Octocore beast! What the power?
A few days ago I officially ordered a new Mac Pro, with a total of eight cores. It's hard for me to even touch my G4 tower now. It's like the second I sent off the purchase email, my desire to even write music with my current computer dropped off the face of the earth.
But I must move on cause, let's face it, I have more projects in my queue now than I've ever had at one time. I have a handful of remixes in the works on Night Drive Music right now, a remix that is nearing completion for Farmhaus Records, and I'm starting a new remix with Ivan-I for Tarantic Records tonight.
The thing is, my current computer can do what you need it to do. I just have to be creative in how I do certain things. Processor intensive plug-ins and effects need to be written to disk as opposed to leaving them all playing in real-time. Otherwise, my computer chokes to a standstill and there's nothing that breaks your creative flow quite like that.
There is, however, something to be said for making a choice and sticking with it. In the days of computers that have eight freaking cores to manage the most processor intensive applications, it would be easy to keep everything streaming live within a project and never make a solid, concrete decision for the track because "why should you if you don't need to." Sometimes it's better to limit yourself. Make a decision, burn it to disk, and move on. Done. Boom. It makes the whole process (and the amount of time taken to produce) a heck of a lot easier in the long run.
Sure, you might have access to hundreds of plug-ins, and they may all do super-duper crazy things. But have you ever spent a lot of time with one plug-in? Used it regularly to the point where you learn it's strengths, it's weaknesses? Then it becomes a tool that you can use effectively when the time is right. All of that power and all of that freedom makes it easy to learn a bunch of things a little bit. Or leave a bunch of decisions in eternal limbo... and always with the same reason: "Cause you can."
I'll certainly have to fight that urge when I get the new computer in a few weeks time. Learn from the limitations that I already work with regularly, and apply that ethos to my new production experience. Cause let's face it. Just because you can doesn't always mean you should.
But I must move on cause, let's face it, I have more projects in my queue now than I've ever had at one time. I have a handful of remixes in the works on Night Drive Music right now, a remix that is nearing completion for Farmhaus Records, and I'm starting a new remix with Ivan-I for Tarantic Records tonight.
The thing is, my current computer can do what you need it to do. I just have to be creative in how I do certain things. Processor intensive plug-ins and effects need to be written to disk as opposed to leaving them all playing in real-time. Otherwise, my computer chokes to a standstill and there's nothing that breaks your creative flow quite like that.
There is, however, something to be said for making a choice and sticking with it. In the days of computers that have eight freaking cores to manage the most processor intensive applications, it would be easy to keep everything streaming live within a project and never make a solid, concrete decision for the track because "why should you if you don't need to." Sometimes it's better to limit yourself. Make a decision, burn it to disk, and move on. Done. Boom. It makes the whole process (and the amount of time taken to produce) a heck of a lot easier in the long run.
Sure, you might have access to hundreds of plug-ins, and they may all do super-duper crazy things. But have you ever spent a lot of time with one plug-in? Used it regularly to the point where you learn it's strengths, it's weaknesses? Then it becomes a tool that you can use effectively when the time is right. All of that power and all of that freedom makes it easy to learn a bunch of things a little bit. Or leave a bunch of decisions in eternal limbo... and always with the same reason: "Cause you can."
I'll certainly have to fight that urge when I get the new computer in a few weeks time. Learn from the limitations that I already work with regularly, and apply that ethos to my new production experience. Cause let's face it. Just because you can doesn't always mean you should.
posted by Jason Howell at 5:03 PM
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