Here come da beats

We all have priorities. For the ardent bloggers out there, keeping the blog up to date is important. However as both AbsolutWillie and Pierre attest in recent posts, sometimes the junction between our real and virtual lives just seems to get disconnected for a while as other things take over and the blog takes a back seat for a while.

But now, at last, I'm able to blog again after clearing some very important work from the incredible number of things on the go...

With a blog entitled Blooms, beats & the bits in between - I thought it fair to give the beats some airtime again - especially since they have finally had some time to re-emerge (sort of). The last time I posted about being a beat-master was in 'Something about Storytelling pt.2' in the very very early days of my blog when time was my friend and I was on Holiday! A lot have things have happened since, including me and my lovely fiance moving in together.

With CV now essentially moved in and most of the pictures mounted, all the pots, pans and other paraphernalia properly unpacked, and all the bits no longer required either disposed of or packed away for a rainy day. And that was week one..

In the Topsy-turvy days with boxes being unpacked and random items being given an inadvertent tour of duty in each room of the house, my little home-studio temporarily served as a dedicated holding area for all manner of things. But during the latter part of last week, as things were starting to take shape nicely, I decided it was time to gut her and get her back into operation.

A couch and de-commissioned TV stand, recently fired from the lounge, were quickly re-employed to perform duties in the studio. A favourite, but badly faded print was removed and replaced by a clock, cabling sourced and re-commissioned from various nooks and crannies. Slowly my disheveled studio began to take shape once more, as furniture and equipment were re-arranged into my personal little sound-mixing array with keyboard to the left; self amplified studio monitors (speakers) and PC front and centre; and finally the mixer, CD player and Turntable all off to my left.

The PC however, was a source of terror. As the hinge-point for the entire studio, I was petrified of not getting it right. You see, my new PC (which was a very unexpected housewarming gift) is much more powerful than my original - but it is in a virginal state.

She's a studio dedicated machine. The powerful dual-core processor means she runs like a dream, even when I'm working across a number of resource heavy audio suites at the same time. She's loaded up with mostly new software - NIIIICE TOYS... lots of new things to learn.


BUT, all the stuff of value was on the old computer. All my music, the sound and sample banks, the 'midi-instruments' - the whole lot. And moving it was a rather detailed process but also terrifying.

With a little visit from one of my friends who is in IT, and one or two subsequent support phone calls I finally manged to get connected to all the various bits of hardware that that have been floating around and I've been downloading software updates and drivers since Sunday! So I can now proudly declare - the PC is up and running! YAY..

And what's the 1st thing of value of done with my new MUSIC MONSTER MACHINE?

Yep, you guessed it - I wrote this post. Hopefully the next great thing to come off my PC will be some new beats...

Ciao 4 Now