Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Way To Start The Day Yelling At My devices

Sometimes my mornings are spent yelling at my devices. It’s kind of like a ritual. First thing in the morning, my Mac or Mac Book Pro, the internet, my iPhone or iPad, something will be amiss.

My iCloud will not transfer files properly. Comcast emails will load on the desktop but won’t load on my phone. Then the icing on the cake: We Transfer won’t complete a download. Zoom chokes again. I can always count on Zoom to choke.

I know I should be more patient; they are only inanimate objects, but come on and work.

Friendly Advice To Stop Yelling At My devices

My good friend, Mark, gave me some great advice. As a hobby, he builds computers with Linux Operating Systems.

“It doesn’t do any good yelling at your devices. If I did that every time I run into something that doesn’t work, I wouldn’t get anything done.”

Welcome To The 21st Century

Frustration seems to be amplifying. I’m pissed off that I don’t have an Aerocar. Isn’t that the promise of the Jetsons? A 2001 Space Odyssey foretold moon bases, space station hotels, and the like.

Where are those things that simplify our lives?

I tried to set up Logic Pro to record my Zoom Meetings. Where are the commands and links? I can’t find them. The standard operating procedure requires at least five failed repetitions of instructions before I get it.

Just this morning, I yelled at my iPhone. There was no internet connection. Oddly, my laptop and iPad were working.

Have patience, little One, patience. Don’t let those little annoyances bother you.

My P.C. lap top ended up on the wall. So much for patience.

“That will be the last unauthorized down load you’ll ever make!”

“Hey Bry, maybe you have anger issues. Seek help.”

“No, I don’t. Just get rid of the P.C.”

Ever seen a lap top crushed by impact?

Funny, the store where I bought my Mac took it as a trade in. What’s that tell you?

Real Problems

Years ago, I drove on the freeway through the city on an icy December morning. There was so much ice that the pickup truck next to me started careening into other lanes. I calmly sped up and moved to the right shoulder. The pickup smashed into a car next to me. My heart rate didn’t budge, and I was as calm as possible. Facing death, I did not react, but when it comes to these blasted flat screens, profanity can fly.

Perhaps the complications of an unbalanced personality.

Oh Yeah, The Software Learning Curve

Oh, vacuous stare. I gaze listlessly into the flat screen. How come I can’t figure out the following command? The instructions were very explicit; this procedure should lead to the following alternate command.

Right?

Wrong!

Not only am I challenged by software, but by a new piece of hardware, as well.

Case in point – My Alesis ML-9600. It is an excellent piece of mastering hardware. I used the Alesis as a summing mixer when using a Digi 002 and Command 8 control surface. That thing sat in the box for a year and a half before I broke it out. I may go back to using it; the digital to analog conversion on it is pretty awesome.

The Good Old Days And Yelling At My devices

I think they tried harder in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The rival companies’ competition led to some outstanding Hard Drive Recorders and Digital Workstations.

My first DAW was Cakewalk. I used a Sony P.C. to run it. Back then, I was pretty brain-dead. Maybe I still am. I had no clue that I needed to have an interface. I thought the whole thing would run off my sound card. Whoops.

Frustrated with Cakewalk, l picked up a Roland VS 1824 Hard Drive Recorder. It was super challenging to squint at the small screen, and using the control surface was inconvenient, but I learned the process of digital recording. It took me a year and a half to understand the operating system.

When I moved to Protools, it took only six weeks to learn.

I gave the VS 1824 to a friend, who gave it to one of his pals. The universe works when you are open to it.

I don’t remember yelling at the VS1824 or Protools.

Software

I’m balls deep in software; any pro in whatever industry is. There it is – I called myself a pro.

Case in point – Melodyne. I first encountered Melodyne when I downloaded Pro Tools 7. I thought it must be pretty cool because Peter Gabriel endorsed it. Good enough for Pete? Good enough for me.

Back then, the learning curve was formidable. Even with helpful instructional videos, I would stare dazedly into my monitor.

The eternal void filled my brain, unable to comprehend commands necessary for execution. After much yelling at the computer screen, I ignored the program. The thought was, “One day, I will understand.”

After several years of upgrades, I finally got it. Melodyne is now pretty darn intuitive. Thank you; I now dance in my captain’s chair instead of cursing the programmer’s mom. That’s not a way to behave; she is probably pretty nice.

More Software

Enter Lexicon. Any piece of software worth its weight in salt costs between 300 to 800 dollars. I don’t go on the cheap; what I can afford I appropriate.

Did I understand the software at first? Nope. And, yes, there were my requisite expressions of cursing.

My question is this: does another software program replicate space more accurately?

You can label me as a slow learner, and you would be right. I am still trying to understand the nuances of the program. As usual, I need several months of exposure before I can grasp the software’s complexities.

I could start yelling, but what good would that do.

Oh Internet, Let Me Bow Before You

You know it’s terrible when your supposedly high bandwidth connection bogs down because every household in your neighborhood uses the same provider. That connection is lightning fast at midnight; forget about daytime.

It looks like it’s time to use my Hotspot. Funny, my Hotspot bogs down at home, but out in public, it works great. I think it has something to do with the way cable companies operate. Whether you realize it or not, most of our cell phones route through cable networks. The cable networks still have the highest level of bandwidth.

There’s something else to yell about: the false promise of 5 G. Who will we believe?

Let’s not forget some of those free cloud transfer services. Talk about the lack of reliability. They want me to pay for an upgrade?

No way! I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

Can we help you?