You ever just feel like throwing in the towel?

[sweetbeats]

I won't do it, but I sure feel like walking away from all thhis stuff for awhile. Its just a bad time with the 388 not right. I guess I was really counting too much on getting the 388 back together as boost of progress for my psyche.

I have a potential 3-day studio tracking session for a band on location so I was working on racking up a mobile DAW unit...doing a fresh OS load on a laptop tweaked for audio and there is some mysterious driver conflict with the audio interface... So I'm trying to work through that, and then I go out to the studio booth and there's the 388 up on its side again with its guts exposed...the M-__ with half its knobs and switch caps pulled off, and then out to the solarium and there's the MM-1000 half naked and unfinished.

Its my own fault. I'm really not trying to whine but anybody else get there sometimes?

 

[dodgeaspen]

I don't claim to have the knowledge you have to do things like this, but it just sounds like your just taking too much on at one time and are getting overwhelmed. Maybe take the most pressing project and finish that first. I know you can do it because I have read a lot of your project posts from the last year. Keep up the good work man.

 

[Blue Jinn]

I won't do it, but I sure feel like walking away from all thhis stuff for awhile. * * * there is some mysterious driver conflict with the audio interface... So I'm trying to work through that, and then I go out to the studio booth and there's the 388 up on its side again with its guts exposed...the M-__ with half its knobs and switch caps pulled off, and then out to the solarium and there's the MM-1000 half naked and unfinished.

Its my own fault. I'm really not trying to whine but anybody else get there sometimes?

Nope, I just move on to the next unfinished project or break something else.

BTW, I find computer problems to be somehow infinitely more annoying than any weird signal routing, low output whatever problem. If you're like me get the laptop fixed and you'll feel much better.

 

[Farview]

That's the exact reason I got out of repairing things.

1. show up to find a broken thing on your bench
2. test, take apart, diagnose
3. Pull hair out
4. order parts
5. replace parts with 'similar' parts that only kind of work/fit
6. put back together and test
7. ship and bask in the warm glow of victory
8. turn around to find another broken thing on your bench

lather, rinse, repeat.

After a while it seems like everything in the world a broken, mis-engineered piece of abused garbage.

Then you go home and your friends call you up because they are having problems with their abused, mis-engineered crap...

 

[The Ghost of FM]

I've got a few pieces of gear right now that require repair but because I'm not actively recording and under employed at the moment, It would be mightily silly to spend money on fixing any of it...even if just to sell it because the used market is so brutal on analog gear.

I should just throw the stuff in the dumpster and be done with it but doing that just seems so wrong. Like I was throwing away my past or something.

Then again, if I had to move, I'd sure feel even stupider dragging around a bunch of broken gear that may never get fixed or used ever again.

I guess I really should just sell it all, as is, take my lumps on the pathetically small amount of money I'd likely get for it and start the next chapter of my GAS.

Cory,

You've got space and reason to use the gear you have. Don't give up! Take it at a pace that's comfortable for you and enjoy the process.

Also know that your journal like threads give great entertainment and encouragement to a great many analog enthusiasts. Don't look at the number of replies. Look at the number of hits on those pages! There's the real payout.

Cheers!

 

[ez_willis]

Its my own fault. I'm really not trying to whine but anybody else get there sometimes?

not me.

 

[SteveM]

Nope, I just move on to the next unfinished project or break something else.
.

I usually sell things and buy something new.

Definitely Cory. I find when you are working on those things they go at their own pace. You can't really push them. Sometimes it seems like it'll be impossible to figure out and then next thing you know you've done it.
Keep trucking.

 

[samth3mancgp]

I don't really get that feeling because I dont know how to fix things But I get a similar feeling from not knowing how to, and not knowing where to start out.

I think you should get the MM-1000 working great then move onto the mystery mixer. I really want to hear some recordings done with that stuff.

 

[miroslav]

Dude...don't let it get you down.
I've been there many times...getting in deep with repairs and troubleshooting...meanwhile, all I wanna do is record some music!

Right now my multitrack is sitting on the bench with it's panels off. I was going to do a basic alignment on it over the holidays, and then since I had a couple of weeks off, start tracking for my next album project.
I figured one day of alignment and basic maintenance...and done.

Well...the deck is STILL sitting there!!!

I was going along fine...when I realized my soft-scope stuff wasn't able to read certain things from my deck’s test-points (digital voltages are not easily/accurately read by soundcards--->soft-scopes)...and since I have the full operations and service manuals for my deck, I didn't want to do a "generic" setup, rather I wanted to go step-by-step and do a proper setup as-per-manual, step-by-step.

So I went and picked up a Tektronix scope on eBay...model 2215...as I realized I needed the hardware scope again ( I haven't bothered with one since the last one I had died on me.)
Anyway...I get the Tektronix halfway into my holiday period...but I realized there were no probes included when I bought, and I don't know what I did with the old ones...so I ordered a new set of probes at the same time and figured I would also get them at the same time as the scope.

Then I found out the probes were ordered from a Hong Kong supplier...…so that means at least 2-more weeks before I get them.


Meanwhile...my vacation time is well over and the deck still sits there with the scope next to it.
This weekend I will try using some basic wire/clips to see if I can use them with the BNC connectors, as I just need the scope to complete a couple of more steps in the alignment/setup process and I'm done.
Anyway...that's just one of the recent studio issues...but I've had those days where it seems like everything is going against you...meanwhile you're all psyched about getting some work done!!!

Just roll with the punches...that's all you can do.
It will work itself out, so don't fight it...it will just get you frustrated!!!

I've been playing my guitar a lot while waiting for the damn scope and probes.

 

[cjacek]

Cory, we've been through this before and it was pretty much unanimous that what you put in, the work, the energy, dedication, unrelenting focus, is simply unsustainable. IMHO, you should take time off and take stock of what went sour and comeback with a more reasonable approach. You're a good guy but it pains me to see you in such a bad way. You need to take control of the things around you but it seems the reverse now (and has been for a while), that the things in your life have an unrelenting hold on you. How many breakdowns does it take...?

 

[ez_willis]

IMHO, you should take time off and take stock of what went sour....

the analog decks went sour. get rid of them already.

 

[cjacek]

the analog decks went sour. get rid of them already.

May I recommend this section:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=29

 

[jedblue]

Ah, no Cory I don't.

Maybe some retail therapy and / or some playing'll help? This week I picked up a couple of old Shure 849 condensers for a song off eBay and yesterday I took a walk down to the music shop, came back and reskinned my drum kit with some new Remo's. Thursday night I jammed with a few mates in the blues / soul junk band on the drums and today it's down to the school market with the bass to play delta blues in the acoustic market band.

Tonight I'm going to continue to hunt down the recorded four mike drum sound I can hear in my head. It's almost there.

I'll worry about tomorrow when I get there but on Monday I'm going to go down and get that BeyerDynamic M88 I've decided on for my kick mike.

Then my hard saved up piggy'll be empty again but I'll be happy.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to too much next week is chowing down the thirty cans of beans that I need for the containers for rOn.KnOb's upcoming cassette release. I think I need to stretch that one out a bit.

 

[sweetbeats]

heheh...go play with your sweater, ez.

Daniel, its not a breakdown but just blowing off steam I guess. It was just a downer to realize that it wasn't just a bad connection or something on the 388. The progress on all the stuff has been good and I have backed off my standards on what I'm doing to stuff before putting it into operations (i.e. leaving nearly the entire cardbay of the 388 with original caps, resorting to just cosmetic cleaning and a couple repairs on the M-__ rather than recapping the remaining unaddressed 10 channel strips, no recapping on the MM-1000 with one small safety-related exception, and I have done nothing on the 440C-2 as that is comfortable b-a-c-k burner project...I was gonna do all sorts of stuff to those CRL multiband dynamics processors but nope...leaving them totally as-is for now...and I've sold a ton of stuff...)

Just getting eager to use the gear.

Maybe I should calibrate the BR-20T...that probably works because I haven't messed with it.

I was listening to a bunch of scratch projects I did over the years and realizing how much I miss recording.

And then it TOTALLY didn't help that the DAW setup for that location project, a setup/install I've done half a dozen times is giving me grief...you get to the moment of "nothing works".

I really appreciate the concern, comments, perspective and chuckles, guys. Really. It helps.

Back in the saddle.

 

[ez_willis]

May I recommend this section:

you can recommend anything you like.

 

[ez_willis]

heheh...go play with your sweater, ez.

i gave it away.

 

[ez_willis]

heheh...go play with your sweater, ez.

must spread rep around, but so ya know it made me lol.

 

[The Great Cobb]

haha

This thread is packed with viewers right now...

 

[nate_dennis]

I won't do it, but I sure feel like walking away from all thhis stuff for awhile.

You should do it. But just for a while. You have an almost enviable problem, you have more gear than you know what to do with (though it sounds a lot of it needs work.) I really think you need to walk away for a week or so. Then, pick one project and finish it. I have been there, I nearly sold all of my gear (again!!!! I gave up music/recording once already and that was dumb.) I was down on it for different reasons, but still down on it. Take some time, blow off some steam. You'll feel better for it. You truly will.



Best wishes.

 

[The Great Cobb]

Sweetbeats

Hey Cory, youll get there eventually.

Sometimes in life you have to do things that are difficult. And we are smart enough to try to predict those difficulties and be ready for them. But, many times those difficulties are different or much more difficult than we thought they would be. Its like, you plan out in your head that something will take work, but that in the end that work will payoff and youll get what you want. And then you do the work, but the reward doesnt come. Its easy to feel a little bitter when that happens.

But, maybe those are the times that sticking with it or not is what separates the men from the boys. I bet there were times when the dude who invented the lightbulb messed up and started looking at his gas lamp like "hey, that aint SO bad...". But, the dude kept on.