mistrustmusic's posterous

Stop: Windows misery strikes again

[caption id="attachment_110" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tree Swirl, by Paul Harrison, aged 15"]

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[/caption] Windows never ceases to amaze me. It's like the be-all and end-all to the world of computing. It's like gateway to a parallel universe, that will only let you in if you meet a million and one criteria, all encrypted in hexadecimal code. BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), followed by STOP: 0x0000007B. What's that supposed to mean, then? Run Chdsk /F or something - that'll get you a ticket to ride the rollercoaster again. I feel like the world's a blur when this happens...... As you've probably worked out by now, my laptop with all my Acid Pro files, VST plugins, and all my work projects, died on me. Or rather, Windows XP Pro died on me. It's a 2 year-old HP/Compaq NC6400, which has been running very slowly for about 5 or 6 weeks but has been more reliable than my old desktop. Should have backed everything up, but there's probably 20 gigs' worth of files on there, but you wonder about viruses and spyware being passed on. Took ages to load up last week, then on Friday evening: STOP: 0x0000007B. Couldn't run Chkdsk because I couldn't get into Windows, so that's not much use. So much for Windows. Lots of trawling on the internet later, a Linux Rescue disk came to my aid - System Rescue, with TestDisk on it. It told me that all the contents of the drive where safe, and not corrupted. Runs from RAM, not the HD. Thank heavens for that! How to get to them without a good knowledge of Linux. Ahaaa! Bypass Windows! Find a sneaky way past the guard dogs at the eternal gateway! Took the drive out of the laptop, plugged into a USB drive adapter connected to another PC, and hey presto! There were all my files, looking the same as ever and (hopefully) not corrupted. This little incident, along with many other run-ins I (and so many people I know) have had with Windows, makes me realise that I should either by a Mac and get some decent recording software, or install Linux on a laptop and make music the open-source way. Either way, I'm getting very tired of having to second-guess the system and waiting around for an error message to appear. I very nearly lost all of the Pitch Black remix stuff I've working on for months, just when I'm clear about finishing off. If you're a Mac or Linux user, please don't laugh at me. I've seen the light and I'll be converted soon.... Don't forget to bookmark this post, in case you ever get this problem!

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Filed under  //   0x0000007B   Apple   BSOD   Blue Screen of Death   Mac   STOP error   Windows   audio   blog   blogging   music   pitch black   technology   thoughts  

Croydon Library track on O'Neill TV

I've just found out that my some of my tracks can still be heard on O'Neill TV - the place that all the promos for O'Neill surfing contest are shown. Three tracks (Croydon Library, Never Alone, and Hello) were used in Deep Blue Open 2005. The thing that sets this film apart from all the regular surfing events is that it focusses mainly on the effects of Tsunami on the Maldives. Watching it again recently reminded me of the devastation of the hurricane in Burma and the earthquake in China. Click the link here to watch the whole film (approx 25 minutes): O'Neill Deep Blue Open 2005 on O'Neill TV If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, here's a short clip: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIDdLCTLUg] The film has been shown all round the world on TV (eg the Fox network in the USA, Channel 4 in the UK) and in all the O'Neill equipment stores. A couple of the clips from the film are on the Video Wall section of my blog - and have received a lot of plays since they were uploaded to Youtube. I remembered the other day that O'Neill Europe started up a TV channel on their website last year and that the whole of the DBO 2005 film was up there in its entirety. I thought that it might have been replaced by footage of more recent surfing events, but I checked yesterday and it's still there. It's a bit tricky to find if you're searching for it on the O'Neill site as it's fairly well-hidden behind some of the 2007 events, but it's there...... New music.... We recently got rid of our old desktop computer at home and replaced it will the Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop/notebook that I bought a couple of years ago. Before we binned it (actually - gave it to Adam - eldest stepson), I had to transfer hundreds of files including loads of half-finished tracks I'd made in Acid Pro over the last few years. I've just started listening to some of those tracks and rough arrangements and I really think I can do something with them. Maybe some of them will turn up as new tunes soon. One thing that should finally see the light of day soon is the remix I've been working on for the last few months. It's for a New Zealand band called Pitch Black and the song is "Rude Mechanicals", the title track of their latest album. Site changes.... My website schizophrenia has kicked in again and I've changed the site theme again (and will probably change it again). I wanted this blog to look fairly original and be able to tie it in with the main mistrustmusic.co.uk site (and my myspace page). Some work ahead to make everything tie up!

Filed under  //   acid pro   burma   china   dell   earthquake   film music   music licensing   oneill   pitch black   remix   rude mechanicals   surfing   tsunami   video   youtube  
Posted May 28, 2008

Everything's gone mobile

I've just launched a new add-on to my blog/website. It's a mobile website, built on something called Winksite. I came across this through my elearning daytime job when I was looking into podcasting. Winksite lets you make webpages that can be viewed on mobile phone, and it's something I've wanted to do for a while, but never got around to it. I've only added a few things to it at the moment, some things are copied directly from this blog, but I'd like to have some mobile-only content. At the moment, it's in it's infancy and I haven't tried it out on many phones, so I'm hoping that a few of you who read this blog and who have mobile phones will browse the mobile pages and let me know if there are any problems with it, or if it works ok. The address for the mobile site is: http://winksite.mobi/mistrust/music or just click the Winksite logo...

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Other news: I'm still plodding along with my remix of Pitch Black's Rude Mechanicals. Should have it finished soon, but it feels like it's missing a melody or pad line, so it's that which is holding me up - plus I only get about 10 or 15 minutes a night to do something with the remix because I've started taking Paul for a drive a lot earlier than usual. I got a message posted on my blog the other day from the editor of an e-learning magazine in the USA, asking if he could use one of my posts in the forthcoming edition of his mag. It's something I wrote a few months ago on my e-learning blog about getting young children used to the language of the Web as soon as possible. I said yes to them using the article, so it should appear in ELearning! Magazine in a few weeks, in a section entitled "The Last Word". More fame!

Filed under  //   e-learning   family   pitch black   remix   rude mechanicals   social networking  

Everything's gone (Pitch) Black

I've been working on the Pitch Black remix for the last week and a half, but I'm getting quite bogged down with it. The problem is that I've been too reliant on sample CDs to find something that fits the existing tune ("Rude Mechanicals") and not really restricting myself to only a few sounds. I use Acid Pro pretty much all the time for getting ideas down quickly, but it's too easy to become lost in all the options that it gives you. My attempt at this remix is a bit "directionless" at the moment, and I'm probably doing the wrong thing by listening to remixes of other Pitch Black tracks in order to get some direction. A friend of mine - DJ and musician, The Only Michael - who did a Pitch Black remix a couple of years ago, advised me not to listen to other remixes, and to just do what inspires me from the original track.

Filed under  //   artists   band   dj   download   music   pitch black   remix  

I'm in Music Tech Magazine

Just to let you know I'm finally in Music Tech Magazine for winning the Motif XS6 synthesizer! The article is in February's edition - but in case you don't want to buy it, the editor sent me a copy of the page, and I've attached it here as pdf (the whole page) and a jpeg (click to see the whole pic).

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Other news... the manager of a band from New Zealand called "Pitch Black" has said I can have a go at doing a remix of a track from their new CD, "Rude Mechanicals". If it's good enough, it'll appear on the band's remix CD and as a download on music sites like iTunes and Beatport. More on that soon when I decide which track I want to have a go at.... Non-music stuff: we took Paul to see a residential school in Shrewsbury today. Absolutely amazing place. Part of a 16th century hall and estate. Class sizes are usually 2 students and one teacher - it's for kids with autism. He sounds relatively keen on it, but we'll have a job on convincing the education authority to pay for him. It's around £30,000 per year! Page from MTM magazine reproduced by kind permission of Music Tech Magazine/Anthem Publishing/Yamaha UK (c)

Filed under  //   band   blogging   creative   family   label   mistrust   mp3   music   pitch black   rude mechanicals   xs6   yamaha