Host Wars 2006: The Fall Classic

[grymmjack]

I would think that for a former Pro Tools user, that Nuendo/Cubase would be a logical choice. When Nuendo 1.0 came out, it was obvious that it was trying to be similar to Pro Tools, but a bit more modern. As someone that learned on Pro Tools, I found Nuendo easy to understand.

Of course, the knobs at Steinberg don't provide demos, so you'd have to take my word for it. You'd probably want to be checking out SONAR 6; that's getting quite impressive now.

one word: $$$$$$$


i tried the cubase lite or whatever it's called that came with my emu card and it didn't care for it...i actually like T2 ok for the easy setup, but there are certain little bits that bug me even beyond editing...

i have to admit, Sonar looks very tempting...i'd love to try out the Variphrase stuff and the Lexi verb (although the Tracktion verb is actually quite nice as are the other T2 exclusive FX)

best wait for t2.5 before you do your shootout with the demos.

we are workflow enslaved junkies. nothing else to say about it. it's definitely fascinating to experience this mental trap first hand and witness it happening to peers.

if you think about it, it's really addiction. those who are slaves to workflow wont admit it, and the ones that aren't are slaves to the music inside their heads seeking in some other ways -- more synths/diff effects/etc.

we are all guilty on some level of being junkies for the fix.

since i've been able to step away from it all landing a new job, unable to kvr and unable to play music/experiment/learn about music and all that goes with it, i've come to realize quite a few things about the elusive hobby that occupied my time when i had time to spare; all of these tools that have come out, be them hosts or instruments or effects, aren't really original or new or necessary. sometime a while back, the tools reached a point where they were all able to record, play, stop, rewind, using audio and midi and route plugs around. beyond these things it all comes down to implementation and preference. after the 'virtual tape recorder' was made, it was all all about making it better and more functional, and this has been done. if we honestly look at what has been happening with the main hosts, for the last few versions it's been nothing major really. the only originality coming from ableton, imageline, andn rawmaterial, and now that is being copied as well... the host companies are all competing for marketshare and none are doing anything new, just adding workflow shit on, piling it up version after version.

so year after year we eat this up like good little consumers. really when is enough enough? the addicts reading this (my own addict voice protesting silently as i type this even) will call me a "fool" and tell me "you dont get it!" but i think i finally do get it. the amount of time wasted being distracted by the hype of hosts and whats coming is stunning. it's a common theme to interject "go make music." and "just go record!" or whatever when people start the threads like this.

i think i've hit my bottom with this addiction, and though i speak only for myself here, i'm sure quite a few can empathize..i bought finally komplete3 by NI. NI i always regarded as the be-all-end-all company of VST since i have always loved their products. so the stuff i've always wanted, i've finally bought. definitely can do anything and everything i'd ever want to do musically with this stuff (and yes i could do it before without this stuff too and that's the sickness of addiction) so i've vowed to myself not to buy any more crap for this hobby and focus on the music now. i've got freaking 7 hosts; tracktion, ext, flstudio, phrazor, cubase, cantabile, and sonar (an old version but quite capable just the same). i have tons of commercial instruments and effects i've bought this year that i haven't even begun to exploit to their fullest before i even bought komplete.

this is the addiction. it happens alot here and i know i'm not the only victim. admittedly, i have the kind of personality that gets obsessed about things, and quickly addicted to stuff. it was the same with real drugs for me, and once i realized the trap i kept falling in, i finally let go of it all and reinvented myself to stop being a slave to my addiction. now it's a new potentially more dangerous addiction to computers, music and computers, graphics and computers, programming and computers, etc. the only thing is it's considered 'productive' to society to be good at this stuff. however i know i'll never really do much with music aside from it being a hobby so i really have hit a bottom! buying komplete and doing so on credit that i vowed not a year earlier i would never do again (credit debt etc) it's proof to me that i'm slipping. the saddest part is during this time of my consumerism weaknesses to music and computers i've only made a little bit of music.

before i came to kvr i owned 3 hosts; cubase, flstudio, and sonar. each host i still use on occasion (flstudio being an almost constant) and with 3 i could justify it, atleast to my rational mindset; "sonar was unstable", "cubase was unproductive", and flstudio was "great but sucked for audio multitrack" (which being a guitarist i record performances often). so i found tracktion, it did everything i needed, and still does with only minor bugs. now t2.5 is coming and i hope the bugs are gone but i doubt they are because of the fact some of the bugs cannot be removed without major rewrite.. the midi part of tracktion annoyed me coming from robust midi capable hosts like sonar/cubase/flstudio and so i bought ext. i like ext but it is so deep and versatile i am too lazy to embrace it the way it should be. i know it was wise investment and it's going to serve me well when i let it and give time to it to learn it inside and out (already it's great in the way i've used it to experiment) but it left me wondering.. so i bought phrazor, which is a perfect compliment to tracktion for midi stuff. it can do things quickly and easily and i'm loving it. so ok.. why cantabile? i found i didn't need to start a full fledged host when experimenting with instruments and effects. i regged minihost and used it often and fell in love with the 'mini' concept and 'sketchpad' idea...since minihost started giving me probs i i went with cantabile. now i'm helping brad test and do some graphics for him and the 1.2 version is awesome! so there are literally tons of choices and overlap for hosts.

the sickness is in my mind trying to convince myself i need these things. i neeeeeeeeeeeed them meanwhile the complexity of my world grows because each of these spectacular softwares have their own 'workflow' which is bringing me full circle back to the point.. this 'workflow' that keeps getting /better/ and better also is becoming (not always but often) more complex and more contrary to the original point of making music by recording it into my computer, overlaying leads onto rhythms, adding drums and vocals, etc. i'm a spoiled brat now. every demand i have is completely out of scope. from freeze to bezier automation curves to layer-based track takes, it's TOTALLY over the top.

i remember the first time i understood how multitrack audio worked. it was using cakewalk pro audio 7 or 6, i can't rememeber (before that i was using 2 tape recorders and a mic (sometimes built into the deck sometimes external cheap mic from radioshack), i was in heaven. i saw the waveforms could be visualized and the visual representation of things related to the sound. it was amazing. i was very happy and made tons of music. i recorded alot and played alot. i started learning more and more and this was where the problem started for me. so anyway we all know where this is going. the next host was cakewalk pro audio 8, then 9, then sonar, then cubase vst 5, etc. it's the same thing with drugs; start smoking dope, then dope becomes boring, need acid, then acid is played out, try both together, oh that's intense, whats coke like? whats crack like? whats heroin like?

we are all junkies for the fix. i'm getting out. depending on t2.5 i'll either use it or stick with buggy ol' 2. i'll keep using fl and phrazor and ext inside tracktion. i'll try my damnedest to make some music using komplete3. i'll eventually learn reaktor and maybe make some stuff and school myself on dsp and instrument/fx design (as a way to pass time), but i'm not upgrading anything anymore. fm8? wtf do i need that for i still boggle and drool on fm7. sonar 6/cubase 4? wtf i dont even use those now. lest i forget why i dont use them and yes i'm very tempted to atleast try them, i probably wont. i may try sonar 6 because it seems like a very major release with lots of great things i've been hoping for, but i doubt i'll buy it. see there it is again, my addict mind rationalizing EVEN as i confess this... all this stuff takes time away from music. it wastes ambition, lusting after things i will likely never master or use or even understand! i could instead say "i'm going to devote myself to improvinig my song writing, singing, guitar playing" ... i could say "i'm going to try to limit my fuckery with all these amazing toys to only x hours a day." but i doubt i could keep that commitment... instead i know i can atleast not "buy more shit" until i absolutely believe and can justify to a sound rational mind (perhaps after a fix with the current junk to keep things in perspective) that UNLESS i buy the newest most powerful greatest all singing-all-dancing versions of my tools/new tools that my music will DEFINITELY suffer, and only then buy...

i rant this for myself, and for others who aren't as courageous or foolish (perspective depending).. i wish i had more time but i'm grateful that i've gained a cleaner simpler perspective on my situation. i hope it helps someone.

i'm a junky, and now i want a fix. but i have to go mow the lawn first. then since my acoustic guitar is all f**ked up (needs a tuning machine some new strings and calibrated) i cant just go and play i gotta plug into my guitarport and do it through the computer. i used to have an amp - a line6 ax2/212 (stll do at parents tho) but forsaked everything NOT computer. foolish in hindsight. maybe i'll go fetch the ax2/212 today. anyway i'm rambling.

have a good day all. i miss not having time to post here.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Six pages of host wars and no mention of Babya Logic?

*runs for cover*

[kuniklo]

...

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. There are a lot of unspoken ironies in the cult of workflow and "power" in music tools. First, most of us are making electronic music that structurally could be handled by a relatively simple hardware midi sequencer so a lot of these finer points of debate about hosts are irrelevant for the music we actually make with them.

Second, this endless obsession with tools is a great way to avoid confronting what I suspect a lot of us privately fear - we don't really have much to add to the music that's already out there and don't expect many people to ever listen to or care about our music. It's much easier to avoid facing the fact that you don't have any musically interesting ideas if you're constantly screwing around with a new host and 5 synths all the time. Of course, the *real* irony of this condition is that you're much less likely to stumble across what ideas you may actually have this way.

There's nothing wrong with buying and collecting musical toys but the pretense that we *need* these things to make music is a sham. It's sort of like downloading music off p2p networks. At first it's miraculous that you can get just about as much of anything you want, any time you want it, but at some point you start to wonder if getting everything you think you want is a curse, not a blessing.

[kenn]

Babya is #1, of course. They're fighting over which is #2.

[HanafiH]

...

At first it's miraculous that you can get just about as much of anything you want, any time you want it, but at some point you start to wonder if getting everything you think you want is a curse, not a blessing.

And finally wisdom.

[kritikon]

Second, this endless obsession with tools is a great way to avoid confronting what I suspect a lot of us privately fear - we don't really have much to add to the music that's already out there and don't expect many people to ever listen to or care about our music.

You're assuming we even want anyone to listen to our music or care.
Because personally, I long ago started to make music only for myself and my own pleasure. I don't post my music up on websites, I don't submit it here, I don't send out any more demos, I long ago stopped any communication with any labels I did business with...I really don't care what anyone thinks about my music - they are not even going to hear it. Music is my hobby now, and my pleasure. The tools I use are also my hobby and my pleasure. To be quite honest, even if I make prefect monotone music containing only one note, I can still enjoy the process of making that shit music. You know one of the most fun things I did musically in the last couple of years? I downloaded the midifile of Abba's Mama Mia and made the cheesiest most 70s version I could. I had an absolute ball doing it. Far more fun than making any "serious" tune.

So in that instance, your hypothesis couldn't be further from the truth. I actually enjoy mucking around in my host and finding all manner of weird things I can make it do. It is an end all in itself. I know perfectly well that sometimes I make crap music. But I enjoy making it. And I enjoy taking twice as long making it by using esoteric functions within my host.

You're right...I can make some good music with an old Yamaha h/w sequencer and a couple of synths and two multiFX units - I used to, after all. But...I simply don't want to. I want to make music with a host with lots of nice toys in it. And I don't want or care for anyone else to hear the results.

I have an issue when I constantly hear comments on the line of "streamline your workflow, streamline your music" etc. The way I make music - the end result music is often not the most important part of the whole process to me. Often, it is precisely how i get there that can make the thing enjoyable or not. We are not all end-product focussed, and we are not all after the perfect song. I'm happy if I make an obviously imperfect song, as long as it pleases me.

I never made a career out of music. I used to make some money out of it though. I'll never know if I was good enough to make a full time career out of music - and quite truthfully, nowadays I don't care if it turns out I never had the talent to start with. Seeing as I'll probably never have the drive and naked ambition or need to prove myself in that arena, then it's all a moot point anyway. If I was to be down on myself, I could say I don't have the talent and am too bone idle to ever have bothered properly. Or I could be up myself and say that I have the talent, but I was too much of an artist to enter the ratrace. Both are partially true and untrue.

To cut short - the process is the goal for me. The host is part of the process. It's also a toy. I want my toys fun; I want my toys with lots of lights and gadgets and I want my toys to entertain me. I don't necessarily care if they can get the job quicker in a certain way. Sometimes, yeah, convoluted workflow can irritate me. Sometimes it can entertain me. Just don't assume we are all after being musicians. Most of the time I'm merely entertaining myself with no aim in sight at all.

[kuniklo]

To cut short - the process is the goal for me. The host is part of the process. It's also a toy. I want my toys fun; I want my toys with lots of lights and gadgets and I want my toys to entertain me. I don't necessarily care if they can get the job quicker in a certain way. Sometimes, yeah, convoluted workflow can irritate me. Sometimes it can entertain me. Just don't assume we are all after being musicians. Most of the time I'm merely entertaining myself with no aim in sight at all.

I think the most important thing of all is to make sure you enjoy the process of making music, since no matter how successful you are with music it's still about 95% process and 5% result. So, if you're enjoying your music making than the tools you're using are kind of beside the point.

Another way to state my original point is that chasing around the latest greatest tool all the time can easily spoil your enjoyment of the process, although it's not necessarily that way for everybody. I think it is for me.