Do you really buy that expensive recording software?

[doulos24]

I'm an analog pirate I won't own a neve console or a ssl or api, but I wll get the schematic and buid mic preamps, eqs and compressors from the consoles so sue me

and I dare you to say I should save up for my own api 1604 or ssl 900

 

[therage!]

I agree. I use Reaper sometimes because I work in collaboration with someone who uses Reaper. But my choice is Logic.

Reaper does not do Midi very well, and trying to work with Midi drives me to distraction. It is one area of development that warrants serious attention.

I'm a MIDI n00b but use Cubase and all I can say is Cubase effin rocks for MIDI. It was painless to get it all going and it does scoring too.

Reaper will evolve though and you sure can't knock the price.

 

[fraserhutch]

I'll tell you, nothing dowes MIDI like my old version of Digital Orchestrator Pro.... man I miss that lovely piece or work...

 

[gecko zzed]

I'm an analog pirate I won't own a neve console or a ssl or api, but I wll get the schematic and buid mic preamps, eqs and compressors from the consoles so sue me

and I dare you to say I should save up for my own api 1604 or ssl 900

I expect that analog piracy will get you into as much hot water as software piracy.

I guess it depends on how you get hold of those schematics. Sometimes schematics are freely available for general use. Sometimes they're legitimately sold.

At other times they've been made available in ways that have dubious legitimacy.

Again, those designs are the result of someone's intellectual effort, and the person reaps the reward through sales of products in which those designs are incorporated, or through the sale of those designs themselves. It is improper to deprive someone of their earnings by circumventing the means by which they make those earnings.

I've no idea whether this is the case with you, despite your claim of being an 'analog pirate', so I dare not make any accusations. I'm just stating my point of view.

 

[doulos24]

I expect that analog piracy will get you into as much hot water as software piracy.

nah amplification is genral knowledge. Opamp designs arn't really patentable so the only way to get in trouble is with trade dress my ssl900 is just called the 900 pre so no way of getting in trouble with trade dress just a cheaper way to get the worlds best recording gear in my studio

 

[dkerwood]

Wow. I can't believe this thread is still going on. I haven't been on here in more than a year, and here we still are, debating the ethics of illlegally downloading software.

My take: It's still wrong. It's just a question of how wrong it is to *you*. I mean, is it "going 50 in a 45" wrong, or "knocking over the corner liquor store" wrong? I think some will argue in either extreme here, but I have to place myself somewhere in the middle- somewhere around "fudging on my taxes".

I tend to pirate older software more than the brand new, top of the line stuff. That way I'm not hurting the bottom line *as much*. Plus, a lot of this stuff isn't available commercially anymore and no longer has tech support (yeah, yeah, I know, "That doesn't make it right!").

The nice thing is this- freeware gurus are cranking out free software every day that rivals commercial offerings. OpenOffice versus MS Office, Firefox versus IE, Thunderbird versus Outlook... "Free" and "open source" are becoming more and more a legitimate option. With AVG and Avast out there, who actually pays for Antivirus protection anymore?

It's only a matter of time until a DAW program comes out of the freeware revolution and becomes the "ProTools" or "Logic" killer.

Anyway, just my take (which I'm sure has already been rehashed at least fifty times in this thread by now)...

 

[jasonbmerrill]

re: reaper -

many ppl who think its midi isnt all that great are usually the ones who dont spend enough time with it - there is a learning curve, due to a tool-less approach -- but its fast and does everything i need it to do.

no score editor yea, the great majority of reaper users didnt want it

 

[gecko zzed]

re: reaper -

many ppl who think its midi isnt all that great are usually the ones who dont spend enough time with it - there is a learning curve, due to a tool-less approach -- but its fast and does everything i need it to do.

no score editor yea, the great majority of reaper users didnt want it

There is no small amount of truth in this, and indeed, if you are familiar with one way of operating, Reaper's way of doing things can be disconcerting, and prospective users may need a bit more patience to gain familiarity with it.

It is difficult, sometimes, to distinguish between unfamiliarity and lack of useability.

But here is an example:

In midi, there are continuous variables (such as velocity or resonance), and in Reaper you activate these by means of vertical sliders on a grid below the main editing grid. This is a reasonable way of managing these controls (and in fact, is how the 20 year old Music-X on the Amiga did it, and I'm no stranger to it).

But a program change is discrete, not continuous: each change callls up a different voice. However, Reaper treats it as if it were a continuous variable, with the same sliders. Setting program changes within Reaper is seriously tedious. Logic (and Music X, for that matter) recognises this intrinsic difference and allows a much more visible and easy way of selecting the change you want.

This and other aspects of Reaper's midi operation tend to push me away from using it exscept in emergencies.

 

[mshilarious]

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that Reaper users don't want a score editor; they first considered and rejected it two years ago I think. So if you need a score editor, you know not to use Reaper.

 

[altitude909]

.................

 

[baby britain]

I found the confidence to begin doing my own recordings because somebody gave me a free copy of Reason a couple years ago. Since then, I have bought Logic 8, Reason, a Mac, an Apogee Ensemble, event Studio 8 monitors, countless cables, a hard disk recorder, 9 or 10 midrange to good microphones, two keyboards, way too many tech porn mags, books on recording, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on.

I bar tend across the street from the Durham Bulls park in Durham, NC. I work my ass off through baseball season to buy new gear and once the season is over I spend 5 days a week with my obsession. 10AM to 6PM>

All I'm saying is this. It's a stretch to call these people pirates. They're probably just wetting their tongue. The real pirates don't get on public forums and talk about it. It's like Jesus said, "let the one of you who has not sinned cast the first stone." You know, arrogance is a worse trait than downloading a version of Recycle.

How many of you who are so quick to call somebody a pirate and a thief have gotten into their car with a little too much to drink or cheated on a girlfriend or gossiped or ... and the list goes on and on, hypocrites. It doesn't make it right to steal software, but it doesn't make YOU right when somebody does.

 

[mshilarious]

All I'm saying is this. It's a stretch to call these people pirates. They're probably just wetting their tongue. The real pirates don't get on public forums and talk about it. It's like Jesus said, "let the one of you who has not sinned cast the first stone." You know, arrogance is a worse trait than downloading a version of Recycle.

How many of you who are so quick to call somebody a pirate and a thief have gotten into their car with a little too much to drink or cheated on a girlfriend or gossiped or ... and the list goes on and on, hypocrites. It doesn't make it right to steal software, but it doesn't make YOU right when somebody does.

Except we aren't stoning anyone to death, we are trying to get them to not shoot themselves and all of us in the foot.

Let's review:

- there is plenty of free software available (I even have some on my site)!

- there is plenty of cheap/donationware software.

- the stuff that isn't free won't exist if nobody pays for it, so don't sponge off those who do, use the free stuff. Especially since you don't even need the stuff that costs!


Sure, in 1985 I was a young stupid kid and everybody pirated all the Apple ][ games we could get. Somehow EA survived, but some of the other companies didn't. Oh yeah, and I bunch of us (not me, mainly due to lack of opportunity) got into credit card fraud, which was much easier in those days . . . that was real actual stealing!

Nevertheless, in 2009 when I'm a grown-up non-idiot (most of the time), should I hand a kid a bottle of whiskey, my car keys, and a shotgun (just for fun) so I can say I'm not a hypocrite? Or should I try to show him a non-stupid way to go through life? I mean, after Jesus got the crowd to calm down, I don't recall that He said for everybody to have a turn with her

 

[Toonook]

I mean, after Jesus got the crowd to calm down, I don't recall that He said for everybody to have a turn with her

But wouldn't it have been an awesome plot twist if he did?

 

[pinkieandtherev]

I HAVE pirated software, but...

lol, i know that sounds like a horrible way to start a post.

Good example: I bought a DVD-RW drive with the Nero OEM suite. When I started downloading (legally) videos, I found that I often couldn't burn them because I didn't have the AC-3 plugin that comes with the Ultra version. So I downloaded the AC-3 plugin. Problem solved.

In the case of recording software...I use the Cubase LE that came with my mixer. I DID download a version, just in case I needed to install it on my new system (my disc is MIA along with its serial... ), but so far I haven't needed to use it.

 

[tojo]

Fortunately, I can read upside down as easily as right side up.

If you subscribe to the school of ethical relativism, then, yes, it may be problematic making ethical decisions.

Ethical relativism, however, is a convenient way of abrogating a moral stance. It is possible to define an ethical framework that is based on the nature of humans, and which is, in fact, universal. The last sentence on your upturned page alludes to this, and maybe turning the page would have provided more clues.

i've missed out on this thread...

yes it is quite possible that taking a relativist stance of pushing away morals. of course I could also argue the nature of humans is not universal but that is not a debate i want to get into aside from that, i realyl do love the logic express i got for christmas... legally.

 

[Toker41]

N-track does everything, including Midi, just fine. $50. Can't beat it.


BTW....bootleging software is not an excuse to charge $800 for a program. The companies don't take as much of a hit as they would like you to believe. Fact is, if a person downloads a program illegally, chances are that they would not pay for it if they did have the money....hense, no loss to the company.

Moral issues are another argument.

If for no other reason, I would not use illegal pirated software for music that I put so much work, and sweat into. Simply not worth the risk. When quality recording software can be had for $50....there is no excuse for stealing it. However, I judge no one, for I am not God.

 

[Masterherm]

Please Buy the software you use

Music software companies are like a mom and pops store.These gentlemen spend hours developing these real cool products.Its more than fair that as a pro-musician, using these tools and due to the tremendous amount of success that I enjoy as a music producer,It is important to me to make a contribution and give tribute to these software developers so in years to come,my production business can grow in parallel with the Music software industry.
Simple as That.

 

[psi-clops]

A purely objective opinion...

I'll try to be short, but something tells me this is going to be wordy to stay objective, so my apologies...

Legally, it's black and white... so I won't even go there.

Morally? And does it hurt the company?

That's up to you...

Ok, the student argument... If you learn on it, and don't do anything serious, then when you get out into the recording industry there's the agument that what you learned on is what you'll recommend to your bosses, etc.

On the animation side, for a while Maya saw this as valid, and put out a student version of their software that couldn't render production quality. It was stable, and you got to learn on it. Great, right? Wrong. Entire businesses stopped buying Maya's software, and instead of buying a seat for every user, only bought it for their render farms... They lost tons of cash.

From an artist perspective... I really don't care. I used pirated stuff when I started. But not anymore.

Here's the part to pay attention to:
Say you record something truly amazing and you make some cash off your music. Say it makes it into a movie soundtrack, or even a TV show? Say you get a recording contract? At every company, there's a person that heads a department known as "artist relations".

That person calls you and asks you what you used to record. On the phone he offers you all kinds of great stuff so he can use your name to market the software they sell. Now he gets off the phone to look you up in his database of registered users, only you're not there. BOOM! You just became an example to be sued so that they can discourage other pirates... career over.

Is it worth it? You decide.

Conclusion:

Realistically, people are going to pirate software, and I don't really care who you are... you or one of your comrades has used, trafficed, or down right copied software that's pirated. Just do yourself a huge favor... when it comes down to doing a serious project... be serious, and get the software for real.

And if you're in a pinch and need that plugin really quickly? Fine... pirate it. Just go buy it in the morning so that you don't put yourself at risk.

 

[jasonbmerrill]

I agree. I use Reaper sometimes because I work in collaboration with someone who uses Reaper. But my choice is Logic.

Reaper does not do Midi very well, and trying to work with Midi drives me to distraction. It is one area of development that warrants serious attention.

reapers midi rocks I use midi all the time, and require a good, fast midi editor. reaper has it.

no score view, however.

 

[4Gods2]

I have bought them all. cubase, sonar, Fl Studio, and Audition and I am still looking for one that I can learn to use. I wish I still had my analog studio. I knew how to use that.