This is an old entry that I haven’t published until now…

I’m facing extremely irritating problems with my DAW at the moment. Nothing really works, at all, sort of.

Motu have finally released the new firewire driver for Windows 7 so I could, for the first time ever, use my Motu 828mkII under Windows 7. My Windows 7 installation hasn’t crashed a single time (since February) until now – when I’ve applied this driver. I’m not using Windows 7 to produce music since I haven’t had a functioning sound card (no – the crap on my mainboard is nothing remotely close to a sound card even though it can produce sound). So I’ve been using Windows Vista (64 bit Ultimate edition) which have been a solid platform. Cubase 4 have always had its little bugs and quirks but have been marching on rather good still. I bought Native Instruments Komplete 5 when it was on a big sale last summer and that’s when things started to happen. Absynth can take down everything upon loading. It’s actually a gamble using it and that’s why I haven’t explored it as much as I would. Reaktor, Kontakt, Massive and FM8 works nice though, so that’s what I’m using the most at the moment. I thought about upgrading to Komplete 6 but there’s no point when the shit doesn’t work - is there? And that’s in Vista. It works like a charm on my newly purchased MacBook Pro.

Back to Windows 7. After the driver for the Motu 828mkII have been installed the system is anything but stable. It can crash when I hit play in Winamp, then the screen-saver starts or when the login prompt is shown. Motu won’t acknowledge the problem and my only solution is not to use Windows 7, which I’m luckily only has a free trial version of.

But, I’ve managed to produce two remixes for the Little Boots remix competition. One co-produced with Patrik and one on my own.

Patrik’s own, Gearsluts remix, can be found here:
Little Boots - “Earthquake (Gearsluts Shaky 16th Remix)”

Neither of them got to the finals, but we’re still very pleased with them anyway.

I’ve also produced a remix for “My Despair” by In Strict Confidence and that competition will be decided in March. Fingers crossed!

mindXpander have been booked for a new live gig on the 19^th of February.

More info can be found on our Facebook page.

There’s a preview of a new Ypsilon 5 track uploaded at the Ypsilon 5 Facebook page.

Have a listen and comment if you like, or dislike, it!

I teamed up with Patrik to do a remix of “Tricky Tricky” by Röyksopp for their remix competitions. Since we joined ventures on this on we also had to give it a great name - “Gearsluts International vs Pretorium Remix”- and that is exactly what it is. Fingers crossed that it goes all the way this time.

Patrik and I have also started to work more seriously on the upcoming mindXpander album.

It’s going to be an interesting autumn - that’s for sure.

If you’re a mindXpander fan I urge you to listen to the next episode of Magic Beat on Radio Nova. There will be a Norbergfestival coverage, so tune in.
For real. Do it! Surprises are coming up!

On Friday at 21:00 CET (9pm for 12-hour readers) you should point your browsers to http://www.radionova.no/ and klick “LYTT” up in the left corner. That’s it. The programme is in Norwegian but who cares? The music’s great! ;o)

I also think you should be a fan at our Facebook page.

I’m having a Richard X moment at the office right now. Here’s my Richard X playlist at Spotify.