Steven Fedrick: Welcome Home

Fedrick will celebrate a birthday milestone this weekend in Tyler Texas with his family.  He's asked that the occasion be kept low key.   This request suits his manager's challanged organizational ability. 

"Hopefully, and knowing her", Fedrick stated, "it will be a non-event."

"This last year has been transitional in some ways.  (Cliche alert) My heart attack three years ago gave me a different awareness of my place in the here and now.  This birthday has brought all that into sharp focus again and wacked me in the head besides.  I don't need a lot of hoop-la to know I'm blessed with good friends and family, although cash would be nice."

Happy Birthday, Steven. 

Fedrick crossed over to the other side this week with his purchase of an iMac.  Why the change?  Years ago, he'd read an article in WSJ about the ease of working with Garage Band recording software which comes standard with the iMac to produce a very sophisticated sound.   At the time he had a PC so he opted to purchase Adobe Audition instead which is the means by which he recorded, mixed and mastered Fedrick not Fred last year.   But Audition's capacity was not matched by it's ease of use.  Fedrick was often frustrated.

"When I discovered my pc motherboard was fried, it was time to re-evaluate my options and visited the Apple Store in Fort Worth.  That synched it.  Apple has a service called One to One which allows you to interface with a live person at the store in real time to learn programs, including Garage Band but goes further and allows you to work on projects at the store with mentors close at hand.

With the purchase of the iMac and the recent purchase of the Boss BR-1200 CD Digital Recording Studio, Fedrick is ready to start recording his second album.    

A record breaking winter strom blanketed the Dallas Fort Worth area in a foot of snow and left over 180,000 people including Fedrick without electricity.  Luckily, Steven spent the weekend camped out on  his sister's couch.   She lives in the same town but didn't lose her electricity.

"I've never seen N. Texas as strickingly beautiful as it was on Friday morning, February 12.  Before sunrise, the nearby town lights reflected off the cloudy winter sky back onto the snow covered landscape which lit the world in a eerie pinkish glow."

Fedrick returned home after electricity was restored to find the power supply in his personal computer had burned out with the surge. 

"My PC is about five or six years old but since it has plenty of memory and I have plenty of patience I wasn't looking to replace it just yet.  But depending on the repair cost, I may go ahead and invest in a new one.  Several friends suggest I look at the Apple IMAC since a PC is the heart of my home studio. 

Fedrick is not very concerned about studio down time since lately he's focusing on composing not recording new material.