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
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