Years ago I was wandering around London with several recording engineer/journalist types, when I made an offhand complaint about the interminable wait I was going through during hard drive backups at the end of every day's session. Zach McNees quickly asked me if I was using any backup software. I replied that I was simply overwriting entire folders of sessions. "You need Synchronize! Pro X," Zach promptly exclaimed. When I returned home, I installed this file synchronization and backup utility software (for Mac OS only) and gave it a try. Immediately what had been 45 minute overwrites turned into only 3- or 4-minute synchronizations, depending on how many GB of audio we had recorded or generated that day. There are probably all sorts of other routines I could be doing with this app, like automated, scheduled backups or such, but I just use this in the most bonehead way and update my session folders to my personal drive every night before heading home. I'm not a very computer tech savvy person, and I felt kinda dumb for not looking into this sooner, but now I've been using Synchronize! Pro X for years. I've never had an issue, I've saved hours of time, and my personal life has improved by getting out of the studio quickly (and safely) at the end of the day!
Effects, Plug-Ins | No. 49
Tobybear MiniHost VST player, Simple-Media Spook Keys, Piz Mr. Alias, Elogoxa Sun Ra, SyncerSoft Polyvoks Station, Oli Larkin SE64, Tweakbench Rebar
by J. Robert Lennon
Free VST plug-ins for Windows Like a lot of people who read this magazine, I'm a hardware guy, and I've resisted using computers to make my music for a long time. But I recently realized that you...