going "post-PC"

[polaris20]

the PPG Wavegenerator is the straw that broke the camel's back for me- I currently have a touchscreen laptop - it's about 5 years old so my plan was to get maybe a new windows 8 tablet when it dies- but it seems to me the VST/AU and DAW world has been stagnant for the last few years but everything is just looking up for iPad going forward- I haven't really even been using my PC as a DAW any more- but like a dedicated instrument with the touch screen controlling my VSTs - but the new apps on the iPad are starting to catch up with the vst world and it's clear that it's just gonning to get better and better from here on out so I think I'm going to sell my laptop before it dies and get a New iPad-

it's going to be hard to say goodbye to Vaz Modular and Massive- but hopefully sooner or later they will end up on iPad as well

Yeah. No. This will not happen for many years. iOS/tablets are catching up, but they are currently at least 10 years behind dedicated pc's. The hardware isn't good enough.

I don't think that's accurate. My iPhone 5 is as fast as the laptop I had 4 years ago (going off of benchmarks). The iPad 3 isn't even as fast. The mobile architecture is moving extremely fast, and I think it will catch up within the next few years.I say that typing on a 3 year old MacBook Pro that easily runs a bunch of AUi's at a time.

I've been using applications like Reason on laptops even slower than that for ages, such as Pentium M single core machines, P4's, etc. The notion that mobile platforms aren't fast enough to make quality music is, IMO, erroneous.

No one said 'isn't fast enough'. But try using your iPhone 5 just like a 4 year old pc DAW. You can't.

Then you should be more clear when you post. You're post says:

The hardware isn't good enough.

What exactly isn't "good enough", if you're not referring to performance?

The iPhone 5 isn't good enough to replace a regular DAW, obviously. It's a phone and constrained by physical size. But a tablet with the same processor will change things, especially with DAW's like Auria.

If anything, the OSes are a bit beyond in terms of how it functions with a DAW, but that can change very rapidly as well.

[BMoore]

What exactly isn't "good enough", if you're not referring to performance?

The iPhone 5 isn't good enough to replace a regular DAW, obviously. It's a phone and constrained by physical size. But a tablet with the same processor will change things, especially with DAW's like Auria.

If anything, the OSes are a bit beyond in terms of how it functions with a DAW, but that can change very rapidly as well.

An iPad with iPhone 5's hardware will still be way beyond a 4 year old pc.
And performance isn't just CPU, or to be "fast enough". It's also memory, multitasking, etc.

[polaris20]

What exactly isn't "good enough", if you're not referring to performance?

The iPhone 5 isn't good enough to replace a regular DAW, obviously. It's a phone and constrained by physical size. But a tablet with the same processor will change things, especially with DAW's like Auria.

If anything, the OSes are a bit beyond in terms of how it functions with a DAW, but that can change very rapidly as well.

An iPad with iPhone 5's hardware will still be way beyond a 4 year old pc.
And performance isn't just CPU, or to be "fast enough". It's also memory, multitasking, etc.

It's not way beyond a 4 year old PC. The benchmarks are the same or better than a 4 year old PC. Right now.

Memory is as simple as Apple (or Google) continually increasing the amount. Multitasking is a software constraint, not a hardware one.

You're acting as if the technology isn't here. It is. Once inter-app audio or audiobus allows for piping of audio between apps, there's going to be a significant difference in how these devices allow for music creation.

EDIT

This is what I'm referring to. One machine:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1135421

happily runs Reaper, Reason, and a few other VSTi's without a problem. It's actually about 6 years old. The other:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1109074

Is a phone, who's hardware will most assuredly end up in the next iPad in March. So with the hardware considerably faster, I fail to see how the hardware's not up to par. Sure, it's not as fast as modern x86. But not as fast != not useful.

I guess we all just started making music on PC's once we got 4GB of RAM and dual/quad core processors?

[BMoore]

Why do you compare to a Dell Inspiron that's at least 8 years old?!
This just proves my point of current iOS platform to be "10 years behind".

Someone said iPhone 5 was as powerful as his 4 year old pc.
Check 4 year old pc's on that geekbench site, and your iPhone 5 is way behind.

[steff3]

Why do you compare to a Dell Inspiron that's at least 8 years old?!
This just proves my point of current iOS platform to be "10 years behind".

Someone said iPhone 5 was as powerful as his 4 year old pc.
Check 4 year old pc's on that geekbench site, and your iPhone 5 is way behind.

10 years ago, 4 years ago and today the CPU and power of the hardware does not say a lot about performance. Software is a great factor. And I would say that iOS is much better and cleaner than most wide spread operating systems were years ago. And also the development tools are a clean set of tools, that allows to build efficient software. Especially with VST and some other tools that was not always the case.

Personally I also do not think that generally an iPad comes close to a 4 year old computer - however ... in terms of performance and fluency of the GUI Reasons might work better on a for year old PC than lots of other DAWs on a current PC. So, clock speed and ram does not say everything.

And I am convinced that we already have great tools on iPads today and maybe with the next generation we might be able to already do quite amazing stuff.

best

[BMoore]

What you 'think' about an iPad vs a 4 year old pc is not very valid.
And of course the operating system is a factor. But iOS isn't the holy grail.

I'm not saying tablets wont catch up, or even be dominating, but we're not there for many years yet.

[james0tucson]

And I am convinced that we already have great tools on iPads today and maybe with the next generation we might be able to already do quite amazing stuff.

best

I'm convinced that while some people are content to argue about whether we are
"there yet", many more are simply making use of the technology (which they happen to have in their pocket/backpack right now!) to do "quite amazing stuff."

It also occurs to me that this isn't the first time this debate has come up. I'm pretty sure we had it back when pro-sumer digital recording was in its infancy and people were still buying their 1" consoles waiting for the "someday when digital recording is better than tape".
I think we're still having the same debate about DAW's versus "real studios" too.

While we're sitting around debating, somebody is out there, revolutionizing music, oblivious to the fact that they shouldn't be doing it yet because the technology isn't "there yet."

[polaris20]

Why do you compare to a Dell Inspiron that's at least 8 years old?!
This just proves my point of current iOS platform to be "10 years behind".

Someone said iPhone 5 was as powerful as his 4 year old pc.
Check 4 year old pc's on that geekbench site, and your iPhone 5 is way behind.

You're being obtuse. It doesn't prove your point in the slightest. The Apple A6 architecture is still considerably faster. I'm using the Dell as an example, because it's far slower than the iPhone 5, yet it handles audio very well. iPhone 5 hardware would handle it even better, provided software catches up.

What you 'think' about an iPad vs a 4 year old pc is not very valid.
And of course the operating system is a factor. But iOS isn't the holy grail.

I'm not saying tablets wont catch up, or even be dominating, but we're not there for many years yet.

Here's a 4 year old PC that I also have sitting here:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/138623

The A6 is slower, but still not far off considering the XW is an Opteron chip. We're not "many years" away. The iPad is only two years old, and yet it's doubled in speed, by March it'll have quadrupled in speed. I think you're being incredibly short-sighted.

Having worked in computers for over ten years, I've learned that it's wise to not say "never", "a long time", or "many years".

There also seems to be this pervasive thought here and elsewhere that the people that think mobile platforms are viable for audio want people to make a choice between mobile and "traditional" platforms. I wouldn't make that choice myself, nor do I expect anyone else to. It's not really an either/or proposition.

The fact that GarageBand on iOS imports so nicely into Logic and GB on the desktop is a huge plus, and makes it so the platforms coexist nicely.

[BMoore]

And yet you can't run two synths/apps at the same time without issues. Go figure.

[polaris20]

And yet you can't run two synths/apps at the same time without issues. Go figure.

As I've already said, that's a software problem, not a hardware one. Once either Audiobus or "inter-app audio" takes hold, those problems will go away. All we need is something that behaves like Rewire does on Windows/Mac, or JACK on Linux. It's not rocket science, and its not being held back by hardware anymore.

[Firefly]

In fairness, it occurred to me that BMoore might have been implying that tablets won't surpass the then current pc in hardware performance for another 10 years. That may be true, but I still stand by my prediction that PCs will be a rare niche product by then. I also want to be clear that I was saying the cortex a15 arm processor outperformed a similar core2duo with the clock speed being equal. The variant in the iPhone 5 is just over 1ghz so of course a quad core core2 at 3ghz would smoke the iPhone currently. I expect tablets running android, windows rt, and ios to be using much faster processors in less than a year though.

For a point of reference, I record personal music on a 2 year old ultra book that has a 1.4ghz core2, 2 gig of ram, 64g ssd. This is not a powerhouse by any means but I can record many tracks of audio and vsti with many effects if I'm careful. Tablets next year will be specced beyond this 2 year old computer. When I think about even less than 10 years in the future I see the line between tablets, laptops, and phones being extremely blurred. Can you imagine a phone that trifolds out to a 7" tablet and then folds out again to a 11" tablet. I can

I'm excited about the new surface tablets coming out and see this as a direct competitor to apple in the high-end tablet market. It looks like an ultra book and tablet together that runs full windows 8 and has excellent audio tools right out of the gate. This competition will hopefully push apple even more. It looks like auria on ios will have full blown midi and many VSTis in less than a couple of years. I've given up on android for anything but a consumption os but I hope they prove me wrong with future updates so we can have even more choices.

Either way its an exciting time to produce music on these devices and its going to get better real quick.

[steff3]

And yet you can't run two synths/apps at the same time without issues. Go figure.

this is simply nonsense ... you can and there are thousands of videos on youtube to show that you can ....

you cannot route them freely, mix them and put 'external' fx on them .... and IMHO the approach taken there is not correct. Auria takes the correct approach -devs should cooperate into one app. not because there is no multitasking, but because there is sandboxing.
with multi-route audio out you might however record every synth on its own track and in a DAW on the computer.


best

[BMoore]

And yet you can't run two synths/apps at the same time without issues. Go figure.

As I've already said, that's a software problem, not a hardware one. Once either Audiobus or "inter-app audio" takes hold, those problems will go away. All we need is something that behaves like Rewire does on Windows/Mac, or JACK on Linux. It's not rocket science, and its not being held back by hardware anymore.

It's not an "inter-app" or not issue. It's a crackling, crashing and performance issue.

[Aural Chaos]

It's not really any kind of "issue ", since it is obviously possible to run more than one audio app simultaneously- why deny it?

Sure there are limits, but my Windows desktop also can have performance issues if I load up too many plugins,so what...?

[BMoore]

I'm not denying that. I'm saying current tablets do have a performance issue, and are years away from catching up to currents DAW's/pc's. Simple.