OSX Mountain Lion? Yes.

To get things clear, I was a huge PC fan up until 2004 when a friend introduced me to the coolest, cleanest, most polished computer realm that existed.  I entered the Mac world right around the time Leopard was introduced.  My wife purchased a MacBook Pro for me; a pre-unibody that was maxed on ram and hard-drive space.  Leopard was a great OS to learn Mac on, because it was simple, efficient, and powerful.  When Mac introduced Snow Leopard, many of my friends were complaining about paying money for a “small” upgrade. 

Now, many of those friends refuse to upgrade to Lion because of how solid Snow Leopard truly was.  I was skeptical about Lion when it was released, but the moment Pro Tools became compatible, I dove in.  I wasn’t exceptionally thrilled with Lion, but it was a little more polished and integrated a few great iOS ideas.  So, when apple announced Mountain Lion last year, I was once again skeptical.  If Lion wasn’t so impressive, how is a year of development going to bring a great experience back to the Mac? 

They do it by rounding up all the loose ends Lion left answered.  Once Avid (Pro Tools) stated there were minimal issues with Mountain Lion, I dove in again.  It feels like an entire upgrade from Snow Leopard, which truly fits the Apple release model.  Think of the iPhone.  The last two models have been released with an updated model to tide over Apple junkies (which I shamelessly am) until a revolutionary product can be released the following year.  Lion is the initial product, like the iPhone 4, while Mountain Lion makes the initial product its best, like the iPhone 4s.

I would like to share a few of my favorite features from the little time I’ve spent with the OS.  The first treat I wanted to try was AirPlay mirroring from my MacBook Pro.  It was as simple as clicking on the display preferences tab and clicking on Apple TV.  I was streaming my computer’s desktop to my 46” TV in 1080p, and was immediately impressed with the picture quality and sharpness of the font.  There’s some lag, but that will probably be addressed in 10.8.1 or a nearby release.

In the top right corner there is a new icon, which pulls your notification center from the right side.  While many see the notification center as minor iOS integration, it is a hot feature for me because I knew having it would allow me to integrate my calendars, and receive notifications from whichever device I’m sitting at.  The final feature I’m enjoying is the new built-in dictation feature.  So far it has been extremely accurate, and has allowed me to dictate an entire paragraph without a break, or error.

To me, Mountain Lion feels like a new and complete OS.  I could never figure out what made Lion feel so unworthy of being a new OS version until I tried the newest platform.  Thankfully, Apple tied up one final loose end to maximize the Mountain Lion experience.  All transitions and effects appear to happen cleanly, and without lag.  I am comfortable in the Mountain Lion world, just like I was in Snow Leopard.  That’s always subject to change though, especially since the experience has been short so far.

How Many Plug-ins Do You Need?

A debate that I've seen come up more frequently is how many plug-ins are too much?  For the past few years, I have been nearly obsessed with expanding my plug-in and sample collection.  It has recently come to my attention that I have been nowhere near as productive I once was when I had so little.  How could one possibly do so much less with an endless supply of dynamics processors, reverbs, instruments, modulators, filters, and samples?

I had to take some time to reflect on my creative past.  While my knowledge in the technicalities of music has grown drastically, the connection with my creative and natural musical ability have diminished.  Sometimes I feel like knowing the tricks behind the most popular music has destroyed my drive for this industry.  Other times I have to use those same techniques because it's the sound a client wants.  Getting caught up in the 'owning of things' has really made me lose touch with the music world.

When you have every plug-in under the sun, you can't pinpoint what your favorite EQ or compressor are because you haven't spent a ton of time with just one.  If you spend all of your time trying new plug-ins, you'll never get good at the excellent ones you already have in your arsenal.  To be quite honest, I still haven't found an RTAS EQ that sounds better than the EQ-7 band that already comes with Pro Tools.  That is simply because I haven't spent enough time with any other EQ.

Lately, I've been forcing myself to mess around with a few plug-ins for a period of time.  If I like how one of them works, I specifically use that one every time until I get comfortable with it.  If I feel I can't run a session without it, it becomes a piece of my permanent arsenal.  If I feel it needs more features, I'll try another one.  The point is to get familiar with a set group, so your efficiency and quality are continuously allowed to improve.

Now that I have narrowed down my plug-ins list, I feel a little more comfortable in front of performers.  For a while, I began picking plug-ins at random to see if I could find some sort of 'wow' effect.  That really slows down your mix time, and gives your performer a chance to step in and suggest some crap plug-in you accidentally left installed on your computer.  Work with what you know, get great at it, expand if it's necessary, and experiment with free time.

The following list are some of the plug-ins I've made permanent members of my family:

Waves L3 Multimaximizer - Mastering Suite

Stock 7-Band EQ in Pro Tools - EQ

Native Instruments' Kontakt - Library Sampler

iZotope Iris - Sampler

Rob Papen Albino - Synthesizer