So I checked my analytics numbers today and was a little surprised at how much traffic is coming in. I am by no means breaking any records but enough people are apparently having trouble with RDS and Hyper-V that they’re coming here from Google over and over again. If by some chance you are someone who needs extra help with those or other Windows Server issues, feel free to shoot me an email: subvertallmedia-AT-gmail-DOT-com. I am also available for remote consulting work through my place of employment, Pro Computer Service, and you can get in touch if you’d like to talk about it.

This is a quick and stupid one but I thought I’d put it online in case someone else runs into this problem.

If you’re migrating from one Exchange server to another but leaving your stand-alone BES 5 server intact, make sure you’re using the latest version of BES. Exchange 2010 wasn’t supported until something like 5.0.1 SP1 but double-check that.

Second, check your MAPI profile after the new server is in. Open the Blackberry Server Configuration application, Blackberry Server tab, and hit the button to configure the MAPI profile. Make sure you’re logged in as BESADMIN or whatever user you created to manage your BES server and services. I’m not sure whether it’s supposed to reconfigure itself the same way Outlook does but I don’t think so, making it odd that I didn’t find this instruction anywhere as I was researching.

Give me a shout if this helps you out.

Coffin Dust came back in over the weekend to record three new songs and it was awesome. I did their last recording back in November, my first with my Royer R-121 so it was a special session for me. Since then, I have not only added a shitload of new gear but picked up quite a few new tricks and I was confident that this would be my best recording to date. Here’s a track.

That’s mix/master 2. There’s some cymbal bleed coming through the snare mic that the gate isn’t catching fast enough; I’m not sure if anyone other than me would have noticed if I didn’t just point it out and I can’t decide whether fixing it is nitpicking or not. Though I’m not without my complaints, I’m quite pleased with how it came out and think that it definitely is my best mix so far.

It’s amazing how much of a difference my new monitors have made. I always read claims that new monitors would change everything but I just didn’t get it; I mean, I felt like my old monitors (Event Project 6s) were great, how different could things really be with new ones? The answer: extremely different. I didn’t even notice it at first, all I knew was that I could hear the upper mids a bit better and they were far more boring to listen to, which when you think about it is what you want from studio monitors. My first mixes, though, some almost-finished stuff for my grindcore band Unrest, were markedly better than anything I had done before. I nailed Coffin Dust on mix 1 and then polished it up on mix 2, something that seemed impossible a few weeks ago.

EDIT: HOW THE HELL DID I POST THIS WITHOUT THE LINK TO THE SONG??

I love this song so I recorded a cover of it.

This was a quick project to keep me focused for a few nights. I didn’t have all of my equipment handy so had to improvise a bit.

Guitar – Ibanez RG into JCM 900 into Mesa 2×12 into Royer 121 in API 312

Bass – Some kinda Dean into a Tech21 Sans Amp RBI into API 312 that was then clipped to HELL

Drums – Programmed using Superior Drummer then replaced using samples in Trigger

Vocals – First two verses are SM7 into a modded GAP Pre 73, the rest was SM7 into API 312

There is a thick layer of reverb on everything, room effects, lots of tape saturation and compression, and all kinds of other tricks to get it sounding the way it does. I also set the BPM to match the original and didn’t change anything which begs the question, “why listen to this when you could listen to the superior original?”

Almost all Nebula. Total sonic abuse. It took a lot of work to get it sounding like this. I kept comparing it to the original and while it still doesn’t sound nearly as good, I think I got the spirit of Failure’s version. Getting the vocals right took a lot of experimentation. In the end, it was a combination of room effect, reverb, EQ, and proper panning — whenever you hear a doubled voice, it’s only panned about 25%, single voices in the center. Four distorted guitars, two clean guitars, one bass, and the weird clean bass is two that are panned hard. I think the sampled/programmed drums hurt it a bit but for what it is, I’m pretty stoked. Enjoy.

More new stuff. Working backwards…

Today, new monitors: Adam A7X. I had done a ton of research on monitors but what I saw was review after glowing review for these so I went for it. It was time, the Event Project 6s were kind of outclassed by everything else. Time for big boy monitors! So there we are. I realized that the TRS cables I was using were no-name cheap crap so I replaced them with nice new Mogami TRS-to-Mogami. I shouldn’t be so excited about cables.

Slate Trigger Platinum. I was using my buddy Joe’s copy of Drumagog for years and it just couldn’t keep up with metal. I also had to get an iLok, which I guess is another “big boy” studio purchase.

Saturday night, I sprung for Nebula Server. Not worth explaining but it’s new, it helps me use my RAM more effeciently, and I’m happy about that.

Last weekend, I picked up an Ashly SC-50 compressor. It’s from the 80s, I believe, and is somewhat well regarded in the engineering world… by most, at least. Some people claim it’s killer for guitars and bass, others say just rock solos, others say it’s trash. Me? Not sure yet, haven’t had a chance to play with it. The price was right though so I went for it.

That same weekend I also got a Tech 21 Sans Amp RBI. This is the expanded rack version of their bass preamp pedal. The usefulness of this device was proved on more than one occasion, both live and studio, and I needed a way to record consistently usable, if not good, bass. Here it is. I ended up getting the most insane deal on it, something like 60% off, so I just couldn’t pass it up. The day after it arrived, Ashencult returned to do bass and I managed to get what I thought was a fantastic sound out of it through my VP26 (AKA API 312).

A few days before that I made a huge order of cables from Redco. I’m on this quest to replace all of my crappy cables with cables of professional quality… If everything else is going to be pro, the cables need to pro, too.

So where does the frustration set in? Technology sucks. I spent HOURS fighting with my computer. First it was getting a Nebula update in. I deliberately don’t update Nebula often for fear of something like the inability to open any of my projects because of some weird random change. And you know what? I was unable to open any of my projects because of some weird random change. I had to uninstall and reinstall a bunch of times. Then I decided I wanted to install Nebula Server, which required more uninstalls and reinstalls, a bunch of recompiling of the jBridge plugin, and… hours later, I was up and running. The night was then spent running Unrest tracks through stages of tape and analog saturation. I was in bed by about 4am.

Today, after picking up the new monitors and Trigger, I had a hell of a time getting that software going. Long story short, there appears to be something wrong with some of the samples I made. Certain hits are late. At first I thought it was a latency issue — I thought Cubase (stuck using it for this project since that’s where it started) wasn’t adjusting it correctly — but that’s not it. Only some hits are late and some patches are better than other. The problem, it seems, is the amount of empty space before the drum hits. I kind of assumed that the software would be smart enough to adjust for that… I mean, there’s no way to ensure that the attack of each individual sample is going to be identical so shouldn’t it align the playback with the signal being passed through it? I’m going to find out. It’s frustrating.

Right this second, I’m still fighting with the computer. A fantastic-sounding plugin called VTM-M2 (tape compression, more or less) has some nasty issue with my system where it just eats up ASIO bandwidth. Why? No idea. Developers don’t know either. How nice. I wish it didn’t sound so good.

I accomplished less this weekend than I hoped. The goal was a finished, listenable mix of the entire Unrest album. The result was a listenable mix of three songs, the last of which is exporting now then I’m going the hell to bed. Had these various software issues not popped up, I’d have been done this morning. I think Cubase has a lot to do with it… I’m looking forward to finishing these last few projects and moving to Reaper, once and for all.

Enough whining. This is almost done, I’m almost asleep.