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Linux
Mandrake 8.2 Commentary: FIRST
TIME HERE? |
SeeYa / Per 2002-02-03 Believe it or not ? Another clip; I've been rather "rusty" this weekend, fever and all, but I've played around some with "Magix Samplitude 2496". It's awesome ! And if it's any feature eventually missing, I'll find it in "Sound Forge". As usual, I played some synths and some guitars in "Cubase"(up to VST/32 5.1 R2 PB2 now), the guitars where recorded in 32-bit floating point. Then I saved the mix in "Samplitude", also using 32-bit floating point audio. The quality is, as you may know, tremendous with 32-bit. Then I played heavily with the mastering tools hehe, fun. And finally exported it to 64kbps G2 real audio using "Sound Forge"(I couldn't keep myself from adding a last reverb in Sound Forge, mabe too much ? haha). Anyway, while still in Sound Forge it sounded great. 32-bit and all. But after exporting it to Real Audio, it is obvious that Real Player can NOT handle this high quality of a master even remotely correct. There where strange pumping effects introduced amongst others, but anyway, you can at least listen to this "lousy" Real Audio file here. It became a little like something from a "Saga"-song, purely unintended as I was only playing randomly(as usual). Here it is:
2002-01-27 Another year, Another hardware, No new music ? Well, mabe. Since I've done some much needed upgrading, which will assist me in obtaining a more effective workflow. The constant trouble is time, and that's particularly troublesome when dealing with a creative process. By the time I've configured my gear, I might be out of inspiration to play ? Ok, so now I have better gear, so mabe I'll be able to catch my spirit in time ? At least, let's hope so. So what did I do lately to improve things ? Ooh, I do lot's of tweaking all the time, but the most important stuff have recently been; I bought me a new processor for my PC, an Athlon XP 1700+. I thought it had moved down nicely in price, so now was the time to buy. To maximize the potential of my platform, before it becomes obsolete. From now on I'll have to keep to this computer for mabe 2 or 3 years. I'll keep my 1GHz Duron as a sparepart, since I got it so el cheapo. The Athlon XP 1700+ is not THE state of the art today, but it comes damn close. Especially for the bucks. I ran the tests in SiSoft Sandra, and my PC now stands as number one in all benchmarks. That's compared to those platforms available, when the latest version of Sandra was released. In fact, according to http://www.tomshardware.com/ so does the Athlon 1700+ actually outperform even a 2GHz Pentium 4, in many benchmarks. Despite "only" running at 1.47GHz. That's because of the Athlons more advanced architecture compared to Pentiums. But at the price of clockspeed. The end result is that the Athlon is faster. But the race goes on, and the new Northwood Pentium 4 at 2.2GHz finally beats my Athlon in benchmarks. But then, it's 300$ or so more expensive. I think I've done a smart deal. The Athlon did a solid job of speeding up many things, compared to my Duron. Partly because I now have full 266MHz memory bus speed all the way. But everything that's CPU-intensive goes much faster. Even some things that isn't; my score in 3Dmark2001, which mostly measures graphics card performance under DirectX 8, did immediately rise from around 3000 points to 3710 points(!) with just a GF2 MX400. I think that's a great score, for not being a gaming computer. However, I do plan to get a GeForce4, which soon will be all over us, as some sort of a final upgrade for this build of "my PC"(the drivers for the GF4 are already leaked across the net). I've got me some other stuff as well. I got me a Creative Audigy 24-bit soundcard, so finally I have access to ASIO-drivers for my music programs. Almost zero latency, that's impressing stuff. I have seen some solid performance breakthroughs these days, using Cubase. It's funny, I used to think audio-files where heavy stuff for the computer. It was. But now I am able to handle large audio files, as if they where small textfiles. It's FAST ! Really fast. I like that. At
about the same time as I began building my new PC, so did Steinberg
release the big 5.1 update for Cubase 5. Now, I'm not only running
that, but I've discovered the fun stuff in running Steinbergs public
betas. Accordingly, I'm running the 5.1 R2 PB1 version of Cubase
VST/32. It's very solid for being a beta, still haven't caused me
any big headaches. That's nice, as in the "good old days",
so did even the final versions of Cubase use to be rather unsteady.
This update came with a lot of new VST effects, and three new VSTi
synthesizers. Lot's of amusement in my wardrobe. Now, as to get
up to speed in my music creating process, so have I bought me a
new mixer. Strictly for PC-use. It's a compact thing, pictured in
the right sidebar. Not many channels, only ten, and only two real
microphone amplifiers built in. Not much, but that's exactly how
much I need as a single guitarist playing at home. The noise level
is comfortably low at below 90db, and that's all I care. The mainpart
of my work will be done in the computer anyway. I think I would
get more handfast soundquality benefits from buying a more expensive
soundcard, or a new guitarprocessor, instead. But luckily, I'm reasonably
satisfied with my gear at the moment. I've got me the modern replacement
for a very competent portastudio. Now it's "just" up to
myself, to do something with it. Interesting it is to observe,
that this was my goal way back in 98, when I got hold of my first
PC. But the equipment was to much on the edge of even working, at
that time. I learnt how to use the PC, more than actually use it.
Now the hardware and software have become magnitudes better, and
it's all laid out for working fast and efficient and getting high
quality results. At the moment, I haven't had time to create anything
real, I've just been playing around. We're talking about days here,
I've barely been able to get time to set things up. These "PC
constructing" business do take some time in itself. Remember,
I have had the fortune to design and build my own multimedia-PC
from scratch. When you start to build PC:s yourself, things often
tends to be neverending, you know, tweaking, overclocking, customizing
etc. Grabbing attention away from real productivity. Not that that's
such a big case, as this is just my hobby I'm talking about...However
things are, I've decided to give you some extremely worthless wma-clips
I've made(or so I thought, seem I must use rm-clips instead,
and no larger than 1MB !). They're just containing unorderly
noise, sometimes called "guitarplaying", but as
a document of "progress" haha! You will notice the much
needed improvements in focus, over time, as new clips are added.
Here the first are, for download(use "Real Player"
to listen to them);
"Enjoy"
;-)
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Some great software: Adobe Photoshop 6.01(7.0) New ! If your Swedish is fluent ie om du talar Svenska:
Besök idg:s eforum
& stifta bekantskap med mig i form av mitt nick "PaleRider".
Jag deltar i en änd- och meningslös debatt kallad "datorkrig".
Skitkul hehe...
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