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I honestly haven't been making much music with my computers for a pretty long while now.  It makes me sort of bummed out since I love doing it so much.  I guess part of it is that I haven't really felt comfortable doing it since I've been over in this apartment.  It's hard to say why I haven't been comfortable, though.  I'm pretty sure it is two things.  1) I can't seem to get my stuff set up in an ergonomically positive way, and 2) It makes me sad to make music now.  I've been avoiding it to be honest.

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When I first moved into the apartment, I was focusing on trying to practice my Stick™.... but that's soort of fallen by the wayside as well.  It's sort of a lame thing to hope that a new coomputer will help me make music again... but that's exactly what I'm doing.

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The cool thing about the MacBookPro that I want is that it's so much faster than my current machine.  There's a new version of Logic (I've been using version 6 for a long time now... that's pre-apple ownership!).  I actually started using Logic at version 3 (!) on a PC around 1994 or so.  It's a great program, but it's getting too difficult to do some of the things I want to do.  mostly running plug-ins.  So more recently (in the last year or so), I've been using multiple computers to do different things.  For example, on my PowerBook, I've been running Max/MSP and Logic (usually not together).  I farm out most of the plug-ins to other machines so that they aren't actually running as plug-ins.  I can run Max/MSP or Logic and have the Pluggo plug-ins from Cycling74 natively on the PB.  I canusually get Absynth to run, too.  But as soon as I load up my other favorites (seriously, these things are great!) on the PowerBook, everything bogs down.  It's a real pain and a real buzz-kill when I get inspired.  

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So I've been running the "controller" applications (Logic/MAX/MSP) on the PowerBook along with the plugings that I get get to run without boggind down the machine.... then I run other apps on other machines.  I've been running Reaktor on a Quicksilver G4,  Reason of a VERY old Powerbook (450 mHz/1Gb RAM), and my favorite Artuia emulations on yest another old PowerBook.  So I have Reason on an outboard machine and my CS-80 and Arp on yet another machine. 

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What I'm hoping now that to be able to run at least the Absynth, CS-80, and Arp2600 on the local MacBookPro (along with the built-in instruments that come in the Logic package) and run Reason and/or Reaktor on an outboard machine if I have to.  So we'll see if that works.  I really very badly want to simplify my setup.  The cool thing is that I won't have all that much software to buy/upgrade for a cost.  Logic runs $149 for the Academic version & Max/MSP is $199 for the upgrade to version 5 (I think that's the current version anyhow).  All my plug ins have free downloads for the Universal Binary versions.  So that's a pretty cool thing.  If I can whittle down my setup to TWO computers (plus maybe my Kurzweil K2500 sampler), then I think I will have a MUCH more streamlined setup.  I think honestly that this will make my inspiration able to "flow" rather than be beset by non-sensical technical issues.  

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The SUPER nice thing will (I hope) by the idea that I won't have to actually be IN MY STUDIO to have to generate ideas.  I tend to generate ideas in odd places (at work, at my parents' house, out at a coffee house, etc.).  having more of my tools on ONE machine will be a wonderful thing!  I can always take that rough draft back to the studio to finish things up (and think more seriously about what the piece really should be about).  So anyhow, I'm pretty excited.  I'll probably get the machine & Logic to start.  Then head back & get Max/MSP later.  It's cool.  Very cool.