Comment fun shite... (Score 1) 92
With regards to all the stuff posted here about whether musicians are technical enough to pick up on this i'd agree that musicians tend to be pretty technical people as far as artists go, especially anyone who's going to take a DIY approach to producing their own music. If you're a control freak, if you're on a tight budget (isn't every musician?), and if you want the time and freedom to make your songs "perfect," it makes a hell of a lot more sense in the long run to forget booking recording sessions and spend your money on a home studio.
Everything you hear out of a speaker is electronic music, and i don't care if you're listening to some acoustic folk guitar crap, to get that sound from your head to a recording medium you're going to need to have decent technical understanding of the tools you're using, not to mention the soundwaves you're making. The better the understanding you have, the closer the recordings will sound like the noises in your head. Anyone who's spent any time with programs like logic audio, or who's played with MIDI, electronic synthesis, or sampling, is going to have to become more technical if they are serious about getting the right performance from these tools.
I can attest to this because I never felt any strong need to really learn about computers or electronics until I understood that I'd need something like logic audio to record the sounds i wanted. i got into pc recording about a year ago and now i'm actually serious about learning computer programming because of it (something i didn't see coming.) the control i need over sounds had extended to the tools i need to create them, and now i can't separate techological development with musical development; they're one and the same now. my guitarist friend is getting caught up with it too and neither of us were very technical people before we started with this. now we're both heading back to school to learn computers and electrical engineering. i guess my point here is that playing music can often be a springboard to learning technology if you're really serious about the sound you want. just look at guys like aphex twin or autechre or some noise musicians to see how musical and technological development are often the same thing. these are people who tweak their shit to the limit, who program, create, or modify their own tools and it shows in their music. some would argue that it's what makes them so "great" or "unique" or whatever, but no matter what it can be an important part of what distinguishes your sound.
with regards to what i think about this linux stuff, i can say that my experiences with logic audio in windows98 has lead me to believe (with my still quite limited technical understanding) that having a linux distro streamlined for audio production would be a very powerful thing. it's not like i can use my current computer setup for much more than logic and the internet; if i install games i take huge risks screwing up libraries that it needs. i tend to max out on the 32 tracks it lets me use and when you pile on software effects you learn pretty quickly how valuable every ounce of RAM is. it doesn't take too long to realize how good getting a RAID would be when you push your hard disk to the limit on a regular basis.
Everything you hear out of a speaker is electronic music, and i don't care if you're listening to some acoustic folk guitar crap, to get that sound from your head to a recording medium you're going to need to have decent technical understanding of the tools you're using, not to mention the soundwaves you're making. The better the understanding you have, the closer the recordings will sound like the noises in your head. Anyone who's spent any time with programs like logic audio, or who's played with MIDI, electronic synthesis, or sampling, is going to have to become more technical if they are serious about getting the right performance from these tools.
I can attest to this because I never felt any strong need to really learn about computers or electronics until I understood that I'd need something like logic audio to record the sounds i wanted. i got into pc recording about a year ago and now i'm actually serious about learning computer programming because of it (something i didn't see coming.) the control i need over sounds had extended to the tools i need to create them, and now i can't separate techological development with musical development; they're one and the same now. my guitarist friend is getting caught up with it too and neither of us were very technical people before we started with this. now we're both heading back to school to learn computers and electrical engineering. i guess my point here is that playing music can often be a springboard to learning technology if you're really serious about the sound you want. just look at guys like aphex twin or autechre or some noise musicians to see how musical and technological development are often the same thing. these are people who tweak their shit to the limit, who program, create, or modify their own tools and it shows in their music. some would argue that it's what makes them so "great" or "unique" or whatever, but no matter what it can be an important part of what distinguishes your sound.
with regards to what i think about this linux stuff, i can say that my experiences with logic audio in windows98 has lead me to believe (with my still quite limited technical understanding) that having a linux distro streamlined for audio production would be a very powerful thing. it's not like i can use my current computer setup for much more than logic and the internet; if i install games i take huge risks screwing up libraries that it needs. i tend to max out on the 32 tracks it lets me use and when you pile on software effects you learn pretty quickly how valuable every ounce of RAM is. it doesn't take too long to realize how good getting a RAID would be when you push your hard disk to the limit on a regular basis.
