was going to be a damn good breakfast.

It wasn’t. So now my day is probably going to suck.

Here we are, end of November, and I’m outside with a t-shirt and shorts.

That’s not right. I hate Houston.

Happy thanksgiving