A Lesson in Patience and Listening

So, last night was a really bad night, and a really good night, both in one.  As I came home from work, I was feeling very frustrated with a lot of things, but particularly my progress (or lack of it) in the LDS music world.

I had decided that I was going to do some work on my computer and fix a bug that had been getting in the way of my continued work on “The Chapel”.  Actually, I had decided to do that the night before, but a whole bunch of other things in the cosmic scheme had gotten in the way and I couldn’t get it done.  

So, I tried to fix it, and no matter what I did, it wouldn’t work right.  And the error it was generating was a deal-breaker.  I mean, I couldn’t just work around it and deal with it.  When the error happened (which was about every two to three minutes), it stopped the recording.  I even reinstalled Cubase and Windows.  Nothing worked.

So, in an angry huff, I stormed upstairs, and went to bed.  At that moment, I was about ready to give up.  If my studio was down, it was over.  I don’t have the money to get a better computer or upgrade Cubase, and I didn’t see how I could proceed.

So, while I was sitting there, watching Law and Order, trying to cool off, the thought pierced through my head, “Check the latency”.  My first thought, in response, was that I had already checked the latency.  So I sat there, fuming.

The thought didn’t come back, but it nagged at me.  I had checked the latency, because that is what normally produces the kind of problem I was having.  But I had only tweaked the settings to decrease the latency.  I hadn’t increased it.  That usually makes other problems.  I thought, “That won’t fix it...  Will it?”  I decided that before I gave up completely and consigned myself to a life without music, I should at least give that a try, right?

So, I got up and went back downstairs.  You already know what happened.  It worked, it fixed the issue.  Recording with the higher latency wasn’t as problematic as I thought it would be, and I got all of the lead vocals cut, the harmony vocals, and the acoustic lead guitar.  So, I’m very grateful that I got that inspiration to push through my frustration and just keep moving on.

At this point, the tracking for the song is complete.  There are still a lot of tasks I need to do before the final mix, like cleaning up some timing issues, and comping the vocals.  I might have this tune done within a couple of weeks, tops.




Come back often to hear about new songs and shows. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including his Dutch Oven blog: Mark's Black Pot and his LDS pop culture blog: MoBoy blog.

Mark's Other Blog Posts: Immigration Madness, Dutch Oven Berried Chicken