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Author Topic: Do computers belong in the studio?  (Read 10248 times)

slholmes

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Do computers belong in the studio?
« on: June 13, 2003, 02:22:24 pm »
I've been working with computers and music since 1984.  During that time, I've watched the rise of MIDI and digital audio software.  It has been one heart breaking series of frustrations since day one.  I have arrived at the following conclusion regarding computer music - and I'm calling it a fundemental tenet of computer science in general.  Here it is:

ONLY THE EASY THINGS WORK.

If you attempt to do anything out of the ordinary or even a little bit advanced, you get timing issues, hangs, unexpected results, pops, dropouts, hums, MIDI loops, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseumious.

The last six months, I decided to knuckle down and get some of my really expensive software working.  I spent countless hours with Logic Audio - but you know, that dongle just doesn't work - it's because I want to work on the laptop.  I have to remove the dongle to put the laptop on the docking station.  I'm scrapping Reaktor software synth for much the same reason.  NI says it's only supposed to prompt you for the CD every several months.  I found it prompting two or three times a week - and damn it I'm on the train, I don't have time to be prompted for a CD.

You see, ONLY THE EASY THINGS WORK.

I've spent countless hours trying to make my 24 bit Edirol UA20 USB work without any problems.  It blows.  It's a POS.  Edirol did not return my phone calls and I'm getting ready to chunk it.  Being overally optimistic, I bought two of the darn things.  I'm looking into WaMI now but I don't know.  I'm not worried about the money.  I'M WORRIED ABOUT THE TIME I wasted not making music.

Sure, I know, I'm trying to do too much.  But I just want my surface controller to work with my synths AND my audio software without a bunch of tedious mind numbing programming and configuring.

So, this sucks.  In order to do modern highly flexible control routings and special effects, I'm faced with months of learning computer programs, working around bugs and comprosing everything because

ONLY THE EASY THINGS WORK.

I've been working very dilligently for at least four years now and I've got about half of a CD recorded.  The rest of the time, I've been trying to learn a bunch of stuff that I ended up not using.

Except for basic D&B, Computer music is so far so less than what it could be, my eyes some times fill up with tears of frustration.  It's no wonder why nearly half the music out there can be classified as MINIMALIST.  Because if you DIY, that's the best you can hope for, unless you want to put thousands of man hours into mind numbing parameters and configurations.

God, hear my prayer.  Grant some manufacturer the good sense to create a modular music computer - and for Pete's sake, include a full 88 weighted keyboard with plug and play modular controll surface and some way to work on it offline on the train.
I was looking for you but I couldn't find you.
I was looking for you all day.
But I couldn't find you.  I couldn't find you.

Mr. Wizard

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ONLY THE EASY THINGS WORK.
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2003, 08:21:25 am »
I feel your pain.  As a guitarist I've spent (probably) thousands of hours honing my skills, learning to read music, studying equipment.  I'm kinda guessing that to truly create art, you have to suffer and keep coming up against problems.  

One can only hope that SOME of the problems encountered are managable.

Thanks for your comments on some of the stuff you've bought that is unworkable.  Now I know where NOT to spend my money.

forager

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Do computers belong in the studio?
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2003, 10:06:03 am »
I reckon your is an interesting post. I've been recording and using midi
to run a studio since drumatix and Creator sequencer for the atari came out.  After installing three million thru boxes, owning tens of modules,
samplers and all the other hardware to be the front end of the midi setup,
finally I gave it all away. I sold the lot piece by piece, and started dabbling
in purely software music creation tools. hundreds of such tools I have dl'd bought, tried out, and basically none of them really replaced either a decent midi rig, or a decent guitar and amp for making music.

So I drifted back into just playing guitar, bought a nice old roland jazz chorus amp and that was that. But then I got a note saying storm 2 was
available, and since dl'ing it, my life has changed a lot. (for the better).

It's the closest thing to jamming music I've ever had access to.
I can just site down have a coffee and play around, write a few riffs,
then save them as ideas, come back , have a listen, do a bit of arrangement, go have some more life, come back and bingo,
I have some nice music done! It's really like, civilised.

I remember when a single akai sampler was us5000. With storm 2
I can have 8 samplers running if I want using rewire. I spent thousands on real to real tape recorders, now, I just press a button and storm records my song or riff or seperate parts out, it's just stunning.

I reckon lots of people think that storm 2 is best for doing dance / techno music, but hey, that's just not true, I use it for doing soundtracks and
other forms of music that don't have the structural timidity of most of
the dance stuff around.

In the old days even if you had a sampler, preparing loops for it was a major pain in the butt, now, storm generates them with perfect accuracy
in micro seconds.

My point is, that storm 2 is exactly what the doctor ordered for people who wish to make music and not spend hours and hours screwing around
with protools / cubase / midi setups etc.

For me, storm 2 has revitalized my ambitions to make contemporary music. I can't wait to get some classical samples into h30+!


I only wish that storm 2 had been around when I was a kid. But it was not.

For a budding composer or brian eno type, there is  nothing
in the same league as storm 2. And, talk about simple to use.
The sequencer is whickedly simple. Arrangement is a breeze.
It's all there, (EZ track needs fixing though!).

Storm 2 is a vision of the future of creating music on a computer,
it's a beautiful sports car, a fantastic creative tool, the fact that
not everyone is aware of this is weird, but, it was written
to be useful for musicians, and I reckon it's the best piece of
music software I've ever bought, and it has brought back the joy of the process to me, which after years of midi studio time, I had almost lost.

So my advice would be, forget the dongle, forget the patch bay,
fire up the storm 2 studio and make music instead of getting depressed!

 :)

Anonymous

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Do computers belong in the studio?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2003, 10:44:03 pm »
What is this dumb topic ... Arturia are spiking their forum with fake posts and then setting it all straight with a piece of product propagandah! Wow ... wake up boys and girls. Your pants are down!

AM

Anonymous

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No fake post
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2003, 03:40:35 pm »
Quote from: "Anonymous"
What is this dumb topic ... Arturia are spiking their forum with fake posts and then setting it all straight with a piece of product propagandah! Wow ... wake up boys and girls. Your pants are down!

AM

We do not post any fake topic, and when we post a new message, we sign it.
Arturia members who animate and moderate this forum are : xavier, nicolas and Administrator.

David
Webmaster/Administrator/Moderator

scking

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Do computers belong in the studio?
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2004, 04:53:05 pm »
I'm curious, is the original poster using a PC or a Mac?

forager_xp

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Do computers belong in the studio?
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2004, 04:10:01 am »
I happened to re-read this thread as I looked for new information regarding storm 3 which I have paid for and wait to arrive eagerly.

I want to say a year later my views/propaganda regarding storm 2 remains almost exactly as I stated in this post....

Hey, have fun everyone!

 

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