I confess that I am a geek wannabe. I don't generally write code, although I did once write a commercial database program using 4D and I can work my way through HTML and even CSS. I've been a regular user of computers of various stripes for more than 20 years. Once upon a time, thanks largely to some very good people in the company, I oversaw technical support and testing for a company that made TCP/IP and even built a DHCP/DNS server.

All that just to say that I'm pretty confident when it comes to learning a new program that I'll be able to jump in and, faster than a speeding slug, get right to the usability stage.

But now I have been stopped in my tracks, and the pun (which you shall soon discover) is intended.

You see, I've been thinking seriously about upgrading my sound editing software. I've downloaded several different trial versions from various and sundry publishers and I've researched others. My basis for comparison included two programs that are very inexpensive and do pretty good work, but I wanted more and better.

Not that these programs are slouches, mind you. I started with Audacity, a free product that comes out of that part of the open source community called SourceForge. I like Audacity. It does almost everything I want, it does it fairly quickly, and it is very intuitive. The only problem is, it crashes now and then. Sometimes when that happens, even if I have just saved a file, I get a strange message about orphan blocks. i usually trash them, but sometimes that is not a good thing. So I use Audacity to do some voice recording and a lot of editing, but when I'm dealing with a file that is more than five minutes long, I edit in fear.

GarageBand is very stable (by comparison) on the other hand, but it lacks some of the things I like about Audacity. Changing the gain on one part of a track is a pain, etc., etc., etc. Still it's a great program, and as part of a $79 package that included a bunch of other cool apps, it's hard to beat.

Of course part of the goal of GarageBand is to sell Logic Express, and part of the goal of Logic Express is to sell Logic Pro, which is a very serious program indeed. I can tell by the retail price of one buck short of a grand.

So I figured I'd take the intermediate bait, and here's what I learned: there are some excellent programs out there, and some of those have extraordinarily powerful features. At least I suppose they do, which is all I can do. I certainly can't make them work.

Just before I downloaded the trial version of Logic Express from Apple I read a review of it that basically said, "This is a great program if you can figure out how to use it." I smirked at the screen, knew I'd figure it out easily, and barged in. I owe that reviewer an apology.

And that is why studios will survive. I used to think that all the great recording and editing sofware would make studios obsolete, but I think just the opposite will happen. Indie artists out there will buy some expensive program, record happily to their hard drive, and then not be able to open the file, let alone edit it. Others will buy an expensive program, figure out how to use it, install some baffling in their garage, and open an independent studio recording other indie artists.

So hang in there, studios. Most of the indies who bought all those fancy programs will be back, and they'll have a whole new appreciation for what you do. I know I do.