2012 had its good points...Some interesting projects to work on including a feature and a couple of short films amongst the TV and radio work...Some good progress with the house and gardens, including some big earthworks which have solved our drainage and septic tank problems and the adding on of the new piece of land. However, the illness of a family member and the resultant stresses and strains made for a bit of an annus horribilis, as Her Majesty would say...So we are thrusting ourselves into 2013 with a new sense of blind optimism!!!
The new vegetable patch area is coming along nicely. Two slightly raised beds have been constructed and a picket fence will surround them soon (if the snow allows). Then the greenhouse can be put up along with another large shed and compost bins. We had a successful bonfire yesterday because the wind direction was perfect and took the smoke away from our nearest neighbours and the fellow thatched cottage across the field. The embers glowed and gave out a nice heat until sunset. I went out to check it was safe and watched the stars come out by the warmth of the fire and the internal warmth provided by some 12 year old Bowmore from my hip flask. Lovely!!!
Another thing to make life easier is a system for checking the level of heating oil in the tank from indoors via a radio sensor which communicates with a meter indoors. This saves going out in all weathers and peering into the tank armed with a stick. We're still testing it, but it does seem to be working reliably.
I've installed Cubase 7 on my music computer. I had a problem with crashes when trying to connect up a soft synth, but solved it by starting Cubase in safe mode (press control+shift+alt just after launching the program) and resetting preferences in the pop-up that appears. I reckon that this is a good thing to do anyway, especially if you've been through a few different versions with the same preferences.
I then managed to solve a video problem I was having with Cubase 6.5. It was telling me to update my graphics card or driver. Video handling was fine in Cubase 5 and the computer was telling me that I had the newest driver installed. However, a visit to GeForce (the maker of my Nvidea graphics card) and running their online driver detect feature found that I did need to upgrade the drivers. So, now I have a fully functioning Cubase 7.
One disappointment is that Omnisphere doesn't like working in the same set up as Kontakt 5. I've always had problems with this, but I found out a setting change which might make a difference...Will report back soon.
Another niggle is that the only video files that can be played are Quicktimes. This is only a minor point though because video conversion can be done very quickly these days and also I don't think I've been sent anything other than a Quicktime for quite a while.
I'll post more detals in general as I get to grips with it, but it seems to be very stable and I like the look of the new mixer with the inline gate and limiters.
