Monday, December 10, 2012

SONAR: Get Started - Effects Sends

Yesterday, I started diving a little further into Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer. I originally started producing with Cakewalk back with Home Audio 4, so I know the basics of working with Sonar. Still, I've been stock in Reason world for so many years that I've kind of lost my chops in Sonar a bit.

Over this past weekend I've been diving back in to the massive music production software. One thing I will say is that Sonar makes a lot more since when you have a two monitor set-up. While working on a track last night I got to a point where I wanted start adding effects. I started to get the hang of  where everything was located on the Pro Channel mostly through trial and error. I quickly figured out how to add effects to tracks and proceeded to add a reverb to one of my tracks.

I eventually wanted to add the same reverb to all four of my tracks, but the only way I could figure out how to do it was to copy and paste the same reverb plug-in to the other tracks. I knew that if I keep using this technique for effects my processor would start to scream and overload from the stress. There had to be a better way, but I just wasn't finding it right away. Enter Cake TV's getting started video:


Thursday, December 6, 2012

Roommate Shuffle


 There hasn’t been much music being made here in the last week or so. This month my roommate told me that he wouldn’t be roommate anymore. It wasn’t anything that I did wrong, he just had to take care of some family business like keeping his grandkids out of the custody of the state. Now, my former roommate and I live in a three bedroom apartment that runs 1000 a month. We’ve been splitting the bill at 500 each but, since the both of us are on SSI, this has been pretty rough on us. So, I already had plans in motion for a third roommate. Well, now I’m a few days away from the rent being due and now I have to find two new roommates.

The situation, in itself, is mad stressful. Now I have to add the stress of playing around on Craig’s list and Facebook like a leasing agent trying to find solid leads. So, I find said leads. Most of them fell through. First there was the “I’m interested, I’m not interested, I’m interested again and I’m just going to move in, I’m still interested but now I have no money” guy. Then, there’s the “I’m interested but I’m not going to return your email because I’m really not interested” gal. And then there is the “I’m interested, come pick me up and I’ll have my money just like I said I would” guy. The last guy is the one who is living here right now.

Now I’m back where I was before I lost the first roommate: splitting the rent at 500 and living off of Ramen and hotdogs for the rest of the month. I am extremely grateful for the fact that I don’t have to move so, that’s a good thing. The other good thing is that I have inherited the master-“king”-bedroom that my last roommate used to occupy. The new roommate has found a girlfriend on his second night here so, the place is livelier. This also means that I’ll have more ears to brainwash into loving my music.

I’m waiting for the “on again/off again” roommate prospect to move in tonight. I’m still a little nervous but, good things will happen. Once things settle down and, my back has rested up from all of the physical moving, I’ll back with lots more inspired music (I just might make a track inspired by this whole situation). Till then, be easy.