Day 201: baby steps.

A very long time ago (maybe seven years), I bought a lot of expensive gear in order to set up a home recording studio. I bought the latest Mac (a G4 at the time. Woot woot.) an expensive, high quality sound card, a midi keyboard, a small mixing desk, mics, headphones etc etc. And then, to cut a long story short, I didn't use them. I've pretty much gotten over it now, but the expense of the whole ridiculous exercise, combined with my failure to use the gear to get any closer to realising my dream, was a significant sore point with me for a long time. Looking back on it now, I can see there were reasons I had to do that particular thing then (as much as I might do things differently second time around), and I am pleased to say at least some of the gear has actually since been used to record my stuff, only over at Ben's house. The problem was, I think, that I bit off more than I could chew. In an effort to push myself out of my comfort zone and learn something new, I went way too far too soon, freaked out and didn't learn anything. Actually, that's not entirely true. As painful as the lesson may have been, and as much as I certainly didn't learn how to use my freakin expensive equipment, I think I may have learned that walking comes before running when it comes to recording. Because today I started to learn how to use Garage Band (the very basic recording software on Mac). And while I encountered numerous irritating impediments to my actually being able to lay down a very simple track, I persevered (right down to trekking into the city to Allans Music for a second time, when I discovered I didn't have the right cables. Bah!). And while I still haven't managed to record a vocal, I did record a test drum track and a keyboard part, and will happily tackle the issues I hit tonight, tomorrow. Could it be you get further by putting one shaky foot in front of the other, than you do by wildly leaping at a problem then running in the opposite direction when you fall flat on your face? Well holy moly. It looks like this baby might be learning to walk all over again.