When I purchased the Steinberg-Yamaha UR12 interface, I only wanted it so I could occasionally use the Cubase software on my laptop. I did not anticipate my entire existence would improve this much.
If you followed a previous blog post, when I was staying on my friends luxury-bus-hotel-air b&b, using my laptop to record my new songs was a huge challenge. Almost a disaster. (You can hear Mas Caliente Que El Sol and If You Think You’re Going on earlier posts) Simply put computers do a lot of great things, but rigging a mike directly into them and recording quality sound is not one. I managed. But I sorely missed my interface, the one that you can plug guitars and mikes into. Why couldn’t I bring it on my artist retreat? Not only is it too big to travel with, it requires another equally large power amp. Even if I decided to pack fewer combat boots, the cord doesn’t connect to a laptop. My old Motu 828 connects via FIREWIRE.
I brought my laptop to a computer repair shop last week for an unrelated issue and asked the tech if he could put a firewire card in it. I think he may have been suppressing a laugh. No, firwire cards are too big for laptops. Besides, what do you need it for? They’re kind of obsolete.
Aha! Obsolete. Seems to be a recurring theme, being that I’m a woman in her 50’s learning to master music production using a bunch of old ass equipment. See back in the day, USB cables couldn’t handle all the data flow of analog music. Hence the necessary upgrade to Fire Wire, which never actually came with PC’s. I had to buy the Firewire card, open the tower, and install the damn thing myself.
Since I never had the need to travel and record, I never realized that my get up was outdated. A few googles later, and I bought an entry level USB interface with a….get this…BUILT IN POWER AMP. So I just need that one lil’ guy to do the same things as two or three big “racks”.
This essentially moved me from the bedroom to the living room. Now I never have to leave the couch! Of course, this new geogrpahy worked out brilliantly for mixing, but I’ve yet to sing or play guitar. We shall see how it goes. Maybe I can say goodbye to the cat box corner (and that glitchy desktop) for good.