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I’ve been a Pro Tools fan for years, since around 1997 or so, but as each successive version came out, the user interface never really got any better, and the restrictions on hardware were never lifted. I’d search Google for possible replacements every time I had to pay for yet another upgrade, but stuck with it because I didn’t believe that another product would be as good. Finally, at Pro Tools 8, my hand has been forced, because this version no longer supports some of my DigiDesign hardware. I’ve finally moved to Logic Pro.
If you read the web, most opinion considers Pro Tools best for audio editing and recording, and Logic Pro best for MIDI, and I kept on believing that, version after version. However, since Apple bought Logic, they’ve been greatly improving Logic Pro into an awesome editing tool, which is most of what I do. Don’t believe what it says on the web, Logic Pro is now at least as good as ProTools in this area, and while the user interface is more complex at first, you do get used to it.
But the kicker was the hardware restriction. Pro Tools 8 removes support for my audio interface, which is also made by DigiDesign, so they’ve removed support for their own equipment. That’s just braindead, considering that Logic Pro 9 on the other hand, not only still supports my DigiDesign hardware, but when I decide to get something new, I can get pretty much anything from any company and it will work.
Its taken a few hours to figure out my Logic Pro workflow, but after a few short projects, and changing a bunch of the keyboard command to match Pro Tools, I’m almost as productive as I was before, and I can see it being way more useful and productive than Pro Tools in the long run.
Its sad saying goodbye to an old friend, but I’ve never really liked Avid, who bought DigiDesign a few years back, so adios Avid!
Age is an odd thing, especially in this day and age. With information flowing at a staggering pace, it is now possible to live many different unconnected lives and experiences in quite a short amount of time. Contrast this with youth today who only think that they’ve lived it all. But old timers have been saying that since age was discovered I guess.
I don’t think I’ve done as much as a lot of people in my lifetime, but I have done quite a lot of really interesting and fun things, including quite a few unrelated community ecosystems, which are worlds unto themselves and an entire blog in the making.
In the late 80s I took up guitar again and wrote a lot of music. I also spent a lot of time in recording studios in the early 90s and hacking away on 4 track recorders at home throughout much of the 90s. Its really interesting looking back on some of those songs, revisiting moments in history, because I’m so in a different place right now.
Here’s a couple of things I was listening to tonight. I was in the combined schools choir in school in the upper registers, but fell in love with punk and spent the next 30 years trying to sing badly, something that’s unfortunately set me back in recent years, but that’s another story. Strangely my music usually wasn’t punk.
I wrote Out to you (3.4MB) at a time when my world seemed to be crumbling around me, I still don’t know why, but I still remember who. Never really one for lyrical subtext, this was written for my best friend at the time, and who has been ever since. It must have been written around 1994 or so, but this is a dodgey 2 track from 22nd June 1996, strangely using a Radio Shack PZM.
Rigor mortis (3.8MB) was written in 1991 while learning my way around Cubase. The vox samples are from the Australian film Bodywork. The instruments are all from a couple of Yamaha and AKAI samplers, I can’t remember which.
I’ll find our way home (3.4MB) is another dodgey 2 track with PZM, coincidentally recorded on the 23rd June 1996, but written probably around 1987-1988 or so. It’s my favourite of all my songs, mainly because it had the most emotional impact at the time. Yes, it was for a girl. I don’t really have a good recording of it unfortunately. The guitar is an old 12 string with only 6 strings and rattling tuning pegs. I still have the guitar, I don’t have the girl.
Giddy was written and recorded on 11th February 1997 as a one off attempt to do a Gerling song. That was before they stopped being a rock band. Not particularly successful, but I like the recording.
And finally No place (3MB) is a silly little sampler piece from 2007. I was trying out Apple’s GarageBand software to see how easy it was to use. It didn’t seem that much easier than a professional sequencer, but not bad for 30 minutes of hacking around.
Apart from the last one, they all seem a lifetime away, almost unreal. Almost like I simply manufactured the memories. I guess because it wasn’t really me, it was a different me, the angst ridden me.
New Australian laws finally legally format shifting, but removing the 1% cap on licensing fees paid by radio stations. Could this affect community radio?
So a few days ago I finally bit the bullet and bought an iPod 5G, the video one. I’ve been resisting for ages, because I was hanging out for the 6G, but there’s a lot of things happening in the next few weeks that I can’t really wait any longer. So if a new one comes out next week, you can have a good laugh at my expense. But knowing my luck, they’ll go on sale the week I’m in San Francisco for Vloggercon 2006, and they’ll be really cheap, being the U.S. and all.
When I’d finally made the decision, I called the AppleCentre in Chatswood to check the price, which was exactly the same as the Apple Store, and they don’t offer the free engraving like Apple do. So the conversation with the AppleCentre guy goes:
R: How much is the latest iPod, the 5G 60GB?
ACG: $598
R: If I came in, would you be open to negotiation on the price?
ACG: [laughing] Not unless you’re buying 30 of them.
R: [laughing] Yeah, sure! [hangs up]
Suffice to say, they didn’t get the business. So easy to shit on your customers isn’t it?
Anyway, I ended up ordering from the Apple Store (resisting the urge to get it engraved with “white guys are cunts“). Problem is, although I usually work from home, next week I’m working on site at a customer, and they can’t guarantee (yes I called Apple to check) the day on which it will be delivered, which means I’ll probably miss it and have to go collect it from somewhere nowhere near me. So I had a thought, that many online retailers pride themselves in delivering as fast as possible. Well, I don’t mind it coming a few days later, so long as I can pick the exact day. Online food retailers like Shopfast are the only stores I can think of that allow you to pick a day and time of delivery. What I’d like on the Apple store is a radio button for either a) fastest possible delivery, or b) delivery a little later but on the date/time of my choice. Can’t be that difficult can it? Especially for Apple, one of the masters in “just in time” manufacturing.
One of my favourite albums of all time, well probably at least in the top 5, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation has been added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress (scroll to the bottom). To quote the Sonic Youth site:
Sonic Youth’s 1988 album Daydream Nation has been added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Daydream Nation now joins Emile Berliner’s ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man’ by Muddy Waters (among other recordings) in the collection mandated by Congress ‘to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.’
While it was ground breaking at the time, and was a significant landmark in the journey to 1991, the year that punk broke, who would have thought it back in 1988? And there was much rejoicing.
Nate Harrison’s Can I Get An Amen
History of the Amen break.
I’ve finally changed my domain name from my ISP URL to a real URL. Please change any URL you have pointing to my old site (www.zipworld.com.au/~kashum), to my new www.kashum.com site.
Or for reference:
Site/blog/vlog: http://www.kashum.com
RSS (2.0) feed: http://www.kashum.com/rss2.xml
I’ll leave the old domain around for two weeks, so please change them as soon as possible in your reader or whatever client you’re using.
Changing URLs is annoying for you and me, and I realise its easier to just delete me than change me, but please stick with it, I promise I’ll be good (or bad, whatever you’d usually expect).
Special thanks to Nathan, who kindly donated the domain a few months back. I’ve only just had time to do make it all happen.