After the weight of yesterday's post, I thought I'd keep things lighter today and share with you a fun little remix I recently completed of Megan Thee Stallion's hit Savage.
I hope you listen and enjoy and leave a comment if you do. I always love and appreciate the quality feedback from the Hive community.
a tech tug-of-war
Working in both GarageBand and Ableton is a trip, and it's not necessarily a fun one. Right now, it feels as if I'm wobbling between two platforms, and neither one is super satisfying to me. I like GarageBand because it is an old friend; I've been using it for years and years and the format is comfortable. However, I've reached near the limits of what I feel like I can feasibly do with it, and Apple's refusal to jump on board to just let us buy soundpacks for iPadOS is really annoying. I could gripe about that more, but I won't. Apple products have really been good to me over the years, and my music would not be where it is or even capable of being where it is now had I not had access to some of that technology early on.
Ableton is software I'm still getting used to, and because I still have the crutch of GarageBand, I keep straying away from because it takes so much of my focus at this point to get it to do what I want it to. It's so much fun to play around with--and I have a Launchpad X that I love to play with--but my laptop's processor gives me latency issues when dealing with MIDI--and that's another reason it's so much easier to just plug my MIDI controller into GarageBand and make it happen immediately.
Sidenote: If anyone has any clever ideas about how to make my MIDI latency go away in Ableton, I'm open to hear them. But please know that I'm into Advanced Troubleshooting here. I've tried dancing around with balances of sample rates and my drivers and the whole bit. So, if by any chance you have an amazing creative solution, I'd love to hear it.
I know everyone has their software preferences, but it starts to feel like everyone just picks a software suite, decides to learn it, and then tells everyone how superior they are. That's not my game. So. I'm vacillating between two programs that both pose huge limitations to me right now (or I present the limitation because my skillset in Ableton isn't where I'd prefer it to be, and definitely isn't fluent like it is in GarageBand).
¯ \ _ (ツ )_ / ¯ guffaw and harumph. ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
A Note Regarding My Posting Schedule and Format:
I've been in and around this ecosystem since the st33mit days, but I realize also that I am a new friend to many of you who have found your way to this platform during the various times I've been away. Every time I come back, I always just pick up where I left off, and I love making new friends in this ecosystem, so please don't hesitate to jump right in here like we've already been friends on here a long time. If you're here, we have alot in common already. This is me!
I'm trying intermitting the word count of my posts as well as mixing up the posting format and schedule a bit to see if that prevents me from suffering from the Hive burnout that I tend to do myself when I go full-on into this platform and really get into the writing. I take the work I do here seriously, even the fun work, and it important that I create quality content that you not only enjoy consuming and but also that adds value to the Hive ecosystem as a whole. That said, I have to figure out a way to do that that allows me the freedom to continue to post when things get overwhelming for me.
The system that seems to present the most opportunity for me I think is one where I long post 3 times a week or so, and leave the rest of the week's posts to let the art mostly speak for itself. There will be music, of course, as that is absolutely where my professional focus is. There will be lots of writing and poetry, as that is absolutely where my passions lie as an intentional creator.
However, I'm creatively all over the damn place, so I'll also intermittently be sharing thoughts on religion and spirituality, Weird Plastic Baby stuff (yes, he's still around), coffee-related stuff, perhaps a recipe or two for some banging mocktails, digital visual art and collage as I do, field trips and killer hole-in-the-wall food reviews, and I'm also really contemplating bringing back Handwritten Ramblings, as I enjoyed that period of time so much and had a great time sharing the handwritten word with you on the blockchain. This blog has always been random, so that's not going to change. Might even increase...definitely will increase. Click any of the links above to check out some samples of the content you'll find here, and please give me a follow if you dig it. :)
This is my emotional support blog (if you couldn't already tell).
So many things are up in the air right now, and I'm honestly hesitant to commit to any schedule of any variety right now, but this is what I'm going to try. I love being here and a part of this community; I love it so much, in fact, that I end up going way too hard and I burn out and want to throw it all in the fire. I'm at a point in my life where I'm really trying to navigate everything in the healthiest possible space, and appreciate your grace in advance as I'm trying to get what I need out of Hive (a fucking outlet and sounding board), and not get too invested in it that I burnout or flip out. I'm trying to avoid that, y'all.
a word. a sound. an image. an idea.
Thank you for always being so awesome. I greatly appreciate your suggestions, upvotes, reblogs, follows, and comments. The genuine spirit of creation, sharing, and constructive transparency in this community are what make it so special.
Follow me 
for more assorted randomness!
for more assorted randomness!Click here to read my very first intro post from 2016--wow, that's a long time ago.
ALL proceeds from my Hive account go toward furthering my career as a real-life, full-time artist and creator. It's a dream that you help make possible. This includes needed equipment, recording costs, gas to and from out of state gigs, and things like food when I'm on the road. To be a full-time creator has been my goal for as long as I can remember, and your upvotes absolutely help me to sustain that. All of my love and thanks to you.💚
All photos, unless otherwise credited, are taken or chopped/screwed/edited/altered by me and are hosted either here or at Imgur. Stock photos are used with permission from Pexels, and banners are made using Canva for iOS.
