blue2blue

As folks have pointed out, the vocals sound swell.

I'll ditto the 3 year warranty, bigtime. Happily, I haven't had any problems with my just-over-two-year-old Dell (Pentium M, Travelstar 60 GB 7200 drive* -- which has seen a lot of field use, almost every day for a long time, though not for recording), touch wood, but I've had a few friends who were sending their HPs and Compaqs back like crazy (one buddy had three hard drives replaced in his HP before he gave up and bought a Dell after the HP went out of warranty. He's been okay so far. But got a four year warranty on the Dell.) [Now... it ought to be said here that I've also talked to a few people lately with Dell horror stories re support. So. Buyer beware. And -- when I stumbled onto the Dell sales line instead of the support line trying to buy an OS disk -- I had an hour-plus runaround that had me just about taking out a verbal contract on Michael Dell, if you know what I mean. (It's a joke. But it wasn't funny to me, then.) Once I got to the support line, things got back on track but I was, for an hour, going through phone HELL.] And a few people who didn't have extended warranties ended up with very expensive paperweights when things like mobos or screens went out out (or were SUGGESTED to have gone out -- since finding out would have cost a minimum charge of $500 in several cases). *A note on the Hitachi Travelstar or other 7200 rpm 2.5" drives: I was a strong advocate of having a fast(er) drive in any notebook I would be using. And, all else equal, faster is definitely better. (And the drive has, touch wood, been a little trooper!) But -- with the possible exception of field work -- any serioius recording you're going to do is PROBABLY going to be on an outboard drive, where your dollars will go farther buying speed. I think the7200 rpm drive in my machine has helped make it an overall fast-seeming machine vis a vis other laptops -- but I'm not sure just how crucial it is. And it has to be noted that the Hitachi in my laptop is not as fast at big file copying as the 7200 rpm in my tower, by a fair amount. (Now, no doubt, 5400 rpm drives are similarly slower in laptops.) Something to consider, anyhow.

BTW, Craig, all kidding aside, as someone who, some years ago, did a one man electronic improv/echo loop act, I thought your rig -- and you -- delivered a rich, polished pop sound. I liked the Enoesque vocal and I thought the use of harmony was a definite plus. I wouldn't want to have to face you down at the Battle of the One Man Bands.

Glad to finally catch your act... just missed it at NAMM. Sounded great... too bad my video player kept getting all distorted in the best parts...

When I was a little kid I broke the family lava lamp (yes, even good, suburban Republican families had lava lamps in the early 60's... it just took a few years to figure out what to do with them). But I have no recollection of the aftermath (which I'm assuming means it was ugly). But I loved that thing, myself, so maybe it was just the anguish of destroying something special and beautiful... Damn. This makes me sad.

You can change the colors. (In S5, Options/Colors...) There are a number of 'theme' color sets. You can also change a lot of the lay out aspects, as well; you can float or dock windows, move sections around and so on. Even the track info area is configurable and there are little buttons to hide/reveal different aspects of a channel (ie, FX, output, etc). It's pretty flexible. I'm not saying you can get it precisely the way you want, but there are a lot of options. cheers PS to GZ... Yeah. I bought Pyro, too. It worked but it's not NEARLY as good as a lot of free programs. I use Deepburner (Free) now and, while it's not perfect, I like it better than anything else I've used (except maybe for the old CD-Architect... but the new version seems to refuse to work for me... I must finally be on the Sony blacklist )

Yeah... I also read a comment elsewhere from a user who was drawn to Sonar by some of the latest enhancements but was really caustic about the interface. Like I said, I've probably been using Sonar/Cakewalk Pro Audio for too long to have any perspective -- and there ARE a few things I'd change or enhance, no question about it. But the last time I looked over folks's shoulders at Pro Tools and Cubase, overall, things looked pretty similar. Is it the little things?

Originally posted by rbm You mean even if he isn't using it then I can't use it? Does that apply to all of the guitars and amps he and I borrow from each other too? Doug may be technically right but since it hasn't been installed I think you might well be able to consider it a 'virgin' package. If your friend had registered it, then you might be stuck. But assuming it's a store bought version (as opposed to an "LE" giveaway which almost certainly can't be transferred under any circumstances) and if it had never been installed and registered, I suspect you would not only be unprosecutable but I think you would be more or less in the clear from the point of view of practical ethics. [i also think that if you were really worried about it, you could contact Cakewalk and ask their permission to transfer a never-registered, never-used copy from the purchaser to you. That ought to have them scratching their heads.] I guess I understand the thinking behind putting such restrictions in EULAs -- since there are those who find it convenient to ignore installations of software they're accidentally leaving behind on their machines when they sell some 'used' (or even 'never used') software to someone. But the people who are going to comply with those rules ARE THE ONES YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT, anyway.. And everyone else will just use a crack/backdoor/cheat/workaround and steal what they're gonna... It's a shame when publishers -- understandably troubled by piracy -- institute policies of dubious effectiveness which end up punishing 'good' consumers. ____________________ On Sonar... I like it. But I've been using it so long I probably don't have any perspective, anymore. PT has some things Sonar doesn't have or does some things better. BUT there are some 'modern necessities' that PT just plain doesn't have. Plug-in delay compensation being a big one. That was one of those "how did we ever get along without it" features that a lot of us were beating on our own DAW publisher's citadel doors to get... years ago. At least PT LE is finally getting an update from the miserly 32 track restriction. Sonar has a lot of great features, a well-liked looping sub-environment with, I'm told, good integration with the main program, it has a lot of good MIDI features (though Cubase and Logic may edge it there, though I've heard it both ways), a lot of folks really like the, you should pardon the expression, "workflow," and, best of all at a price of free, it's a HELL of a deal. Go for it.

My demands haven't been high. It doesn't leave my house. It does power up and power down on a more or less daily basis. It and its driver are a tiny bit fussy about when things get hooked up. I've found its generally better to turn the MOTU on and then plug the FW into XP already booted and running. After that everything's usually hunky dory. (If, OTOH, I absentmindedly turn it on and plug the FW into XP while the MOTU is still doing it bootup cycle, things are not necessarily pretty. Though recovery is as quick as another power cycle on the MOTU.) All that said, there are a lot more options out there now than when I bought the MOTU 2 years ago. I don't want to diss this thing, it's been decent, like a surprisingly reliable American car, or something. Like my slant six Valiant (like a Dart)... it got me from point A to point B reliably.

It was a very nice little house. Unfortunately, the neighborhood was destabilized by a short period when zone restrictions were lifted in selected neighborhoods by a developer mayor and his cohorts on the city council. The resulting rash of of overbuilt apartment houses doubled and even tripled neighborhood densities overnight. It was a disgraceful assault on the city that destabilized and sometimes destroyed neighborhoods that had previously been calm, well-maintained, low-density neighborhoods for a half century or more. In retrospect, paying a little more attention to that whole location cubed thing might have been prudent. But it was a great little house. Remind me to show you photos of the breakfast nook sometime. It was in a little turret kind of architectural thing (that's where the guy tried to come through from the front porch, actually)... and the backyard, at its peak, was really sweet, at least from my hermit-in-the-city perspective. It had lots of roses, a fountain, hummingbirds. And my cats prowling it all. There were more than a few moments when I was really, really at home, there.

Originally posted by UstadKhanAli Is this an important consideration in the LBC? In my old hood, yes, yes it was. I always kept my MOTU unracked and handy in case I had to deflect bullets in a studio-invasion robbery. No... that's a joke. I didn't have the MOTU yet, then. But I DID have a barred metal panic door (inside the house separating the front living areas from the bedroom and studio) and that was no joke. After the first few weeks I lived there (when someone tried to crash through a window while I was not only home but entertaining friends) I never really had any problems. Well, accept the grand theft auto kids running their stolen fam van up onto the curb in front of my house and running through my backyard in a vain attempt to escape about 50 cops. Well... and then there was the (white) gangster I shooed out of my neighbor's yard who said he was gonna go get his "Uzi" and F me up good. He did, indeed, come back witha bout 15 of his best pals and lay a hundred bucks or so of spray paint on my neighbor's wall (different neighbor). Me and my tennant at the time sat waiting with a loaded .45 but they didn't come over the fence. The cops never showed. "Oh, they're just tagging?" Thanks, donut-chompers. (Don't get me wrong -- I told them I'd been threatened only about an hour before with gun violence. Remarkably unflappable.) Anyhow, I live among the rich folks now, and I'm the neighborhood WT, parking my Corolla among the BMRs and top end SUVs (since, here, even the rich don't park in their garages). But the old 'hood calmed down a huge amount in the mid-90s... we went from several volleys of gunfire on a typical night to once every 6 months or so in a matter of a few years. I loved my house, I lived there longer than anywhere else, ever... but I can't say I'm not happy to be out of my old neighborhood. A bit bittersweet, to be sure. But not missing most of it at all... That was then... ... this is now: I can stand in the front yard and see Catalina and a thin slice of Pacific Ocean. The diff is I'm now a carefree renter once again. When, back in the housing boom of the '80s, I bought "a piece of the rock" -- I didn't think it was going to have tin foil wrapped around it.

Having owned MOTU 828mkII for a couple years I think I'd keep shoppin'... the MOTU wouldn't be out of the picture, necessarily, but it certainly would not be at the top of my list.* (It's been mostly quite acceptable. It's reliable. I can't say the converters struck me as any improvement over the Echo Mia in my desktop. And the mic pres are quite dull and dark sounding, I'd have to say bordering on "muffled." They would be the last pre's I would use for almost anything... and I have some pretty cheap and funky pres.) *While I appreciate the 'solid' construction of my 828 (and the new little box appears to use the same design precepts) one of the points of getting a small unit like that is portability. And I can tell you that my 828 is heavier than rack boxes twice its size because of its excessively heavy case. But it'll stop a .25 calibre slug, I'll bet. Maybe a .32. If I had been MOTU, I would certainly have investigated another type of case -- perhaps a composite. Anyhow... I've never had to deal with MOTU directly but I've heard it can be quite frustrating.

Well, I'm tempted to say that 490 dollars is NOT "almost" 724 dollars -- by ANY measure I can think of. Not even bloody close. Second, I did build my last desktop and it was a great experience -- but it did require some research -- and that was a more than a few years ago (I'm a laptopper these days most of the time) when there were far fewer critical decisions to be made. (Plus, I just lucked out a bit.) If YOU'VE ever run a business, maybe you're aware of the enormous costs that go into everyday operations, hiring employees, paying for materials, op expenses, insurance, workers comp, leases, utilities... NONE of those costs are trivial. In our free market system, vendors can price their goods at whatever price they think will sell. There's nothing inherently sinful about a big markup -- particularly if you've determined it's the only way you can stay in business. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your idea -- except of course that I wouldn't trust the bozos at Sweetwater* to know what was up with a computer and I sure as hell wouldn't trust the bozos at NewEgg to know what was up with the extremely complicated audio aftermarket -- but I am troubled by the implications in your post with regard to the ethics of those high-end box makers. _____________ * Not saying there's anything evil about them. I'm just saying the people manning the phones are more or less the equivalent of the guys out on the floor at Guitar Center on Saturday afternoon, at least in my limited experience with Sweetwater. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that that's much different at other big retailers.

Originally posted by EerieDreamZ Well, on the other hand, I've had well over 700 auctions on ebay and not had a problem. (50 of those were music related stuff synths, guitars, etc) As my own rule I never do "big money" transactions on ebay unless I have the option for Escrow. That way both parties are protected. Like many things in life, nothing is guaranteed. The one time I used the HC classifieds, I got burned. Maybe my lottery number was up for that one. Oh, yeah... I was kind of thinking out loud there. I think the concept is great. (And shipping is obviously ancillary to the whole concept.) Honest to gosh, I think the thing that really, really holds me back from using Ebay (aside, of course, from occasional horror stories like this) is: I've worked as a shipping clerk. I'm winkin' -- but I'm not really kidding. There's a reason so much commercial music gear may seem overpackaged. {censored} happens. And not infrequently. I love my well-paid and apparently lusted-after brothers and sisters in brown (and whatever their colleagues at FedEx are wearing these days... I should know, I see them all the time)... but, let's face it -- don't ship the Stradivarius UPS.

Bummer. People wonder why, when I've bought just about everything else imaginable online, I haven't used Ebay... Good luck sorting this out.

Not a bad idea at all -- as long as you don't let the student 'hide' in an open tuning. I'm sure we all have our personal horror stories about either ourselves or our friends and compatriots refusing to force their hands into the (admittedly unnatural and uncomfortable) barre position way too long... (Me, it was me... I was playing lazy F's for at least a year and a half... OTOH, that taught me a lot about what I used to call "partial chords" (no music ed here, folks)... ie, familiar fingerings of 'first position' chords moved elsewhere up the neck -- but playing some open strings [without a full barre].) That said, the first time I saw Gatemouth Brown I had this Aha! feeling when I saw that this icon of sophisticated, hard-rockin' guitar (and a talented big band arranger in his own right, as I understand) used a freakin' capo! After that, I figured whatever I did was OK... (And I went out and bought myself a nice capo, too.)

I recommend taking it easy if you teach her yourself. My folks really tried to encourage me in music, they were very supportive, even buying an electronic organ (a two manual Thomas/Silvertone that could be switched in and out of "one finger chord" mode). My old man was a moderately accomplished old school parlor keyboardist; he could sight read (moderately). And he really tried to help me out. (It should be noted that I was 'certified' as having "absolutely no musical talen whatsoever" by two different educators, the neighborhood church organist/piano teacher, and the music teacher at my grammar school. Hard to believe there was a time when a public grammar school in a working class town had music programs, huh? Anyhow, I was bitter then, but I understand now, why they felt that way.) Even after that, my folks tried to support my musical aspirations, and my dad kept trying to get me to pogress at reading music (to this day, it looks like chicken scratches -- I can parse it out because I know what the chicken scratches mean -- but I still find myself going through the "every good boy does fine" business... really. I guess I'm just musically dyslexic.) Anyhow, it was a source of great frustration to my old man that I kept playing the organ in "1 finger chord mode" and a source of frustration to both of us, every time he sat down and tried to show me what was up. I give my folks high props for trying -- but I was never really able to get anywhere at all on any instrument (including the $18 guitar my dad helped me pay for [i was gonna buy the $13 model but my cousin -- who had a sweet little D18 Martin -- talked me up to the vaugely playable $18 one] until after I left my folks' house. So, you know, I guess, just... take it easy and keep it enjoyable.