I updated my music composition pipeline recently. For years I’ve been struggling with the very basic problem of memory limitations, and in the last year specifically, the problem of 32-bit OSes not being able to muster more than 1.2 practical gigs of memory per stack (yes I’m aware of the actual math works, I’m talking about practical, real-world application with MIDI samplers). I’ve tried to get around this in several creative ways, and every time I’ve put the samplers “Some Place Else”, I’ve also needed to adjust how the music gets out of the manuscript editor and into the sequencer, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of desire. I’ve been limping along with this external model that had me using the sequencer as a VSTi rack until I got the tracks exported, but that still didn’t solve my memory problems, and it made setup an even more arduous process.

So I found this little app that makes things so much easier. It’s small, it can run multiple times (to get around the memory limitation), it saves and loads and works the way I need it to, and it’s very visual. In short, I love it. It’s reduced setup time from 30 to 60 minutes down to 5 minutes, and it negotiates the gap between my manuscript editor and my sequencer in a way that makes things easier, not more complicated.

I’ve forgotten what a joy it is to just plain write when technology doesn’t get in the way. It’s been a while since I’ve written because I’ve been so busy with other tasks. I felt warmed by the sound of the cello, like the voice of an old friend I hadn’t heard from in a while. I love music and technology when they work together, and this is one of those times. Cheers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 11:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.