Meantime, I turned fifty (Holy Catfish!) and various passings in my family plus my own health misadventures impressed upon me the fragility and transitory nature of life. A little introspection led me to the conclusion that it was time to get back to serious fun work, creating music and studying sound. I asked Berklee for a year's leave, they said no, and so I quit Berklee, exchanging the pleasures of chasing papers and deadlines for the drudgery of studying and composing music, and writing about it. Sumbich!

This leads back to what I said at the beginning. I want a studio in my living room, and I'm now in the process of building it. Given the name of this magazine, it seems reasonable to me to share with you my adventure and the various insights I am acquiring along the way. These insights may help you in your own similar efforts, and hopefully, the whole story will prove to be entertaining. Keep in mind, I climbed off the technology roller-coaster in about 1980, and have been primarily an observer since that time, so I have a lot of catching up to do, and already the difficulties and frustrations of being a student are once again beginning to really add up. I had forgotten how hard it is to learn, and I suspect being old makes it worse!

I expect that writing about this studio project of mine will result in numerous articles over the next year or so, because there are a lot of issues to talk about regarding this home studio business. One of the major issues is planning, about which I'll talk a little here and write a serious article later. Another has to do with "getting advice." As part of my studio development, I'm busy going out to look at how other people are doing it, for the express purpose of picking up tips, ideas, guidance, etc. Kind of like why you read this magazine. I plan to share this information with you in a series of home studio profiles that feature diverse and interesting approaches and solutions to the problems we all face. A third area I'm going to spend some time writing about is the actual way I'm building my studio, sharing with you my design criteria and engineering decisions.

And finally, perhaps of greatest interest to you, I will write about the hardware and software I'm acquiring, the problems and features that stand out, and the whole learning process that I'm going through. So, over the next year, I hope to be able to give you a fairly comprehensive, if somewhat eccentric, view of one particular home studio installation. I hope you can use it for fun and profit!