I got some more work done this week on the new online store for WB.com. I registered the name freerangefat.com and set up some webspace for it. I have the pages roughly planned out and I just need to get the design sorted before I can start adding content (it’ll be something similar to this site, lots of two black and white to better contrast the product images). I’ll hopefully have the store up and running before the summer months. Studiowise, having spent rather alot more time than was necessary (OCD gear lust and what not) I narrowed down the audio interface upgrade choice for my DAW. I’ve had my EMU 1820 for nearly ten years now. Unfortunately thou, Creative (who bought up EMU back in the early 2000’s has stopped support and it seems any development for it whatsoever). Such a pity as the PCI range had excellent functionality and quality for the price. Fingers crossed thou EMU might be passed on to a more loving third party in the future.
And so alas the drvers on the EMU 1820 are starting to show some cracks on my W7 system so I’ve been researching a suitable replacement – something with the required I/O, low latency, reliability, decent support and as future proof as possible (and cheapish). Candidates included Steinbergs MR816 range and RME’s babyface/Fireface. Focusrites Saffire range are good value, and close to the bill, but the latency is supposed to be well below par. Then I came across MOTU’s new entry into the desktop interface market. Decent value and has the required spec for my studio. The CueMix DSP looks excellent and it not being rackmounted makes it easier for me to manage levels via the desktop. For the moment thou I’ll continue running the 1820 until the driver errors become critical. Speaking of DAW’s I was mighty interested to hear Steinberg have a new development blog for a notation program they are working on. It turns out Avid, who recently bought up Sibelius, closed their London offices. Steinberg went in after and recruited most of the dev team who were let go. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the finished program will be integrated with Cubase’s score functionality.
