intentions, right? i set up everything in my little office in the basement before she left. strat and tube amp and usb audio interface. and then i sat down to it. started simple, just generating some sustained tones and testing the recording.
nasty, overwhelming static, both directly through the di interface and somewhat through the amp. what on.... so i pulled things apart, tested everything individually. fine. cables? fine. (except the known wonky one, which i'd previously set aside)
a few days prior, i'd tried the di interface on its own. couldn't be that, right? i try it again? so much noise. huh. i move the computer away from my docking station, and just set it on a stool and plug it into the wall. miles better.
so, something in there. but even after eliminating that, it wasn't fully right. my fast track is old, one of those old, cheap fast track duos from the late 00s. i'd bought it back when i thought i was going to record my songs and people were going to love them. i used it with an awful hp laptop that roasted itself to death. it spent most of its life on a shelf with my wah pedal, gathering dust. it's so old, and m-audio has been through so many mergers, that the last officially supported version of windows was windows 8. the latest driver was from 2013. i was getting unofficial connectivity via some generic microsoft driver.
so i go through the wayback machine, find the latest version of the drivers, figure, why not, let's try this, install them, and...they show up okay? only, they don't record. this thing is now a paperweight (albeit, a very light one). i could uninstall the drivers and try some other things, but i've had it with that, and it's time to move on.
i've got quintet rehearsal at noon today, and sometime either before or after that, i'm going to stop by the music store and pick up a replacement. a bit of tidying when i get home, then homemade pizza & games with friends (<3). maybe i'll run another test tomorrow. a minute or less, just enough to confirm things work. and then, plan again. find some stolen time to take twenty minutes to layer some synthy guitar and bass. it doesn't have to be perfect, because it won't be. i just need to keep going.
quintet concert is in a week. i think i'm ready. i've practiced a lot, my endurance is better, i've worked out alternatives to some of the crazy orchestration (one piece using bass clef to call for notes that aren't playable by the instrument). i'm nervous but i'm not. i've always been able to focus in ensembles. i'll be fine. we'll be great.