Technology is Not Your Mistress

I know… strange title. I had a music theory professor at Azusa Pacific University who first introduced me to music technology. He was a Logic beta tester back in the day when it was still designed in Germany and it wasn’t even recording audio. It was but a humble MIDI sequencer.

Anyways, and I’m paraphrasing someone else here, so don’t bust me for gender exclusivity, he used to say something like this: Technology is not a mistress, to be used at your pleasure and disregarded, and tossed aside. Technology is a wife, who must be served, loved, and cherished.

Technology is evolving at an astonishing clip, is it not? I recently swapped out my old Dual Processer G5 computer for one of the new 8-core Mac Pros. The process ate through most of my time last week, no joke. I likened it to a heart transplant.

See… if you’re running a DAW you’re not just dealing with software, but PCI cards, cabling, compatibility, updates, re-installs, re-authorizations, etc. We’re not just dealing with Logic here. We’re dealing with plug-ins, software instruments that have multi gigabyte sample libraries, and so on and so forth. I use a drum plug-in called BFD2, which alone ships with 55 gigs of information. 55 gigs. My first mac had a 250 megabyte hard drive.

Needless to say, there were unending complications. Apple markets itself as a company whose products are simple and intuitive, (Hi, My name’s Chad and it’s been 14 months since I owned my last windows machine… hi Chad….) and I think that’s a truthful marketing angle. However, pro apps are not simple, I don’t care who engineered them. You want to use technology, and be on the edge of what is possible with a home studio? Be prepared to sweat, deal with frustrations, try this and that, try something else, try everything just to get it all happy.

Technology is a spouse, who must be dutifully served.

Much like a spouse who’s been properly loved, technology can give you real love in return. Remember those 55 gigs of samples I mentioned? They’re breathtakingly beautiful sounding. I’m able to craft demo drum parts that sound real. The ride cymbals ring and decay beautifully. The hi-hats seem to be endlessly expressive. The kick drum sounds are huge and fat. I could go on… I’m a geek for good samples… what can I say?

Then there’s the machine itself. Once I got it all going, I watched it light up old files that used to bring my G5 to it’s knees. I had the singular delight of flipping open the processing window, which tells me how much of my horsepower I’m using, and see 8 lines available. This thing is fast, fast, fast. Then there’s the new OS, Leopard, which is just… so gorgeous. I mean… there’s a new screen saver that takes your photo library and constructs endless photo mosaics out of your pictures. It just cycles through over and over. It’s like watching your life flash before you, organized by color. It’s so cool.

I could go on. I’ll stop.

Sometimes I tend to gush. A longtime friend used to call me “Hyperbole boy.”

More tomorrow, friends.