The Blades.Technology Blog

 As the owner of an IT MSP in the Atlanta area, I hear horror stories about people losing data too often to want to think about.  We always strongly recommend data backups to our clients so that they don't have to face that loss and the financial costs that come with it.  My opinion and advice for businesses or even hobbies that incorporate large amounts of data is to ALWAYS have a data backup, preferably including an offsite copy.

 This post is about the decision to upgrade your DAW from an earlier version of Studio One or another product to the new Studio One 5 or to Subscribe to the New Presonus Sphere

 How should I spend my money?!?!?

 I have worked for the last weeks/months on rebuilding my Studio room to make it more functional and more inspirational. Whether I am recording or working, I want my room to be useful to me for creative inspiration or for just getting things done. This video is a quick review of the new updates I have done to my room to make it work better for my day to day use.

This post is mostly about the visuals and will show examples of how a 4k Monitor can benefit you in using your PC and especially when using your DAW like Cakewalk, Studio One, Reaper, Pro Tools, or any other.

This post  might not be as "fun" as many of the other things you find on the internet about recording, DAW production, etc, but I think it is a necessary thing to put in place for yourself.  The last video that I put up, I had some conversation with one of the viewers and he suggested that "Actually, I think you should do a video on this topic, setting up and personalizing your workstation and workflow.".  So I did and here it is.

In my last post, I said I'd have an example up of the audio differences between the Console 1 SSL4000e emulation and the Bristish Class A emulation.  This post is to showcase the differences.

I got the Softube Console 1 last summer and just got the SSL 4000e with it.  I thought it was awesome right out of the gate.  But since then, I've wanted to get another emulation, specifically the British Class A, which we all know to be a combination of Neve units loaded together into a single Channel Strip in the Console 1.  While this isn't an endorsed emulation, everything I've read and heard about it is that it is a good representation of what the Neve units sound like.  Their character and behavior are modeled nicely.

​If you have been following my Blog or any my other online presence for any time, you know that I play the drums and specifically that I have E-Drums (or Electronic Drums).  I have been playing for many years and have done a ton of recording for other people over those years.

Now I am offering my drumming services to others over the internet.

I recently purchased my Softube Console 1 on eBay.  I couldn't really justify any other way to get this item, but now as I considered how to spend my money, I weighed out all the reasons I'd buy it, regardless of the money part of the equation.  Here's what I came up with in terms of some basic recommendations for those out there considering this purchase in no particular order.  I've also included a short video after with a verbal "monologue" to accompany this.

My Console 1  has arrived

​As mentioned in my previous post, I bought a Softube Console 1 on eBay.  It arrived on Friday.  I got it setup on Friday night and played around with it a bit and then made this video last night as a quick introduction to the hardware and software.

​I cannot wait until tomorrow, August 23, 2019 - a Friday at that!  I will receive my Console 1 MkII.  I will be using this new device to hopefully make my mixing process faster, more fun, more consistent, and more inspiring.

 As you look at this site, I hope you notice that I have removed all of the advertisements.  

I previously had Google AdSense running on the site as well as some links by Vigilink.  In the many years I've been running this site, including the 100s of thousands of YouTube video hits I received since about 2008, I have earned a total of about $100.  That's about $10/year over the last 10 years.  In the process, I think it has made my site look uglier and has made the content less appealing to the visitors who come here.  So I've removed all of the Advertisements!

I have been using Studio One now for about a year and a half.  It is a great product with a ton of features and flexibility.  One area that I don't particularly care for is the way that track colors are selected and applied.  I created a quick walkthrough video on how to enhance the capabilities with a toolbar plugin that was contributed by a forum member called Lawrence.  This extension to Studio One greatly enhances the usefulness of the color selections for tracks and the video shows how to install it, why it's useful, and how to use it.

The link to the Forum post can be found (at the time of this writing) here: https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?f=151&t=34475

 This post is about the room I play in.  I only ever play by myself and this is completely a non-pro hobby for me.  I created a video for this post to show around the room and the equipment I am using.  I don't know if anyone really care, to be honest, but wanted to post something and was inspired by some recent posts on forums like "show us your room", a little new video from Rick Beato, and another from Justin over at 65 Drums going over his kit.  So I decided a video is worth at least a few extra words, so pulled this together real quick this morning.  Hope you enjoy - welcoming your feedback in reactions or comments below the post.

It has been a little over a year since the announcement that Gibson was sending Sonar to its grave.  But it's been exactly a year since I took advantage of the cross-grade pricing from Sonar over to Presonus Studio One and while it hasn't been the most prolific year, I've learned a lot, moved on successfully, and have learned that Studio One IS still my preferred DAW over the (now) Cakewalk by Bandlab offering.

This is a post about the Presonus Faderport 8 and how to use it in Cakewalk by Bandlab.  There is a video below that you can watch where I go through at least some of the basics of the use of the hardware in the software.  There are a LOT more features, but this is as far as I have documented in Cakewalk.  In Presonus Studio One, the unit definitely goes deeper and is more intetgrated. 

 After thinking through a number of things, and having gone back to using Cakewalk last night to revisit and old tune/mix, I was asked on the Cakewalk forum why I felt as I do, so I wrote a post that I thought would be worth repeating here.  So, here is most of that post, edited only for context in my Blog:

I used Sonar through Platinum including lifetime updates, so I was even up to date until right when Gibson tanked the brand. I understood how to work the application. Even if not a Full-time professional power-user, I definitely knew the ins and outs of getting things recorded and mixed and dealing with the hardware and software, drivers, configurations, system tweaking, etc.

But when I came back yesterday and opened up an old project, it left me wanting. Yes, I changed my audio interface, so there were things to adjust, but even that was painful, even being experienced at the same. I also added the FaderPort 8 device since I left, but I wasn't even trying to use that in CBB.

Here are a few things that are quite simple in Studio One that were a pain for me yesterday:

So along comes Bandlab - to resurrect the software previously known as Sonar.

By now, I'd selected the option of looking at Studio One, even though it didn't "check all of the boxes".

Why? Because.  Really - that's the best I can come up with.  Yeah, there are a lot of things that I really like about the way that Sonar worked and I was very familiar with it, but after trying out Studio One, I have found it to be VERY responsive to my needs.  It doesn't feel like it's going to crash at any moment, which is something that has really plagued Sonar for a while now.  I just didn't feel like I could depend on it.  As someone who doesn't get a lot of time to "play" in the studio and also someone who does computer troubleshooting for a living who also doesn't really want to do it while trying to get a part down, I really want reactive software that doesn't crash, doesn't feel like it's going to crash, and just behaves "like an appliance" to a certain degree.  Studio One does that.

So now what?!?

I am a hobbyist.  I don't get nearly enough time to spend on music making.  I am a drummer for the most part.  The rest of my musical endeavors have been around playing around with other instruments, learning how to use the technology side of the recording process, and having to play the other instruments well enough to be able to do that, which means trying to write some songs, doing my best to cover some songs I like to the point of not being embarrassed to play them for others, and just generally enjoying the process.

November, 2017 - somewhere in the middle of the month.  I was "forced" to make a decision about what DAW software to use. Why?  Let's start there with this Part One in a series.  I'll get to the details of where this goes from here in later posts, but this is a good starting point.

Gibson owned the software Sonar for several years.  I took a long break from updates to the Sonar system due to lack of time to dedicate to the hobby and lack of funds to go with it - I simply couldn't justify spending the $15/month for a hobby I wasn't really spending any time with.  I'd been using Cakewalk/Roland/Gibson Sonar for many years, updating pretty much every year until the X-series came along, where I got X1, din't like it, skipped X2, got X3 and saw as an improvement, but couldn't get with the program on the Platinum releases.  I wasn't really convinced that the monthly updates would amount to much or at least not often.  So I stopped updating for about 2 years.