Miku In The House // New Computer // Glass Coming to the RTP

 Japan, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Miku In The House // New Computer // Glass Coming to the RTP
Oct 022013
 

So the Vocaloid software showed up yesterday from Tenso. It came in great shape. The install went smoothly, and everything runs fine.

Today I upgraded to Cubase 7.0 full version to get more flexibility with making music. Artist is fine, but the upgrade was cheap.

New Computer Up and Running!

Oh yeah, the software was all installed on my new desktop, which gets a 7.8/7.9 on the Windows performance index. That makes me happy, but also wishing I could get that last 0.1 out of it.

The SSD makes booting a dream. I go from BIOS screen to login in about 10 seconds. Maybe 15.

I tried to create a custom install for Win 7 using a streamlined set of drivers, apps, etc., but I found I was spending more time on getting a perfect slipstream than it would have taken me to just install everything.

I headed to the Black Viper’s website for info on de-cluttering my registry and services, and I also followed the advice in this post about getting the most out of my SSD in Win 7.

The only major pain in the butt was deregistering a lot of my software and uninstalling it from the old system. I wish there was an easier way to handle licensing. The Cubase USB dongle is useful, but if you lose it, you’re kind of screwed. I like what Adobe does with Lightroom: they trust the users not to abuse the number of licenses. Besides, it’s not like you can run more than one instance at a time, anyway.

I really like the new Vocaloid de-authorizing tool from Yamaha. That worked out really well. Uninstalling/reinstalling was a snap.

Glass!

There’s going to be a Google Glass event in Durham this Saturday, too. I RSVP’ed ASAP. I want to see Glass, and see if it’s going to be a game-changer or not. It’ll probably be a zoo there.

Getting Stuff Done Music

 Japan, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Getting Stuff Done Music
Sep 272013
 

Who hasn’t seen the Lifehacker article about coffee shop background noise being good for productivity yet? Just about everyone has, or so it seems, anyway.

In that vein, I have been looking for some background noise to have going so that I would stay awake and productive without having to drink 8 cups of coffee.

I found a website called SoundDrown where you can listen to a recorded coffee shop loop over and over. It was okay, but not quite interesting enough for me.

I’m still looking for something suitably interesting. For now, I’m going to stick with Music For Programming, but I’ve listened to their mixes so many times I’ve lost count. They are awesome “Getting Stuff Done” mixes, though.

If I fire up International Departures, I’ll just stop working all together.

Miku’s Coming…

I got notified by Tenso yesterday that my Vocaloid 3 bundle has shown up at their offices. Great.

I had to provide proof of my US address, and that turned out to be a slight pain in the neck, because I forgot that my passport doesn’t have my address on it. That’s what I get for doing this stuff at 6 a.m. with no coffee in me yet.

I heard back from them at around midnight telling me that I needed to send something better, and I sent them a scan of my driver’s license. I just heard back this morning that everything is A-OK, so I’m looking forward to getting my stuff from them sometime next week.

The fees from Tenso are surprisingly low. The total cost of everything is 1990 yen, and that’s pretty cheap for getting something express mailed from Japan. That includes about 980 yen in handling fees, but to be fair, if I asked a friend to send stuff on for me, I would buy that friend a beer, anyway, and I doubt that that friend could get such a good deal on shipping.

If the package arrives in good shape, I’ll probably start using them more often, because Amazon is crazy expensive for shipping. Also, I can buy used books if I have them shipped inside Japan and save more money that way.

Building a New Computer

Finally, my old computer is dying a horrible, slow death from overheating too much. I keep getting BSODs due to overheating, and I have finally reached the “Screw it” point where I picked out some parts for a new rig. This time I’m going for an SSD main hard drive to run Win7 and all of my programs from, an Intel i7-4770 CPU, 16GB of RAM (for now), and a nice white Corsair case. For the mobo, I’m going with one of the ASUS TUF motherboards, to see how it does with dust, and an Arctic CPU cooler.

My old case was a ThermalTake LanParty, and as a mATX form factor case, it was great for small gaming rigs that could be really portable. But as a small form factor case, taking it apart and putting it back together was murder on my fingers. Also, graphics cards, HDDs, and PSUs all had to fit together like a puzzle, and the cabling would always get in the way.

And of course having all the parts on top of each other killed the airflow and heat dissipation. I’m kind of surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I’ll have to put it all together this weekend and get it up and running.

Miku 3.0 Bundle

 Japan, Japanese Language, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Miku 3.0 Bundle
Sep 192013
 

Crypton Future Media, who makes the popular Vocaloid Hatsune Miku, announced an English version earlier this year, and also announced a bundle of the English version with new versions of the older voice banks for an upgrade price for those who own previous versions.

Since I own the older voice banks, I was intrigued. I haven’t given up on my grammar music project yet, even if it is on the shelf for now.

The deal is that if you owned and registered both previous editions, you could get the bundle for ~$150 US.

The bundle comes with a special edition of PreSonus’ Studio One DAW, so it gets a new user in the door of using a DAW. It also comes with Crypton’s new VST, Piapro Studio, that will handle its Vocaloid voice banks inside of any DAW that can use VSTs.

The only downside to Piapro Studio is that for now it only handles Crypton’s voice banks, and that’s minor. You could always create a track with Miku or any other Crypton voice bank, then output it in VSQX format to the Yamaha editor, then change the voice to the voice bank you need to use, and export it out as a stem.

I wanted to get the Yamaha Vocaloid VST plugin for Cubase, but this makes things easier, and saves me another $100 or so. It also comes with some extra VST plugins.

All in all, it’s a great deal, and for beginners, it’s great starter package.

Getting It…

There’s a catch of sorts. You have to have a Japanese address to get the upgrade bundle at this price.

To be fair, they have a US distributor, and that’s where a this restriction comes from. But the US distributor isn’t selling the bundle at this time. I don’t know when they’re going to sell it. Right now, the cost of the English bank from the US company is as much as the cost of the whole bundle from Crypton.

After some talking with customer support, I got myself a Japanese address at Tenso, who will gladly ship it for me. I set up an account with them, and voila! I have an address in Japan now.

There is another caveat: I won’t get support from the US distributor. I’ll have to get support from Japan. I am totally okay with that, because the Japanese customer support has been great.

Now I just have to wait for the software to be released on the 26th or so, and I’ll get it a few days later. Can’t wait.

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