Are we living the dream yet? (tech wise)

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Rangtangtang wrote:I like to digress a little bit, I saw a story on the news the other day where a man was able, with the help of technology, able to make an object on the screen move, whith no hands - all brain power?????
My brain is about as low-powered as they get, but I was able to do this a third of a century ago. :-D Not a video display, but I was able to deflect a meter to a greater or lesser degree using a simple, fairly cheap homemade brainwave monitor. It would be easy enough to adapt this to a computer. Even knowing how it's done, I still think it's pretty cool, though.

Thank you, Popular Electronics magazine!

Back on topic, I think if we're not living in computer-music heaven yet, at least we're in a pretty nice suburb thereof. And things are getting better every week.

Is there another branch of the software business in which so many truly talented developers, in so many small independent companies, are producing such an amazing volume of high-quality software? I can't think of anything else that corresponds to the small- to medium-scale music software business as it is at present. And that's not even counting all the free plugs, many of which are as good as the commercial ones!

Meffy

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in my opinion, we definitely are living a dream. you can double the performance at a fraction of the cost of doubling synth hardware or doubling the amount mixer channels. not much hassle with midi lag or a/c hum, noise or d/a conversions.

when i saw seer reality for the first time, i was amazed; but that was almost nothing compared to these days.

in the past, putting effort in a perfect mix (if there was one!) was often (not always) was not only a creative, but expensive issue.

and what a pain if you, for whatever reasons, had to reopen a formerly finished project! now it's total recall.

but the thing that bothers me is - who pushes these possibilities beyond the limits? many great artists (especially those from the electronic arena, like e.g. tangerine dream, art of noise, depeche mode) managed to get *more* out of their gear than we heard before. from today's perspective, the whole vst-and-so-on technology makes me wonder even more how they did the job 20+ yrs ago. what would be possible with current tools?

yeah well, rereading the initial post i feel like having missed the point - but still, this is my answer. ;)

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Technology is pretty cool these days, but I'm still waiting for the telepathic interface! Or even a good DWIM...
Wait... loot _then_ burn? D'oh!

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I get a lot less done with computers than I did before I got one. Too many options tend to reduce efficiency...

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yes we are living the dream
dystonia_ek wrote:I get a lot less done with computers than I did before I got one. Too many options tend to reduce efficiency...
but it doesn't make things better necessarily
... no time for unnecessary politeness nor a debate ...

... you might not care but some members are actually human with feelings and stuff you know ???

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I get many times as much stuff done with today's computers than with those of a decade ago, or without computers. Not specifically musical stuff. Just in general. (Musically, I'm generating great masses of unlistenable gup... but getting marginally better.)

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I will say that with more bad ass software coming out- I am quickly over exerting my PC with efx and synths, so less gets done. That and the fact that my crativity has been limited lately...

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Nine 0 Nine wrote:Years ago (not so many years ago actually) I used to imagine just how good music tech would get in future, and how if I had access to all that stuff I would be in music tech making heaven.

This was when computers werent upto running everything realtime and bouncing to WAV was essential all the time to get a full track done. I imagined that computers would do most things in realtime and how it would be modular, have all sorts of synthesis techniques at our disposal and virtually limitless effects routing options etc, and maybe we could even have software that would allow us to build our own synths and effects low level. And that all of this would be very affordable without being rich.
Well arent we pretty much there now? What do you think? Have we arrived at a music making software utopia (tech wise) or are we some way off still?

I personally think we have arrived. Sure it will get better still, but we have reached a landmark, and have got it bloody good!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

sorry....

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

okay...sorry about that, I've regained my composure now....when I started recording I had two lame cassette recorders, two mics and two speakers and bounced mud around..

So to answer your question...then I was living the dream...10 years later the 4-track cassette came out...that was really living the dream...then digital came out and we read of fantastic things that could be done if you had the money...I still was living the dream with my new 8-track (well new too me then) a Tascam R2R with the mixer built in like a 4-track. Then in the late 90's I jumped to digital with an Akai dps12....really living the dream...then I got a pc and started with a sequencer, CE2k came out and I got that...I was still living the dream...now I have two computers (a laptop and desktop), a small fortune has been spent on software and hardware, I can completely record a song without leaving my couch and 34 (gonna be 35 too soon :? ) years later from where I started...I'm still living the dream...except the dream just keeps getting better and better...please don't wake me... :wink:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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Not quite living the dream yet; when I start piling massive stuff upon more massive stuff I can't hear *any* of it in realtime anymore.

Still, I find the required "breaks" for rendering to WAV -- and I almost always render the entire junkyard of instruments and effects to WAV rather than bouncing tracks -- help me with perspective shifts and probably result in better music.

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Rangtangtang wrote:I like to digress a little bit, I saw a story on the news the other day where a man was able, with the help of technology, able to make an object on the screen move, whith no hands - all brain power?????
Actually, the Atari company was experimenting with a system to do this sort of thing, back when their 8-bit home computers were popular. It involved some sort of headband that sensed brainwaves, and could move objects on the screen, execute commands, etc. It's too bad that Atari wasn't more financially successful. They did have a few good ideas in their day. When MIDI was developed, they did a very good implementation of it on their computers, for example.


take care,
McLilith
(I miss the light pens!)

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Jonny X wrote:We wont get to heaven till we die...
Computers seem to be as good as we will need for some time, but software still sux. Tassman and SIR can eat thru almost any CPU
Here at least I think you have it backward. :-) What's needed is more processing power, enough to support the sophistication of the plug-ins. (I don't know SIR but the Tassman is a CPU-eating monster*, as are a few other well-known but lovely sounding synths.)

[edit] (*) A CPU-eating monster, but one of my favorite synths.

Cubase I'm not familiar with and can't comment on, and I... erm, tend to avoid Creative Labs products. But certainly, I agree that there's nearly ALWAYS room to improve software! I'm not sure it's always possible to increase the efficiency of the most impressive plug-ins, though.

The march of CPU performance seems more predictable, though lately that might be running into barriers. We'll see.
Last edited by Meffy on Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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i think i'll just stand back and see what happens when xoxos hits this thread :)

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clueless wrote:i think i'll just stand back and see what happens when xoxos hits this thread :)
:hihi:

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