James Harmer

hmm…

This is strange, I feel like writing but I have no topic in mind.  This doesn’t happen much, but the few times it has happened have been really good… or really awfull.  Who knows what may occur when the mind of James is free to roam? 

Lately I’ve realized that whether you get things done or not really has more to do with you than what you have.  I used to always get things done, and I didn’t have a lot to work with.  I made recordings when I was in middle school… I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know how to mix… but I got some decent sounding recordings with almost no proffesional equipment what-soever.  And when I got more… I did a lot at first, but then I just sort of found irritating things to keep me from getting stuff done.  “This takes too long… I’m too tired to record” “I just don’t have time” or “I don’t have anything worthwhile.”  I recently got a lot of really nice equipment, from saving money and selling a few things I didn’t need… and it’s not magically making me do more recordings.

Another example… my guitar pedal that I had for years.  It was just an RP100, but when I got it it seemed amazing!!  I thought “this pedal can do anything!!” and I used it all the time, despite it’s limitations… I didn’t care.  It wasn’t all that great now that I look back on it… it had serious limitations, but I was happy to have anything and I used it to it’s best ability.  I always saw other guitar players with their giant pedalboards and multi effects pedals… I wouldn’t be jealous, but sometimes I would think “man, when I get a giant pedal board… imagine what I can do THEN!!”  I didn’t know then, that the pedal I was using was severely limiting… I will try to explain this as simply as possible…

The sound that comes out of it is 22.2khz quality… a CD you listen to is 44.4khz quality.  Now most of you noticed that the CF is higher than my pedal in quality.  So my pedal was about half the quality of the audio on a CD… I always noticed a sound was a bit grainy… kind of like taking a picture with a cheaper lower resolution camera, my guitar was always slightly grainy and had little kinks to it.  I never knew this for years… I thought my audio quality was great and I played like that, I worked as hard as I could to get rid of that grainy sound, and because I didn’t know that in theory I could never get rid of the graininess or the clicks and pops that you occasionally heard… I tried really hard to.  This is the strange part… I have had professionals complement me on my tone wihle using that little pedal, even though it’s not possible to do so I nearly got rid of the grainy sound and the clicks and pops through eqing and compression tricks. 

Now… today I have a really nice pedal board, I just bought it a few weeks ago.  Something interesting about me buying this board was, I didn’t feel a need to buy it until I read up on my current pedal’s specs.  I found out about it being lower than CD quality, and I suddenly began to notice it… and I couldn’t stand it.  All my work seemed like it was for nothing because suddenly I knew it was impossible to do what I was trying to do.  So I went and got a $600 pedal board… this thing is amazing btw, and I am glad I got it.  But, I want to put the same amount of effort into it that I put into the last one… I don’t want to know the specs, I just want to do what I can do with it to the best of my ability.

I always said “Man, if I can make this thing sound this good… imagine when I have one of THOSE!!”  Well, now I have one of “THOSE”, and it’s not doing anything on it’s own.  I still have to put in an effort, I still have to work with the sounds and find the best ones and program in new ones… I still have to have something in me that wants to do it, or I’ll just be that annoying guy who has all the stuff and everyone hates him cause he never uses it and never lets anyone touch it.  Who knows someone like that?  Whether it’s with music or not… this applies in life.

If we treat every new day like a new day, and not just another day… or if I treat every new entry on here like a new entry, and not just another entry… if we treat our new life in Christ like a NEW life in Christ, see what will happen.  I can guarruntee you that if I knew the specs of my old pedal and what it meant about the quality, I wouldn’t have created the sounds I did… the minute I found out about it, my desire to creat another new sound died.  Our weaknesses are the same… when people stop viewing themselves as just ordinary people, and start to try to fullfill the desires in their heart they can do extra-ordinary things!  You know… I’m getting excited writing this, because I’m realizing that is who I was.  I used to be the type who dreamed and fullfilled those dreams because of Christ in me.  Now… I have almost become just someone who wishes… “well, I wish I could go back and do things different.”  I don’t want to be like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite when I’m old, I want to “do things different” today!

That’s why on January 22nd we are gathering at Richville Christian Fellowship at 7pm.  We’re starting youth/college age services and God is going to move.  Make the most of everything now, His mercies are new every morning.

-James’