Praying to the Tech Gods
Originally uploaded by CC Chapman.

I have a whole lot of love for [tag]technology[/tag], but sometimes that love ain’t reciprocated. Lately [tag]MatthewEbel.com[/tag] has gone through a few database issues- there’s nothing I love more than waking up to an instant message from a friend asking:

So what’s up with your website?

I dread those six words more than a tax audit. Fortunately, I’m enough of a geek to unravel my website and smooth it out again, but it’s still not a fun task first thing in the morning.

I was also put in my place in the middle of a simple live concert recently. The plan was to play an outdoor [tag]concert[/tag], bring a bunch of cameras to tape a [tag]DVD[/tag], record the keyboards and vocals seperately with my portable audio rig, stream a mix into [tag]Second Life[/tag], stream the video live via [tag]UStream[/tag], and actually perform for a crowd of [tag]New England[/tag] fans. As I said, simple.

Apparently my [tag]MOTU[/tag] [tag]828mkII[/tag] interface is not fond of the August heat, even up in [tag]Boston[/tag]. No interface, no sound. We had to punt both the feeds, run the vocals through a cheap USB interface, use only one keyboard and run it through [tag]Garage Band[/tag] (God, how I love Garage Band) via [tag]MIDI[/tag] in order to get any sound at all for the live audience. The worst part? The cheap interface introduced all kinds of static noise, so the audio isn’t even close to DVD quality.

*sigh*

At the end of the day, all I had were a thousand awesome photos, an audience that had a good time, [tag]weasels[/tag] that love me (see the photos for details), some great video, and a bunch of new friends. So maybe technology did me a favor, I don’t know. All I can tell you is there’s a delicate balance to this see-saw, and sometimes you’re not the one on the upper end.