PC Notes
Technique : PC Notes
Super-powerful
PCs such as this Scan Power DAW PC that can run many, many plug-ins and
virtual instruments are highly desirable, of course, but don’t let the
technology get in the way of what you really want to do: make great
music.
Science-fiction
writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated his third ‘law’ of prediction in
1961, that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.”. When I first started working with computers in the early
1970s, you had to type in a set of instructions that were transferred
to a handful of punched cards, and then inserted into the card reader
in sequence, before the computer programme was finally run. If I’d seen
one of today’s PCs at the time, I suspect that it would have seemed
close to magic, yet many newcomers to the world of music-making now seem
almost dismissive of what their machines can do, and are constantly
frustrated at not being able to squeeze more out of them. Perhaps that’s
the price of progress, but I can still remember the wonder I felt
when I tried my first ‘plug-in’ in 1996. Being able to add further
functions to an existing program was certainly a most attractive
proposition, but even more magical when you could stream the audio and
hear a preview of the effect in real time!
On
the other hand, when your first PC can run dozens or even hundreds of
such real-time plug-ins, it’s perhaps understandable that you take it
for granted. Even worse, if your music isn’t going the way you hoped,
it’s tempting to blame it on the computer, its applications, or
accessories instead of yourself, leading to a constant desire to have a
faster machine, or more or better plug-ins and software synths.
Increasing PC Productivity
Instead,
it might be better to look to your working methods. Sometimes you’ll
find it more productive to slim down your options and perfect a smaller
set of tools. I know musicians who have hundreds of commercial,
shareware and freeware effects and soft synths in their VST plug-ins
folder, yet rarely complete any songs.
If this
applies to you, why not try a new approach? Look hard at your VST
plug-ins folder and move any of its contents that you haven’t used in
the last six months to another location on your hard drive. The next
time you launch your sequencer, it will display a slimmed-down
selection of your favourite effects and synths, leaving you to
concentrate on making music rather than wading through long, distracting
lists of products.
Instead of adding more
interest to mundane songs by layering multiple soft-synth tracks and
pushing your CPU to its limits, try automating synth parameters to add
extra life, but most importantly, consider each track and be honest
about whether or not it’s really adding something useful to the whole.
If not, mute that track, until you are left with the essence of your
idea, unencumbered by processor-draining extras.
On
a more basic level, make sure you get the most from your PC for audio
work by following the SOS Windows Tweak guides (you can find them on
line for XP at www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep06/articles/pcmusician_0906.htm and for Vista at www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov08/articles/pcmusician.htm).
Also,
try making song templates for your sequencer, containing a typical set
of tracks and instruments, so that whenever inspiration strikes you can
be up and running within seconds, rather than getting bogged down in
technicalities. There are plenty of musicians making loads of good music
with five-year old PCs. It’s not the power of the machine that counts,
but what you do with it!
DiffMerge
Back in PC Notes February 2009, I recommended the Easy Duplicate Finder utility (www.easyduplicatefinder.com)
for tracking down duplicate files that can clutter up your hard drive,
wasting space. But what can you do if you find several versions of the
same text file or document? I was recently faced with this scenario
after creating a bank of text-based synth presets, and although it’s
easy enough to determine which is the most recent (by its date stamp),
this won’t tell you how the files differ.
I downloaded and tried quite a few utilities that offered to help, and the one I found most useful was DiffMerge from SourceGear (www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge). In its Diff mode it graphically shows the differences between two text files and lets you edit them both in situ, while in Merge mode you can examine three files and combine their contents into one file. There’s even a Folder Diff mode that performs a side-by-side comparison of two folders, showing which files are only present in one or the other, as well as which files are identical in both. This is a handy utility, it’s freeware, and I suspect that most PC Musicians will find it invaluable at some stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment