[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:59:42 -0500, Mike Rivers
wrote:

If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical recorder, then
that will limit what one can do.

Well, what else IS there to do? Plug-ins? We have hardware for that.
Editing?
You can do that. Bringing in audio from other sources? All that takes is
a patch
cable (and the source). Turn it into an orchestra? We have stand-alone
synthesizers.

Brushing aside the possibilities of digital editing with an offhand
"You can do that" is disingenuous to say the least :-) And, like it
or not (as a musician I probably dislike it even more than do the
old-time recordists), the job has already moved from 100% recording
live musicians to include a large element of sound design and
construction.

[Neil Gould]

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 07:48:47 -0500, "Neil Gould"
wrote:

A looper is going to think more in terms of patterns and where he
can insert, copy, arrange them, rather than thinking in linear
terms like tracks on a tape.

Well, traditionally those guys thought about loops of tape, which
is why they call it looping. Or magfilm.

Traditionally, "those guys" as a class didn't exist. The tool
created the style.

Traditionally, this approach has been used in electronic music for
at least 6 decades, and it has a name: music concrete (Musique
Concrète).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_concrete

In synthesizers, instruments like the oringal Ensoniq sampler were
aimed at those who wished to perform this style of music live, and
tools like Acid were aimed at those who folks too, so there is a
direct evolution.

Yeah, I went to music college too :-)

Even the dwindling population on usenet is still a larger audience than we
represent... just trying to be informative to the readers of the newsgroup.

My point was that until computers came along this was something being
done by a handful of nerds. The current mass assumption that music,
by default, consists of a 4-bar loop at mm=120 repeated ad nauseam
with other stuff layered over it came with the technology that made
this easy.

This can be said of the quality of compositions in any genre, from classical
to rock to folk. But, we still try to do better, and I don't think it's the
medium or tools that keep us from doing so.

--
Best,

Neil




--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I agree that one should learn the function of the basic audio tools,
but I also think that noone should start out by purchasing things
they don't understand, as it will inevitably lead to problems of one
sort or another.

In that case, few people should buy software-based DAWs until they're
very familiar with the basic audio tools, functions, and signal flow.
It's too difficult to understand when you don't have a good concept
of how it's supposed to work.

I'd say that one can get a better primer on the software-only DAW by
purchasing a digital portastudio than analog hardware. But, some of my less
technically-minded musician friends have taught me the tendency to also jump
into that market at a level too far over their heads, and end up frustrated.

If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical
recorder, then that will limit what one can do.

Well, what else IS there to do?

Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase, Logic,
et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A DAW can be as
much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a recorder. Sure, people have
done these things for centuries without a DAW, but that doesn't negate the
value of having such a tool today.

If it stops playing your project, then something is wrong. You're
describing a way of working that ignores the reality of the system,
and this kind of problem won't be corrected by restricting the
capabilities of an app.

But the problem at the heart of the problem s that it's so easy to
ignore the
reality. There's a simple test for determining how many tracks you can
record
on a 24-track tape recorder. You look at it. There is no equivalent
test for a DAW.
But if the programmer wouldn't let you insert the 25th track, then
you'd know.

If one is too dense to know that they've reached a limit of some kind or
other when their project stops playing, there is little help for them beyond
suggesting some other hobby.

The thing is that while your computer with your project may let you
play 173 tracks and my computer won't let me play any more than 18
tracks, and we're both running the same program, under the same
operating system.

I really don't see that as a problem for each individual... the limits have
been identified, and projects have to be performed within those limits.

--
Best,

Neil



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:48:24 +0000, Laurence Payne wrote:

On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 07:48:47 -0500, "Neil Gould"
wrote:

A looper is going to think more in terms of patterns and where he
can insert, copy, arrange them, rather than thinking in linear
terms like tracks on a tape.

Well, traditionally those guys thought about loops of tape, which is
why they call it looping. Or magfilm.

Traditionally, "those guys" as a class didn't exist. The tool created
the style.

Traditionally, this approach has been used in electronic music for at least
6 decades, and it has a name: music concrete (Musique Concrète).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_concrete

In synthesizers, instruments like the oringal Ensoniq sampler were aimed at
those who wished to perform this style of music live, and tools like Acid
were aimed at those who folks too, so there is a direct evolution.

Yeah, I went to music college too :-)

Me too!

My professor was Dr T

My point was that until computers came along this was something being
done by a handful of nerds. The current mass assumption that music,
by default, consists of a 4-bar loop at mm=120 repeated ad nauseam
with other stuff layered over it came with the technology that made
this easy.

Correct.
The technology introduced it to the masses.

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:35:44 -0500, Mike Rivers wrote:

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:

What I find interesting is how the industry is going back to real
hardware, only they call them "control surfaces" now.
We have come 360 IMHO.

Except that what we call "control surfaces" today, with a couple of
exceptions (like the SSL AWS-900) have an analog signal path, so
they don't provide a solution to "the latency problem" or have a knob
to control monitor volume and stuff like that.

They are still evolving.
My point is that some of us have figured out that it's easier to tweak
a knob on a console than move a mouse and click.
For certain tasks of course.
Firewire has gotten the latency down pretty low.

Things I used to get involved with I no longer have to:
autoexcet.bat

Oh, how I miss autoexec.bat. I could make it start what I wanted it to start
when I booted up and it wouldn't start things I don't care about. In
Windows,
some things start even when I think I've turned them off as startups or
services.

I don't miss it at all.
For Windows, msconfig is your friend
About the only things I turn off are Acronis services, Adobe and
Quicktime updaters and Microsoft automatic updates. This is under
Windows 7 x64.
I run Nuendo 4 on an Q9440 with 4g and 4 very fast Seagate 1TB SATA
drives.
I have all the default eye candy on and the system doesn't miss a
beat.
On my system, Windows 7 x64 is noticeably faster than Windows XP even
with the standard XP tweaks.

I can run 64 samples with Ivory easily.

I don't tend to install a pile of junk on my DAW systems though like a
lot of people do.
I cringe when I see the taskbar on some systems filled with
"Weatherbug" like programs.
These are usually the same people who have constant computer troubles.

[Arkansan Raider]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I agree that one should learn the function of the basic audio tools,
but I
also think that noone should start out by purchasing things they don't
understand, as it will inevitably lead to problems of one sort or
another.

In that case, few people should buy software-based DAWs until they're
very familiar with the basic audio tools, functions, and signal flow. It's
too difficult to understand when you don't have a good concept of how it's
supposed to work.

Some people manage to figure things out, some invent their own way of
getting things done that's often roundabout and unconventional, and has
no advantage over the "standard" way other than that the user is now
able to do something he wants to do.


Started with a 4 track Portastudio. Standard cassette tape. Unbelievably
simple machine that I'm sure everyone and their brother learned on back
in the day. If I had my druthers, that's how everyone would learn.

Short of that, there used to be lots of freeware out there that was
track limited as well as plugin limited. I'd think that this would not
be a bad way to start, either.



If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical recorder,
then
that will limit what one can do.

Well, what else IS there to do? Plug-ins? We have hardware for that.
Editing?
You can do that. Bringing in audio from other sources? All that takes is
a patch
cable (and the source). Turn it into an orchestra? We have stand-alone
synthesizers.

If it stops playing your project, then something is wrong. You're
describing
a way of working that ignores the reality of the system, and this kind of
problem won't be corrected by restricting the capabilities of an app.

But the problem at the heart of the problem s that it's so easy to
ignore the
reality. There's a simple test for determining how many tracks you can
record
on a 24-track tape recorder. You look at it. There is no equivalent test
for a DAW.


I don't know if it's still available now, but when I bought the Event
Echo Gina a few years back, it came with a software tester that could
give you an idea of how many tracks your computer was capable of
running. Late '90's technology, there.


But if the programmer wouldn't let you insert the 25th track, then you'd
know.

The thing is that while your computer with your project may let you play
173 tracks and my computer won't let me play any more than 18 tracks, and
we're both running the same program, under the same operating system.

I think that it would be a help for people to have some idea of what they
want to do before starting to browse demos of apps, because even putting
such apps on a system willy-nilly can cause systemic problems.

Yup. Some day my work here will be done, but not yet. g

[Arkansan Raider]

Neil Gould wrote:

Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase, Logic,
et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A DAW can be as
much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a recorder. Sure, people have
done these things for centuries without a DAW, but that doesn't negate the
value of having such a tool today.



Not to mention the time-saving value of Band-In-A-Box type software. I'm
a singer, not a pianist or a guitarist. Knowing music notation and music
theory have saved my backside when it comes to communicating to the
other musicians what I want to put together when I write.

And so when I write in BIAB or PT or Cakewalk or whatever, I can get my
idea across a lot more precisely than what I could do by charting with
pencil and paper. A DAW is IMMENSELY valuable to me!


---Jeff

[Arny Krueger]

"Neil Gould" wrote in message

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I agree that one should learn the function of the basic
audio tools, but I also think that noone should start
out by purchasing things they don't understand, as it
will inevitably lead to problems of one sort or another.

In that case, few people should buy software-based DAWs
until they're very familiar with the basic audio tools,
functions, and signal flow. It's too difficult to
understand when you don't have a good concept of how
it's supposed to work.

I'd say that one can get a better primer on the
software-only DAW by purchasing a digital portastudio
than analog hardware. But, some of my less
technically-minded musician friends have taught me the
tendency to also jump into that market at a level too far
over their heads, and end up frustrated.

A good very cheap way to learn how to edit with a software-only DAW is to
start out editing some 2-channel files, whether downloaded off the web or
from some simple recorder like a Microtrack, a Zoom or whatever.

There are also downloadable multitrack file sets that people can use to move
up to that additional level of complexity.

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 11:54:27 -0500, Neil Gould wrote:


Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase, Logic,
et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A DAW can be as
much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a recorder. Sure, people have
done these things for centuries without a DAW, but that doesn't negate the
value of having such a tool today.

That's a good point.
I agree.


If one is too dense to know that they've reached a limit of some kind or
other when their project stops playing, there is little help for them beyond
suggesting some other hobby.

All the DAW programs I have used have an extensive help section on
"Optimizing Audio" where that "25th track" stuff is discussed.


The thing is that while your computer with your project may let you
play 173 tracks and my computer won't let me play any more than 18
tracks, and we're both running the same program, under the same
operating system.

I really don't see that as a problem for each individual... the limits have
been identified, and projects have to be performed within those limits.

Exactly.
My Tascam 80-8 did 8 tracks.
The neighbor's MSR-16 (or something like that) did 16 tracks.
I knew my limitations and he knew his.

It's no different for DAW.

[Mike Rivers]

Laurence Payne wrote:

My point was that until computers came along this was something being
done by a handful of nerds.

That was good.

The current mass assumption that music,
by default, consists of a 4-bar loop at mm=120 repeated ad nauseam
with other stuff layered over it came with the technology that made
this easy.

That's bad.

--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

Neil Gould wrote:

I'd say that one can get a better primer on the software-only DAW by
purchasing a digital portastudio than analog hardware.

I guess it's better than nothing, but with a portastudio type workstation,
all the connections except source in and audio out are inside the box so
you never get the sense of patching a mic preamp output to an A/D
converter input, or even a track output to a mixer input.

But, some of my less
technically-minded musician friends have taught me the tendency to also jump
into that market at a level too far over their heads, and end up frustrated.

That describes me more often now than it used to.

If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical
recorder, then that will limit what one can do.
Well, what else IS there to do?

Composition. Creation.

Those things were all done with a tape recorder. The cut/copy/paste features
make it faster on a DAW, which means that you can create by messing around
rather than having a good idea of what you want and then just doing it.
Similarly,
with no reasonable llmit on the number of tracks, people tend to record
all their
mistakes (or rather, not discard bad takes), often with the hope that
maybe there's
just something really good in there, and it makes their mixing process
more difficult.

The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase, Logic,
et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A DAW can be as
much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a recorder. Sure, people have
done these things for centuries without a DAW, but that doesn't negate the
value of having such a tool today.

Oh, I'm all for doing things the easier way as long as it doesn't get in
the way of
being productive. But my point is that I feel less productive when using
a DAW
(admittedly for straightforward recording and mixing of hand-picked
music) than
when using dedicated hardware. I simply fumble too much with the user
interface.
Perhaps this problem would be solved with a good hardware controller,
but why
solve a problem that I don't need to have?

If one is too dense to know that they've reached a limit of some kind or
other when their project stops playing, there is little help for them beyond
suggesting some other hobby.

That's not a very polite way of saying it, but I agree. Trouble is that
you may
not encounter a problem like this until you're hard at your creative
work. Then
you have to stop and fix it. Perhaps you can bounce some tracks or
freeze tracks
with effects or virtual instruments. Or go to the store and buy more
RAM. But
it's an unexpected interruption. It's not the same thing as if a power
supply fails
or an IC blows, because those are things that have (presumably) been
designed
not to fail unless something goes wrong. A computer system is different.
There's
nothing to break, only performance limits to be exceeded, and it's
difficult to
quantify those limits.

I really don't see that as a problem for each individual... the limits have
been identified, and projects have to be performed within those limits.

But that limit may not be the same for every DAW project.



--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

Arkansan Raider wrote:

Started with a 4 track Portastudio. Standard cassette tape. Unbelievably
simple machine that I'm sure everyone and their brother learned on back
in the day. If I had my druthers, that's how everyone would learn.

Short of that, there used to be lots of freeware out there that was
track limited as well as plugin limited. I'd think that this would not
be a bad way to start, either.

Right, but today people are too impatient. You can get Reaper for
$60, which is probably cheaper than a functioning 4-track cassette
recorder/mixer. It's a compelling argument to skip the old school stuff.

I don't know if it's still available now, but when I bought the Event
Echo Gina a few years back, it came with a software tester that could
give you an idea of how many tracks your computer was capable of
running. Late '90's technology, there.

That's only if you used nothing but the Gina. Start filling your tracks with
virtual instruments and convolution reverbs and the track count will
go down. I don't know if there's a rule of thumb for this, but I expect not.




--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Neil Gould]

Arkansan Raider wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase,
Logic, et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A
DAW can be as much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a
recorder. Sure, people have done these things for centuries without
a DAW, but that doesn't negate the value of having such a tool today.



Not to mention the time-saving value of Band-In-A-Box type software.
I'm a singer, not a pianist or a guitarist. Knowing music notation
and music theory have saved my backside when it comes to
communicating to the other musicians what I want to put together when
I write.

And so when I write in BIAB or PT or Cakewalk or whatever, I can get
my idea across a lot more precisely than what I could do by charting
with pencil and paper. A DAW is IMMENSELY valuable to me!

Not only can they hear your general idea, if they prefer to read it, those
programs can print out a decent set of lead sheets of your piece. Try that
with an analog setup.

--
Best,

Neil



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Arkansan Raider]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Arkansan Raider wrote:

Started with a 4 track Portastudio. Standard cassette tape.
Unbelievably simple machine that I'm sure everyone and their brother
learned on back in the day. If I had my druthers, that's how everyone
would learn.

Short of that, there used to be lots of freeware out there that was
track limited as well as plugin limited. I'd think that this would not
be a bad way to start, either.

Right, but today people are too impatient. You can get Reaper for
$60, which is probably cheaper than a functioning 4-track cassette
recorder/mixer. It's a compelling argument to skip the old school stuff.


Oh, I'm certain that it's *much* cheaper. You're absolutely right. My
thought is limiting the number of functions in the beginning so as to be
able to learn in a simplified format. But you're right there,
too--today's folks are very impatient and not as likely to go for that.
However, someone who truly wants to learn might just take that instruction.



I don't know if it's still available now, but when I bought the Event
Echo Gina a few years back, it came with a software tester that could
give you an idea of how many tracks your computer was capable of
running. Late '90's technology, there.

That's only if you used nothing but the Gina. Start filling your tracks
with
virtual instruments and convolution reverbs and the track count will
go down. I don't know if there's a rule of thumb for this, but I expect
not.


Again, you're absolutely right. I was merely speaking to track count. Of
course, you've probably figgered out that I'm a firm believer in the
KISS principle--both in front of the mic and behind the board.

In this case, record it right using only the bare essentials. Too much
is way too much.

JMHSO

/not a huge fan of Phil Spector. Just sayin'...

---Jeff

[Neil Gould]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Neil Gould" wrote in message

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I agree that one should learn the function of the basic
audio tools, but I also think that noone should start
out by purchasing things they don't understand, as it
will inevitably lead to problems of one sort or another.

In that case, few people should buy software-based DAWs
until they're very familiar with the basic audio tools,
functions, and signal flow. It's too difficult to
understand when you don't have a good concept of how
it's supposed to work.

I'd say that one can get a better primer on the
software-only DAW by purchasing a digital portastudio
than analog hardware. But, some of my less
technically-minded musician friends have taught me the
tendency to also jump into that market at a level too far
over their heads, and end up frustrated.

A good very cheap way to learn how to edit with a software-only DAW
is to start out editing some 2-channel files, whether downloaded off
the web or from some simple recorder like a Microtrack, a Zoom or
whatever.

There are also downloadable multitrack file sets that people can use
to move up to that additional level of complexity.

Agreed, but I was thinking of more than just editing... the user paradigm
is the common ground between digital portastudios and a software-only DAW.
The patch matrix and the ability to save and recall setups can teach one to
keep good notes of what is connected to what; the idea that effects may be
common to all channels that use them... or not; managing tracks, virtual
tracks, and disc space, etc. And, since the portastudio is pre-configured,
they're likely to put a song together without too much trouble.

--
Best,

Neil





--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Arkansan Raider]

Neil Gould wrote:
Arkansan Raider wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar,
Cubase, Logic, et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware
concept. A DAW can be as much a musical instrument or arranging
tool as a recorder. Sure, people have done these things for
centuries without a DAW, but that doesn't negate the value of
having such a tool today.


Not to mention the time-saving value of Band-In-A-Box type
software. I'm a singer, not a pianist or a guitarist. Knowing music
notation and music theory have saved my backside when it comes to
communicating to the other musicians what I want to put together
when I write.

And so when I write in BIAB or PT or Cakewalk or whatever, I can
get my idea across a lot more precisely than what I could do by
charting with pencil and paper. A DAW is IMMENSELY valuable to me!

Not only can they hear your general idea, if they prefer to read it,
those programs can print out a decent set of lead sheets of your
piece. Try that with an analog setup.


Oh yeah, they do a great job with lead sheets, charts or even full-on
scores, if i want 'em.

---Jeff

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I'd say that one can get a better primer on the software-only DAW by
purchasing a digital portastudio than analog hardware.

I guess it's better than nothing, but with a portastudio type
workstation, all the connections except source in and audio out are
inside the box so you never get the sense of patching a mic preamp
output to an A/D converter input, or even a track output to a mixer input.

Of course there will be things that one won't learn from a portastudio, but
such things as patching mic preamps to an A/D converter more are relevant to
a physical audio studio than a software-only DAW. My point was that the
digital portastudio has a more similar paradigm to the software-only DAW
than do physical audio components.

The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase, Logic,
et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A DAW can
be as much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a recorder.
Sure, people have done these things for centuries without a DAW, but
that doesn't negate the value of having such a tool today.

Oh, I'm all for doing things the easier way as long as it doesn't get
in the way of being productive.

I don't think it's necessarily easier, because there is a lot to know in
order to get the power out of these apps. But, once a certain amount of the
learning curve is accomplished, one can be far more productive than was
possible in the pre-DAW years.

But my point is that I feel less productive when using a DAW
(admittedly for straightforward recording and mixing of hand-picked
music) than when using dedicated hardware. I simply fumble too much
with the user interface.
Perhaps this problem would be solved with a good hardware controller,
but why solve a problem that I don't need to have?

Wait... if the problem is fumbling with the UI, and it can be "solved" by
installing a hardware controller, why WOULDN'T you do that? Who said that
one has to restrict their efforts to whatever the software app presents?

If one is too dense to know that they've reached a limit of some
kind or other when their project stops playing, there is little help
for them beyond suggesting some other hobby.

That's not a very polite way of saying it, but I agree. Trouble is
that you may not encounter a problem like this until you're hard at your
creative
work. Then you have to stop and fix it. Perhaps you can bounce some tracks
or
freeze tracks with effects or virtual instruments. Or go to the store and
buy more
RAM. But it's an unexpected interruption. It's not the same thing as if a
power
supply fails or an IC blows, because those are things that have
(presumably) been
designed not to fail unless something goes wrong. A computer system is
different. There's nothing to break, only performance limits to be
exceeded, and it's
difficult to quantify those limits.

It's unnecessary to universally quantify those limits. It's the user's
system, and it's part of the user's responsibility to know the limits before
starting a project that might exceed them. If one insists on working
willy-nilly, then one can expect problems, no matter where they are or what
they're doing.

I really don't see that as a problem for each individual... the
limits have been identified, and projects have to be performed
within those limits.

But that limit may not be the same for every DAW project.

Eventually, the user might learn the various parameters that affect the
limits of their system. Why should it be different?

--
Best,

Neil




--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Mike Rivers]

Neil Gould wrote:

I don't think it's necessarily easier, because there is a lot to know in
order to get the power out of these apps. But, once a certain amount of the
learning curve is accomplished, one can be far more productive than was
possible in the pre-DAW years.

Perhaps, but you may need to branch out into different kinds of production
in order to need those things that can go faster on a DAW. Besides, what's
the hurry? Got another job waiting? g

Certainly there's room for DAWs at the professional level. In fact DAW
operating skill is essential these days. And there's still a "tape op" or
second engineer in professional studios who learned how to do all the setup
and patching so the engineer just needs to push the buttons and be
creative. If both of those people are the same person (you) then the
going is a little tougher.

Wait... if the problem is fumbling with the UI, and it can be "solved" by
installing a hardware controller, why WOULDN'T you do that?

Because it costs more money and I can do the work I need to do with
the gear I already have. If I needed a DAW in order to get work (work
that I actually wanted to do, that is) I'd have money coming in to pay
for the tools. Perhaps some people can work on a system that cost
practically nothing, but a good hardware controller can cost many times
the price of good DAW software,

It's unnecessary to universally quantify those limits. It's the user's
system, and it's part of the user's responsibility to know the limits before
starting a project that might exceed them.

There you go, putting the responsibility on the user again. Why can't
you just choose your tools based on expectations and have it meet
those expectations all the time? With computers, you can't always
do that, though the more you know (about things that have nothing to
do with music production or recording) the better prepared you can
be.

Eventually, the user might learn the various parameters that affect the
limits of their system. Why should it be different?

It's easier to learn when you have constraints. Eventually we'll have DAWs
that are laid out to make sense for someone who wants to use them for
conventional recording workflow. And eventually they'll run on computers
that are so powerful that the performance limits will be beyond reasonable
practicality. And they'll be well enough equipped and sufficiently
stable so
that there's no temptation to get every update that comes along. And
eventually you'll be able to buy one and use it for five or ten years.


--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[geoff]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

When I work with the DAW, I think of it only as a tape machine. I
still do all the mixing with an analogue console. Sometimes I will
do some envelopes on the DAW to reduce the number of fancy fader
moves I need to do, but really not so much.

You could do all of them in the DAW...

;-)

geoff

[geoff]

Mike Rivers wrote:

Those things were all done with a tape recorder. The cut/copy/paste
features make it faster on a DAW, which means that you can create by
messing around rather than having a good idea of what you want and
then just doing it.

But also if you do have a "good idea of what you want and then just do it",
it is tens if not hundreds of times quicker, undoable, and adjustable.

geoff

[geoff]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Mike, it sounds to me like what you want is a portastudio
application.
There is NOTHING wrong with that. The thing is, you need to say
that's what you want and get that.

If only someone made a software version that does what I want . . .
that works.

You have tried Vegas ? Can't get much more intuitive and businesslike than
that, when using at it's basic level.

geoff .

[geoff]

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:

I do a combination of both.
What I find interesting is how the industry is going back to real
hardware, only they call them "control surfaces" now.
We have come 360 IMHO.


I have a control surface. I seldom use it. Just one step on from DAWs that
seem to require a window that looks like a mixer.

geoff

[geoff]

Mike Rivers wrote:
..

Things I used to get involved with I no longer have to:
autoexcet.bat

Oh, how I miss autoexec.bat. I could make it start what I wanted it
to start when I booted up and it wouldn't start things I don't care
about. In Windows,

You have. It's called Startup , on you Start | Programs menu.

And many apps have the optional abilty to load automatically. And many use
that when you DON'T want them to. Especially Apple and Adobe ones

geoff

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

I don't think it's necessarily easier, because there is a lot to
know in order to get the power out of these apps. But, once a
certain amount of the learning curve is accomplished, one can be far
more productive than was possible in the pre-DAW years.

Perhaps, but you may need to branch out into different kinds of
production in order to need those things that can go faster on a DAW.
Besides, what's the hurry? Got another job waiting? g

Certainly there's room for DAWs at the professional level. In fact DAW
operating skill is essential these days. And there's still a "tape
op" or second engineer in professional studios who learned how to do
all the setup and patching so the engineer just needs to push the
buttons and be creative. If both of those people are the same person
(you) then the going is a little tougher.

It appears that we're talking about different aspects of DAW use. When I
owned a professional studio, I was the primary engineer, and my partners
would sometimes "be creative and push buttons", but maintenance, repair,
setup, etc. was all in my lap. I left the studio because there wasn't enough
time left over to work on my own music. The DAW is a tool that allows me to
do that as well as "traditional" recording projects because it is more
efficient and far less maintenance-intensive.

Wait... if the problem is fumbling with the UI, and it can be
"solved" by installing a hardware controller, why WOULDN'T you do
that?

Because it costs more money and I can do the work I need to do with
the gear I already have. If I needed a DAW in order to get work (work
that I actually wanted to do, that is) I'd have money coming in to pay
for the tools. Perhaps some people can work on a system that cost
practically nothing, but a good hardware controller can cost many
times the price of good DAW software,

It's still a lot cheaper than an analog studio setup. Would you consider a
studio that had tape decks and no mixer a practical work environment? Pony
up, and get what you need to work the way you want without having to
complain!

It's unnecessary to universally quantify those limits. It's the
user's system, and it's part of the user's responsibility to know
the limits before starting a project that might exceed them.

There you go, putting the responsibility on the user again. Why can't
you just choose your tools based on expectations and have it meet
those expectations all the time?

Because life has taught me that expectations are fictitious notions and
reality has no obligation to meet them.

With computers, you can't always
do that, though the more you know (about things that have nothing to
do with music production or recording) the better prepared you can
be.

You can't do that with anything, really. Why should computers be different?

Eventually, the user might learn the various parameters that affect
the limits of their system. Why should it be different?

It's easier to learn when you have constraints. Eventually we'll have
DAWs that are laid out to make sense for someone who wants to use
them for conventional recording workflow. And eventually they'll run
on computers that are so powerful that the performance limits will be
beyond reasonable practicality. And they'll be well enough equipped
and sufficiently
stable so
that there's no temptation to get every update that comes along. And
eventually you'll be able to buy one and use it for five or ten years.

There's nothing requiring one to "get updates" or change a functional,
stable system. It takes a lot longer to learn these tools than the period of
time between "updates", and in my experience, most of those "updates" are
"sidesteps" that obfuscate and distract from getting something done. This is
another notion that people have bought into that contributes to their
inability to master their tools, because their knowledge becomes 2 miles wid
e and 1/2 inch deep.

--
Best,

Neil






--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

[Mike Rivers]

geoff wrote:

Sometimes I will
do some envelopes on the DAW to reduce the number of fancy fader
moves I need to do, but really not so much.

You could do all of them in the DAW...

Sometimes that's faster than moving a fader, sometimes it's not. The
intelligent
user knows when to use which tool. Believe it or not, there are some,
no, many,
projects that don't need a level adjustment every half measure, which
can be mixed
quickly with just a couple of fader moves, or none at all.

And there are some projects that are so poorly recorded that they aren't
worth
mixing, but some people insist on mixing them and putting them out for music
lovers everywhere to hear anyway.



--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

geoff wrote:

But also if you do have a "good idea of what you want and then just do it",
it is tens if not hundreds of times quicker, undoable, and adjustable.

But if you know what you want and have the skill to do it right the
first time, there's
no need to adjust or undo it. And at least for me, it's always easier to
find the place
I want to adjust by listening to it than by finding it among a bunch of
squiggles on
the computer monitor.

There's a place for everything, however. It takes good judgment and
experience to
decide what tools to use and not simply use the same tool all the time
because a
single operation can be determined to be faster than solving a problem.

--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

geoff wrote:

You have tried Vegas ? Can't get much more intuitive and businesslike than
that, when using at it's basic level.

No, but I had Acid Pro 7 in for review and eventually gave up on it. It
borrowed
a lot of Vegas' mixer and that's what first attracted me to the program,
thinking that
maybe it would work well as the DAW I wanted.

I just kept running into the limitations of screen size, how much could
be displayed,
and what it took to get something out of hiding. I could rarely go
directly to what I
wanted to reach.

--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

Neil Gould wrote:

It appears that we're talking about different aspects of DAW use. When I
owned a professional studio, I was the primary engineer, and my partners
would sometimes "be creative and push buttons", but maintenance, repair,
setup, etc. was all in my lap. I left the studio because there wasn't enough
time left over to work on my own music. The DAW is a tool that allows me to
do that as well as "traditional" recording projects because it is more
efficient and far less maintenance-intensive.

Let's face it. Most people who record today, which very closely equates to
the number of DAW users, are doing it to record their own music. To drill
down further, many who record their own music don't play with other
musicians,
but choose, for whatever reasons, to perform and record all the parts
themselves.
This is a very good reason to use a DAW.

Some don't own or have never learned to play all the instruments that
they want
on their project, so they use virtual instruments. Some use tools to
construct
parts based on patterns or algorithms as an aid to composition or
arrangement. These
are also good reasons to use a DAW.

But that's not me. I play a little guitar in a couple of styles, but I
don't write songs,
I don't perform, and I don't have aspirations of putting what little
music I do out in
front of the public. But I do enjoy listening to certain kinds of music
- the kind that's
played by people in a complete form. And I enjoy recording that kind of
music. I'm
happy to have a band come in to record, or to record a live on-stage
performance.

It's rare that I have a project to mix where there's sufficient
isolation between tracks
that I can do any editing or replacement. There's even not much you can
do about
changing balance very much because there's plenty of guitar on the vocal
track,
plenty of banjo on the fiddle track, and so on. So most of the tools
that people
use with their "musical Erector sets" don't apply to what I do. However,
the traditional
tools help me to connect with the music that I hear coming out of the
speakers.

That's what works for me.

Wait... if the problem is fumbling with the UI, and it can be
"solved" by installing a hardware controller, why WOULDN'T you do
that?

Because it costs more money and I can do the work I need to do with
the gear I already have.

It's still a lot cheaper than an analog studio setup.

Not if I already have the analog setup. I'll admit that today I can
purchase a
pretty well equipped DAW for much less than my analog gear cost, but that's
already a sunk investment over the past 40 years, and over that period of
time it's more than paid for itself.

Would you consider a
studio that had tape decks and no mixer a practical work environment?

Well, no, but that's kind of asking if I would consider cooking in a
kitchen
that had a sink but no stove.

Pony
up, and get what you need to work the way you want without having to
complain!

Pack it up and send it to me and I'll give it a try.

There's nothing requiring one to "get updates" or change a functional,
stable system.

This is somewhat true, but people seem to do it anyway. And eventually
it's necessary to get updates because things that can't easily be fixed
break.
It's easier to buy a new computer today than to find RAM for your ten year
old computer that still works fine as your stereo editor. But that new
computer
may not be compatible with your old software.

It takes a lot longer to learn these tools than the period of
time between "updates", and in my experience, most of those "updates" are
"sidesteps" that obfuscate and distract from getting something done. This is
another notion that people have bought into that contributes to their
inability to master their tools, because their knowledge becomes 2 miles wid
e and 1/2 inch deep.

Yup. Better just not to be tempted.


--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Scott Dorsey]

geoff wrote:

Sometimes I will
do some envelopes on the DAW to reduce the number of fancy fader
moves I need to do, but really not so much.

You could do all of them in the DAW...

That's the thing about technology. Technology allows you to do lots of
things. Problem is, a lot of things are things you'd be better off
not doing.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arkansan Raider]

Neil Gould wrote:

Because life has taught me that expectations are fictitious notions and
reality has no obligation to meet them.



I'm sooooooooooo stealing that. It's almost Heinlein-esque.

---Jeff

[hank alrich]

Neil Gould wrote:

Mike Rivers wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

Would you think it reasonable if the masses were to instead purchase
boxes of physical pro audio equipment?

You mean like tape decks and consoles and compressors? Well, I think
everyone
should start out that way, but I'll accept that a computer can perform
those functions
if it's properly guided by the user.

I agree that one should learn the function of the basic audio tools, but I
also think that noone should start out by purchasing things they don't
understand, as it will inevitably lead to problems of one sort or another.

Neil, I think that's impractical, often. I didn't know squat about big
analog machines when I ordered that A80 1" decades ago. Everything I
needed to know about it was in the manual, and everything I needed to
know in order to understand that manual was in the Audio Cylcopedia.
Dealing with the technical aspects of my purchase significantly
furthered my audio education.

As complicated as that Studer was, to me, I think it'd look like a Furry
Freak Bros comic if compared to the source code for Logic.

Most folks who buy an SM58 or a other piece of gear these days have
little idea how or why it works.

All this said, I concur that it'd be a glorious and well informed world
if we could meet your expressed standard. Vis a vis Linux and pro audio,
the potential benefits to me at this time appear to be solely lower cost
for the app(s). The downside is the personal cost of the time I'd need
to get it all working satisfactorily, based on a few quick looksees and
one experience with support folks on a consulting gig who had to give up
on our Linux idea and return to Windows to handle pretty simple playback
from mutliple stations. These were guys who were Unix geeks at the code
creation level and they finally discovered the roadblock in some piece
of this or that provided for the distro. Yeah, they then probably could
have figured out how to get the Linux system working, but time had run
out and a business needed to get going.

The way I understood your comment earlier was that an app
should ideally be understandable on a simple level so that one could
start working.

Noting is simple, but it should be logical, and, yes, if you have some
idea of what
it should do, you should be able to start working quickly.

I lose you when you want to limit the app's capability on the other
end of the scale.

I only mentioned that because if you limit what you can do, you'll
spend less
time trying to figure out how to do something that you probably don't
really
need to do anyway. One of the first articles I wrote for Recording
was about moving up from a 4-track integrated recorder/mixer to an
8-track
recorder and
console. Over the next 5 years, DAWs progressed to "unlimited" tracks,
and in
my last article in the series, I encouraged the readers to do a
project
as if they
had an 8-track recorder and see how much faster it went, and to try to
evaluate
what, if anything, would be better if they had as many tracks as they
could imagine.

If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical recorder, then
that will limit what one can do.

Yet some extremely successful producer-engineers use their DAW like a
giant "tape deck" with editing benefits, handling signal processing and
balance in the analog realm. Terry Manning is one example, running PT
from/to his Neve.

Trying to add more tracks is not unique to
DAW-land; recall those folks who were syncing multiple 24-track decks
together. I wouldn't work that way with analog, and I don't work that way
with a DAW, either, but I see the DAW quite differently than a replacement
for a tape deck.

Setting limits on the number of tracks one will use means learning how
to make decisions in advance about how one will approach an arrangement.
That modern DAW's are nearly wide-open for ADA ("Additional Track
Addicition") isn't necessarily a benefit to the final musical result,
regardless of how secure it might allow the operator to feel, cruising
blissfully along in a decesionless world.

There are always physical limits. If you let the DAW fool you into
thinking that you can do things that the computer won't handle,
you'll soon find out where those constraints are.

And, what is the problem with this?

Your project will play fine one day and then you'll add another
plug-in
and it'll start stuttering. It shouldn't be that easy to break when
there's really nothing wrong.

If it stops playing your project, then something is wrong. You're describing
a way of working that ignores the reality of the system, and this kind of
problem won't be corrected by restricting the capabilities of an app.

An app can't know what the limits of
your hardware may be, other than the array of physical I/O, so once
again, I'm lost by your idea of having constraints in the
flexibility of the app.

The application can't know, but the system engineer should know.

I completely concur.

Ahh... so your thinking about the masses is really about the
articles one can write when something new comes in the door?

Right - because they're the ones who will have to decide whether to
buy it or not. Most programs have demo versions available, but that
can only tell you so much. I heartily recommend trying a demo to see
if the user interface makes sense and that it doesn't require more
computer than you have.

I think that it would be a help for people to have some idea of what they
want to do before starting to browse demos of apps, because even putting
such apps on a system willy-nilly can cause systemic problems.

Amen. Beyond my initial purchase of an AMII board to run on my wife's
Quadra 800 I've always acquired my DAW app at the time I bought a new
computer. The system has always been adequate for my requirements, but
again, I come from an ancient world of track limitations and align my
expectations and my approach to the tools at hand.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar
http://www.armadillomusicproductions...rryMeHome.html
http://hankalrich.com/

[hank alrich]

Laurence Payne wrote:

On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:59:42 -0500, Mike Rivers
wrote:

If you think of the DAW only as a replacement for a physical recorder, then
that will limit what one can do.

Well, what else IS there to do? Plug-ins? We have hardware for that.
Editing?
You can do that. Bringing in audio from other sources? All that takes is
a patch
cable (and the source). Turn it into an orchestra? We have stand-alone
synthesizers.

Brushing aside the possibilities of digital editing with an offhand
"You can do that" is disingenuous to say the least :-) And, like it
or not (as a musician I probably dislike it even more than do the
old-time recordists), the job has already moved from 100% recording
live musicians to include a large element of sound design and
construction.

While the bigtime might insist on that approach, there's room for a more
direct approach to recorded music. We're super small time, but getting a
nice response to the project referenced in my sig, and that one hangs
far from the land of pitch and tempo grids. "Stuff actually played"
seems to appeal to enough folks that we stand at least a niche-sized
chance of getting somewhere little with it.

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar
http://www.armadillomusicproductions...rryMeHome.html
http://hankalrich.com/

[hank alrich]

Neil Gould wrote:

Arkansan Raider wrote:
Neil Gould wrote:

Composition. Creation. The DAW paradigm of apps like Sonar, Cubase,
Logic, et al go well beyond the analog studio hardware concept. A
DAW can be as much a musical instrument or arranging tool as a
recorder. Sure, people have done these things for centuries without
a DAW, but that doesn't negate the value of having such a tool today.



Not to mention the time-saving value of Band-In-A-Box type software.
I'm a singer, not a pianist or a guitarist. Knowing music notation
and music theory have saved my backside when it comes to
communicating to the other musicians what I want to put together when
I write.

And so when I write in BIAB or PT or Cakewalk or whatever, I can get
my idea across a lot more precisely than what I could do by charting
with pencil and paper. A DAW is IMMENSELY valuable to me!

Not only can they hear your general idea, if they prefer to read it, those
programs can print out a decent set of lead sheets of your piece. Try that
with an analog setup.

Having watched an arranger for the Houston Pops write charts about as
fast as musicians can read them, I think it ain't necessarily so. g

In a gorgeous hand Don Elam would begin left to right for the top stave
and reverse that for the next to eliminate having to move his hand back
across the page. Pretty darn fun to observe.

(And admittedly not a commonly held level of skill.)

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar
http://www.armadillomusicproductions...rryMeHome.html
http://hankalrich.com/

[hank alrich]

Laurence Payne wrote:

The current mass assumption that music,
by default, consists of a 4-bar loop at mm=120 repeated ad nauseam
with other stuff layered over it came with the technology that made
this easy.

Oh, great. There goes breakfast... g

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar
http://www.armadillomusicproductions...rryMeHome.html
http://hankalrich.com/

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 11:31:39 -0600, hank alrich wrote:


Having watched an arranger for the Houston Pops write charts about as
fast as musicians can read them, I think it ain't necessarily so. g

In a gorgeous hand Don Elam would begin left to right for the top stave
and reverse that for the next to eliminate having to move his hand back
across the page. Pretty darn fun to observe.

(And admittedly not a commonly held level of skill.)

Having done my share of theater show work (piano), I have always
marveled at the way music copyists and arrangers work. I guess music
copyists are a thing of the past these days

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 11:31:38 -0600, hank alrich wrote:


As complicated as that Studer was, to me, I think it'd look like a Furry
Freak Bros comic if compared to the source code for Logic.


How true, which is why I say the average engineer at least has some
chance of repairing his own gear even if it's via tricks of the trade
he learned over the years.

Compare that to slogging through millions of lines of source code.

Most folks who buy an SM58 or a other piece of gear these days have
little idea how or why it works.

Sad but true.


All this said, I concur that it'd be a glorious and well informed world
if we could meet your expressed standard. Vis a vis Linux and pro audio,
the potential benefits to me at this time appear to be solely lower cost
for the app(s). The downside is the personal cost of the time I'd need
to get it all working satisfactorily, based on a few quick looksees and
one experience with support folks on a consulting gig who had to give up
on our Linux idea and return to Windows to handle pretty simple playback
from mutliple stations. These were guys who were Unix geeks at the code
creation level and they finally discovered the roadblock in some piece
of this or that provided for the distro. Yeah, they then probably could
have figured out how to get the Linux system working, but time had run
out and a business needed to get going.

IMHO the biggest downside to Linux is lack of support for popular
VST's like Ivory, Superior Drummer, UAD cards and most likely any
plugin that requires a dongle.

It goes way beyond effects type plugins.

It's not Linux's fault, but that's the way the it is.



Amen. Beyond my initial purchase of an AMII board to run on my wife's
Quadra 800 I've always acquired my DAW app at the time I bought a new
computer. The system has always been adequate for my requirements, but
again, I come from an ancient world of track limitations and align my
expectations and my approach to the tools at hand.

My usual recommendation is to pick the software first and then the
platform.

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:44:22 -0500, Mike Rivers wrote:

geoff wrote:

You have tried Vegas ? Can't get much more intuitive and businesslike than
that, when using at it's basic level.

No, but I had Acid Pro 7 in for review and eventually gave up on it. It
borrowed
a lot of Vegas' mixer and that's what first attracted me to the program,
thinking that
maybe it would work well as the DAW I wanted.

I couldn't warm up to Acid Pro 7 either.
Same for Abelton Live ! which has the worst looking screen I have ever
seen.

Others love the programs though so who am I to argue?

geoff is right about Vegas though, it's like using a tape machine and
if you get the video version the same thing applies to video.
Very intuitive IMHO.
You have an effects chain that is easy to see and use.


I just kept running into the limitations of screen size, how much could
be displayed,
and what it took to get something out of hiding. I could rarely go
directly to what I
wanted to reach.

That's my problem as well, even with twin 20 inch LCD's.
Hotkeys are your friend.

[Moshe goldfarb]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 20:07:35 +1300, geoff wrote:

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:

I do a combination of both.
What I find interesting is how the industry is going back to real
hardware, only they call them "control surfaces" now.
We have come 360 IMHO.


I have a control surface. I seldom use it. Just one step on from DAWs that
seem to require a window that looks like a mixer.

geoff

I don't use one either although the Euphonix system looks like it
might be a winner.

With the exception of using one as a transport, I just don't see the
point of having to keep assigning and re-assigning controls?
Seems like a waste of time to me, or maybe I'm just too old school and
prefer a button, knob, slider for everything.

[Mike Rivers]

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:

Having done my share of theater show work (piano), I have always
marveled at the way music copyists and arrangers work. I guess music
copyists are a thing of the past these days

They still exist, but many of them have adopted computer tools. They don't
get the score writen any faster, but it's easier to make changes if they
make
a mistake (good ones rarely do) or if the music changes. Also, they can
get the
"computer ready" copy required today rather than "camera ready" in the
past.



--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson

[Mike Rivers]

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:

How true, which is why I say the average engineer at least has some
chance of repairing his own gear even if it's via tricks of the trade
he learned over the years.

People keep bringing up "repair" in this discussion, but pro level hardware
doesn't break all that often. What you do learn to understand, however, is
how to get signals in and out. This is probably more important with a mixing
console than a tape deck. For example, how many people have their monitors
connected to the Main outputs of their mixer and wonder why they can only
hear soloing in the headphones. Or don't get the concept that aux sends and
aux returns are independent, or that an aux send works equally well as an
output to an effect processor and as a headphone cue feed.

IMHO the biggest downside to Linux is lack of support for popular
VST's like Ivory, Superior Drummer, UAD cards and most likely any
plugin that requires a dongle.

That's a programming problem. Give the programmers the required
reference data and they could add that support into their DAWs. The
problem is with the plug-in and virtual instrument makers. They aren't
writing their products to an open standard, and they don't want to give
their competitors any information that could work against them.

It's not Linux's fault, but that's the way the it is.

What's Linux' fault, if it's a fault, is the culture of the people who write
the programs. Someone gets what he thinks is a good idea so it gets
thrown on to the heap (usually without adequate documentation at either
the programmer or user level) and nobody tells them that the job is done
and they should work on something else. Dawhead (I believe it was him)
said that this is the "modern way" of programming - that they don't start
with a functional specification, develop lower level specifications, and
then
start writing code that they can test to verify that it meets the
specifications.

My usual recommendation is to pick the software first and then the
platform.

That's fine if you can find one piece of software that will meet all of
your
needs. But the minute you see something cool in another piece of software,
you want it.




--
"Today's production equipent is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson