Well, we’re all waiting for the snow to start. We’re supposed to get anything from 2 to 6 inches of snow today through tonight, and as I’ve said many times, we don’t do snow well here. I’m staying off the roads today and tonight, so that means no piano class.
Bummer.
If I Can’t Go to the Music School, Bring the Music School to Me!
I’m going to catch up on my Coursera classes: the Write Like Mozart class, and Pat Pattison’s Songwriting class, which I signed up for again last night.
I signed up for his Songwriting class last year, but I didn’t have time to finish it. What I saw, I really liked. He gives a really good insight into how pro songwriters write songs, and how to improve my own songwriting. (Hint: it involves lots of practice, just like anything else.)
I might also watch some Max 4 Live tutorials. That also looks really interesting.
Bitwig Studio
Bitwig Studio is coming out in late March for $399. The part that’s really interesting to me is the ability to run it in Linux. I think that’s a brilliant idea. But from what I’ve heard, there’s no ReWire compatibility yet, so that’s a big minus for me. This is a good preview of Bitwig, and you can find more videos on their channel.
I wouldn’t mind demoing it to see what it’s like, but $400 is a bit steep for me after G.A.S. ate a lot of my money over the holidays.
I probably shouldn’t buy another new instrument until I’ve gotten good at using the ones I already have.
Rewire and Vocaloid Editor
Speaking of ReWire, I finally found a VST that will let me ReWire the Yamaha Vocaloid 3.0 Editor into Live or Cubase. Cool! You can find it here (the site is all in Japanese). Look for this text “V3Sync ReWire Synchronizer Version 1.3.0 をダウンãƒãƒ¼ãƒ‰” in the middle of the page, click the link, and install like any other VST. Point the Vocaloid 3 editor to the VST, and it should work.
I know you used to be able to ReWire directly from most Vocaloid 2.0 editors. What happened with 3.0? I have no idea.
Piapro Studio is a good alternative now that it’s at version 1.2. Now you can use sound banks from other companies, too, if you register your non-Crypton sound banks at Crypton’s Sonicwire.com website. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will soon.
Monitor Stand Update
The monitor stand is working really well. I installed it about a week ago, after letting it off-gas for a few days. It adds about 4.25 inches to the height of my monitors, so it took a few days to get used to, but I’m used to it now.
Naturally, just as I say that, I noticed a crack in the wood filler on the right side, near my heater vent. That’s what touch-up paints are for.
Slide Duplicating Project
This is a project I’ve been wanting to get back to for a while. I’m waiting on a Leica Screw Mount to Sony E Mount adapter, and then I may be able to make some good progress on it. I’m going to try what someone did here and remove the FD mount from my Canon FL Bellows, then attach it to my NEX with a LSM to E Mount adapter. That should give me enough focal length to get the duplicate slides in full view.
I hope.
Or I can just throw the whole mess on the copy stand. But I’d rather use a slide copier, because I can aim that at Mr. Sun, and get natural daylight for copying the slides. Artificial light always has weird spectra, even light bulbs that say they are “daylight balanced,” only do so in a way that fools your eye. It does not fool the sensor or the software.