Music News

Between the stresses and strains of things I ought to be doing, there is always room for the little distractions of life. My latest distraction was Reason Adapted 2.5. This software had come packaged with my M-Audiophile 2496 soundcard, and because it was a stripped down version of the original I hadn't really used it much. I started playing around with it recently, and started really enjoying the wonderful subtraktor synth and the possibilities of analogue sound making. The Redrum is also a great place to create rhythms from scratch, so it one can come up with some very interesting creations with just a few minutes of tweaking.

The next breakthrough came when I figured out how to switch to the ASIO driver on Project 5, which is a similar music making environment by Cakewalk. Turns out I had to switch to 32-MSB instead of LSB as "justification". . . I still don't know what that means exactly. Until now I wouldn't use it much because of latency issues, but now with latency down to 6 ms it's been great fun layering different synths to produce lush atmosphere sounds to back up the Casio. Furthermore, the surround speakers and subwoofer are now adding to the overall impact, so that's cool.

I feel I have all the tools at my disposal to making professional quality music. All I need is the time and dedication to do so. And skill. Perhaps watching someone who is really good at using this stuff would also provide new insights.

Anyhow. In other news, we have been preparing for our upcoming India trip. Shopping. I have to get my F-1 stamped again in Calcutta, so have been doing a bit of worrying for that. Also had to get a Direct Airside Transit Visa for passing through UK. . .which thankfully came through without a hitch, except for the 70$ fee.

I guess there is nothing left to do except go and get married. Which seems to be a fairly passive albeit hectic process. Our friends Vinay and Vidya got married recently. Neither Anyesha nor I have attended a wedding in over a decade, so it will be a new experience. . .especially so because it is our wedding. Hoping to submit the second paper before going to India. . . but a setback occured (I need to make a cross-breed flies to produce a new one that I need to test), so I hope I can stay on schedule. Life goes on.