I want to love Google Notebook but it’s not doing it for me. The best part is the little browser plugin. It’s awesome and functional but makes me annoyed that the other Google services don’t use something like this to make them quicker to use. I can manipulate my Google Notebook without manually logging in, but I can’t do that for my Gmail or Google Calendar? Lame.

And I’m really kind of lost as to what to use the Google Notebook for. For serious info-hoarders the lack of tagging is hard to overlook. Sure I can cram all my little snippets of text into “notebooks”, but how am I any better organized than jamming that stuff into a text file (or a blog if I care about accessing it via the net)? And once we get over 10 or so snippets, it gets rough to find what I want. Very weird choice.

I’ve been getting annoyed at del.icio.us ever since it was bought by Yahoo! My reasons are nerdy. Tag intersections don’t work well anymore which constantly bones me when I’m looking for something, it’s slow as hell and the number one thing I’ve found having used it for a while and racked up around 550 bookmarks in there: I often forget I bookmarked things. For a while I’ve wished my bookmarks were more in my face. That I’d get reminded of what I had seen before when I was looking for something.

Which leads me to tonight when I was playing around with Google Bookmarks. At some point I realized the absolute killer feature would be having my tagged and annotated bookmarks integrated with regular Google search results. When’s the best time to remind me what I bookmarked? When I’m searching for stuff on Google. I did a search for something I had bookmarked and HOLY CRAP:

It shows my tags and annotation underneath the link in the regular search results. That’s awesome! So now when I’m searching Google for things I can instantly see what I’ve bookmarked before. I used Your Web to import all my del.icio.us bookmarks and grabbed the Google Bookmarks Button extension for Firefox.

Google Bookmarks has a seriously primitive interface, no social sharing (I’d like my bookmarks to be public), the Firefox Google toolbar doesn’t support it yet and Google seems to barely acknowledge its existence, but this search results integration alone combined with knowing their servers will be nice and responsive I think has sold me on it.

Update: okay so the interface for Google Bookmarks REALLY BLOWS. I can’t type in the tag I want to jump to anywhere, so I have to click on my tags. I have a billion of them of course so that means scrolling up and down the screen like an idiot. Now I’m thinking about some way to sync Google Bookmarks and del.icio.us together…

Testing the limits of my attention span today I continued trying out the Edirol UA-1EX. Though I originally bought it only for softsynth use on the laptop, I thought I should at least give the inputs a chance. I loaded up REAPER today and did some recording with it and it worked way better than I expected.

The first test: direct monitoring was fine. There was a small amount of latency at first. Not enough to hear an actual delay, but enough that there was a slight doubling/chorus effect as I listened to the vocals from my mic. I reduced the buffer amount in the driver control panel to the absolute minimum and it sounded better, though I did experience a few dropouts while playing around. Some tweaking in there to find the right level will be needed.

I went from the MXL v67 mic -> Bluetube -> Edirol UA-1EX and it sounded good to me. I was monitoring using my Sennheiser HD 280 headphones and not my Event 20/20 monitors so I can’t tell exactly how it stands up yet compared to other audio, but in the headphones it certainly sounded good enough.

I’m a little unclear about how to properly use the input gain dial. I’m enough of an audiophile to know that I probably want my fancy Bluetube preamp doing the amplification and not whatever’s in the little $80 UA-1EX. But is setting the dial all the way to the max (poorly) amplifying things or is that just providing 100% of the signal from the input? There’s no medium notch on it to indicate where it begins amplifying which is what I’m used to on mixing boards. Guess I’ll check the manual.

So the conclusion of all this nerdy gear talk is that the Edirol UA-1EX is staying and may actually get used as a makeshift mobile recording unit along with lugging around my Bluetube. The preamps on the Presonus Firebox are disappointing however and it’s getting returned. I can’t justify paying for preamps that won’t totally replace the Bluetube.

It sounds like the preamp limitation on the Firebox is due to Firewire’s power constraints so I have no idea how it stacks up against other Firewire audio devices. I assume they all have similar limitations and will need external power for beefier pre’s. I will say this for the Firebox: it sounds really good and it’s a sturdy little unit. Latency wasn’t an issue, the drivers worked great, they have fantastic support and they pretend to like my music.

I may think Firewire itself is a little stupid now though, which was my suspicion all along.

Just got a really informative response back from Chad at Presonus support about my -6db clipping/low gain issue with the Presonus Firebox:

Yes, the FB pre’s are a bit on the low gain side, although they shouldn’t clip too easily.  Unfortunately, if they don’t provide enough gain with the digital boost engaged (and you may try disengaging it to help with clipping), you may want to couple them with the Blue Tube or use the Blue Tube with line in.  The BT has about 20db more analog gain than the FB. Sorry.  As I understand it, they had to make the FB in a way which was bus-powerable even under the most extreme conditions (daisy-chained w/ other FW devices, on laptops, etc.) which probably compromised the voltage that the preamps could run off of.  The BT gain circuit runs off of about 16v rather than the 6v or so that the FB runs from

That’s some good information for your ass right there. Awesome support from Presonus.

Unfortunately the goal was to replace my Bluetube and Delta66 with a portable firewire thang. The Presonus Firebox would handily replace the Delta66, but replacing the Bluetube with a quieter preamp that doesn’t go above -6db kinda blows. If I’m going to keep using the Bluetube, then I’m not sure why I’d pay a bunch of extra money for a device with preamps I never use on it. So much to think about.

Things I learned from reading the Firebox and UA-1EX manuals:

• you only need to use the power adapter for the firebox if you’re connecting it to a 4-pin firewire port. if it’s a 6 pin, it powers itself off that. the firewire card i installed has 6-pin. nice.
• my laptop only has a 4-pin firewire input. i’ll have to use the power adapter when using it with the laptop AND i’ll need to get some sort of 6 to 4 pin firewire adapter as the included firewire cable is 6 pin. i was not aware of this different firewire port size situation. weak.
• the mysterious driver switch on the edirol ua-1ex switches you between normal windows drivers and ASIO drivers. neat i guess, though i’ve never had a problem with regular windows stuff working on ASIO drivers.
• i still don’t understand what “plug-in powered” on the mic input means even though i read the description, for now i remain afraid to plug anything into there.
• the ua-1ex actually has dipswitches on the bottom i hadn’t noticed for selecting the recording source, input monitor, kHz and sample rate. dipswitches are hardcore.

Then I tried recording with the Firebox. Here’s how that went:

• plug my microphone into it
• flip the phantom power on
• check the input levels
• looks like i have to crank the level up to the max (+30) to get a decent signal when singing into my condenser mic (MXL v67.) guh?
• switch the XLR cable just in case this one’s flaky
• still need to crank the input to +30 to get a decent signal
• even cranked at +30 the preamp’s nice and quiet though. no hiss or buzz.
• notice that if the input exceeds -6db the preamp clips. so i can’t record anything over -6db? should i even care about that? christ i hate audio, why do i bother with this
• grab the mixer software off the cd-rom to make sure nothing’s set real low but everything’s at the max.
• flip back over to record a test with my presonus bluetube + delta 66. doesn’t clip when i go over -6db. but does this matter, hmm.
• test out the direct monitoring on the firebox. there’s a bit of noticeable latency when singing. i try lowering the 10ms latency in the control panel to 3ms, fixes it up nicely.
• recording vocals at a clipping max of -6db alongside my loud projects makes it hard to monitor. input signal keeps getting lost in the mix. will i have to lower the volume of my projects to deal with the input volume? bleah.

Current Edirol UA-1EX mood: pleased

Current Presonus Firebox mood: confused and unsatisfied

The low Firebox signal is bothering me but I’m not 100% sure if it should or not. Clipping at -6db seems goofy as I always try to record with the hottest signal I possibly can so I have as much data to work with as possible. (You can always lower the volume later without audio consequences but you can’t boost what isn’t there.)

I don’t have another condenser to test it with. Maybe my mic sucks. I’ll go read some Firebox reviews and see if actual professionals have the same issues as I do.

Here’s how installing the Presonus Firebox went:

• it takes me about a century to pry the dynex firewire card out of its plastic package but i manage not to cut my hands open. i pray there’s no driver cd in the back.
• i install the pci card into my desktop
• i make a note to buy some compressed air to clean this thing out soon
• i reboot, windows detects and installs the firewire card. sweet!
• i open up the firebox. ah, a power adapter. for some reason in my dreams of mobile simplicity i forgot that this thing needed power as well. no big deal i guess
• i plug it all in
• “Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?” dude, go away.
• it’s not automatically finding the drivers off the cd-rom, probably needs me to run an installer or something
• find the installer on the cd, run it
• “Before you continue, please disconnect your IEEE 1394 audio device(s) from this computer system.” aw man, i just hooked it up.
• i disconnect it
• continue with the install
• successfully installed and i have a new thing in my tray. this is what it looks like: what’s that supposed to be?
• control panel thing says i’m at 10ms latency. nice.
• i hook a set of headphones up to it, audio’s working, sounds good
• i disconnect the behringer mixing board i was using only for the headphones and monitor gain control and hook my monitors up to it, sounds good there too. no real difference from the delta 66, which is fine by me
• first annoyance: sitting on my desk, the main level knob is awkwardly low and hard to get at with the fingers. not as convenient as the fader situation with the behringer i had going on before. why’d they put the main level knob on the bottom where it would be more awkward to get at?
• i realize i’ll miss the quick mute channel button on my mixer for when i need to shut my monitors up for recording
• i think about recording some audio, decide to go to bed and read manuals

I’ll continue this tomorrow and may try to drag my laptop and new sound card to band practice.

Here’s how the Edirol UA-1EX install went down:

• plug it into the laptop
• windows detects it. “can we search windows update for drivers?” sure. “nothing found”. ok.
• install the drivers off the cd
• “device installed successfully.” easy.
• fire up REAPER
• selecting the Edirol ASIO device device hangs everything.
• asio4all’s fault maybe?
• uninstall asio4all
• fire up REAPER again
• success! audio is going to the headphones! sounds all right.
• find the usb cable for my Edirol PCR-50 midi keyboard
• plug it into the laptop
• windows detects it. “can we search windows update for drivers?” sure. “nothing found”. does this ever do anything?
• hunt around for my pcr-50 drivers cd. lost cause.
• search the roland/edirol site for it
• downloads section “under construction”. awesome.
• google search “drivers edirol pcr-50 download”
• find a download
• install it
• “device installed successfully”
• fire up REAPER
• no VSTis installed, doh
• download & install Triangle II
• fire up REAPER
• success! we’re playing softsynths with my midi keyboard with no noticeable latency.
• should test inputs and outputs
• maybe later. on to the firebox

So far the UA-1EX gets a thumbs up from me. Cheap little ASIO gizmo that works as advertised. I’ll have to actually read the manual though. There’s an “Advanced Driver” switch I don’t get and the mic input says “MIC INPUT - PLUG-IN POWERED”. Ruh?

Had a chance to play with REAPER yesterday. That thing is impressive as hell. It’s still beta and lacks MIDI capability, but even without that it’s very over the top. In a less than 1 meg install (700k without the sample project included) it offers a lightweight, rock-solid multitracker with:

• multiple takes per event
• group tracks
• ASIO support
• sends
• track automation
• punch-in recording
• cross-fading
• direct-x/vst/jesusonic plugin support
• effect chaining (as well as rearranging on the fly)
• ability to export all tracks

And a lot more. Interface-wise if you’re familiar with Sonic Foundry’s Vegas or Acid, you’ll find it easy to jump into. I think once MIDI’s in there, I’ll be giving it a shot for a full project. It’s extremely competitive with software that costs hundreds of dollars.

I’m always interested in the software people use to help their creativity, so I thought I should write up one of my favorites that gets very little attention. It’s Keynote by Tranglos software and it’s an open-source Windows-based tabbed notebook. Check out some screenshots here.

Keynote sits in my system tray and I can hit CTRL-SHIFT-F12 at any time to call it up and start writing. Escape sends it back to the tray. Inside of Keynote, my first tab is a Notepad that I use for writing anything or saving temporary scraps of information. Then I have other tabs such as a “music” tab where I can enter potential song titles or ideas. It’s a tree view so all I have to do when I have an idea is hit CTRL-SHIFT-F12, select the music tab, hit enter to create a new tree node, type my idea + enter and I’m done. I can also enter data in that node as well, such as lyrics or chords or whatever I’d like.

I’ve tried a lot of these programs and even though there have ben no updates to Keynote since late 2003, I haven’t found anything that’s as fast, feature-rich and simple to use. I’d recommend to anyone looking to capture their ideas or is just an information packrat.

I checked out the recently launched MSN Music last night and was pretty impressed. The interface is slick and clean and previewing is entirely browser-based (looks like IE only), making it even simpler than iTunes to check out clips of new bands and much simpler than iTunes to send people to pages of the store.

Prices seem to be the same as iTunes and the format is of course WMA chock full of DRM. This means it’s incompatible with all the iPods out there, which is going to hurt it in the short term. Also as far as I know you can’t buy anything from the store in Canada so there’s not much else I can say about that.

Some suggestions:

• Put more bio and discography content in there. Become a useful music encyclopedia resource like Allmusic with easy previewing and purchasing of songs. Do this right and you’ll have a resource that web savvy types would be constantly sending new potential consumers to even if they themselves aren’t interested in the purchasing part.
• Let users embed song previews — and links to buy the song — on their websites. So if I wanted to make my killer mix of 80s hits I love and you should have, I could list them all on a page on my weblog here with 30 second previews and links through to buying the tracks from the MSN Music Store. Why would I do that? Because it’s easy, it costs me no bandwidth and is something I can’t easily do on my own. Giving people referral kickbacks like iTunes would obviously be an added bonus. This would be like the awesome iMix feature of iTunes except instead of being only useful to people who are already inside the store, it would be open to the majority of web users.
• Artist and record label RSS feeds. Why not give users the option of instant notification when there’s new stuff to buy on artist pages, or entire record labels. I can’t really see a downside. The catalog is a bit empty in some areas right now and I’d like to be able to watch for when stuff I want shows up.

All in all I’m pretty impressed. Now they just need to get my music in there (delivered on August 27!) and we’re all set.