Tracktion Software

moonlite · Post by **moonlite** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:01 pm

i voted yes because i want the snowball rolling on the linux side. i hate windows, but i have to use it because i need my fix of all the best vst effects and synths out there.

ceenda · Post by **ceenda** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:12 pm

Why are people so anti-Windows? Not trying to shit on anyone's parade, but is it simply because it costs money? I'm genuinely curious, especially in the audio world where buying a PC and having your audio stuff setup in seconds is considered a high priority.

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:25 pm

Every windows installation I have ever had has become a bit flakey after a while.. XP lasts longer than Win98 did, but its more of a bitch to install and activate.

Case in point: my current system stopped running Cubase VST a few weeks ago, for no apparent reason (freezing & crashing on exit). After weeks of booting up another machine to program GM files (which pay the rent

) I finally managed to get Cubase to run again, though I have no idea how.. but now Synthedit crashes within about a minute of launching it which is a total f**king disaster

And then there's the little things like shortcuts dissapearing from toolbars (happens on several different machines I use: the only thing they have in common afaik is an old XP installation..)

Shit like that really winds me up..

Jafo · Post by **Jafo** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:33 pm

My spies inform me that ceenda wrote:Why are people so anti-Windows? Not trying to shit on anyone's parade, but is it simply because it costs money? I'm genuinely curious, especially in the audio world where buying a PC and having your audio stuff setup in seconds is considered a high priority.

Howdy. Well, a lot of it is holdover from MS-DOS and Windows 3.x and 9.x, which were obviously far inferior to Macintosh and UNIX-based platforms. Let's face it -- any OS that you can crash by merely opening and closing an app a few (dozen) times just isn't a good one. (General Protection is a faulty leader...) However, the NT flavors of Windows (especially XP up) are quite decent -- although you still need special techniques (ASIO) to get reasonable latency.

Another reason is Microsoft's business tactics in the 90's, about which I need not go further. (*cough* and activations *cough*)

Plus, it's more vaingloriously heroic to attack Goliath than David...

ceenda · Post by **ceenda** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:55 pm

Well, given UNIX's ancestry and subsequent revisions (compared to Microsoft, which was possibly always going to be a "consumer product"* and required to be developed quickly to meet demand), I don't doubt that earlier versions of Windows were extremely poor. I think most of us remember the "BSOD".

* - as in, "off the shelf".

It's just that, on the face of it, setting up Linux for audio has nearly always been a complete nightmare (well, for me, and I'm familiar with OSS, ALSA, Jack, etc.), and I'm a little concerned that people are seeing Linux as this miracle answer to all their problems when, in fact, they will spend a considerable amount of time hunting USEnet groups and documentation files to fix really quite minor problems in their setups.

Also, it's a lot easier for someone at Mackie Tech Support to say "Windows sucks" than to say "Okay... are you in your /etc/modules.conf? ... can you tell me what's in there? okay, do a 'grep'... you know, grep? oh... okay, do you have emacs open, or vi? it's not installed by default? okay, I'll wait while you install the RPMs..."

However, I DO agree that the activation schemes of Windows (though more infuriatingly, NativeInstruments) are damaging the whole ethos of consumer purchase in a way that makes me not want to buy their products.

IIRs: Yep, I've come across the "XP spring clean" that's required every so often. I don't really trust a lot of these commercial "registry cleaners" etc. which are supposed to fix these things.

darcyb62 · Post by **darcyb62** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:01 pm

I'm currently a Windows user but have tinkered in the Linux world. Haven't looked at the music side of Linux but have read up on it. If a Linux version were available and I could get the plugin support as well. I would move over. My DAW i currently a dedicated machine and while Windows isn't really all that expensive (all things conisdered). I would sooner take the money and time spent on Windows and spend it on the music creation side.

metalsvinet · Post by **metalsvinet** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:09 pm

I voted yes for no particular reason.

zOap · Post by **zOap** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:30 pm

Here is the current Linux Audio Projects. Especially the Agnula Project has gotten some media attention...
http://linux-sound.org/distro.html

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:37 pm

ceenda wrote: Also, it's a lot easier for someone at Mackie Tech Support to say "Windows sucks" than to say "Okay... are you in your /etc/modules.conf? ... can you tell me what's in there? okay, do a 'grep'... you know, grep? oh... okay, do you have emacs open, or vi? it's not installed by default? okay, I'll wait while you install the RPMs..."

Installing Ubuntu on my old box could not have been easier: it found the network without any promting, offered to look for updates and (when I assented) downloaded seemingly an entire new OS (the disc I booted from was about a year old).

Linux doesn't have to be unfriendly..

sc_a · Post by **sc_a** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:44 pm

Another vote for Ubuntu.

Klemperer · Post by **Klemperer** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:46 pm

IIRs wrote:
ceenda wrote: Also, it's a lot easier for someone at Mackie Tech Support to say "Windows sucks" than to say "Okay... are you in your /etc/modules.conf? ... can you tell me what's in there? okay, do a 'grep'... you know, grep? oh... okay, do you have emacs open, or vi? it's not installed by default? okay, I'll wait while you install the RPMs..."
Installing Ubuntu on my old box could not have been easier: it found the network without any promting, offered to look for updates and (when I assented) downloaded seemingly an entire new OS (the disc I booted from was about a year old).

Linux doesn't have to be unfriendly..

Nice to hear, as I didn't get Rosegarden and some other important Linux-apps to work after trying with Ubuntu-Debian. Finding the network, looking for updates and anything went well here, many programs (Gimp, office-programs and some for music) worked. (all who didn't needed a certain ??? part - name forgotten - that couldn't be installed right here from a long-time-Linux-only-user)
I'll try again some in some weeks, and wait for EnergyXT to got Linux too.

ceenda · Post by **ceenda** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:52 pm

I ended up going the PlanetCCRMA route which seemed the easiest as I was using Fedora 4, and despite lots of hefty downloading, everything set up correctly. This was the beta CCRMA4 version, which still had some packages missing, which I ended up having to compile myself.

But MUSE, Rosegarden and some other applications all came pre-compiled, which was handy.

I just couldn't get any VSTs to play at anywhere near nominal speeds, even with the low-latency JACK server running. Also, due to DSSI's nature, VST synth plugins open as seperate processes (on the taskbar) and it soon becomes messy. It just seems like everything is pulled together with string.

How would everyone envision Tracktion utilising VSTs? via Wine? via DSSI-VST? natively?

Klemperer · Post by **Klemperer** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:58 pm

ceenda wrote:However, I DO agree that the activation schemes of Windows (though more infuriatingly, NativeInstruments) are damaging the whole ethos of consumer purchase in a way that makes me not want to buy their products.

couldn't agree more. Finally I bought 2 NI-products (it has to be admitted that Reaktor has wonderful things for most musicians) and wrote 2 mails to them because of copy protection, but that's as important for them like if the river(ehemm, veery small "river") Blies in southwest Germany runs over some yellow sparkling stone in midwinter whereas cows are singing "ohmforce ohmforce greg all we want is ohmforce", and nobody taking notice

Improv · Post by **Improv** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 6:00 pm

Lunch Money wrote:
- Linux users are accustomed to getting everything for free due to the largely open-source enthusiast userbase. Will they pay $200 for it? Hrmm....

You need to differentiate Linux casual home users from for work users.

A good example is in the graphics side of the movie industry. Most of the special effects and graphics are now being done with Linux versions of programs that I am unfamiliar with, but I do know that they cost several thousand per copy.
Companies such as Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic, Weta etc,etc now use programs running on Linux for recent movies such as Lord of the Rings, Nemo, Shrek,etc,etc.

Musicians/producers/studios will switch to Linux or other platforms IF they see a demonstrable benefit
such as better multitasking/multi-threading, kernel customization for audio, or whatever.

Right now Windows and Mac OSs have most of the good recording/vst software. If it becomes easy to run vstis and T2/Cubase/Logic etc on Linux, users may indeed use Linux.

My first computer was an Atari ST because it ran the sequencer that I wanted-EditTracks Pro.

But right now, Linux does not easily run T2 and all my vstis; so the wait continues.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 7:35 pm

Good point, and well-taken!

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