I'm about to lose a big opportunity...

I have a music producer who has heard my original music, some of my R&B stuff (not available on my MySpace). He has worked with Madonna and Michael Jackson in the past, but has decided to return to the game. There is an investor working with him. One of their new artists is a girl who my mother gave voice lessons to, to refine her singing. I had written a song for this girl a year or two ago, to a backing track she sent me. She loved what I put to it, and has since seen that I write anything, and do it well.

When this oportunity came to her, she immediately recommended me to them, both as a writer and as an artist. They are working on the foundations of putting together an album for this girl, and they want me to submit songs for it.

PROBLEM:

Yes, I love the features and versatility of the G, and that I c an produce decent demos on it, but I bought it for the integration of Audio tracks, knowing I could use it to produce demos completely internally if I needed to.

Well...

After losing songs I have written on it, like 3 to 5 times now, and losing DAYS of work because of it, I am rethinking it all. I am especially upset that I may lose this opportunity.

The lack of an undo feature I have dealt with.
Realizing that 32mb of memory could not even hold a single sample of any value, I upgraded to 512mb RAM. But of course, you can't save to RAM.

Now I have lost the first song I just wrote for her, and worked all through last night on. I explained in a previous post that the Fantom didn't seem to like my PNY USB Flash Drive, because it wouldn't save Audio to it. Even though the INFO screen on the G said that I had this memory available, it would give me the dreaded "Memory Full" message.

FINALLY, I decided that I could survive this for now, since it WAS saving MIDI, just not audio. Fine, I decided. The time consuming part is the music, not the vocals. So, as long as I could save my MIDI work, I could always record the vocals to RAM, record into a DAW and yes, turn off the G and then lose the Vocals, but fine, I could just re-record the vocals if needed, in the future, without wasting too much time.

WELL...

Now it wouldn't even save the MIDI, and froze up on me.

I lost at least 6 hours of work, and I am quicly about to lose this opportunity.

WHAT TO DO?

Buy a new USB flash? Sure, but I am beginning to think my G is possessed. Maybe there really is Roland Voodoo after all?

I don't have the money right now, to keep buying USB drives that won't work. Although, they are dirt cheap right now in low gig amounts. 1 and 2 gig drives can be had for $8.00 to $10.00 US. So, I may buy a few cheap ones and try them, just to get through this opportunity before I lose it.

ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS:

Can't I just save to my computer somehow? It is a HUGE hard drive effectively. I haven't seen anyone talking about this, other than using the computer to transfer files, or Editor to edit patches, etc... Can the computer be plugged into the USB memory port on the G, rather than through the normal USB computer port on the G?

If saving directly to computer is not possible, why not? If this is the case, then I am about to flip to Cyclops et al, side. I expect to have to upgrade RAM, this is a common business trick to make the company additional revenue, or at least save production costs. Everyone does it. I expect it.

But to FORCE me to save to a portable USB drive, and then not have ANY generic USB Drive work properly? This is unacceptable. There should be a HUGE warning posted in the manual or any publicity documents if this is the case. Losing days of work for all the various problems and learning curves, makes the value of the board decline considerably in my eyes. To the point that I am about to give up.

WHAT ABOUT SD?

I assume this is not possible, but would an SD card in a USB flash adapter work? I have tons of 4gb and 2gb SD cards, and several USB adapters/converters to use them in things that don't have SD slots.

WHAT ABOUT AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE?

I also have a 250gb external stand-alone hard drive that runs from USB. Can it be formatted somehow for the Fat32 required, without the use of a computer? Can I save to this hard-drive as an option?

So to recap:

1) Is there a way to save Audio tracks and samples to my laptop as opposed to USB flash drive?

2) Would an SD card in a USB adapter/converter work?

3) Would an external hard-drive using USB work?


btw... There is a chance that one of my songs "September" could be recorded by Tim McGraw. You can hear it on my MySpace. By sheer coincidence, a family member knows his producer, who also works with Faith Hill. This family member lives in Nashville, so I don't see her for years at a time, and she had NO IDEA that I was a good songwriter and performer, and she happened across a video I made for the song, and fell in lovbe with it. She had my mother's number and called her to ask my permission to shop it to Tim McGraw's producer.

I share this to say, that I have been VERY excited about the opportunities beginning to come my way, but as a successful uncle once taught me as a child...

"Opportunities will always come eventually, but those who are successful, are READY when they do."

I have used this as a powerful maxim to the bands I have formed, to push them into excellence and work hard, as if we were ALREADY successful, so that when the time came, we would be READY for the opportunities we created or happened into.

But sadly...

I AM NOT READY!!!

Yet, the opportunities are coming NOW!

Please help!



Craig Maxim

Southern Mischief ™
http://www.myspace.com/southernmischiefband