So I got to thinking how I could apply my own musical skills in that way. Could I offer a useful service that someone would normally pay high prices for? (And I’m not talking about being hired as a performer.) On the gear front, I thought of an example right away: Several times I have donated the use of my portable P.A. and wireless microphone rig to events like the local street fair or Cub Scout pinewood derby contest. But recently I had to apply actual expertise, along with my equipment, for a task that would have cost a non-musician “civilian” an arm and leg in service fees.

My elderly neighbor had three vinyl albums he wanted converted to CDs. He loved the music on these decades-old records, but playing them on a turntable was no longer an option. We’ve known each other for years, so when he asked me if I knew of or could recommend a service that would transfer vinyl to CD, I told him I’d do the job myself for free. He was amazed that a “musician” (as opposed to a “lab,” I guess) could do this, and at first he declined the offer, saying he didn’t want to inconvenience me. (He also didn’t want me to think he was hinting for a favor, which I knew he wasn’t.) I reassured him it was no bother because the process was simple: you hook up a turntable to the computer, drop the needle, walk away, and let the whole side play. While recording the music, the software auto-senses the gaps and divides up the LP’s bands into corresponding digital files. Flip the LP, repeat for Side B, and you’re done. Then you just burn the auto-separated tracks to a CD—which takes less than 3 minutes.

 “It’s that easy?” he asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s not like I have to monitor every step in real time or anything.”

I was telling the truth, because the software that comes with my Ion USB Turntable (a turntable that plugs directly into the computer for playback or digital recording of vinyl) does just that. But when I started the process, I knew I wasn’t going to be happy. For one thing, in a CD track, you want no time gap from the start of the track to the first note of music. Where you do want silence is at the end of the track—about 2 or 3 seconds’ worth. This ensures that you still hear a pause between tracks, but if you decide to select tracks out of sequence, the music plays instantly (which is what you want). The auto-sensing software wasn’t cutting it in that department.

The second problem was that, though the software captured the sound and converted it to CD-burnable 16-bit/44.1kHz wave files, the raw sound was pretty bad. It was crackly and lacked low end. I realized that through my restoration software (iZotope RX 2) and my various EQ plug-ins, I had more than enough resources to make the tracks sound much better if I simply ran them through my computer-based audio recorder and editor (called a DAW, for digital audio workstation). But then the automation options—along with the convenience—went out the window. This was now becoming “a job,” and not a “quickie, low-impact favor,” because of my own pesky standards.

No matter. I did the right thing and manually edited each track on my DAW, being selective and specific in the way I applied restoration strength, EQ, and volume normalizing (as long as I was doing these other things anyway). It took me a bit of time, but the results were far better than if I’d just “dropped the needle” (as I told my friend I would do).

For extra credit, I wanted to scan the album cover images and insert them in the jewel case covers, but realized that my 8.5″ x 11″ scanner bed wouldn’t accommodate a 12″ x 12″ album cover. By doing a little research, though, I found that my image-editing program (Adobe Photoshop) can stitch together separate scans of an image seamlessly, as long as there’s an overlapping region. The process is so simple that point-and-shoot cameras include this “stitching” feature internally, as “panorama” mode. It’s dead simple, quick (like, two keystrokes), and the results are completely undetectable. So in taking on a favor, I actually learned something new. As a bonus, I got to hear some unusual music: vintage Spanish bullfighting instrumentals and John Philip Sousa marches.

My neighbor was delighted beyond expectation to get back not only the CDs, but artwork in the jewel cases, and neatly typed-up track listings (couldn’t scrimp on that last step). For my part, I was happy to have helped a friend who would have otherwise paid a lot if he’d simply “opened the yellow pages.” As a collateral benefit, I had honed my vinyl-restoration skills and picked up a nifty trick in transferring LP album art to CD jewel cases. And though I had undertaken this project as a favor, I realized I could now probably advertise my services on the open market. Because I think I just heard my brakes squealing.

—Jon Chappell

It’s proven more and more that humans don’t process in parallel, and the best they can do is serial processing quickly, and they’re not even really good at that. We are, as a species, uni-taskers. Or at least we’re at our best when uni-tasking. Think of all the great feats of human achievement in sports and inspired musical performances. From pitching a perfect game to playing a flawless version of the Minute Waltz, what’s the common ingredient? Focus!

Those of us who work creatively should take note of the basic lesson of texting-while-driving and apply it to our own pursuits. If you have Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and Instant Messenger open—plus a beep and a little window that appears whenever a new email arrives—are you really going to be able to concentrate on a demanding problem? Not likely. Because the sad fact is, you use these little interruptions as an excuse to break away from the difficult tasks that face you. These tasks don’t even really have to be that odious or unattractive; even if they’re just a little taxing, you find ways to avoid them.

Even very-accomplished, mega-prolific sorts deal with the same productivity-soaks that us mere mortals do. For example, best-selling author Jonathan Franzen has rigged his computer that it can’t get on the Internet. How? By gluing an Ethernet cable into the port of his laptop, and then cutting off the end. Glue? Yes, glue. That’s how serious (or weak-willed) he was. And this is a guy who clearly has discipline and makes millions through writing—and finishing—long books. So if that’s what it takes for him, wouldn’t you do the same thing?

Now, you don’t actually have to go through the process of permanently destroying a part of your computer to achieve isolation (though you have to admire Franzen’s commitment). You can simply disable the networking functions. A program called Freedom (ironically, the name of Franzen’s latest novel) will disable your computer’s ethernet and wireless functions for up to three hours at a time. The only way to get them back is to reboot. By the time you’re doing that, hopefully you’ll catch yourself and stop. You might think that buying a separate program to help you with your vow of social-networking silence is gimmicky, but consider that the real danger in online distractions is how insidious they are: you go to them without even realizing it! So any help here is worth serious attention.

Many productivity specialists tell us to just cut out the multi-tasking. Some refer to it as “chunk time”—where you’re “allowed” to do only one thing during certain hours of the day: compose, practice your axe, or manipulate loops, but not do email, answer the phone, or check Facebook and Twitter. Other “attention management consultants” (this is a real term) will tell you to create separate stations for separate tasks. I practice this at home: Even though I use a computer for music creation as well as online surfing, word processing, and Photoshop, I keep the music separate. It’s the most important thing I do, so it gets the better environment (my man-cave/studio as opposed to my family-shared office) and the better machine (my new Mac vs. my old PC).

This helps me focus my attentions on music—at least when I’m in the music space. The trouble is, I can’t quite bear to turn off the internet yet on the music computer. But at least I am more aware that when I’m in the music space, I shouldn’t be Facebooking. Perhaps I will install Freedom on that machine. That seems a better solution than injecting glue into the ports. Or maybe I’m just not dedicated enough. How far would you go—if it meant you could be really productive?

To look at it from a non-musical perspective for a moment, let’s take the case of the Kindle, which I own. To say that the new version, just released last month, is an improvement over the original laughably understates things. It positively trumps its predecessor in every conceivable benchmark. The new Kindle costs less, has a smaller footprint (while retaining the same viewable screen area), is lighter and thinner, faster, more readable, has more memory and a better keypad, offers a choice of configurations (you can buy a cheaper Wi-Fi-only version or the full wireless version), and it even looks better (a more mellow charcoal-gray versus glaring appliance-white). And the biggest kicker: if you have an old one, you can’t update it for any of the newer features.

All of this made me resent Amazon for its closed-system approach to technology. I can’t even upgrade my memory? I have to buy a new unit altogether? I have to dispose of my working version in a landfill to keep up? What is this, 1980?

But then I got a grip. My original still does every single thing it does the day I bought it. My experience reading everything from Moby Dick to the Eleven Rack manual on my original Kindle would have been no better than on the new Kindle. The realization opened my eyes to a bad habit: I’m focusing on the tools again.

Let’s go back to music technology. How new your interface is has absolutely nothing to do with the music you create on it. Wouldn’t you rather have a five-year old audio interface than no audio interface? Among other things, it would mean that you’ve been producing work on it while your careful friend waits for the preamps to get just a little more transparent. Thinking about the next one down the line takes your eyes off the prize and will make your crazy. And there’s actually a paradox in updates: The only true hedge against obsolescence, the only sure way to make sure you buy only the latest model, is to make your purchase the day before you die.

Buy the best thing you can afford today, run it into the ground, and when you come up for air, look around to see what’s happened while you’ve been busy working. Isn’t it the best feeling in the world to be able to say, “I can’t upgrade my OS this weekend because I’m on a creative roll. No time to do anything but write.” This time the artist wins against Big Technology.

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Jon Chappell (jonchappell.com) is the author of six books in the well-known “For Dummies” series, including Rock Guitar for Dummies and Blues Guitar for Dummies, as well as The Recording Guitarist: A Guide for Home and Studio (Hal Leonard), Digital Home Recording (Backbeat Books), and Build Your Own PC Recording Studio (McGraw-Hill).

As far as digital data being moved around in cyberspace, Amazon is hardly doing something revolutionary. YouTube and Rhapsody have been streaming their content to you from the Web since their inception. But Amazon is unique and ahead of the curve in one respect: Cloud Drive is specifically targeted to music listeners and purchasers of music on Amazon Music, and it beat to the punch both Apple and Google, who were concurrently developing similar services.

Here’s how it works: You buy a tune from Amazon Music, just like you normally would. But instead of the file being downloaded to your computer, as is done now and as Apple’s iTunes does, the song is shunted over to your locker in Cloud Drive. When you want to listen to your song, you just “summon it from the cloud”—that is, have it streamed to your player. You also have the option of downloading it, of course, just like a conventional MP3 purchase. And you can also upload your own tunes, ones that didn’t come from Amazon. Amazon gives you your first five gigabytes of storage free, with songs purchased through Amazon not counting against that amount. Accessing your music—Amazon-purchased and self-uploaded—is smooth and elegant using Amazon’s browser-based interface.

Digital music vendors needed to take this step, and Amazon was the first, so they should be applauded for their forward thinking. Subscription music services are growing and the convenience of streamed music is convenient and reliable. It’s only the record companies’ tight grip on their product—and their cluelessness in taking advantage of digital distribution methods—that have prevented such services from emerging before. In fact, when mp3.com tried to introduce the very same business model in the past, they were shut down by panicked but powerful legal forces in the record industry.

But Amazon isn’t so easily cowed by record companies. Since they already sell you music (as iTunes does), they’re just introducing the intermediate step of storing it for you. When asked by Billboard Magazine if he thought to seek licenses from the labels, Amazon’s Director of Music Craig Pape replied, “We don’t believe we need licenses to store the customers’ files. We look at it the same way as if someone bought an external hard drive and copied files on there for backup.” In other words, “We don’t need no stinking licenses.”

Cloud Drive users will enjoy several benefits. First, you don’t have to worry about storage space on your mobile device. You have access to thousands and thousands of tunes, but they don’t all need to be physically resident on your device. You also don’t have to keep up with the sometimes confusing process of synching several devices and keeping track of which one is up to date (a routine some of my non-technical friends still can’t wrap their heads around). Another bonus is the issue of backing up. I don’t care how careful you are, Amazon is better at it, and their servers will always be more reliable than any individual’s hard drive, DVD, or data stick.

The one obvious disadvantage is that you can’t hear your music where there’s no online access. And if you’re not in a Wi-Fi hotspot, you’ll eat up cellular minutes by listening to music. This will become more of a concern as carriers move away from unlimited data plans to tiered-usage ones. And there’s one aspect that may be a disadvantage, depending on how you feel about it: Amazon will now have one more way to track and monitor your listening habits.

Another aspect that may not be seen initially as a disadvantage, but that will certainly provide bumps in the road for everyone, is that record labels are being shut out of the “digital music locker” revenue stream if only Apple, Google, and Amazon can provide them—and do so without additional licensing from the labels for this new delivery medium (one that is growing in use). That will just spell trouble for everybody, if only for the distractions that the inevitable lawsuits will generate.

But the horse is out of the barn, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and there’s no going back. Once Google and Apple follow, the record companies will have to focus on getting a share, rather than trying to turn back the tide. Even with a few setbacks and sideshows, the technology of Cloud Drive and its ilk are a boon to mobile music listeners everywhere.