I’m in a place right now where I’m wanting to pour a whole lot of information into my head at once. I want to be able to create beautifully finished home recordings, and I’m just not sure if that’s a thing that’s in my future.
I’ve written before about The Buzz. Basically, it’s what I call the combination of anxiety and bipolar cognition problems that, more often than I’d like, prevents me from accomplishing whatever it is I’m striving for. Well, The Buzz is the biggest obstacle, followed closely by my sometimes devastatingly short attention span, keeping me from creating those beautifully finished home recordings.
Why am I worried about recording at home when we’ve already saved up to record the EP in a studio? Well, mainly because it’s drastically cheaper to do whatever we can at home. The EP is intended to be the One Thing that we get professional help with, but it isn’t all we ever want to release.
Logic Pro, which became an Apple product a couple of decades ago (excuse me just a second while I have a bit of a spiral over 2002 being “a couple of decades ago,” I was in high school a couple of decades ago, where is the time going, okay, okay, I’m fine), is my DAW of choice.1 That’s Digital Audio Workstation, for those unfamiliar with the term. Basically, it’s the software I use to turn the music in my head into something other people can hear. I was previously working with a DAW called Reaper but switched to Logic when we started shifting into the Appleverse. I have learned how to do so many things in Logic, and yet, I’m still fairly overwhelmed. I know that I have a long way to go before my results sound half as good as I’d like.
There are all kinds of tutorials and tips online, answers to any question you could come up with. And every time I start trying to learn something, The Buzz comes into play. Letters feel like they’re going to slide around the screen (they don’t actually slide around the screen, it’s just a feeling) and I have to hold them in place by force of will. I start to get a headache, possibly from gritting my teeth. Frustration with either blog entries or YouTube videos. If I make it through, my chances of retaining much of it are slim anyway.
This makes it sound hopeless though, and it’s definitely not. I love Logic. I really feel vastly more capable of conveying my ideas through it. Logic even has this feature called drummer tracks, which is perfect for someone like me who is a bit at sea in the world of percussion but still wants to make rehearsal tracks that sound like they were put together by someone who knows which end of the sticks to hold.2 I’m also in the beginning phases of learning how to write a bassline that isn’t just whole notes on the root of each chord. An exciting thing we’ve done since getting Logic, and using a laptop for the DAW, is actually connecting it to the 88-key keyboard instead of the tiny little MIDI controller in the office. That makes it a lot easier to get ideas into a format where I can really do something with them.
In spite of my difficulties, I learn a lot of little things. The stuff early in articles or videos is much more likely to be absorbed. Trying it immediately after learning about it, probably unsurprisingly, is enormously helpful. And I feel so proud every time I pick up and retain something new. I feel like my brain has run a marathon, and whatever I’ve learned becomes my new favourite thing to do. I might revisit an entire arrangement because of something I’ve learned.
The point of this is not that there is a silver lining. The Buzz is a very real problem for me. I know it has kept me from fully integrating useful concepts. But it doesn’t keep me from doing everything. And because I love this stuff, I keep trying. Sometimes, sometimes, I can get through even a long article, and that’s worth trying every time.
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1 There’s a chance that this was the first DAW I was exposed to, back in Computers and Music in that very same high school that was a couple of decades ago. To be honest, I don’t remember, but we were using Macs so it’s not unreasonable to think it might have been.
2 I’m exaggerating for effect; I know which end of the sticks to hold… just please don’t ask me to hold them.