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slightly off topic... but completely relevant and parallel argument to the "Firefox breaking things argument."

PROTOOLS breaks with IE8 installed

lots of info to slipstream XP+SP3+IE8, Bone Dry for XP+SP3+IE7 basically it's so much of a pain in the ass your better off slipstreaming SP2 without updating IE 6 to 7 first , how's that for fucked up logic?

citation: http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=243183

A rollback of IE8 to IE7 is impossible on a slipstreamed SP3, you can forcefully remove IE8 but it leaves your system unstable even after installing IE7. Which also, IIRC can also lead to a self-fulfilling death spiral reformat prophecy when your "RESTORE" no longer operates because IE* no longer operates, in short you can't even fix your system if you force IE8 out. With a normal software. You could install/remove IE 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and RESTORE and other shit will still work in the OS. But no not Microsoft.

With XP being "End of life" one wonders how to get a system with updates (just before they crippled this 3rd party software) once they shut updates off. Especially when you have old lexicon or protools hardware laying around. This whole thing is utter painful nonsense for even those who can debug and build a decent system.

IMO - The problem with IE, is it was twisted up with fucking activeX which was compiled into the http protocol update.microsoft.com to force people off the ftp protocol ftp.microsoft.com for updates, now they can roll out a bunch of anti-piracy shit "WGA" which has wreaked havok on legitimate users, crippled the whole fucking system startup and opened everything else to exploits and fucking complete arrogant retarded-ness.

Microsoft has it easy. No update FTP (sure they still have an ftp, but not for updates) . And now no patches for 30 days +- . no real public feedback loop that isn't a straight pain in the ass for the end user.

In short, corporate profits are what has caused security to be weakened and applications to be crippled, while they roll out TWO new OS's that I could give a fuck about since all I have heard was a request for my support to fix their broken shit. My new advice is a.) Get a Hardware firewall like IPCop b.) Here's an XP disk... it will fix all your Vista/7 problems.

Dear Microsoft, WE HAVE TO USE YOUR SHIT.

Please get the fucking AX out of updating the OS. a simple SSH (if society can no longer secure a FTP server) would be the best, what's old is new. Make patches available instantly for the specific targets. No more time-shifting illogical war crimes like "patch Tuesday" with a "Promise to increase Security" a mind-control game with no intention of doing anything except profiting.

I ain't saying don't profit. But at the rate your going your going to bring us all down because your stupid greed.

I remember the 6502...

Manufacturers can currently make cards that will work in modern Mac Pro computers. In fact, I seriously extended the life of my G4 Mac by installing a SATA card in it so that I could use (more modern and faster) SATA drives with the computer. I also upgraded the GPU. I will probably do something along those lines with my Cheese Grater and, maybe, it will be useful for about 10 years like my last computer.

The idea around the Apple // computer was that hardware hacks were a good way to extend it. And people sold breadboards that you could install and test on your Apple //. But you really needed to know what you were doing, else you could fry your motherboard and that would be really bad. So the Steve Wozniak part of the Apple Computer company did their best to publish warnings and specifications so that hardware hackers would make innovative stuff for the Apple //.

Today, hardware hackers are still out there. You can get the complete hardware information you need about a Mac Pro as a hardware developer, so that you can make a card to install in the computer to handle digital audio, VTR control, set up a hard disk array or anything else a Mac can do in the workplace. Were that not the case, there would be no Blackmagic Design, no AJA Video systems, no Digidesign, and no CI Design as just a few examples.

The spirit of the 1980s still lives on, mostly in the software communities that are writing free, open software. I don't see breadboards for sale these days for Apple computers -- but I don't see them for pee cees either. But that doesn't mean they are not being made. That means I'm not shopping for them.

I like where we have headed. It used to be that animation, destined for video (which is a much smaller screen than the cinema) took overnight to do just a few seconds, with a really expensive SGI workstation attached to a 1" C-format open reel VTR, recording one frame at a time (and you hoped there would be no h-phase errors, else you would have to start rendering all over). Today, we can play Doom real-time on our 24" monitors attached to our inexpensive personal computers with better than 30 frames per second render times for each whole frame in widescreen. The "computer" that landed the Lunar Excursion Module on the moon would probably be an inferior cousin to the processor you find in a hand calculator today. And those computers were really, really expensive. The Apple // did everything in "character mode," drawing things with very crude graphics developed out of an extended character set. Forget about shading, drop shadows and the like. So, looking at my Apple Studio Display, running in 32-bit color at 1920 x 1200 powered by my NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512 MB of video RAM, I'm seeing a nicer image than the Apple //, hooked up to a monitor or a TV using a box that the FCC said was illegal.

I'm still bummed that Pystar lost, even though they ought to have in every sense. Here were these scrappy guys out there trying to re-invent the Mac Clone. My first experience with Apple's System Software was with a Mac Clone. but I don't want to go "back to the future" and I don't hate Steve Jobs because of the result.

Pro Tools|HD

I assure you I have the exact same problem with Pro Tools. One quicktime update or one .1 upgrade to the OS and the whole thing goes kerfluy. All pro apps have this problem, Apple's, Adobe's, Avid's, everyones. People who run that software have to upgrade more often too, be they Mac or PC users. It's just the cost of doing business if you're in media.

If you were in a lab, particularly one with FCP on the rigs, why was software update turned on, and why didn't you reimage the machines when they pulled the bad update (you did keep a master image, right)? You'd've had this problem if, for example, an internet worm got onto your LAN, Mac, PC or otherwise, or some kid brought in a hard drive with an MBR virus (god how long it's been since I saw one of those!

I used to support a lab with a buncha G3s running Premiere 5.1 on OS9, so I know your pain. Pro apps simply require strictly-maintained environments.

Are not in the same ballpark as far as polish, consistency, printed manuals and a general sense of finishedness goes ... But they are well on par (if not superior) in terms of functions. They are all miles ahead in terms of expandability compared to the existing big name applications.

I would disagree with that. None of those programs would compete with huge behemoth DAWs like Cubase or Logic or Pro Tools in terms of features. Do any of them come with Beat Detective (Pro Tools)? What about Space Designer, or a Hammond B3 emulation or Ultrabeat (Logic)?

Ok, let me give an example of Logic Pro, because that's what I use and most familiar with. Do any of those programs listed match up in terms of functions?
specs
effects
instruments
sound library

And for me, expandability is the ability to use the widest range of plugins that would affect my mixing and recording work. Linux does not yet have that for me.

one minor area where open source audio apps absolutely kills the big name commercial apps is the online community - the users, experienced musos, and the developers are all one and the same people.

The online community for the big name programs is much much larger, simply because more people use those programs. I get plenty of help with whatever question I have at those forums. I post at bigbluelounge.com (which is even listed on the Apple website), but I also lurk at the DUC and logicprohelp.com. Look at some of the forum topics, some have well over 30,000 posts.

Big Blue Lounge
Logic Pro help
the DUC - Digidesign Pro Tools forum
the LUG (Logic Users Group)
Cubase forum
Sonar forum
Ableton Live forum
just to name a few.

some of the audio tools are actually good enough and stable enough right now for live performance in front of real paying audiences.

I agree, but that's still very limited usage compared to what a big-name DAW is capable of doing.

open source audio is not better or worse than commercial audio apps - but it is different enough in a worthwhile way.

I'm sorry to say this, but right now it is definitely worse and it's going to be like that until Linux DAWs are used professionally at the highest levels of the music industry. One indicator of the lack of popularity of Linux DAWs is the coverage in music production magazines, such as Future Music, Computer Music, Sound on Sound, MIX, EQ and Virtual Instruments, although this is changing. CM has a dedicated Linux section, albeit only two pages worth. This is at the moment though, so who knows what will happen in the future. But even in 2007, many mixing and mastering engineers still refuse to use Pro Tools or anything computer based. Most of the others who do use DAWs don't solely mix in the box and use a buttload of outboard hardware.

AFAIK, unfortunately, native plugin support is virtually zero on Linux. Yes, there is the Linux VST standard, but that still requires companies to recompile their plugins for that, as a Linux VST plugin does not use the same binary as a Windows VST. You can run Windows VSTs under Linux, but that involves a lot of playing around with WINE and JACK and other things which most musicians don't have the time, and more importantly, the technical ability to set up. I mean, it's hard enough

Yeah right... most machines sound takes far less than 0.1% of the CPU time to 'push the bits'. Even if you write it in C++ or asm it "might work on some people's computers and not on other". Ooh scary.

Well it is, if you want the code to "write once, run everywhere" (by everywhere we mean NOT "all arbitrarily fast and memory capacious home computers" but "any computer, including embedded systems, from Micro-ITX Mobos to battery-powered greeting cards that speak a greeting when opened." And forgive me for being so handwavy, it's not "pushing the bits on the buss," it's more like "reading the bits off the disk driver at whatever rate it'd like to get them for you, passing these to ringbuffers, keeping track of the ringbuffers state so they don't underrun, synchronizing the threads that read the input ringbuffers so they're all pulling the precise sample for the given realtime offset, reading the samples from the ringbuffers for several streams into the CPU for summing, writing the summed stream to the summed ringbuffer (or "mix buss"), keeping a tally of how many samples you send to the DAC so you don't overrun it, and emitting the bytes to the DAC. You CAN do it all in java, but if their are performance problems on platform X, your boss will ask you "Is this code written in the fastest way possible?" and if there's anything in it pertaining to java, you know how you'll have to answer.

These methods get inlined directly by the JIT since it knows the final types so these buffers are generally equivalent to arrays in overhead.

Generally? In C or C++, you can make it compulsory.

They do check bounds though, but if you want to crash your sound app go ahead and write it in C++.

You mean like these guys?

BEWARE: There is a bug in this microcode update that causes problems in some realtime video and audio applications, for instance, Pro Tools.

At least, HP's new BIOS have this issue. Caused a major headache tracking this one down. Has something to do with erratic time values being returned when calls are made at high resolutions (for instance near 30 milliseconds...)

if by "sound card" you allow extrapolation to the more general term "audio interface" there are plenty - M-Audio, http://www.m-audio.com/ Echo Audio http://www.echoaudio.com/ Mark of the Unicorn, http://www.motu.com/ Digidesign, http://www.digidesign.com/ RME, http://www.rme-audio.com/ Apogee, http://www.apogeedigital.com/ Edirol, http://www.edirol.com/ etc.

I think you're looking for ProTools. It does pretty much what you say. It is, however, quite expensive and needs specialized hardware to be used to the full extent. Hence the Pro part of the name. I don't know if it natively works on a note by note basis, I think conceptually it's more of a software based multi-track recorder. It does, however, have plug-ins that allow for such thing as locking pitch/etc. You know, all the effects used on pop-divas to make them actually sound bearable.

The features that this keyboard provide are widely unnecessary in comparison to the cost regarding home applications. This keyboard, however, would be absolutely perfect for implications such as the recording industry. In the record business, cost is hardly an issue compared to time, And when you're working with digital audio workstations, such as Pro-Tools which has hundreds of key commands that vastly speed up any recording or mixing process compared to just using a mouse, they are often un-intuitive and hard to memorize. A keyboard like this that could intuitively transform its layout upon starting different applications to reveal program-specific commands would be incredibly helpful, and just all around l33t.

I have a box at home running XP SP1. It's my ProTools 6.1.1/Cubase SX2 machine, complete with a Digidesign Audiomedia III card. Neither ProTools 6.1.1 or the ASIO drivers for the AMIII will work with SP2 - AT ALL!!!

http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/xp/tb/

Scroll down and find the little yellow exclamation mark to find this:

"Additional Computer Requirements

System Software: Windows XP Professional or Home Edition (Pro Tools LE 6.1 can NOT be installed on systems running Windows 98, Me, 2000, NT, 95, or 3.1)
Windows XP Service Pack 1
  Windows XP Service Pack 2 is not qualified with Pro Tools LE 6.1.1 "

Not qualified 'cause it won't run on SP2 (I've tried). There's no workaround for this either. To be able to use ProTools with XP, my minimum investment is about $300 for a used Digi001 and PTLE 6.4 from Ebay. I could upgrade to the current PT7 if I buy an Mbox, but at $500+ this is not a real option for me. The version of PTLE I run now does everything the new version does, it just doesn't look as pretty. New plugins are still compatible, so there's no overly compelling reason to upgrade.

M$ just screwed me on this one.

I have scored several films ,produced and engineered quite a few albums and cut several radio and podcast spots using Presonus Firepods http://www.presonus.com/. It has just about all the IO you could ask for in an 8 (10 if you count spdif) channel box. You can also daisy chain 3 of them for a 24 channel stack. Also, it is rack mountable so you can readily take it on the road. Overall things just work and I, and my customers, have been very pleased with the sound quality. Not to mention, you get balanced and unbalanced capabilities. To keep things quiet I don't run anything unbalanced if there is more that 3 feet of cable.

If the firepod is a bit much they also offer cut down versions. The firebox, which is a 2 channel unit, and the inspire which has 4 channels.

Digidesign http://www.digidesign.com/, Echo http://www.echoaudio.com/ and Mackie http://www.mackie.com/ also have some really nice gear but can be a bit pricy. I do agree with staying away from m-audio. Their MIDI stuff is phenominal but the audio gear is lacking. I would say the same for lower level Alesis and anything from Behringer.

I also must echo earlier posts in saying that you shouldn't skimp on mics. Your end product is only as good as your source. I would recommend a good condenser from AudioTechnica or MXL for price/quality.

Also, your monitors (for you non-audio folks these are the speakers, not the video display) are also critical to getting a mix that translates well to other systems. You will find that if you use standard stereo speakers or, God forbid, computer speakers what you put out will sound extremely different from stereo to stereo as you listen in different environments.

I personally use Event TR8Ns with a KRK Rockit 10 subwoofer but these babies ain't cheap at $1000.00US per pair. I would recommend looking into KRK http://www.krksys.com/. I did some post work on the latest Stereofuge album with Mark Slaughter producing and we did the entire mix on them and it sounded fat-tastic. In any case, you will want a good near-field monitor that is self powered to eliminate transients.

Finally, clean up your power. You'll be amazed at the difference a $60.00US power conditioner can make to the quality of the sound you get. I use Furman http://www.furmansound.com/ conditioners. This is a good tip for anyone who has a home-theater or high-end gaming system as well.

A good set of reference books for audio newbs is a series of books by Bobby Owsinski. Starting with the recording engineers handbook (available at amazon) they will give you enough info to be extremely dangerous.

I didn't mean to be so verbose but I hope some of this is useful.

I have to agree with the parent. This is most certainly not the place to be asking this kind of question. However, I'm willing to throw in my 1.5 cents, as a musician.

Now you said this is primarily a radio show, so I'm going to take a jump here and say you won't actually be playing much live music. If this is the case, then you don't have to splurge on the much higher end stuff for that "perfect" sound. In fact, your recording quality doesn't have to be the max you can handle either. I will recommend that you do yourself a favor and go get yourself a nice quality Condenser Microphone with a pop shield(those funny felt looking disks they suspend in front). This will help reduce the wind noise generated by certain sounds you will make(Such as P's and B's).

I have to say, from experience, that my absolute favorite recording card is the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 mkII, but it has a serious amount of inputs that you may not need. You may find the Traveler or the Ultralite more your cup of tea. Either way, nothing beats getting into your local audio shop and trying one out

One final question I have is what program are you using? If you are using anything but Pro Tools, such as Cubase, then the MOTU stuff should be good for you. However, if you DO plan to use Pro Tools: then you are kind of locked into M-Audio or Digidesign. Pro Tools will only work with Digidesign/M-Audio approved hardware. Namely their own.

Don't skimp on a good mixer, be it software or a physical one; make sure your mixer is up to par with what you are doing. If you prefer to work with more physical equipment rather than virtual, then I would also recommend getting a compressor for your voice. These things can do wonders for your sound and levels

Finally, above all else: Be careful WHERE YOU RECORD!. 90% of people overlook this one critical, CRITICAL variable. You could have this amazing live sound, your could be Howard Stern (or Opie and Anthony); and if your acoustical environment is terrible: your recording will suck. There are some excellent resources out there. You just have to google for it.

Oh how oh how I wish they had stuck with the "good things" like PCIx and PATA controllers on the motherboard, such that my last 3 upgrades didn't require me buying either completely new Pro Tools cards or storage for every upgrade.

Yes I know they had their reasons, but I'm one of those few mac users that actually uses the extra drive bays and peripheral slots, and they've been very cruel to my kind over the last three years.

I know you said you want to keep the capture cards you have, but have you considered a MacBook Pro? You could obtain any of a variety of very portable external USB|Firewire audio capture devices (keeps the audio away from the CPU/Motherboard, which is of course good for keeping electronics-induced noise down); (also, see below).

I've recently switched from Windows back to Mac, and it has been a transforming experience. Everything Just Works. There was very little setup to do, and it runs rock solid. It's a nice compromise between screen real estate and portability.

Of course, if you choose to use MacOS on the Mac (as opposed to running Windows, which does work), your encoding software would have to be switched out. I haven't googled yet for what's available for live encoding and streaming on Macs, but I'm 98.6% sure there are several good choices. I've talked with several local pro musicians (some of whom are audio guys as well), and they pretty much universally use Macs. (I'm guessing, for example, that Apple's program 'Logic' [pro version] has live encoding -- it seems to do just about everything else...)

As for the outboard hardware, check out these two companies' products:

- http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=m obileinterfaces
    http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=c ontrolsurfaces

- http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=30&langid=10 0&itemid=4894
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=31&langid=10 0&itemid=4895
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=29&langid=10 0&itemid=4893

I know you said you want to keep the capture cards you have, but have you considered a MacBook Pro? You could obtain any of a variety of very portable external USB|Firewire audio capture devices (keeps the audio away from the CPU/Motherboard, which is of course good for keeping electronics-induced noise down); (also, see below).

I've recently switched from Windows back to Mac, and it has been a transforming experience. Everything Just Works. There was very little setup to do, and it runs rock solid. It's a nice compromise between screen real estate and portability.

Of course, if you choose to use MacOS on the Mac (as opposed to running Windows, which does work), your encoding software would have to be switched out. I haven't googled yet for what's available for live encoding and streaming on Macs, but I'm 98.6% sure there are several good choices. I've talked with several local pro musicians (some of whom are audio guys as well), and they pretty much universally use Macs. (I'm guessing, for example, that Apple's program 'Logic' [pro version] has live encoding -- it seems to do just about everything else...)

As for the outboard hardware, check out these two companies' products:

- http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=m obileinterfaces
    http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=c ontrolsurfaces

- http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=30&langid=10 0&itemid=4894
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=31&langid=10 0&itemid=4895
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=29&langid=10 0&itemid=4893

I know you said you want to keep the capture cards you have, but have you considered a MacBook Pro? You could obtain any of a variety of very portable external USB|Firewire audio capture devices (keeps the audio away from the CPU/Motherboard, which is of course good for keeping electronics-induced noise down); (also, see below).

I've recently switched from Windows back to Mac, and it has been a transforming experience. Everything Just Works. There was very little setup to do, and it runs rock solid. It's a nice compromise between screen real estate and portability.

Of course, if you choose to use MacOS on the Mac (as opposed to running Windows, which does work), your encoding software would have to be switched out. I haven't googled yet for what's available for live encoding and streaming on Macs, but I'm 98.6% sure there are several good choices. I've talked with several local pro musicians (some of whom are audio guys as well), and they pretty much universally use Macs. (I'm guessing, for example, that Apple's program 'Logic' [pro version] has live encoding -- it seems to do just about everything else...)

As for the outboard hardware, check out these two companies' products:

- http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=m obileinterfaces
    http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=c ontrolsurfaces

- http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=30&langid=10 0&itemid=4894
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=31&langid=10 0&itemid=4895
    http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=29&langid=10 0&itemid=4893

this is the absolute best way to do this.
you get GREAT hardware with excelent A/D converters,
and great software to mix it down.. (and prob some effects included in the bundle I guess)

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?body=/products /digi002

and its not TO expensive..

Dear Pirates, OS X is just as shiny as Vista, has no hard protection, and might work on your machine just as well as windows does. Welcome, come on in, we're actually in serious need of more bad boys: While you're trying out os x, you might try to port some windows games or crack some apps that haven't been cracked in 5 years, like Logic Pro (requires dongle) and ProTools (requires hardware) and give something back to the community :-D

Even fairly mundane sound cards support 24 bit samples at 96 KHz and 7 channels. That puts CD audio (16 bit/44.1 KHz/2 channel) to shame...

If you follow the argument of another person who said that audio only sounds as good as the weakest link, then I hope this makes sense for you: in many sound cards, their sampling rate isn't the weakest link, but it's the digital-analog conversion or the circuit design.

Let me know if you are lucky enough to get your hands on one of those kinds, then you can tell me how great 24-bits at 96 KHz sounds (assuming you would also take the pain to find a good matching pair of studio monitors for it).

For me, although I have never heard true 24-bit 96 KHz sound, there have been several occasions that the infamous MP3 rattling has disturbed me, enough to make me committed to uncompressed music.

It could be compression, or if they have any budget it's probably mastering.

Mastering is a very cool process where the audio engineer removes or reduces frequencies that the ear is less sensitive to, and also removes or reduces frequencies that are not important for the sounds being played, thereby leaving more dynamic range for the important frequencies. The important frequencies can then be cranked up a notch or two without clipping. In addition, as mentioned elsewhere, the signal can be compressed a little bit to get even more oomph, but this does affect the quality of the sound.

ProTools, which is used by many recording studios, has these features built in. It's easy to tell a mastered song from an unmastered song when playing in WinAmp, for example, because a mastered song will have higher, longer-lasting peaks in the little frequency visualizer, but will still sound crisp and clean.

# Pentium 4 or Xeon systems with HyperThreading technology must have "Intel HyperThreading" in the system BIOS disabled.
# Dual processor machines may need to have network cards disabled for best performance

Have you heard of Garageband's big brother http://www.apple.com/logic/ or ProTools http://www.digidesign.com/?

moogerfooger Analog Delay

JOEMEEK SC2 Compressor

JOEMEEK VC5 Meequalizer

Cosmonaut Voice

Maxim

Pre-authorized iLok Smart Key

the main mixing software that was included i believe as called ProTools. i might be wrong, but i've only seen it once. for those who have actually used an MBox, you might be able to tell me which software it is from the Bundled Software list.

Anyway, from what I recall seeing, the layout was quite similar to other software available on windows such as ProTools, Cakewalk, Fruityloops, etc. I'm just wondering if there's any easy way to convert or import to something a windows program can understand.

moogerfooger Analog Delay

JOEMEEK SC2 Compressor

JOEMEEK VC5 Meequalizer

Cosmonaut Voice

Maxim

Pre-authorized iLok Smart Key

the main mixing software that was included i believe as called ProTools. i might be wrong, but i've only seen it once. for those who have actually used an MBox, you might be able to tell me which software it is from the Bundled Software list.

Anyway, from what I recall seeing, the layout was quite similar to other software available on windows such as ProTools, Cakewalk, Fruityloops, etc. I'm just wondering if there's any easy way to convert or import to something a windows program can understand.

I have built my own DAW recently using Planet CCRMA at home. I'm sure with your kit you can do some cool things, however everything I have read on the subject would indicate that a single commodity 24-bit soundcard isn't really going to cut it for professional work. Dunno. You tell me. Fortunately, in my case I obtained an RME HDSP 9652 for virtually nothing (many thanks to DLS!)...

However, I don't know how to use the software and I don't know much about this killer DSP card either so basically I am not getting anything done with this kit! Fear not though, it will not go to waste. I will learn, because I want to. I have the ProTools manual (which is indicated as a helpful reference for Ardour). I have the DSP manual. The digital recording process interests me so I will learn how to do it...

However, some artists do NOT want to be recording engineers (which is an artform of its own in every respect).

Some people don't want to learn how to master a disc.

They may be world-class musicians but not have an ounce of geek in them. In their case they need someone to handle that side of the equation for them, and that isn't cheap...

I guess I should have said, "not everyone has a DAW in their house--or even wants one for that matter."

As a result, I guess you just don't see the requirement to have "more powerful sound cards".

Tell that to these guys!

Yes, but in all probability, it wasn't even a software mistake at all. More likely an engineer cued something up incorrectly. Perhaps they had all the tracks for both tracks (they typically do two performances on SNL) in the same session and they simply had the wrong one muted.
And just so you know, ProTools runs on Windows, too.

Not very, if you use something for the task such as Digidesign's Mbox

***I have not used this software***

However, as a professional who makes a living both recording and doing live sound, I find this very hard to believe.

Let me explain, please....

I think that software deadlines are similar to professional audio deadlines- you just never have enough time. No matter what happens, you can always look back and think, "This could have been better."

However, you get no revisions with a song (or album, etc.) after it's been released. Once it's "done"... you're ass is on the line.

Here's the big finish: I don't know of anyone (and I don't know _everyone_) who would consider this "Pro-level". It's only pro-level when it does A) things better thanPro Tools B) things better than Logic C) things cheaper than both. Most importantly D) Has been through trial by fire.

Perhaps I've not emphasized enough that prefessional audio engineers are under a very tight schedule. Considering that fact alone, it's *very* difficult to call something "professional" when it's barely out of it's infancy.

I would really like to see something like this succeed. After spending a huge amount of money on pro gear, it would be nice to have some thorough, reliable tools that work well. Remember though, Pro Tools has the same thing Apple has going for them - tight software/hardware integration.

I don't care about the Open/Closed software discussion when it comes down to paying my bills or not paying my bills. If it works, you are going to have to *really* try to convince me that I should change my mind.

So... mod the parent UP, not only is he right, but dammit, The Princess Bride is a funny movie!

...are they selling this thing yet, or what?

Positively beautiful piece of equipment, if it did Midi it would be a great replacement for my MIR midi controller (which I use to control Pro Tools transport and to tweak my reverb). I particularly like the Tron-style buttons.

It doesn't seem to support MIDI, and I ask, WHY? I'm all for adoption of open standards, but is not MIDI, or even MTS, open and available for anyone to implement? I loooked up OSC and it looks very promising, but it is completely absent from Digidesign's or Logic's or Nuendo's web sites. This is a severe hinderance and makes the tool almost useless to people who do alot of post-production work, which would seem to be where their core audience is, given what I bet it costs.

This said, I bet Digidesign, if inclined, could make up a Personality file to allow this thing to control Pro Tools.

<rant quality="possible-unfair">

</rant>

PS. The OSC web site says that OSC has a PHP interface!

How many artists would be able to afford to produce quality music without the recording industries willing to take the plunge and invest in them based on a tape of an amateur recording?

This is no longer true. Technology has gotten to the point where it is getting easier and cheaper to self-record with 'proffesional' sound quality.
Besides which, record labels don't just give bands the money to record. It's a loan. The label sets them up with a quality studio and a hot show producer, and the band pays for it out of their royalties.
For a lot less money, anyone can buy an imac and an Mbox (or if you're loaded, a digi002). ProTools (screenshot) is a pretty intuitive program, and it's powerful (all we need now is a free, open source equivilent)!
There is still a good deal of skill involved in recording, but it gives the artisits more control over their music.

How many artists would be able to afford to produce quality music without the recording industries willing to take the plunge and invest in them based on a tape of an amateur recording?

This is no longer true. Technology has gotten to the point where it is getting easier and cheaper to self-record with 'proffesional' sound quality.
Besides which, record labels don't just give bands the money to record. It's a loan. The label sets them up with a quality studio and a hot show producer, and the band pays for it out of their royalties.
For a lot less money, anyone can buy an imac and an Mbox (or if you're loaded, a digi002). ProTools (screenshot) is a pretty intuitive program, and it's powerful (all we need now is a free, open source equivilent)!
There is still a good deal of skill involved in recording, but it gives the artisits more control over their music.

Basically what you want to do is some time compression. You can do that by means of granulation or a FFT. Most audio applications already have time compression/expansion plugins built in to them. Sound Forge, Pro Tools Free, Live and Cool Edit are some of the commercial programs that come to mind. You could also build a stand alone program fairly easily with Csound, Max/MSP or Pure Data. These are audio programming/scripting languages. Csound and Pure Data are free. You just need to know a little about digital audio to make a program with any of those languages.

Well they already make DSP cards for audio processing. Simply do a google(TM) search for "DSP card" and you will get several vendors.

I can't imagine it would take a whole lot to hack them for just their processing power outside of audio applications.

Apple in the movie industry? I've never seen an Apple computer in a movie...

Audacity is a multitrack editor- something that most of the $50-$70 similar software titles cannot do!

But Pro Tools Free can do it... For free.

It's not just Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. It's damn near every so-called "singer" in the top 40 these days. Real talent is seconday to image in this industry. The only reason that we don't see bands like Milli Vanilli these days is because studios can use technologies like autotune and Pro Tools to make any nice set of breasts sound like a pro.

Open source has made some inroads into broadcasting, but not many. For the most part anything in a radio station will run on Windows or a more proprietary system.

The starting point is usually sound recording and editing. Unfortunately the available Open Source products are still a fair distance from matching the functionality of say Adobe Audition or Pro Tools. Still though do check out Audacity for a simple editor which can handle many tasks.

Beyond editing there have been a few people in Canada who have developed Linux based audio logging systems, and stations in many places who catalog music using Open Source software.

Automation is still the land of proprietary software, although Scott Studios has been working on packages that run over Linux.

A good source for information (assuming you're a community radio station) is the member e-mail list for the National Federation of Community Broadcasters or either of the radio-tech or pub-tech mailing lists for broadcast engineers.

Finally, you might want to hook up with the Prometheus Radio Project, the leaders in community LPFM. Ask for Pete Tridish.

The sound quality is better

Now, which part of the vinyl experience do you find "better"? Is it the rather limited signal-to-noise ratio (50-55dB vs. at least 95dB for a descent CD player)? Or is it the "warm analogue feeling" of the sound that comes from the non-linear frequency response?

I have yet to find a serious (not written by another enthusiast who finds $75/m cables essential to the sound) article that finds the sound from LP superior to that of CD.

Regarding the lossiness of CD's; yes, CD's are lossy. No, 16 bits are not enough for the human ear. But it is not like a vinyl record is a great format for storing audio information.

Saying that studios generally prefer analogue recording (and that it gives better sound) is just plain silly. Studios use Pro Tools. Which happens to record in 24 bits and 192kHz, although 96kHz is commonly used. Then the recording is dithered to 16 bits and 44kHz in the CD mastering process.

In my experience, studios that analogue recording equipment simply cannot afford a good Pro Tools setup.

Now then... when will the music software industry start catching on?

Pro Tools has a free version available here

Still, I just love being able to lay down 8 tracks (at 24 bit, 48 kHz) at time (I think I can have 24 or 32 total tracks with ProTools LE 6.1) for about $800. And that was a few years ago! Now, you don't even need a PCI slot since FireWire has really matured to the point where it's all you need for connectivity. I believe most FireWire systems are still using 400 megabit ports, too, since 800 really isn't necessary unless you have more tracks.

Now the biggest problem we have to worry about is just where in the hell we're going to practice/record. We're kind of loud, so not just anywhere will do. So far I've been getting away with the cardinal sin of recording with the Mac in the same room, and it doesn't sound too bad as long as we're appropriately thunderous, but I must admit that a PowerBook would be handy for its near-silence.

Practice space is expensive where I live (Minneapolis/St. Paul), running at around $200 a month for a decent space. I'm poor as piss and I just don't know what to do. I'm glad I can record anywhere I can drag my Mac, but a band still needs space to play - my bedroom ain't cutting it. In that sense, I think recording studios still have a role to play, if only because they are designed for good acoustics, they're soundproofed so the neighbors don't get pissed, and they have full control boards, often with powered faders (sweeeeeet...). Still, they're too expensive for practice, and if you have some recording gear like me, why bother? I'm wondering if anybody knows of a new hybrid I've been lusting after - basically a recording studio style space at a practice space cost (preferrably with a small control room). That, I think, is what bands need nowadays; most of us are living in apartment buildings where recording live drums is just not an option. I wonder if anybody has any experience/ideas on this matter.

Well, you can't just buy a PC from Walmart and start recording 'Tommy' in your basement, one of the caveats is that you still need a decent audio interface, and an Audigy, while possible, is just not how most people go about it. I mean technically, you could plug an amp straight into your stock sound card 1/8" mic input and load up CoolEdit, but you'll be *seriously* lacking in quality.

If you're serious about digital mixing, Mark of the Unicorn makes some pretty affordable interfaces, an amateur producer friend of mine bought a 16-track interface and was so happy with it that he just sold his digital mixer. If you were even more serious, I'd check out Digidesign, who also make ProTools, an industry standard in terms of recording software. That stuff doesn't run cheap, but they do offer a very high quality amateur/enthusiast grade interface called the MBox for ~$400 (it also comes with a lesser version of ProTools), which isn't bad at all.

In terms of recording software, check out ProTools, Steinberg Nuendo, or CoolEdit, which is now apparently being distributed as Adobe Audtion.

Well, you can't just buy a PC from Walmart and start recording 'Tommy' in your basement, one of the caveats is that you still need a decent audio interface, and an Audigy, while possible, is just not how most people go about it. I mean technically, you could plug an amp straight into your stock sound card 1/8" mic input and load up CoolEdit, but you'll be *seriously* lacking in quality.

If you're serious about digital mixing, Mark of the Unicorn makes some pretty affordable interfaces, an amateur producer friend of mine bought a 16-track interface and was so happy with it that he just sold his digital mixer. If you were even more serious, I'd check out Digidesign, who also make ProTools, an industry standard in terms of recording software. That stuff doesn't run cheap, but they do offer a very high quality amateur/enthusiast grade interface called the MBox for ~$400 (it also comes with a lesser version of ProTools), which isn't bad at all.

In terms of recording software, check out ProTools, Steinberg Nuendo, or CoolEdit, which is now apparently being distributed as Adobe Audtion.

According to the website Cubase is expected to be available in the first quarter 2004. Pro tools is already available, go get it from here.

It appears that it's Linux elitist because generally users with clue use Linux on their home machines.

I code for Linux at work. At home I have SuSe but my primary machine is Windows XP.

Why?

Because as a hobby I play music, and there is a plethera of excellent music software for the Windows platform. From recording (cubase, protools) to creation (live, reason) there is simply no comparison in linux, outside of academic electronic music.

Your elderly 'elitism' is misplaced, and wildly out of touch.

Informative post. Mod up.

Although I'm not sure I'd agree "the primary market is image editing." Maybe this guy works in image editing, but there are plenty of other fields where more memory is better -- music and signal processing for example. Digidesign (makers of ProTools) has an article saying they're rather excited about the G5, and I seem to remember it saying somewhere in the ProTools docs that the performance of the software is memory-limited.

Another big app is scientific computing. Granted, most scientific users are more likely to buy an Intel machine and put Linux on it. -- But hey, I "made the switch" and some other scientific colleagues did the same. Maybe Apple knows what they're doing...

Informative post. Mod up.

Although I'm not sure I'd agree "the primary market is image editing." Maybe this guy works in image editing, but there are plenty of other fields where more memory is better -- music and signal processing for example. Digidesign (makers of ProTools) has an article saying they're rather excited about the G5, and I seem to remember it saying somewhere in the ProTools docs that the performance of the software is memory-limited.

Another big app is scientific computing. Granted, most scientific users are more likely to buy an Intel machine and put Linux on it. -- But hey, I "made the switch" and some other scientific colleagues did the same. Maybe Apple knows what they're doing...

I'll tell you what we run: Protools!

Yes I know they offer TDM systems with outboard processing, but I don't have that kind of money. I record and mix with the two-channel Mbox and Protools 6.0. As soon as you start adding plug-ins the thing slows down dramatically. In short, I need the speed.

Protools gives away a free copy

and invariably, someone responds by saying "this is not for any currently available operating system!"

And invariably, I respond "Tough titty."