:(

I am discouraged. Mightily so.

Of course, I wasn't able to tear myself away from the Acid studio, like I said I would. I was so happy with how things were turning out. I wasn't sure how I'd done it, but the kinks in the program seemed to be worked out. I spent way too much time playing with it, but I was getting results.

So I had big plans for today. I'd done about as much as I wanted to do on "The Wait". Even the take that I thought was unusable turned out sounding halfway decent. I had another song I wanted to record this afternoon, called "Your Letter". It's another one that a couple of my friends enjoy.

I even bought a new set of strings and changed out the old ones. I was determined that the next few projects I started would sound as good as possible, and new strings would definitely contribute to that. I once read, in "Musician" magazine, that you should never record anything without new strings. I am sure that's good advice, but it's not as if I can afford to drop eight bucks every time my strings get dirty. But the ones I had on there were certainly in need of replacements.

I set everything up and settled in for a fun day in the studio.

At first things seemed to be fine as far as the recording program went. The screw-ups were my own. I couldn't nail the song and was dissatisfied with every single take. After a few hours with no luck, I took a break, hoping to come back to it with a fresh perspective.

I decided to put "Your Letter" on the back-burner temporarily. I might have come back to it later this evening. Then again, I might not, as I started another one, "Zen Song", and I may well have worked it up decently. But then the program started giving me problems. The same synchronization issues as I had a couple of days ago. I tried rendering 3 tracks into a new wav file and using it as a foundation. This seemed to work Thursday. Not today, though. I made several attempts with absolutely no luck whatsoever.

6 hours into the session and I gave up. It makes me mad that I can't fix the problem. It makes me mad that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Most of all, it makes me mad that all the songs I wanted to record over the next several weeks will have to wait until the issues are all resolved. Who knows when that will be? I don't have a clue what to do and I don't know anyone who could help me.

Maybe I'll check to see if there is a tech support number I can call. But it won't be any time soon. I am disgusted with the whole thing. I'm ready to take a long break. I know, I know. I said I was ready a couple of days ago. This time I mean it.

At least I got a new set of strings...