Saturday, December 15, 2018

T2DM Recording Interferrence

T2DM is the acronym for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus or what most people know as type 2 diabetes.

In SEP 2018 I was notified that I became type2 and on OCT5 I began a very agressive effort to combat this damaging disease.

Meanwhile as you might suspect I was not feeling well, sleeping throughout day, feeling tired and not getting anything done. This was a triple-whammy for me because the previous year was Ulnar Neuropathy in my elbows, arms, hands and fingers which got in the way of me playing any music at all; let alone recording. I felt my dreams crashing down all around me and depression began to set in agressively.

It took real gumption and fortitude, but I prayed and also did the work and got back onto my feet and now have reasonable healthy blood sugar (bg) levels. My newfound diet is near perfect and I am already habitualized, so I have crossed the Lifestyle Change finish line. More work ahead. I am aiming for 80-90bg and waking 118-135; still too high. I am on Metformin every 12 hours. It is my plan to run this program through 2019 and at this same time next year (Dec 15, 2019) get OFF medication and maintain my T2 health with Lifestyle.

I am still dealing with post-concussive headaches from the brain injury sustained in 1993. However, I have greatly reduced the recovery time, with new records as low as 1 HOUR. This is a true milestone. The same headaches I had back then consuming 30 to over 100 hours, now I am diminishing them in 1 to 3 hours!

Now music. I began in 2007 by purchasing Yamaha total recall hardware. I did this specifically because of headaches. I was down and in bed more than I was on my feet. So by the time I got back onto my feet and back into studio may be 2 weeks; sometimes more. Of course, before total recall hardware, when I tried to get back to work, I didn't have a clue where I had left off. Thus, total recall hardware so everything just snaps back into place exactly where I left off and I would also write some notes to help cue me in when I returned from a headstorm.

So now 26 years later (and since 2007 when I began the idea of recording using 01X) I have battled a continued onslaught of the aforementioned issues; with exception of type2 diabetes which I only became diagnosed SEP 2018.

It took me a while to get into my groove as to WHERE I like to create, write and possibly record songs. Typically, I get a prototype idea and do that in Garage Band on iPad and give it a nice long file name which is descriptive including date and various synth settings, etc., But I can return to these creative snippets 6 months or a year or two later and the filenames make sense and I don't lose ideas amongst the onslaught of headaches.

Back to my groove. I like to work in the kitchen the most. Right now I am tracking on MOTIF.XF and will then shoot those tracks to my MacBookPro into StudioOne4, then begin vocals and any other instrument arrangements. I usually begin with 4 tracks; drums, bass and keys, sometimes I may include an arpeggio guitar as a placeholder then record that part playing a real guitar. Other times not; will play the guitar on keyboard workstation. From here, the DAW tracks are processed through Console1 SSL4000E, mixed, mastered and sent to CDR replication. My hardest challenge is finishing something I know isn't up to my own standards and expectations. Nevertheless, I must press forward regardless of the results because this is the only way to produce something. So I am in a very tight window now. I have about 8 days to finish this song in order to be in time to replicate some CDR for NAMM2019.

Meanwhile, I am still [truly] in a war with type2, headaches and striving to accomplish this mission. Seems like I am praying much more too.

Stay tuned for upcoming news about this topic.


HHNET

Monday, August 20, 2018

BUSY TIMES


Hello and welcome to my blog.

I haven't blogged since the passing of my friend Dan Goodman plus a slew of other funerals. However, I will be blogging on a regular basis now.

You can also keep an eye on me on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/happyharrynet

http://facebook.com/nasavstudios


Currently, I am writing and editing lyrics for songs to get them ready for recording. My diesel dually transmission needs replacement. The Lake County fires brought to my attention that my truck could not tow my 19,000 lbs. home up grades greater than 5%. Further, I need to finish up my website designs and get them constructed and published for desktop, tablet and phone.


You can easily contact me any time on my website:

http://hhnet.me AND I am on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/happyharrynet


If you have questions please, always do ask. Matter of fact I will be publishing a new website entitled, "Ask Harry" just for that purpose.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing much more about my life and my musical adventures.


HHNET

Sunday, December 11, 2016

The 12 Months of Christmas > for Dan Goodman


Dan encouraged me to take my songwriting and recording engineering to the next level. We discussed everything from preamps to ASCAP and we intimately conversed about the 4416’s routing schematic; which I have hard-copy.

The very first time I heard his voice [phone] I really liked him; he was straight forward and calming when he offered suggestions or instructed me. We had several unforgettable phone calls.

For some reason, I thought Dan lived in Southern California. I had never bothered to ask him or even check; after his passing, I was shocked to learn he lived less than 100 miles from me and sailed the same San Francisco Bay that I had 30 years ago > we never discussed sailing.

In 2008, I bought my 4416; so all of these Yahoo4416 guys were already 7 years friends with Dan and the forums before I came onboard. And these Facebook groups didn’t exist yet.

Admittedly, I joined the Yahoo4416 group more than a year before buying my 44; I was still learning 01X and mLAN and I always had my heart set on getting a 4416 ever since I knew Yamaha made them. So Ronny Morris' Yahoo.4416 group was like technical therapy for me. Also a slew of talented, creative guys that continue there and now on Facebook.

In December 2015, as a gift, Dan offered to master one of my songs. I had recorded a Barry Manilow song at the last minute just before Christmas. Dan's critique of my recording was clear. He told me, “…that he added a bit of his TLC to the master bus, but he didn’t touch anything else; he didn’t even remix the stems, telling me, '…your song out of the box was already properly mastered.” During my last phone call with Dan, he reiterated to me, “Harry you mentioned producing other musicians; you should. Because you’re really good at this.” That is the highest compliment anyone has ever given me.

This Christmas, illuminate somebody in your life. They deserve your recognition and to be written about > Merry Christmas, Dan.


—HHNET

TELL SANTA WHAT YOU WANT @ http://happyharry.net

Monday, July 27, 2015

Dan Goodman's Memorial

12 NOON
Arriving timely I was greeted by Dan's wife's brother. We spoke for 3-5 minutes and I entered the funeral home and signed the guest book: "HappyHarryNET HHNET (signed) Harry James, Kelseyville, CA". Inside was very nice. His urn was a nice ocean blue. On the left was Dan's photo from 1976 writing next to his piano. To the right was a large wreath of soft white and pink carnations blended with roses matching the soft, light scheme. There was a center LED panel with Dan waving from his sail boat. On the far right was a Spray entitled, "A Fond Farewell" which Wiz and John made happen for all of us in the 4416 community to be in attendance. Then there were these two sailing ships. They looked like they were carved glass. And the sail on one of them was a transparent sapphire blue. And the other sailing boat sail was a soft aqua marine transparent teal. They were the most beautiful things I have seen in many years. Dan's family members accepted me and made me feel a member of their family. It was a wonderful experience and they are wonderful people to surround yourself with. The reception afterward at Dan's home was calm and pleasant with good vibrations abound. Their home is decorated in a very specific and appropriate way with classic and modern flare. From philosophical statements on a wall to pinball machines to Pachinko. A piano sits nearby his massive home theater and 160 degree sofa. And, then there is where Dan works. For privacy reasons all I will say is that I was allowed into his studio and spent 3-5 minutes, "taking it all in".



CLOSING
Dan's family graciously accepted me and took me in. Their eulogy shares brought me closer to Dan; even in some cases it answered questions I had wondered, because Dan was always a dear person to me. In the last year talking with him on the telephone, I grew very close to Dan. Dan offering to master my 2014 Christmas song as a gift was very meaningful and he included me as his peers when he told me my mix didn't need much really. Good, solid mix Harry; you can master yourself and your aspirations to produce other artists will become a reality for you. This is how Dan and I talked to each other. He mentors me graciously, always accurate (I just love that) and yet loose, creative, fun and musical; much as myself. Dan leaves us with bright hope in everything we choose to do.

HappyHarryNET
HHNET
Harry James

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Changes Coming

Recognizing that changes are coming may be the most important sensitivity a person can know during their life time.

Just sayin'.



—HHNET

Thursday, December 04, 2014

Irons In The Fire

Now that it's my holiday time and dogHOUSE is inactive until after new years I am asserting my efforts to finish constructing the new HHNET websites for 2015 and dedicate more time to recording songs.

HHNET

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Windows 8 Bit Me Again

After a smooth factory recovery of Windows 8, I installed the few apps I use and as usual DISABLE Windows updates and things were smooth sailing.

Then a couple hours later I made adjustments to a secondary Admin login and restarted the PC and suddenly Windows 8 is downloading updates and installing them. After the update and another restart, this 3.4GHz i5 turned into quicksand and had serious right.click context menu wait times and hangups! There was no escape other than to sign.out of the account, but even my Admin account desktop was trashed in the same manner.

So, I absurdly chose to try a System Restore. I chose the Restore point which would put the machine back to where it was at PRIOR to the Windows update. I CAN READ. Windows clearly displayed that to be the case.

The System Restore took 1 hour 5 minutes to complete for 60GB of 2TB HDD. Worse yet, System Restore did NOT reinstate my PC's status prior to the updates. It returned the machine to a new Windows 8 install. None of the software applications I installed, nor Stardock's Start8 or Fences was present. Further, NONE OF MY SETTINGS were saved as System Restore said they would be.

I performed a new Factory Recovery from DVD and was back to square one in LESS time than the System Restore screw up consumed! What a joke. Mac.OSX would never behave like this, nor HAS it ever behaved like this with regards to moving forward or reverse in time with the operating system.

So, for this install of Windows 8, I disabled Windows Update appropriately AND made registry edits to ENSURE that Windows CANNOT turn the damn updates on again!

And all I did was get on the PC to format two SD cards with SDFormatter. Sheesh.


HHNET