Bitten by Snow Leopard?

So on October 7th at 10:30pm, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Snow Leopard.

Now there was no uber-compelling reason to do this. Granted I was curious about the reports of “snappier” system response times (true), and really curious about Grand Central, but there was no “gotta have” things in the new system that couldn’t wait a couple of months.

But I did it anyway. I took some precautions: upgraded software where I could, cleaned up the hard drives, etc. As far as software goes, things went pretty smoothly. Of the 350+ AU plug-ins I have only 14 did not pass AU validation with LOGIC. (And no, I am not insane; a number of those are demos and freeware…Ah who am I kidding.) Updating key software apps like CarbonCopyCloner really helped to keep things smooth. Yep. This upgrade stuff was pretty easy…

Surprised by Sonnet?

Except that none of my external SATA drives (you know, the ones with my samples, sounds, and patches) would mount on the desktop.

After MUCH investigation, I figured out that Sonnet’s Tempo SATA E2P card is NOT Snow Leopard compatible.

So in the little spare time I have between work, preparing to move, and trying to finish a w-a-a-a-y overdue track with Tetramorph, I’m trying to prepare for an upgrade to Snow Leopard. Essentially this means checking lists to see if any key apps are incompatible, trolling for updates, and generally “tidying up” before upgrading.

Somewhere during those travels, Alchemy decided to stop working. Just “pffft!” Anytime I launched Logic or LIVE, BAM! instant crash out of the program and to the desktop. This had not happened before. I thought maybe it was the LOGIC9 install. (Nope. As it turns out, it happened in LOGIC8 too.) I updated to the latest version of Alchemy (a Release Candidate at that), but the same thing happened. I trashed preferences, rebuilt permissions, etc. Zilch. No luck.

So I searched online. Were others having this issue? It seemed not. Nary a peep of problems with LOGIC or LIVE. So I headed over to CamelAudio’s forum site over at KVR. I posted a question on the forum asking for help at 5:46 pm. 20 minutes later, Andy from CamelAudio responded with some suggestions. These didn’t work, so we went back and forth a bit. He suggested I send to him some log files, screenshots, etc.

Here at last...

Propellerheads released RECORD today. They are going to make a metric ton of money with this I think. Maybe a ton plus: It’s listed as a $149 upgrade NOT the $129 price quoted everywhere. Factor in $20 shipping to the US, and that’s $169 out of the door. On the plus side: The box set includes an upgrade to REASON4 for owners of REASON versions 1 – 3 and that’s a helluva deal for those folks. But if you have REASON4 already, it’s just an extra $20 for naught.

I’ve really got to give it to the Props: They know how to make a helluva product trailer.

I’m a fan of Lisa Gerrard, and used to be quite a big Klaus Schulze fan. But the two together? I’m not so sure…

What do you think?

Coming soon. Check out the video previews...

…pretty cool. (Check it out here.) I’ve only spent an hour with it. Quick first impressions before I get off to work:

• Pretty easy to figure out what’s going on — especially if you watch the intro videos on the website
• I was hoping the “german engineers” alluded to in the adverts were emagic alumnus. If the interface is a hint, it looks like they are folks from the old Cubase/Nuendo crowd.
• The interface is cold, very monochromatic.
• Assigning controllers is dead simple.
• I experienced a few odd crashes. (More on that in a bit.)
• From what I can tell, automation is all breakpoints, no bezier curves or things like that.
• It has a nice approach on workflow (based on the little bit I’ve played around with)

(To be continued…)

So among the other things going on right now: My wife and I are buying a home. (We are closing within the next 2 weeks.) This is my first time purchasing a home, and yes it is kind of complicated. Lots to do, lots of paperwork, inspections, logistics, etc.

We’ve been looking for a little while. I always had two particular requirements (in addition to the standards like safe neighborhood, good schools, etc.). Namely, 1) I wanted a decent kitchen and deck because I really enjot cooking and grilling; and 2) I wanted a room that could be purpose dedicated to a studio/music room. To me that means something most likely in the basement where I can invest in some acoustic treatment, really decent monitors, a proper mixer, and some serious studio furniture.

Well, we found a great house, in a fantastic neighborhood, at the right price. Park nearby, great schools, easy commute. Requisite kitchen and deck.

Just no real studio space.

Well, the good far outweighs the bad, so I will continue to wait. Maybe in a few years, we’ll add a room on and THEN I will get my space!

In the meantime, I thought I would share some photos of quasi-realistic-to-one-day-have “dream studios” that I have collected over the years.