Nicholas Toone

Posts!

Here there be my blog posts,

  • It’s Alive!

    At the end of February, I posted about my beloved 11″ MacBook Air finally giving up the ghost.

    This morning I was reading that the last of the 11″ MBA’s were being added to the obsolete list and I started thinking about the error icon I saw:

    bork bork bork

    I looked it up. And found that it was most likely an issue with the SSD. For a goof, I pulled the laptop off the shelf, removed the back and and found …

    There was no screw holding the M2 SSD in place. How in the … ?

    My best guess is that when I took that machine apart a couple of years ago to  replace the battery, I forgot to put the screw that secures the M2 drive back in place. And in the time between then and now, the SSD managed to wiggled itself loose.

    I have this tiny, external drive that holds a 128GB M2. I took it  apart and removed one of the screws holding the M2 in place. I then went to the Mac, re-seated the SSD, put in the screw, put the back cover on.  plugged it in, hit the power button and …

    The Mac is humming away running a software update. Who knows how much longer it has, but I’ll take it.

  • RIP Taylor Hawkins

    1972-2022.

    (Photo by Daniel DeSlover/imageSPACE)

  • Roots of Inspiration

    It starts with a metronome; common time, seventy beats per. I just turn it on and let it play: tick-tock-tock-tock tick-tock-tock-tock.

    I pick up my guitar, an older electric with mismatched pickups. It never seems to stay in tune for more than ten minutes at a time. I’ve just learned to live with it.

    Start simple. Em. Then G. Back to Em. G again. I learned this nearly thirty five years ago; the basic of basics.

    tick-tock-tock-tock tick-tock-tock-tock.

    Just start somewhere. It’ll show itself eventually.

    Em. G. Em. G.

    I try adding in other basics; the variations of A minors and F sharps. Maybe even a C. They’re all bland. Everyone has heard them before.

    Pause. I sip my beer.

    tick-tock-tock-tock tick-tock-tock-tock.

    Em with G again, but a slight mistake makes it G add9. Without thinking about it I bend the A up slightly. For a just breath, it becomes a G ♭3.

    There it is.

    tick-tock-tock … I stop the metronome. Play it through a few times; Em, G add 9, bend to G ♭3 for a 16th of a beat then bend back down to G add 9.

    I hit record in the DAW, let the click run for an 8 count then play the new bit for about two minutes just so I have it.

    Stop recording. Listen back. Smile.

    “Yeah, there it is.”

    -=-=-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    Dramatic, isn’t it? I mean, it is the truth, but come on.

    (more…)

  • A Sorta Update

    Covid is still a thing. And there were truckers everywhere protesting about … I’m pretty sure they don’t even know what they were protesting about in the end. Needless to say I’ve been a bit of a shut-in. Or rather, more than I normally am. I’ve gone shopping for groceries, but haven’t been looking for good deals on music equipment. Like most others, I hope we’ll be in the clear at some point in the near future and can move on with whatever the post pandemic normal will look like.

    In lieu of that, here’s a sorta update.

    (more…)

  • Ashes To Ashes

    Midsummer 2011, I purchased a base model 11″ MacBook Air; 1.6 Intel Core i5. 4GB ram. 128GB SSD.

    This past week I went to turn it on. It gave me this:

    bork bork bork

    I held down the power button until it turned off. Hit the power button again and…

    … nothing.

    So this was it. It didn’t go put with a whimper. It just decided to pack it in.

    For ten and a half years, this little MacBook Air:

      • Was my portable recording unit across two bands; countless demos and jams were recorded using GarageBand and Reaper.
      • Powered MainStage at home, rehearsals, and on stage.
      • Was my backup when my work computer freaked out (and, at one point, used for a full year because a company I worked for didn’t provide computers).
      • I’ve written who knows how many blog posts on it.
      • Was my teleprompter when recording video.
      • Was very decent at photo/image editing thanks to Pixelmator.
      • Has traveled with me to many countries. It was so small I just tossed it in the front pocket of my carry-on; I didn’t need an extra laptop bag.

    In all those years the MacBook didn’t have a single issue. I did replace the battery in 2019; it wasn’t dead, it just wasn’t holding a charge for any more than an hour and and that just comes with age and heavy useage.

    That’s value.

    RIP little MacBook. You more than earned it.

  • Deep Breath

    It’s been over a week since I got the Dell back. It’s still going strong except for the issue where the touchpad stops working when the laptop is plugged in.

    Told Dell Support I’d live with it after they offered yet another motherboard replacement. I just can’t right now with that. The XPS has decent battery life so I’m pretty ok with using the touchpad when the laptop is not plugged in and a mouse when it is.

    I then started thinking about my wanting one of the new MacBook Pros and cooled my jets a little. As mentioned previously, the XPS is a very decent laptop when it’s working. Also, the new MacBook Pros are very expensive and it’s money I can’t justify spending right now.

    In the end I opted for a minor (and much cheaper) compromise: I ordered two 32 GB sticks of G.SKILL DDR4 which will max out the RAM on the XPS. I have a year left on the Dell ProSupport Plus so I’m going to tough it out and if the issues get any worse than the current touchpad shenanigans, then I’m going to milk every last second of their time and resources.

    I really believe that Support is the Achilles Heel for any company not named Apple.  I’m sorry, but the having Apple Stores puts them in a class by themselves.

  • Computer Update.

    Got the XPS back from Dell on January 7. It works!

    … except when I plug in the power adapter, then the touch pad stops working.

    Logged a ticket on January 8.

    January 10 I get a reply asking if I want to ship it to the Advanced Resolution Center. “It should only take 3-5 days.”

    I let them know I just got this thing back from the Advanced Resolution Center and asked what other options there are.

    In between all this, the touch pad starts randomly working while plugged in; maybe two out of every five attempts.

    January 12 I get a reply asking if I want to have someone come to the house and replace the motherboard.

    I take a deep breath and reply telling them the motherboard has been replaced twice now and that another motherboard seems like overkill. I tell them I’ll deal with it for now and open a new issue if it becomes completely unusable.

    This is unfortunate because when it’s working, this XPS is a great machine. I just can’t get past the issues I’ve had in the past five months.

    As with everything from Dell, it’s all turning into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

     

  • Never 100%

    I was working on a new video detailing the last few months of 2021, but we all know how my video & audio work is going.

    In the meantime, I’ve been transcribing my video scripts to blog posts. I don’t feel pressured to finish videos because I’ve no plans to become a full time YouTuber. It’s been six months since my last video and no one is kicking in my door looking for a new one. This is just fun for me.

    So what’s been happening? Let me tell you …

    (more…)

  • Overnight Success

    I’ve got not one, not two, but three Vlog episodes in various states of completion. I’m not going to lie, this YouTube thing is a wee bit more difficult than I expected. This shouldn’t be surprising to me, yet here we are.

    It’s been over a month since I put up a new video. Since the BDI21 episode, life started to creep in and I managed to find myself behind. In that time though, a strange thing happened:

    A couple of people subscribed, someone liked, and someone commented; all without any promotion. I haven’t really told anyone about this little project, it just … is. So the fact that people are finding this and taking a liking to it is pretty cool.

    I sincerely take my hat off to all those who have found success on YouTube simply because the amount of work you need to do is mind boggling. Starting out, not only is there scripting, filming, editing, releasing, and promoting content, it’s all being done between and around what is referred to “normal life”.

    This makes me think how ridiculous the idea of the “Overnight Success” is. Unless you’ve won a lottery or were born into wealth, there really is no such thing as overnight success. Just because we haven’t heard of a certain singer before a certain date does not mean that they all of a sudden popped up out of nowhere ready blow your mind. Nothing appears out of thin air, ready made with a number one song. Even those by the numbers, label created, top 10 boy bands require an insane amount of work get off the ground.

    The cool thing about this project is that it just is. Some days I’ll have time. Other days I won’t. This is fun and I want to stay that way. If a few of you want to come along for the ride, no matter how sporadic, you’re more than welcome to.

  • Quick, Random Updates

    In no particular order …

    Transitioning back to Windows has been pretty painless. This here refurbished ThinkPad is happily humming along and I’m able to do nearly everything I want to do.

    I still can’t find anything that even comes close to MainStage so I’m keeping my little MacBook Air around just for that purpose. When the Air up and dies, I’ll revisit this.

    I’m enjoying catching up on all the tech I’ve ignored for the past decade. This has led me to rediscovering my old hobby of building phantom computers on Newegg.

    I’ve moved back to a mouse when the ThinkPad is in desktop mode. I found that while Magic Utilities give me all of the macOS gestures in Windows, the overall feel is jittery and nowhere near as precise or velvety smooth as it is on a Mac.

    Go figure.

    This Razer Deathadder though … it reminds me of just how shitty Apple mice are.

    Speaking of “laptop in desktop mode” you know what’s really nice? Having a removable battery. When I plug the ThinkPad in, I can pop out the battery and leave the laptop plugged in forever and not worry about the battery swelling and bursting. Ever.

    On the music side of things, I’ve been using Harrison Mixbus more and more.  I purchased it last year when it was on sale and played around with it a few times on the Mac, but never really gave it an honest go. I always found myself back in the familiar world of Reaper. I have to say, it’s quite the fantastic DAW. I really, really, really like the channel strip EQ and Compression. The ability to tweak on the fly without having to dig for plugins is incredible.

    Mixbus 32c is on super sale right now…

    I just might get it. I wound up getting it.

    Speaking of Mixbus, that song I’ve been working on since April (yeah, I know) is nearing completion. I’ve laid down the bass and most all of the guitars. Next up is to rewrite and record the drums. It’s coming together nicely.

    Those GLS ES-57’s are a goddamn steal. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Go buy a couple of them.

    It’s late. It’s snowing. I’m old.

    Goodnight.