Small Pleasures, Tiny Blessings

I love the little things I find in the details of life. I love looking at a person, getting to know a little about them, and seeing how the bits and pieces of their lives have made them who they are. I love seeing the small, seemingly insignificant blessings of life, too. These are some of my favorite things. To me, it's like receiving a card from the Almighty. It reads:  "Hey, I was thinking about you today, so I thought I'd drop you a note. Take care. Remember there's someone up here that loves you." These little blessings communicate to me that circumstances have fallen in my favor on a tiny scale in such a way as to seem customized and hand-crafted. I've shared this most recent occurrence with some friends. They most often haven't shared my excitement, especially given the technicality of the story's details. Knowing that you, my readership, are technically savvy, I share it with you now.
   
I recently purchased some hardware for my home studio. I had been using a Firewire interface (the M-Audio Solo pictured at top) belonging to my friend/studio partner/guitar player buddy, Dale. It hadn't been a problem, as he didn't actually have his home studio up and running at the time, but with the day fast approaching, I deemed it necessary to get mine up and running ASAP.  

A recent mad-money windfall equipped me to purchase two pieces of equipment. I purchased a M-Audio Firewire 1814 audio interface and a Røde NT1A large diaphragm condenser microphone (pictured at middle and bottom respectively). I have a couple of dynamic mics, both Shure SM58 knock-offs, but I felt I needed a LDC mic for better vocals and perhaps a better representation for acoustic guitars and other non-electric instruments. My research showed that the NT1A was a well-favored microphone (at the right price, too). Running Pro-Tools M-Powered, I was somewhat forced to purchase M-Audio hardware, and the 1814 had what I wanted (inputs/outputs), also for the right price.

Like a kid at Christmas, I opened the box from Musician's Friend, eager to plug in my new purchases. As is the case with most audio hardware that interfaces with a computer, the 1814 was shipped with a useless CD of outdated, non-working drivers, so I skipped directly to the M-Audio website and downloaded the latest thing for my OS (XP SP3). I plugged in the 1814 and immediately noticed problems I had never experienced with the Solo. XP ran much slower and was very unstable. When I started ProTools, it would take forever to load, assuming it didn't crash (it did that on quite a few occasions). If I got ProTools up and running, opening a project file took another eternity. During these long periods of waiting, there was no disk activity, leading me to believe it was a hangup of some kind. When/if a project file opened, playback of audio sounded distorted, with a buzzing like a car's speaker with a loose or torn cone.

Needless to say, I was thoroughly frustrated. Deductive reasoning told me it was most likely a M-Audio problem, so I got online and submitted a support ticket. This type of support is not timely, so I waited. First response asked me for a list of IRQs (these are numbers identifying hardware, allowing that hardware to demand the attention of the CPU when necessary). I sent the IRQs and received a response telling me that I more than likely had a Firewire card problem (the thing the 1814 used to connect to the computer). I figured this was simple buck-passing, as hardware/software companies are notorious for blaming some other component for failure, but I began researching for a Firewire card that met M-Audio's specifications for Firewire cards. I found one that was reputable and only $30. This was only $30 more than I wanted to spend, but I accepted the inevitability of the event and prepared to shell out more simoleons.

One night, unable to sleep, I took apart my machine to determine if I had room for either a PCI-Express or regular PCI Firewire card. In the process, I noticed something that I had either forgotten or failed to pick up on initially. My Pinnacle video capture card, which has a multi-conductor jack for a breakout box (inputs/outputs for the video capture card), also had three Firewire ports on it. I thought, What the heck! Let's plug into it and see what happens. First, I plugged in the Solo, which Vista and XP recognized. Then I fired up ProTools with the Solo. Everything worked as it should. Then I boldly plugged in the 1814, fingers crossed, and fired up ProTools. As you have now guessed, it worked just fine. In light of this discovery, I pulled the old Firewire card. It had been a cheap one I purchased out of need, apparently enough for the Solo but not enough for the 1814. According to M-Audio, it's something about "not enough recourses", but that's above even my head.

Connecting to the original thought now:  I was impressed that the solution ended up being so simple. The solution was already in place, even before I discovered the problem, and it didn't cost me one extra dime. There you are, friends:  thirty of my hard-earned dollars, still available for something else. Go ahead and roll your eyes. Go ahead and show your godless skepticism. I know who solved my Firewire problems, and I am truly grateful for His input.