how many are using sequencers and pluings today?

[HanafiH]

Ultimately it is because it remains in the digital realm from one end of the production process to the other and is therefore independant of all that krap, just as it is from the vaguaries of a hardware set-up. I couldn't use Sik's Prophecy, the only hardware synth I think is superior to any software, in a mix if I wanted to because we have been completely unable to eliminate mains hum from it, despite having plugged it into every outlet in my place.

You've still got to go through the analog hole somewhere in the pipeline.

I do agree with you about the Prophecy. That's the Z1 Sondius stuff they put onto the MOSS board and isn't anywhere near as alive. Hey ho. I think one has to tie the argument down into what it is you want the stuff to do. There is no universal tool.

[Ildon]

I think one has to tie the argument down into what it is you want the stuff to do. There is no universal tool.

Yes, sir.

[BASSDRIVE]

Software here, because it's easy to use and convenient!

[Ildon]

Eventually software will dominate, I think. It's kind of a pity, too, because I like the idea of having one good synth you can always count on. That one synth that was like a lover... mm... That seems to be a thing of the past, though. Now with all these 80770252590732532 gigabyte sample libraries and the 80 gigs of RAM everyone has... it's only getting bigger and better, too.

[[decipher]]

so if you think about it. arent all those shiny new hardware synths just dedicated computer systems? they are based arounds circuits and chips and whatnot, right? like my computer. and most of them can't keep up with modern pc hardware. in terms of cpu power, RAM, HD space or whatever. i quickly checked this yamaha motif someone mentioned earlier. piano sample set with only 3 velocity layers was mentioned as a ubersupercool feature! and like 185 mb wave rom! YEAH!
with my 800$ computer a good sample player and a bunch of nice sample packs topped with lots of free or really cheap synths and effects, hosted in eXT. no need for modern hardware!

but i really would like to have some older hardware to play with. like a real rhodes, guitar, bassguitar... all that kind of stuff that has this vintage authentic feel to it and its very own personal kinda sound.

as lots of others already mentioned i too think that most people can't even grasp the sheer possibilities with software based music making. they like get magix music maker or whatnot, use the shipped sounds. fiddle around. some of them will evolve further into the material. discover kvr. test out all the wonderful free vst/i and all that. others stay with what they have and play the cool superelite music producer! whatever.

in the end. i think it changed a bit over the last 2-3 years. i think software has grown lot more mature and with that more accepted in the music scene.
and when it comes down to it.. no matter WHAT you use. there is always someone whos like
"WHAT YOU USE FRUITYLOOPS?! THATS A TOY! YOU GOTTA GET THEM CUBASE MAN! THATS THE PRO SHIT! BETTER GRAB NUENDO! THATS WHAT TEH STARS USE! AND IF YOU REALLY WANNA BE ON TOP OF DA CHARTS. PRO TOOLS! WHAT WHAT!"

(change fruityloops/cubase/nuendo/pro tools accordingly. lots of stuff fits )

BLA!

maybe jorgen wants to build a hardware device dedicated to run eXT 3! HELL YEAH! i'm in! hehe...

[BONES]

You've still got to go through the analog hole somewhere in the pipeline.

Why? We produced our albums in a completely digital environment. Yes, it had to be converted for monitoring purposes but the final "Stream to Wave" process is completely independant of that. In reality, the only D/A conversion in the entire process is when the customer puts it in his/her CD player and presses "Play". Up until it goes through the CD player's converters, the entire process had taken place in the digital domain, completely unaffected by any hardware.

It's kind of a pity, too, because I like the idea of having one good synth you can always count on.

I do, its called WaspXT. Why should that change when you go from hardware to software? Software samplers leave me cold, far more so than hardware samplers ever did. Consequently I don't use them as much as I used to which works out really well because with the incredible variety of softsynths around I don't need to.

[Ildon]

It's kind of a pity, too, because I like the idea of having one good synth you can always count on.

I do, its called WaspXT. Why should that change when you go from hardware to software? Software samplers leave me cold, far more so than hardware samplers ever did. Consequently I don't use them as much as I used to which works out really well because with the incredible variety of softsynths around I don't need to.

Very, very good point. I know I'll end up feeling that way about Ravity once I buy it. I already can't stop myself from touching it at least three or four times a day.

I respect that. You choose one or two instruments and you stick to them. That's what I like to do, and that's what I think many people should do. In a world where so much is so accessible, though, I wonder how many people will actually sit down and really learn their instruments.

[siriusbliss]

I'm feeling old. Still have my original Teac 4-track reel-to-reel and Atari 1040ST (yikes!).

About 75% software now. The rest are guitars and effects.

We may start seeing dedicated hardware/USB/firewire boxes with software loaded. Simply setup a network of these hubs and interface via your PDA (or something like that).

Everything comes full-circle eventually I guess.

G

[kara]

I am basicly a hardware guy, which means that I mostly play with a couple of hardware synthesizers.
My MIDI sequencer of choice is allso hardware, a Yamaha QY700.
Multitrack recorder is an 8 track Roland digital recorder.

Ok, that's the "how", I would love to hear the "why" because I cannot imagine what advantage you could see to a QY700 over any software sequencer.

I never said it was a better way of working, I just said it was my way of working. And it's my way of working because I'm used to work that way, it's hardware that I know inside - out and I can fully concentrate on making music when I use it.
Would propably be possible with software too.
And I still see a couple of small advantages in my setup, wich propably are only valid for me
- No noise in my studio, I have no fans running in continu.
- When I power up my QY it is operational right way, without boot process and in exactly the state where I left it.
- The are a couple of others but nobody would care to hear those.

I think that the way of looking at gear from hardware guys, as I am, is completly different then those software guys.
We are NOT looking forward to that weekly update (friday) of the software... we just make music with what we have !

As a former hardware guy, my question to youis why can't you take the same attitude with software? I certainly can. I'm still using an eXT version from last August which would be avbout 6 updates old now. So what, it works for me. OTOH I used to drop into my music store on a weekly basis waiting for the next OS update for my ASR-10, in the hope that they would fix a few problems. With software I can tell the developer what the problem is and get a fix in a couple of days, all without interrupting my life.
It all comes down to the individual's attitude.

Here you have a point

[BONES]

I never said it was a better way of working, I just said it was my way of working.

I was curious is all. After a few months with Fruityloops I found it impossible to go back tho the stupid, little touch-screen on my Trinity, it drove me nuts. I was wondering what it is that keeps you going back to hardware.

[HanafiH]

Eventually software will dominate

The probability of that is very low unless perfectly strong copy protection comes into existence. The protection burning your IP onto silicon gives a manufacturer is reflected in the amount of money they're willing to spend on developing new algorithms, and the amount of money they expect to recover from selling it.

The unfortunate nature of assymetric markets - I'll explain this - assymetric markets are markets where the normal rules of supply and demand don't operate. For example Undertaking is a good example, where no amount of marketing is going to affect demand, that's why undertakers generally don't advertise unless there's too many undertakers in the local market. Downloadable software on the other hand, once you've made it, you have an infinite supply of it. Price directly links to demand and to demand alone.

The nature of piracy is to force down demand, thereby forcing down prices. When effectively strong protection does come about, the prices will go up in line with the restored demand. The effect of this will be to drive marginal developers out of the market (because if you HAVE to pay, you'll pay for the best you can get), and drive the prices of the large developers up. The market will divide and operate solely on the basis of true supply to the true demand. Which is where the hardware builders have always been.

It's curious how the existence of software has actually forced synth prices up (all joking apart), the resale value of my collection has actually risen, not fallen over the last five years.

Korg, Yamaha, Roland etc., actually have the revenues to develop new synth technologies, but will burn these into silicon, where the number of units made balances the true demand for synthesizers (which is actually very low and always has been). The market appears to be vast because so many people are in it, but none of them are spending, even pro users by some accounts. Software will be bought up by the hardware manufacturers as soon as they can guarantee a sale is a sale.

so if you think about it. arent all those shiny new hardware synths just dedicated computer systems? they are based arounds circuits and chips and whatnot, right? like my computer. and most of them can't keep up with modern pc hardware. in terms of cpu power, RAM, HD space or whatever. i quickly checked this yamaha motif someone mentioned earlier. piano sample set with only 3 velocity layers was mentioned as a ubersupercool feature! and like 185 mb wave rom! YEAH!

Have you actually ever listened to a MOTIF? Did you get as far as the PLG expander when reading about it? Also the Yamaha Clavinova range, also the Yamaha concert grands? how many layers per note does that have?

The difficulty with quantifying the quality of musical instruments by the number of something, is that a musical instrument is not a colection of something. The problem software RUMulators confront is that KORG, for example, have over fifteen years of in-house experience in creating ultra compact rom blocks and can spend more money on improving the core design, than the entire production run will earn for software developers of the emulation.

A paralell would be GAME development. The bigger the budget, the larger the team, the better the game, and no disrepect to the very talented small developers making most of the good offerings currently, but if any of the big 3 felt threatened by the market, they could buy it without even explaining why on the annual report.

You've still got to go through the analog hole somewhere in the pipeline.

Why? We produced our albums in a completely digital environment. Yes, it had to be converted for monitoring purposes but the final "Stream to Wave" process is completely independant of that.

So you made all your creative decisions using the on-mobo chip and the cheapest equipment you could find down your local PC World? And you didn't have the album professionally mastered? Yes I know the conversion is independent of the card, but then again, sin't that true for everbody else, so why are not all computer-only recordings of identical quality?

[BONES]

When effectively strong protection does come about, the prices will go up in line with the restored demand. The effect of this will be to drive marginal developers out of the market (because if you HAVE to pay, you'll pay for the best you can get), and drive the prices of the large developers up. The market will divide and operate solely on the basis of true supply to the true demand. Which is where the hardware builders have always been.

Its nice that you paid attention in class but you're not applying wehat you learned very effectively as you are completely discounting freeware.

It's curious how the existence of software has actually forced synth prices up, the resale value of my collection has actually risen, not fallen over the last five years.

Nice for you but it had the exact opposite effect on the resale price of the hardware I've sold in the last five years. When I bought my Trinity I expected to be able to get at least 50% of it' sinitial cost back, given that I kept it good condition, but I got less than 25% and it was pristine. That is the absolute worst resale ever for me in 20 years. More than that, it also took an order of magnitude more effort to get rid of it - it spent 6 months on consignment in two different shops before I gave up and put it on ebay, where I didn't get a single bid. I'm actually surprised I managed to get rid of it at all, despite it being far and away teh best piece of gear I ever owned.

So you made all your creative decisions using the on-mobo chip and the cheapest equipment you could find down your local PC World?

Sorry, I don't get your drift here. D/A conversion i snecessary for monitoring purposes but it happens outside the production pathway. i.e. It has no effect on the actual signal.

And you didn't have the album professionally mastered?

The label got the first one done professionally but I did the last one at home using my Edirol MA-10's. So I suppose they got that one done semi-professionally.

Yes I know the conversion is independent of the card, but then again, sin't that true for everbody else, so why are not all computer-only recordings of identical quality?

For the same reason that not all record producers get paid the same amount of money. That's what makes it an art.

[nuisance sonore]

Sorry to be so bluntly on topic, but is anybody aware of a serious study about what the market could be like for computer made music? If there's one, what method did they use? A quick google didn't turn out anything relevant.

Somebody mentionned looking at combined sequencer userbase. The problem I see with this is that a lot of peoples in the field, like me, probably have bought more than one sequencer; how relevant is that, I don't know.

Warez site download figures aren't very relevant probably, as a lot of peoples download stuff just because it's there without even knowing what it is.

Hardware sales figures aren't probably relevant either as the market is changing and even if you take only keyboard sales, it doesn't mean that everybody who bought a hardware synth necessarly use a computer to compose and produce, nor is anybody using computer to compose and produce music necessarly owns a keyboard.

KVR members database? I remmeber when I first signed up here, I used a different name and logins than I use now which I then forgot so I had to create another account; the old one probably still floats in the database somewhere. How many registration are dudds like this, and how many produce music professionaly on computers and don't have a KVR account?

[kara]

I don't understand what you mean by a market for 'computer made music' ? What is the difference between a neo-jazz song composed and recorded with buzz and the same song played by a band and recorder with a hardware 4 track ? I know what the difference is from a musicial point of view, but what would be the difference from a market point of view ?
Even for the more electronica styles of music ? What is the market difference of a song recorded with fruity loops or a song entirely done on a Motif or an Oasis ?

[HanafiH]

Its nice that you paid attention in class but you're not applying wehat you learned very effectively as you are completely discounting freeware.

Freeware depresses demand in exactly the same way that warez does, but it affects the smaller vendors disproportionately. I should remember then name of it, but I don't; there's a Linux descendend clone of Microsoft Office that's actually really very, very good and can be had completely for free. Microsoft are now in effect offering forward compatability with it through XML file standards in the next release of Office.

Sorry, I don't get your drift here. D/A conversion i snecessary for monitoring purposes but it happens outside the production pathway. i.e. It has no effect on the actual signal.

Sorry, I usually listen to my synths when I'm composing with them. I also usually listen to the music when I'm mixing it. You appear to be saying that that's irrelevant to the quality of music. You can't hear bits, how ever lovely the Novakill synth (and they are) used to generate them.

A software synth, in musical performance terms, is only as good as the human interface the computer offers the musician, and if I know you, you know that better than most.

For the same reason that not all record producers get paid the same amount of money. That's what makes it an art.

And the same reason pro's don't use Audigys but use momma great rack converters.