My Backup Solution

In a previous post, I talked about online backup. Since that time, I have been trying a new method of backing up -- this one local. After researching tape based backup and realizing that it is very expensive and still not that trustworthy, I came upon external devices that allow you to plug in a standard SATA hard drive. These devices can be connected via USB, SATA and/or eSATA (maybe Firewire, too). I went with a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB Docking Station, a SATA to eSATA bracket with cable to extend one of the motherboard SATA connections to the rear of the computer, and a couple of 2TB drives. The docking station came with a short eSATA cable that connects it to the bracket at the rear of the computer.

Now I have an external SATA drive bay and can can alternate backing up critical data to two different external drives. Thankfully, I haven't needed the backups, but it's good to know they're there.

The docking station was around $35. The bracket was around $5. The two drives were a bit over $200. All of this was a lot less expensive than any other solution I could find.

Software for this solution is another story. I've tried a several programs and none of them feel trustworthy to me. Storing data with a non-standard software protocol leaves me at the mercy of a software vendor that may not be there tomorrow. I'll post what I decide upon here. Until then, it's once a week zip files of each directory.

The VERY BEST To Greg Hendershott

Greg is retiring from Cakewalk, effective July 1, 2012, after 25 years!

There is a warm place in my heart for Twelve Tones Software and Cakewalk in general and Greg Hendershott in particular. Greg's Cakewalk software was on the forefront of bringing music creation into the hands of many people who wanted to create music but didn't have access to professional equipment. That original MIDI sequencing software has grown to a product that boggles one's mind. Who would have believed in 1987 that you'd be able to write, perform, record, mix, sweeten, master and output a final recording on a single computer?

THANK YOU, Greg for believing in your idea and bringing it to reality! It has certainly changed my life greatly. Here's to many more years of creativity from you. I wish you health, happiness and fun!

I've told Greg this before in person, but I cannot say it enough.

Here's Greg's Farewell Letter: http://www.cakewalk.com/page.aspx/Farewell-Letter-from-Greg-Hendershott

Wrack!

For the past year or so I've been working with an independent game developer, Brad Carney, on a game called Wrack. I love working with indie developers. The music and sfx have been fun to work on, but they're not through. The game has been released with just three levels completed at this time. Those who support it now will get to watch it grow to 30 levels and will have input into further development. Brad included a user friendly map editor, and less than 12 hours after the game was released there were already some player made mods and maps.
 You can read/see/hear more about it at WrackGame.com.

Plugins Galore!

When the software I have works, I usually stick with it and don't take the time to look for something else. Lately, though, I've been trying out lots of new things just to see if I'm missing something, especially in regard to plugins.

Brain overload is what I got. That and a dislike for recommendations based upon some band/singer/musician/songwriter/composer using the product. That's not enough for me to jump on something unless the project it's used in is similar to what I am doing at the time.

One has to realize, too, that most recommendations are bought in one form or another. Either outright payment in money or payment in product. Back in the days that some of my projects were hot, I received a lot of software and some hardware with a request that I comment on it. I returned some of it because it was nothing to write home about. Of course I didn't let that fact be known because it was just my opinion.

There were also times that I was asked to look at a potential product and give my thoughts. One that stood out was a sound card with a truly wonderful synth on it. The problem was that it was very complicated to understand how to get usable sounds out of it. I think the eventual plan was to have people like me come up with sound banks to ship with the board (and maybe it was going to be a keyboard product too. I think the manufacturer was not very happy with my recommendation that they take the time to include a program that would create the MIDI data necessary to tweak the sounds. As I recall, they expected users to read a MIDI implementation chart and enter the MIDI data stream to make tweaks to the sounds. I told them I would not be one to take the time to do that, and I expected software to come with a product and not depend upon third parties to eventually come up with something that makes the product more user friendly. Suffice it to say, that manufacturer never again asked me to review another potential product.

So, I'm downloading demos of plugins, and I realized there are more than a few that are either poorly documented or not documented at all. This is when I am thankful for those users who have figured things out and taken the time to bring some light into the matter by posting on a forum or YouTube.

One such plugin that was intended for ProTools but was also released as a VST failed to ever mention that it should be installed as an instrument and not an effect. Exacting  documentation was included for ProTools. The docs for other DAW's was completely confusing to even long time "other" DAW users. I read lots of "WTF" posts before finding one that cleared the mud.

My advice to plugin developers is to include documentation that makes no assumptions as to the experience of the user. The docs can also have a quick setup section for experienced users.

So, what did I end up deciding to use? Well, I won't say until I get my free plugins :-) Just joking. I won't say though because what I find usable you may not. I would say to search for reviews of plugins. There are some good reviews out there. I would recommend kvraudio.com as an excellent starting point (and I have no relationship whatsoever with that site).

And, if you ever want to know how I got a particular sound, email me and I'll tell you personally if you promise not to quote me.

Finally, I do understand the stated need of software developers to copy protect products. But, I do not agree with it. It often gets in the way of my using the product. And often the explanation of how to install the software takes up more pages than the actual product use  documentation. Besides, the code crackers are geniuses at what they do.

The big question is how many "illegal" users of plugins would actually use the plugin in  a "for profit" product. I'd bet less than 1%. So for 1% greater sales, purchasers of the product have to jump through rings. It just doesn't make sense to me.

MozyHome Backup Service

What do you do to backup your audio/video data? This is a solution I tried and am not happy with. You don't have to read the article to comment about how you handle backing up your data. Please comment with solutions you've found.

Now for the article which is about my experience with MozyHome Backup Service.

If you're like me, you've got reams of data that needs to be backed up regularly.

Back in July 2010, I signed up for Mozy UNLIMITED online backup service (two years). It was a great deal which they no longer offer -- about $44 a year (it's WELL above that price now for very limited storage).

I have about 900 gig backed up on Mozy. I have a lot of HD video and high resolution audio which is storage space hungry.

My computer (4 core, 8 gig) often slows to a crawl and I'm always on the hunt for what's doing it. Recently, the CPU usage gadget showed 6 gig of memory usage with nothing but my browser running. So I open the Windows Task Manager and click on the Processes tab. Then View/Select columns, adding Memory - Private Working Set. It still didn't show a program using anywhere near that kind of memory.Then I clicked the "Show processes from all users" checkbox at the bottom left. What an eye opener! Even though I'm the only user on this computer, evidently the Windows system is a user, too, because the list of processes expanded to well over twice the size.

And guess what was using 6 gigs of memory? mozybackup.exe

According to the Mozy Knowledge base article "Why is Mozy using up so much RAM and CPU? [83279]," mozybackup uses CPU time and memory when it scans for new files to backup. RAM usage is in direct correlation with the number of files selected for backup and the number of files that have changed or been added since the last backup. The article also says that after a backup is complete, increased RAM usage may continue to be reported until another application or process requires the additional RAM already assigned to Mozy. It further says this is not cause for concern unless Mozy’s RAM usage does not decrease when another process or application could use the RAM and it causes your system to do more paging and use more swap space on your drive.

This was the cause of my concern, and Mozy was not releasing the RAM for other programs to use, slowing the system down to unusable.

Here's the solutions Mozy suggests in their Knowledge base article:

1. If your scan takes a rather long time to complete, you may consider reducing the number of files selected for backup.
2. You may also consider reducing or eliminating unnecessary reboots and avoid quitting the backup process as a complete scan will begin again after each of these actions.
3. If you find that Mozy uses more CPU than desired during normal computer usage, reducing your backup selection should also help remedy this.
4. If you feel Mozy is using more RAM than should be necessary, you may consider reducing the number of files selected for backup.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read! Because Mozy cannot write software that behaves, Mozy users are supposed to cut back on the files they back up. "Uh oh, Mozy is taking up too much CPU/RAM -- I'd better stop backing up so many files. Hey, Grandma's gonna be dead soon -- I'll just delete all the photos of her to save space."

And who EVER does an "unnecessary reboot?"

And I can't quit the program because it has to start all over if I do?

If Photoshop or Word or any of the video/audio programs I use can "remember" where I was even when the program crashes, why can't Mozy remember where it was in cataloging the status of files?

And what's with needing 6 gig of RAM to get files ready to upload?

Korg Nano Series

Quite a while back I decided to try the Korg nanoKontrol and nanoPad. The price was certainly right (about $60/each). The Kontrol worked fine after I found this post on untidymusic.com. That post has info on getting it working with versions of Sonar before X1, but it's easy enough to find the settings now under Preferences). The Kontrol has continued to work well for what it's intended to do.

The nanoPad was a completely different story. It was what I discovered to be a piece of junk. More than half of the pads didn't work reliably or at all. Checking the internet, I discovered many people having problems with it. I wrote Korg and asked what the deal was. They never replied. I sent the thing back. While I'd received free shipping to get it, the well-known company that sold it to me actually charged me for return shipping even though they knew it was defective. Needless to say, I won't do business with that company again -- and it's not the cost of the shipping, it's the principle of the thing. Thankfully, there is plenty of competition in the musical equipment arena.

The really weird thing about the nanoKontrol is that it has nine faders (along with a rotary and two buttons for each fader). If you think of something that's intended to work with a computer, nine is a strange number. Computers like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. The Kontrol can handle 32 tracks through the use of four "scenes." Since each scene has nine faders, when you get to scene 4, only the first five faders will work (9+9+9+5 = 32).

I got tired of having the fun of thinking "I want to control track 25" -- let's see, the second scene gets me up to track 18. So I know I need to be in scene 3. 9 plus 9 equals 18. 25 minus 18 equals 7. Ah yes, slider 7 on scene 3. Now, what song was I working on?" Of course labeling would be the answer. So, here's my label. Print it in landscape mode. Cut it out close to the numbers and put the numbers directly below the buttons to the left of each fader. I used some stick paper paste on the back of this strip to hold it steady while lining it up. I had the faders all the way up and out of the way. When the label was in place, I lowered the faders to make sure they would travel all the way to the bottom. Then I raised the faders again and put some clear tape over the label, folding the extra tape down the front side of the Kontrol.

There is now a "2" series for the nano. And they made the math on the nanoKontrol2 more human friendly, with eight faders. I searched Korg's site for 2 series user's manuals, and they don't have them up as of today. I certainly hope Korg fixed the pad problem on the nanoPad2.

Sonar X1 -- Using CAL

Sonar X1 is fantastic software. It's fast. The user interface is a pleasure to work with. I cannot say enough good things about it.

My relationship with Cakewalk goes back to Cakewalk 1.0. MIDI was relatively new then, and the "King of the Hill" was Sequencer Plus by Voyetra. For some reason I was attracted to Cakewalk. I guess I made a good choice given the growth of the product over all these years.

What's been funny to me over those many years and iterations of Cakewalk and Sonar is that a little part of my time comes with each copy. Back in the early 90's (late 80's?), Greg Hendershott had a Cakewalk Application Language (CAL) contest. I was intrigued with the idea of extending what Cakewalk could do. So I wrote several CAL scripts  (C-MPLMIT.CAL, C-NTROLR.CAL and HIVEL.CAL) to do some things I needed to do. I sent them in, and a few weeks later I got a check from Greg -- for 2d or 3d place :-). If you go to the drive where you installed Sonar, look in \Cakewalk Content\SONAR xxxx\CAL Scripts, and you'll see these and other CAL scripts.

CAL can be very helpful when there's no built-in command to do what you need. If you're trying to do something that's not native to Sonar, check out the CAL scripts that ship with Sonar and the ones on the internet.

But, as always, use caution in making any edits. Make doubly sure you have the correct data selected. CAL can take many, many steps which may not appear in your History and possibly cannot be undone. If you want to select all the data on a single track, always click the track number to highlight it.

And, best of all, start each project with a filename like "Name of the Project-W01" -- which means Working 01. When you intend to make a major edit or delete tracks/data, don't depend on Undo. Save the project as "Name of the Project-W02." Then, in a disaster you won't have to figure out where in undo history you need to revert to. You just close W02, reopen W01 and save it over W02 to continue on. When you complete your project, you can save the final under "Name of the Project" and you can delete the Working copies if you wish. "Better safe than sorry!"

To find out what a CAL script does, open the CAL file in Notepad, Wordpad or other such editor. There should be an explanation of what the script does (at the top of the file). You can find the Sonar CAL routines in the folder/directory noted above, or you can open a Sonar project containing at least one MIDI track.

If you open a Sonar project, you have to select at least some MIDI data to get to the CAL scripts (otherwise Run CAL is grayed out). Then, use Ctrl-F1 or (menu Process/Run CAL) for a list of available scripts. To see inside the script, right click it and select "Open with" to choose Notepad/whatever editor.

The other day, I opened a project file I'd saved weeks ago. That project contained one track with lots of instrument parts, each on it's own MIDI channel. I wanted to split the instruments out. I could have saved the project as a Type 0 MIDI file and dragged that file back into the project where Sonar would automatically split the MIDI channels to different tracks. Or, I remembered a CAL script. Looking for it, the name was "Split Channel to Tracks.cal." I selected the single track by clicking on the track number and ran the script. It did just what I wanted ...."

Except it put blank tracks for channels without MIDI data. Easy enough to delete. But I thought, maybe I can come up with an edit where it won't create blank tracks. Also, the CAL moved the data to the new tracks (by cut/paste, and I wanted to archive the original track. What if I gave the user a choice in that, too?

So I edited "Split Channel to Tracks.cal." I couldn't locate my early Cakewalk CAL docs, but thanks to Ton Valkenburgh's excellent Sonar MIDI-Kit site and his hard work on a CAL Programming Guide, my memory was refreshed (and I learned some things I didn't know before).

You can download my edited CAL script -- "Split Channel to Tracks-Choices.cal"

Try some CAL scripting yourself next time you find a need and can't find an existing script :-)