G.W. Childs RSS

EZDrummer in Garageband 5 (Snow Leopard)

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2010-01-18T13:08:31-06:00

...On the up-side, if it works, you're able to go back to having your creations drifting out through speakers and headphones, and back in through your ears and hearing aids. On the down-side, if it's not working for you, we're always here to help you when you need it.

Ghosts of Ft. Worth

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2010-01-15T19:13:01-06:00

As I was eating lunch with Amitabha the other day at the H3 Ranch in the Stockyards of Fort Worth, the Waitress mentioned (since we were looking for things to do) that we might want to knock on the red door next to the Star Cafe. ...Apparently, Miss Molly's Bed & Breakfast was once a Bordello that entertained many of the gunfighters, ranchers, ruffians, and soldiers that came through the stockyards when it was a major cattle hub. Everyone from Wild Bill Hickock to the Sundance Kid has been reported passing through the Fort Worth Stockyards, and it's been home to many gunfights.

Cementing your Workout

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2010-01-14T11:03:16-06:00

This was a truly wonderful experience considering the only fitness instruction I'd ever received had been from drill sergeants yelling at groups of us, aside from a few sessions with a really, really fit Sergeant Major that I used to work with that showed me the 'Abs of Steel' workout once. And believe me, that was some time well spent there, even when my abs have appeared to get fluffy over the years, they've remained rock hard underneath the cotton, only because I continued this workout somewhat through the years. ...My problem in all of this was the usual problem, I'm good at starting something, but the follow-through is usually a little sad after a few weeks, a few days, etc.

G.W. Childs Lynda Course

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2010-01-13T10:58:21-06:00

Lynda.com and I worked together over the later part of last year in putting together a really cool course on 'Using Reason and Record on Stage'. In this course we actually got a live band together, Kelly's Lot, and talked about some of the things that you'd need to know in order to bring your laptop on to the stage with you. ...One of the things walking away from the course that I was so excited about was: While the course is about Propellerhead's Reason and Record, it also works for several other music software platforms like Pro Tools, Cubase and more.

Colors

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2009-11-19T17:48:58-06:00

Every music application has some way of color coding regions, clips, tracks, etc, but for some reason, you don't really see anyone using this feature except pros, power users and people, like myself, that do demos for music software. ...When I go back to edit my song, I can clearly see all of the parts that make up my song and can jump around accordingly. ...However, I wouldn’t get too complicated, occasionally, you may want to pass a song along to a friend to do some work on and if you can easily explain what the color coding means, he can follow your system and this helps the collaboration go even more smoothly.

Hot Swapping Audio Devices

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2009-10-07T22:07:06-05:00

After a while of sustained usage, or being on for several hours, suddenly, the machine would give me a complete kernel error or “You need to reboot, to do this, hold the power button...’. ...However, there are a growing number of audio devices out there that, if you read the fine print, will mention that hot-swapping (see explanation above) can be dangerous for the computer and for the audio device. ...And while this is definitely an isolated incident with a particular audio interface (actually, this applies to the M-Box 2 as well) it does apply to other audio interfaces as well.

TAL Bassline

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2009-07-31T01:47:59-05:00

Only they can answer, but what I can say is that if you are missing these plug-ins which work for VST and AU (Audio Units) for Mac and PC (PC, of course only uses VST) you are crazy. ...I have to say that this has become one of my main synths over the last year as it’s easy to program and always delivers those low, growling deep bass sounds in a pinch. ... The main thing that really blows me away is that it really has a nice warm low-end that a lot of us paid big money for out of a lot of the soft synths that are currently out there for sale.

G.W. Interviewed on Propellerheads Website!

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2009-03-31T12:01:11-05:00

It was a real honor to get to explain the sound design process for Reason with my fellow sound designers. ...This is a really interesting article giving an in-depth glance in to the sound designer process in regard to making synthesizer patches, Combinator patches, etc. All of the guys in this article are top notch and if sound design is a passion of yours, give it a gander!

Change of Season

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2008-10-27T11:17:18-05:00

Generally, I’m pretty keen on warm weather, but having 90 degrees in my apartment at night has gotten pretty old. I just finished up a major milestone on one of my books and I’m feeling pretty good about it. ...Don’t get me wrong, noticing isn’t a bad thing, but everyone running around saying the sky is falling isn’t helping anything.

Force Unleashed

gwchilds@gmail.com — 2008-09-24T16:46:04-05:00

The Force Unleashed was just released a couple of weeks ago. I have been working on this title for the last year providing voice processing and even creating a new process for a brand new character that appears in the game known as Proxy. I finally got a chance to play through the whole game the other night and had a wonderful time.