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!

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.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately - mostly regarding music, what I’m doing musically and why.
What’s the point, really? Why do I have all the gear I’ve got? What’s my goal?

I don’t strife to be in-the-spotlight-famous - don’t think I could coup with that. But I’d like to become someone. I’d like to produce and be a part of something people refer to as “really good” or “simply amazing”. I’d like to play live at more trance parties. I’d like to support, or produce, a big music act.

I’m not giving up, nor am I selling my hardware equipment even though I’m using software solely today - and I got more software coming…

I ended up in third place in a remix competition which was extremely fun, but it didn’t seem to get me anywhere.

But in the end, it’s the heart-warming comments that really is the driving force behind my music creativity.

Tongue-tied Twisted at the Digitally Imported forum wrote the following when listening to Heliosphere:
“was gonna call it a day at wrk… simply cant now….!!!!! yyeeaahh”
There are some other really amazing comments as well which I’m reading a little now and then when I need it. Those can lift me up when I’m down and inspire me to continue creating music.

Fans, friends, family and lover - Thank You for Listening and boosting my driving force!

Next up: mindXpander Live @ Mimerlaven, Norbergfestivalen. See you there!

My remix ended up in third place, which means that you’ll soon be able to buy it at Klicktrack and iTunes and hopefully be able to stream it via Spotify.

HUGE thank you to everyone who voted for me!

My Pretorium remix of Emmon’s track “Lips On Fire” is one of five to win the remix competition over at Release Magazines site.

You can listen to the five final remixes in the player to the right at the site and then vote via e-mail.

Now I need Your help to reach what could be my, and Cut & Paste’s, big break!