On Sun, 2013-02-10 at 12:17 +0100, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
On 02/10/2013 01:59 AM, gerald.mwangi@xxxxxx wrote:
hi gerald!
<strong disagreement next 5 miles, and likely some alligators crossing>
What sucks: the workflow does not feel organic! Can you say that
bringing down an idea alone with multiple instruments (sequentially
recording all instruments, including synths) to disk is as easy as
recording it with a band on an 8track machine? No!
as someone who has done his share of 8track reel-to-reel recording:
BWAHAHAHAHAAAHAAAA.
compare:
* clean and degauss tape heads
* find some empty tape (at something like 90 € per half hour)
* thread the tape
* lay down test tones
* (optional) wrestle with your noise reduction
* level, arm, roll
to:
* start jack
* start ardour with 8-track template
* level, arm, roll
when it comes to editing and mixing, the whole comparison becomes
ridiculously unbalanced. and i'm not even talking sound quality yet.
and if you want to include the setup and configuration of a bare-bones
machine, then please also include the soldering iron and oscilloscope :)
don't get me wrong, gerald, this isn't meant as personal criticism, and
your input is certainly appreciated, but this statement just doesn't
hold water.
It does at least hold water for naive musicians. They buy a 8 track
machine and a tape. To thread the tape is a real manually event, so they
understand how to do it. They don't need to set up and to use a Computer
with Linux (or any other OS), no need to learn anything, to handle any
issues.
Cleaning and degaussing indeed is a PITA. Fortunately I can't remember
when I last time used my demagnetizing device to degauss heads.
Noise reduction quality and sound quality depend to calibration,
something that usually can't be done at home and it only will fit to one
spread of one type of tape from one vendor. If the calibration is ok,
the sound isn't less good than a digital recording.
Usually you can't use the tape directly, but you have to record SMPTE
first. However, for some musicians a 8-track analog tape recorder or any
very simple _digital_ HD recorder is much, much easier to use than a
computer.
And just saying that
it is not possible with other OS's is no excuse. The linux audio
experience has to feel like just picking up an instrument (complex
synths included) and a band to jam in the idea.
<snip>
But, and this a big but: as I don't need nor want documentation to get a
tone out of my guitar/ my voice, I don't want documentation to handle
linux audio!
dude. you have practised your guitar for years. at some point, that
surely involved reading documentation, or at least very thorough and
systematic exploration on your part.
if you were to claim that guitars are needlessly complex and you are
entitled to just grab one and go, hard-working guitarists would be
rightfully offended and laugh at you.
Jörn, you seemingly don't care about a wide spread variety of humans
with completely different traits, abilities and weaknesses.
a studio workflow is no different. it takes practice and respect to
master. why does everybody and their grandma just assume that when they
suck at recording, it must be the studio's fault? that is kind of
offending to hard-working recording engineers. ;)
The whole ecosystem has to be integrated and simple to be
operated at the ease of a few clicks with no prior knowledge! To the
same extent as it is open to all.
no. no. no. i don't want to be limited to a three-stringed guitar
because people can only count "one, two, many".
stuff that works without prior knowledge or some will to study is
usually boring, and ineffective. it's cool for a week, and then you
outgrow it.
now i'm all ears when it comes to discussing workflow and how to
streamline stuff - after all, professional studio work is all about
workflow. but i don't like blanket statements that threaten to make
software too simplistic for more demanding work.
A guitar player don't need to be able to build a guitar. A hobby audio
engineer don't need to know how the gear does work, assumed the hobby
engineer does use stand alone devices and isn't interested in
maintaining the gear, because sound quality isn't that important.
Using Linux, keeping the workflow can become a PITA, just by updating
the DE ;), there are no updates for a 8 track analog recorder.
IMO the issue is "stand alone" vs "computer".
Regards,
Ralf
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