People who pay for software get screwed!
- Thread starter Jayme
- Start date
Jayme
New member
No apology needed, you're absolutely right!
To be honest I was a bit frustrated, at the time. I misunderstood what you were saying and just latched on to the line; "I think you're missing the point". Looking back I can see that you were sympathizing and not attacking so I apologize for my moody reply and thank you for sympathizing!
omtayslick
New member
I only do "forced upgrades" when conditions compel me to do so.
I have a Layla 24, winXP, and a simple Cakewalk program. Runs great. I only recently retired my PIII, in favor of a kit built machine. The old PIII was my "do everything" computer and it was getting glitchy. I'll stick with XP for as long as I can.
I have a Layla 24, winXP, and a simple Cakewalk program. Runs great. I only recently retired my PIII, in favor of a kit built machine. The old PIII was my "do everything" computer and it was getting glitchy. I'll stick with XP for as long as I can.
Supercreep
Lizard People
I feel your pain.
Just to be clear, we don't discuss software pirating here, and soliciting it in either direction is a bannable offense.
That said, many people agree that 7 should have been a free patch for Vista.
Some people even went so far as to subsequently aquire Windows 7 extralegally, and don't feel a shred of guilt over it.
I don't know any of those people personally, but I'm reasonably sure they exist.
Just to be clear, we don't discuss software pirating here, and soliciting it in either direction is a bannable offense.
That said, many people agree that 7 should have been a free patch for Vista.
Some people even went so far as to subsequently aquire Windows 7 extralegally, and don't feel a shred of guilt over it.
I don't know any of those people personally, but I'm reasonably sure they exist.
D
dintymoore
Guest
I'm a Mac user, don't know diddley about PC's.
But I thought it was total comedy this last year when Microsoft brought out Vista and at the same time these Acer Aspire Netbooks are selling like hotcakes with XP onboard. Bill Gates made an out-and-out fuck-up on that one. Who the hell is Acer?
It showed me that people don't want upgrades. I call bullshit on this whole software operating system system. What they should do it burn XP to the motherboard and only do upgrades to the plug ins. That way the computer would start up instantly (like a pocket calculator with it's OS burned to chips) and it would likely never crash. I still don't understand why they don't do that, instead, everytime you power your computer on, a house of cards is built and we hope it works. Seeing it's based on a hard drive going 5K+ rpm it's a wonder it works as well as it does. It just seems like a system that is stupid and could never, ever be as rock solid as a pocket calculator, the type you get free in breakfast cereal and throw away.
But I thought it was total comedy this last year when Microsoft brought out Vista and at the same time these Acer Aspire Netbooks are selling like hotcakes with XP onboard. Bill Gates made an out-and-out fuck-up on that one. Who the hell is Acer?
It showed me that people don't want upgrades. I call bullshit on this whole software operating system system. What they should do it burn XP to the motherboard and only do upgrades to the plug ins. That way the computer would start up instantly (like a pocket calculator with it's OS burned to chips) and it would likely never crash. I still don't understand why they don't do that, instead, everytime you power your computer on, a house of cards is built and we hope it works. Seeing it's based on a hard drive going 5K+ rpm it's a wonder it works as well as it does. It just seems like a system that is stupid and could never, ever be as rock solid as a pocket calculator, the type you get free in breakfast cereal and throw away.
antichef
pornk rock
I work for an enterprise software company (not audio related) - we charge separately for "maintenance" for the software - that is, telephone support, error correction, and whatever enhancements we decide to add to the software -- the customers who pay for maintenance get to call in and get patches/releases for bug fixes and enhancements. The customers who don't, don't. The license fee (distinct from the maintenance fee) is simply for the right to use the software at all.
Admittedly, the enterprise market (corps using software to help make bags of money) is different from the consumer market, but when you're talking pros/semi-pros using audio software, it's really a difference of quantity and not quality. If we were to charge license and essentially a lifetime of maintenance fees up front as one fee, it would *at least* double the license fees, probably more (since customers would probably stay on maintenance longer if they weren't paying for it annually). It's really not not not easy or cheap to maintain software, and whether we see it or not, it's really a separate price component / business activity from building and licensing the software in the first place.
All software sucks. Some software sucks less. (I didn't make that up, of course) - there are probably other ways to approach the problem at a macro level, but the path of least resistance is the single-source central-control Digi or (previously, but increasingly less so) Apple model, and I think that sucks more.
(but for the record, I dislike Microsoft more than Apple )
Admittedly, the enterprise market (corps using software to help make bags of money) is different from the consumer market, but when you're talking pros/semi-pros using audio software, it's really a difference of quantity and not quality. If we were to charge license and essentially a lifetime of maintenance fees up front as one fee, it would *at least* double the license fees, probably more (since customers would probably stay on maintenance longer if they weren't paying for it annually). It's really not not not easy or cheap to maintain software, and whether we see it or not, it's really a separate price component / business activity from building and licensing the software in the first place.
All software sucks. Some software sucks less. (I didn't make that up, of course) - there are probably other ways to approach the problem at a macro level, but the path of least resistance is the single-source central-control Digi or (previously, but increasingly less so) Apple model, and I think that sucks more.
(but for the record, I dislike Microsoft more than Apple
)saul84aguilar
New member
Does anybody use mac
I Have a mackie 1620 with firewire card and never had to install any drivers logic just recognized it. it is my first recording setup i have used so i don't know any diferent
My .02
I Have a mackie 1620 with firewire card and never had to install any drivers logic just recognized it. it is my first recording setup i have used so i don't know any diferent
My .02
Analytical Man
New member
Buy a mac and you will be near stress free!!
My suggestion is to buy a mac and be free of nearly all trouble you are having.
My suggestion is to buy a mac and be free of nearly all trouble you are having.
TieDyedDevil
New member
I haven't run into upgrade problems with DAW software, but that's only because I don't use DAW software.
Ten years ago when I became interested in recording, I spent a lot of time talking to friends who had set up their own home studios. Most of them had built some kind of computer-based system; every last one of the software-DAW users seemed to be perpetually on the upgrade treadmill, trying desperately to keep their systems operational and stable from one upgrade to the next. I decided back then that I'd stick with self-contained hardware-based recording systems.
I understand the attraction of computer-based recording. The computer is a "magical" machine that can do anything the software tells it to do. New software promises to give your DAW more capability or additional functionality. That's a very attractive proposition.
The problem with this proposition, though, is that a general-purpose computer (hardware and operating system) is not designed to provide an environment in which critical tasks must complete on a hard deadline. (For you software geeks, this is known as a hard real-time system.) It takes all manner of tricks and compromises to make a general-purpose computer process audio without dropping bits on the floor. Those tricks and compromises are fragile in that they rely on assumptions which are easily invalidated by doing things like upgrading the operating system, changing hardware, adding plug-ins or even by something as simple as running another program at the same time as the DAW software.
You can very easily build a software-based DAW that will function consistently for as long as the underlying hardware remains functional. All you have to do is build your system, stabilize it, then never, *ever* change *anything*. But then that kind of defeats the attraction of having a software-based DAW, doesn't it?
I'm not saying that software DAWs are hopeless, either. Given enough technical insight, patience and attention to detail you can certainly operate a robust, stable computer-based DAW while selectively and carefully upgrading your system. If recording is your primary focus, then a computer-based DAW is going to be an indispensable part of your toolkit.
For someone like me, for whom recording is a means to an end, the added complexity and maintenance effort associated with a computer-based DAW is nothing but an unwanted distraction from creating music. The inherent limitations of my recording environment compel me to concentrate on *what* I'm recording rather than *how* I'm recording and processing the tracks.
I personally prefer Mac OS to Windows, but would hesitate to say that switching to a Mac will solve all of your software-DAW problems. You should be somewhat better off if you stick with Logic or Garage Band; presumably Apple pays attention to ensuring that their software upgrades are somewhat synchronized so all of *their* software continues to work together. But you still have the underlying problems of running a DAW on a general-purpose computer, and you still have to be concerned about drivers for third-party hardware.
Again, if you build a system and then *leave it alone* you should be OK; I might go so far as to imply that a Mac-based system *might* be more reliable, on average, than a Windows-based system. But "buy a Mac and you'll never have another problem with your computer-based DAW?"... I certainly wouldn't bet real money on that outcome.
Ten years ago when I became interested in recording, I spent a lot of time talking to friends who had set up their own home studios. Most of them had built some kind of computer-based system; every last one of the software-DAW users seemed to be perpetually on the upgrade treadmill, trying desperately to keep their systems operational and stable from one upgrade to the next. I decided back then that I'd stick with self-contained hardware-based recording systems.
I understand the attraction of computer-based recording. The computer is a "magical" machine that can do anything the software tells it to do. New software promises to give your DAW more capability or additional functionality. That's a very attractive proposition.
The problem with this proposition, though, is that a general-purpose computer (hardware and operating system) is not designed to provide an environment in which critical tasks must complete on a hard deadline. (For you software geeks, this is known as a hard real-time system.) It takes all manner of tricks and compromises to make a general-purpose computer process audio without dropping bits on the floor. Those tricks and compromises are fragile in that they rely on assumptions which are easily invalidated by doing things like upgrading the operating system, changing hardware, adding plug-ins or even by something as simple as running another program at the same time as the DAW software.
You can very easily build a software-based DAW that will function consistently for as long as the underlying hardware remains functional. All you have to do is build your system, stabilize it, then never, *ever* change *anything*. But then that kind of defeats the attraction of having a software-based DAW, doesn't it?
I'm not saying that software DAWs are hopeless, either. Given enough technical insight, patience and attention to detail you can certainly operate a robust, stable computer-based DAW while selectively and carefully upgrading your system. If recording is your primary focus, then a computer-based DAW is going to be an indispensable part of your toolkit.
For someone like me, for whom recording is a means to an end, the added complexity and maintenance effort associated with a computer-based DAW is nothing but an unwanted distraction from creating music. The inherent limitations of my recording environment compel me to concentrate on *what* I'm recording rather than *how* I'm recording and processing the tracks.
I personally prefer Mac OS to Windows, but would hesitate to say that switching to a Mac will solve all of your software-DAW problems. You should be somewhat better off if you stick with Logic or Garage Band; presumably Apple pays attention to ensuring that their software upgrades are somewhat synchronized so all of *their* software continues to work together. But you still have the underlying problems of running a DAW on a general-purpose computer, and you still have to be concerned about drivers for third-party hardware.
Again, if you build a system and then *leave it alone* you should be OK; I might go so far as to imply that a Mac-based system *might* be more reliable, on average, than a Windows-based system. But "buy a Mac and you'll never have another problem with your computer-based DAW?"... I certainly wouldn't bet real money on that outcome.
I'm sure my way of doing things isn't for everybody, but it works just fine for me.
I use Linux (Ubuntu 9.10 with the RT-kernel). So all my software is open source.
Audacity is a perfectly capable wave file editor and mixer.
Rosegarden for editing midi files.
Timidity for playing midi files, and converting to wave.
I use mma (musical midi accompaniment) for making backing tracks. Similar to band-in-a-box (so I am led to believe, never used biab myself). Give it a chord progression, specify a groove, and it outputs a midi file. It is actually much more powerful than this simple explanation.
mma comes with another script, which runs the source file through timidity, and generates separate wav files for every instrument, perfect for importing into Audacity. Also generates a mono guide track for transferring to my Zoom mrs4 digital recorder, where I can record vocals and real guitars, which can then be transferred back to the computer. Fortunately, the zoom card reader software (windows executable) runs on Linux just fine under wine (fluked that one).
I use Linux (Ubuntu 9.10 with the RT-kernel). So all my software is open source.
Audacity is a perfectly capable wave file editor and mixer.
Rosegarden for editing midi files.
Timidity for playing midi files, and converting to wave.
I use mma (musical midi accompaniment) for making backing tracks. Similar to band-in-a-box (so I am led to believe, never used biab myself). Give it a chord progression, specify a groove, and it outputs a midi file. It is actually much more powerful than this simple explanation.
mma comes with another script, which runs the source file through timidity, and generates separate wav files for every instrument, perfect for importing into Audacity. Also generates a mono guide track for transferring to my Zoom mrs4 digital recorder, where I can record vocals and real guitars, which can then be transferred back to the computer. Fortunately, the zoom card reader software (windows executable) runs on Linux just fine under wine (fluked that one).
Acoustica Mixcraft
I had heard a lot of good things about this software, so I tried a "free" 7 day download. After getting the project recorded & ready to mix down to an MP3, I was prompted to buy a registration code. (first day)
Trying to do the right thing (in spite of the "7 day free trial) I paid the 75 bucks for the "instant registration". The code sent never did work. After 4 hours, they finally refunded my money instead of solving the problem. If I hadn't used Pay Pal, I would have probably been stuck!
Of course, I am still stuck with a project I cannot do anything with. My time is worth something!
I had heard a lot of good things about this software, so I tried a "free" 7 day download. After getting the project recorded & ready to mix down to an MP3, I was prompted to buy a registration code. (first day)
Trying to do the right thing (in spite of the "7 day free trial) I paid the 75 bucks for the "instant registration". The code sent never did work. After 4 hours, they finally refunded my money instead of solving the problem. If I hadn't used Pay Pal, I would have probably been stuck!
Of course, I am still stuck with a project I cannot do anything with. My time is worth something!