THIRD TIME'S A CHARM

The new computer is in, up, and running. It's a very sassy G4, 800mHz, Quicksilver. We're calling it "Elvis," as in "Elvis has left the building," the code Pat Phillips used to let us know it was on it's way.

It took about an hour to get it operational in OSX with DP4 running smoothly. I moved two of our high capacity drives from the old G3, and had projects playing in no time. The installs of DP, the PCI card for our 2408 (audio interface) and all of the MIDI was nice and smooth. I guess moving from the old G3 to the old G4, back to the G3, and now over to a new G4, has taught me exactly what needs to be done. Anyone need to set up a Pro Audio system? Gimme a call. I'm getting good at it. Even getting the dual monitors to run properly (something which gave us major headaches when we first went to the G4) was a breeze. It's a lean, mean, silver colored music making (and mixing, and mastering) machine. No superfluous software, not even a screen saver (which can royally screw up DP). As Napoloen Dynamite once said, "Sweet!"

I used it to finish the third (hopefully final) master of "The Wall." If this master is accepted by the Smoke and Mirrors Technical Advisory Board, it'll be ready for release, probably early February. That's only a little bit late, but hey, we've been rebuilding a studio.

I can tell you the next record the Smoke and Mirrors band covers will be shorter and far more organized. I'm really leaning toward "Moving Pictures" and have started demos to see if it can be done. Any input from the Smoke and Mirrors Cover Records Advisory Board (you know who you are) is appreciated. And there is absolutely no way this one will take over a year. I'm thinking more of a late spring release.

Those are the updates. Tomorrow is a session with Viv Savage, not the actual Spinal Tap keyboardist but a band that shares the same name (what are the chances of that?). We will start with one song and go from there, a good way to record.