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You've a lot there so I'll take these one by one in the order you gave them. I'll be honest where I've had to look things up. You're being courteous and bothered to write up a serious reply and so deserve the same in return.

I know of a few philosophers. Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle etc. In fact, I happen to have a few written works from Plato on my Kindle from a few courtesy of Project Gutenberg. I've also got some Homer. I've actually managed to get mostly through the Iliad, and was not requested to do so by a class (it was my own choice to pick it up). I've also got some Tacitus on my bookshelf.

I admit that I know ofAvogadro's number, but I do not know what it is. Looking it up reveals why I missed this - I've had no chemistry classes. During high-school, I had the choice to take half my senior year for vocational training, and I had to choose two between Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus. I chose Calculus and Physics. I am vaguely aware of what a mole is, but my knowledge is focused elsewhere. I know how a Mass Spectrometer works. (a note: that vocational training got me out of retail and into a 'real' job. Had I not gone that route, I likely would have been stuck working in a paper mill). I have several years of college under my belt but I never did finish (too much transferring around as I move, and the last two jobs have been terribly energy-sucking and time consuming). Unfortunately, IT being what it is, what college I have is business-focused (eg no chance to fill that Chemistry hole). I do plan to go back once I'm certain I'll be in an area long enough. I'm still finding home, if you know what I mean. Only been on my own for about... 6 years now.

I did not know what was significant about 1066, as that is a segment of history that I just don't care about. Things I care about seem to be after 1700 and near/before 0. I've not had too many history classes outside of High School (math and IT specific fun, such as disaster recovery/response) so what I have learned of this has been self-directed.

I did read Beowulf in of my own volition. It was a difficult read (certainly not the original language but it was a very old translation. The English was more archaic than Shakespeare.) however I did manage to understand what was going on. It's been a while, so while I couldn't quote you anything I can at least say "yea, I've been there."

I know only one language, but not for lack of trying to learn several. I don't think I've got the 'wiring' for it though - I simply cannot retain anything beyond the basic pronunciation and grammar structure (eg no vocabulary).

I know that Rome was certainly more colorful than people think, and I know the old Roman and Greek statues used to be painted. I've even been in the ruins of Pompeii and have seen what is left of some of their murals.

I know all sorts of things about acoustics. I feel at home in front of a synthesizer and could actually explain to you what the different knobs do, instead of blindly tweaking until a good sound is found. I can design antennas, understand the difference between phase modulation and frequency modulation (they accomplish the same thing, but the difference is how you look at the numbers). I know how things like SSBSC allow you to send information with only about 50% the energy requires otherwise, and of data encoding schemes that let you send and receive information even though your signal is below the noise floor.

So, after all that, what's your honest assessment? I'd like to think I'm "smarter than the average bear" but of course I can't objectively determine that.

I'm actually surprised by this number.

When one of my favorite software companies started including copy protection, I was angry because I felt they were treating me, a loyal customer, as a criminal. This statistic actually makes me feel that their actions are at least somewhat justified. Almost three quarters of one million licenses... I would have never dreamed of so many cases of infringement for one program!

I'm one of those good honest people who is happy (and happily able!) to afford the applications I use and enjoy. Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements go a long way towards making my life legal and affordable. :-)

Pure granular synthesis would destroy the sound, yes. I could see some aspects of granular synthesis used to vary sounds instead of going full-on. Have a look at the "graintable synthesis" used in the Malstrom synth. It involves a lot of preprocessing of the sounds used, but an intelligent algorithm could do the trick.

Be that as it may, I think the gains of either of these synthesis methods over simply having 4 or more alternate sounds which play at random are minimal. Space is dirt cheap nowadays while CPU cycles aren't, and a large filesize is much more acceptable than a sluggish game. Something like graintables will get you more variation yet the production work is intensive. It's very easy to break some junk and record the sound. This new synthesis has its place but it won't be in a video game anytime soon.

There's lots of software that is pretty much exactly like GarageBand.

Cakewalk - Sonar
Propellerhead - Reason
Steinberg - Cubase
Magix - Samplitude

Image-Line - FL Studio ... can even do most, if not all of what GarageBand does.

I'm sure they'll listen to Reason.

..or GarageBand.

*)

Linux is the OS that propeller heads use.

Reason 4 is only available for OS X and Windows. http://www.propellerheads.se/

Hmmmm? Are you proposing that US troops use bad, home-mix techno to vanquish their enemies (using software 2 major versions out of date, no less!)

If the music industry collapsed tomorrow, barring the initial shockwave, what harm would it do?

I mean, people would continue to create and perform music, and people would continue to listen to it. "Music" does not need a financial incentive to exist--and let me elaborate on that.

First, it is no longer prohibitively expensive for individuals to produce studio-quality music. Awesome, awesome software can be had for mere hundreds of dollars. People spend thousands on hobbies (hello video games)--what's five hundred bucks to a passionate musician?

Second, with P2P, YouTube, etc., distribution--massive distribution, to a mainstream audience--is free.

Now, if some dude wants to quit his day job and make a living off his musical ability, well that's what touring's for. Performing live is real work, that provides a real service, that people can be expected to pay for. Also, there is money to be made producing soundtracks for movies and games, or jingles for commercials, or the Windows XP startup sound.

"Bands" creating "albums" (or 3-minute, 32-bar "singles"), and retiring off the royalties, is not a natural process. It worked for a while, and congrats to those who caught the wave, but music, and the enjoyment thereof, is a natural process, and it will continue with or without pinstripe suits.

Comments?

This is truly the first /. story I have bookmarked to come back to check it out again later.

BTW: I use Propellorheads Reason for most of my music stuff, though I don't expect anyone else to shell out the oodles of cash required for it. Anything left that Reason can't do I'll use Adobe Audition. Both are commercial products, but for anyone truly interested in music, you will never need anything more (software wise, at least for Windows computers!)

--beckerist

I like to play music with my friends as a hobby, and looking for free options i stumbled upon Musix . Having used a mac with Reason and found it a little lacking and a bit expensive, i found Musix very usable. Not only it had most things that Reason had, but also came configured to use jackd server with a bunch of applications with no real work involved. Using it in a laptop I did have to use the command line to configure the wireless card but it was easy. I have to say that Linux is ready to be in the studio, yet as all things linux most of the software is in beta stage so bugs might appear. Just don't be afraid of the command line and you will be fine.

Not sure about Linux/OSS for realtime performances but there's Rosegarden as an OSS band-in-a-box. The program I have personally seen used live is Propellerhead's Reason. Even with Reason you will generally want a MIDI controller keyboard as the PC keyboard makes a fairly poor input for music. I like to use my PC as a performance instrument, but of a different kind. I use Winamp with Milkdrop to do live VJ performances in accompaniment with live DJ's. I use my own mixer coming off the main mixer so I can adjust levels to achieve a better input to the plugin to get the most accurate sync between the motion and music. I have used a number of different conference room type projectors for raves of upwards of a couple hundred people.

Basically a not as pretty version of "Reason" This thing looks cool, but it's nothing like Reason. Reason is much more focused on emulating the experience of hardware. This thing lets you write your own synth as a text file!

Usually I would agree with you, but I think the way they use it for the rack in Reason makes for a very intuitive interface.

And why doesn't Slashdot mention the release of Reason 3.0 ???

This is much more interesting than this KRAP !

With a little bit of Logic and Reason, you could make your own music.

Then, you can offer apple $100,000.00 and see if they'll add you to their magic artist array!

Of course, you might have to pay out to the other artists on it, too, since you'd be decreasing their play frequency by 2/3 of a percent...

Typo...
Propellerheads.SE

# Cooledit for Mac OS? And I mean really as good (or better?) I am DJ, I also make songs myself using the multitrack technology of it; I also want to be able to process my soundfiles with compression and effects wherever needed.
Finale, Logic, Reason to name a few, or may be GarageBand? Want some free/shareware? Look here on Apple or Versiontracker

# Instead of Office, Openoffice?
Actually I found Office 2004 quite good, but yes, OpenOffice will do.

# good ssh programs like securecrt? (I love the program, will be tabbed in next version)... It's convenience ...
/usr/bin/ssh :-)

# good editors like Editplus ? (It just works - always - have an old license and it still works perfect...
XCode, Eclipse [sun.com], or the famous BBEdit.

# does it work good with windows sharing (netbios) ? (I know about Samba but sometimes got probs with it - its not exactly point-and-click there unless using Webmin or such ..
All built-in, just browse to your Windows PC/server and double click to mount the shared volume, not even need to map a network drive.

# Needs to work 24/7, no overheating issues like my Compaq EVO N1000v laptop (which needs to be issued back to Compaq because of failing parts - 5th time!!) and Compaq finds it normal?
May be don't shut it down?
Just never lock it inside a closed cabinet :-)

# Stuff like Paintshop Pro (Like it more over photoshop ; less bloated and faster)?
I like Photoshop, may be it is bloat, but hey, it is FAST!

# good and easy desktop player like winamp ? (RIP)
iTunes, man, iTunes!

# Can I turn off automatic updates?
Yes, one mouse click away in an obvious place (System Preferences -> Software Update)

# I am accustomed with Slackware, NetBSD and Solaris. Is OS X as maintainable as Slackware? Everything through the prompt using Bash?
Yes and more, there is the Apple Script, a global scripting system to let you control every OS X compliant app, and you can do it via the shell, too.

Really? The mouse requires more movement than the keyboard but the mouse is definitely a step forwards in terms of UI. Sure, CLI hackers can do a lot more with a keyboard but the mouse has helped bring computers to the masses.

A UI shouldn't be judged on how much the user has to move but on how intuitive it is. I move a lot more with my evolution but it's much more intuitive (and infinitely faster) than working with a mouse on Reason.

Heh :) I can't see this... the Busker on the street with his gameboy out trying to grab people's loose change.

I'll stick with my laptop, Audiophile USB my Oxygen 8 (where's the link?) and Reason.

Another thing that might be nice to see on Linux would be an all in one set up like propellerheads reason. Some people really like this kind of all in one synth, drum machince, sequencer, effects processor set up - personally hate trying to go back to things like cubase after using it although I certainly see how those apps are perfect for some people. http://www.propellerheads.se/ There are things out there like buzz machine and reactor but the interface to reason is nice and easy :)

rant

This is getting ridiculous. Since when did anyone have a RIGHT to make money from anything? Just as in any profession, the easier it is to duplicate the results, the lower the pay. Just ask Doctors, Engineers, IT professionals, Accountants, etc. who have seen their salaries drop due to ever increasing competition, computers, automation, spreadsheets, etc. Think about when (long long time ago) when to calculate something we now take for granted, took days or months or even years. But the RIAA complains it can't maintain lavish lifestyles because their product is easily copied - Boo F*cking Hoo.

Hell, it's so ridiculously easy to make "music" nowadays, and they are still B*tching. Wait till things like Reason, Sonar, Cubase, Fruityloops, become widely known about and start dropping in prices - hell they really aint all that expensive now for what they can do (like reason being a rack of studio equipment for 600 bucks) - especially when sound cards and DSP become of higher and higher qality

/rant

Computers have made huge contributions to the art world. How can he think that we're falling short in creativity?

I work in the music field and almost all the innovation in the last 10 years has come from computers (embedded at first, PCs more recently). With Reason, you can turn out a decent tune in minutes. Live has introduced a whole new way to write and perform music. Those are my favorite examples but there are plenty more.

The film and art worlds have been equally influenced by computer technology.

Yep, it was a vocoder. A Digitech Talker. Carrier signal was a Nord Rack and modulator input was her voice.

If you need some explanation how a vocoder works, I highly suggest this great vocoder article.

And for all the details on Cher's song, read this Making-of "Believe" with all the gritty details.

I can't think of a single intriguing interesting or useful piece of mainstream software that has come out in the commercial sector in the past 4 years.

The retail world has been doing nothing for the last god knows however long. The only interesting things I see being done now are in the open source world.

For most software used in offices your statement may be partly true. But the claim that the retail world has doen nothing lately is just plain dumb.

Take Propellerhead Software's Reason for instance. It's a studio in a box, complete with simulated wiring, works just like the real thing (I should know, I have the real thing.) There simply isn't anything in the open source community which even begins to compare. Sure, there are lot's of apps, but nothing as polished and self contained as Reason. Reason is even being used to teach people how to work in real studios.

Now this may be a niche market example, but don't state that the retail world's been doing nothing when it's been doing lots. I'm not saying open source is bad, but it's not the only game in town.

Not entirely true. Reason is fully supported on OS X and OS 9.

Apple just released Logic Pro and Logic Express, so it isn't necessarily a case of just giving up software. Some software is available on both platforms, some only on one.

working on crazy new things for iLife (like GarageBand).

I can't see GarageBand being a reason to switch to the Mac. GarageBand is a toy for people who are already Mac owners. Windows owners would have to give up the following (better) software packages when they switched to the Mac:

Reason 2.5
Sonar 3
Vegas 4

As well as loop software like:
Acid 4
Fruity Loops

I think far more people would use OpenOffice on a mac than GarageBand.

mplugger
Don't know.
But this is the problem : such a program is not obvious.
Especially one year after.

Rosegarden
Just one ?
And how can this reach Reason's level ?

Dunno what IB is, but sounds like a RAD UI dev tool. Glade, any number of Java tools, whatever the KDE tool is that does this.

No, once again I am afraid the tools you mention are not even close to IB's level.

gnumeric
Last time I checked, it didn't have a solver ?

Sodipodi. Not fully comparable yet.
This one looks seriously good.

Like a creative writer who spends too much time selecting the "right" word processor and focusing on page layout, I can't help but wonder whether some "music creators" (and their listeners) would be better served if they concentrated more on the muse of music and less on the toolset of the recording engineer.

The exact thing you pointed out is why I stick to only a few pieces of software. I use Reason 2.0 and Cubase SX for my main production programs. Any new synths I need, I can download them in the form of VSTi's (Virtual Studio Technology instruments. There's always going to be a huge learning curve for something as complex as music making. You don't think the hardware producers make all that snazzy music with just a Drum Machine and a Synth, do you? Those "composers" don't just pull music out of their ass..

P.S. I know there's Engineers for that, but they don't know exactly the pad or the bass drop you're looking for.

DBG

Correction:

The home of Reason is www.propellerheads.se. The company is based in Sweden, land of infinite hotties. (And plenty of tasty beats, too.)

Reason is amazing software. It's the most satisfying bit of software I've ever used, in fact. (Including Mac OS X and any flavour of Linux.) There are plenty of great articles and ReFills on the Properllerheads' site. Definitely worth checking out if you have Reason, and if you don't have it, worth checking out for the demo.

Well, QnDJ works with an iBook and Propellerheads Reason 2.5 and this (USB powered)...
I think the ultimate power/portability/cost ratio has been reached for some time...

Otherwise, a cheaper but probably less autonomous PC using windows and FruityLoops could also do, of course.

Fans can copy tracks, burn them to CDs and transfer them to other devices as much as they want "within reason", he added.

Maybe I missed something, but I loaded up my copy of Reason 2.5 and while I could load audio data into several of the devices, I couldn't find any way to transfer them or burn them to CD.

I dunno, it sounds like Soundtrack is pretty similar to Propellerhead's ReCycle, which has been available for Mac for a few years.

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.

The slowdown IS the widget library.

It would be interesting to make an open source OpenGL 2D widget library a la Reason, optimized for speed.

X does not make things slow, this is a myth...

--jeff++

I agree. I purchased a pretty unbelievable program not too long ago called Reason, which essentially emulates everything in software for a few hundred bucks that I used to do with incredibly expensive electronic keyboards 20 years ago.

You're doubly write about the judges issue...Carl Sagan once said "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." As our legal issues become increasingly technically complex, our judges necessarily become increasingly incompetent.

Try Reason from propellerheads software (no, not the band)

All of my OS X friends love Final Cut Pro. I can't argue with them at all, since in my brief exposure to that product, it is a blast to use. However, if you have a PC, I highly recommend you try Vegas from Sonic Foundry.

Vegas and Reason from Propellerheads are the only reason I boot Windows at all (yes I know Reason is available on Macs), but they are also my favorite reason I have to turn on a computer in the first place.

Hold on while I get ReBirth spun up on my trusty old iMac ... lookin' for a mod ... something with a mostly house sound but a little more edge. Now I'll just run these lyrics through text-to-speech and glue it all together in Cubase. Phat!

Hold on while I get ReBirth spun up on my trusty old iMac ... lookin' for a mod ... something with a mostly house sound but a little more edge. Now I'll just run these lyrics through text-to-speech and glue it all together in Cubase. Phat!

ptfree is not the same as protools - ptfree is limited in the number of audio and midi channels, does not work with any of the digidesign hardware, and has limited plugin usage

read more
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/ptfree_qa.html

in general, the midi implementation in protools is limited compared to emagic's logic audio

other really good music production suites that won't break the home studio bank

Tracktion

Fruity Loops

Reason

some electronic music producers who use the big software tools occasionally screw around with the cheaper packages and then show how you can make the original song using them - such is the case with Infected Mushroom's "Dancing with Kadafi"
http://www.infected-mushroom.net/Studio/Html/Studi o_Menu.htm

Just like in so many fields, software advances have allowed things to be done that used to be done in hardware. I've just recently purchased a piece of music production software I just can't recommend enough, Reason. Remember the big synth / sampler combos that sounded (more or less) like an orchestra? That's all in software now.

Equally impressive is Steinberg's Cubasis. Cubasis has a lot of cross-over with Reason, but its main capability is doing actual audio recording (whereas Reaons's reason is digital sound generation). Both of these pieces of software are sub grand price.

I love Reason and use it a lot, but I tend to run into roadblocks halfway like not having the right FX (say, vocoder, or multiband EQ),

Soft synths are the real problem here. Reason and VST are the two things that keep me from wiping my windows hard drive for good. We need stable, working, effect and synthesis plugins; it's LADSPA that needs the most dev work. Ardour and Rosegarden are great, but I need some synths to work with or my setup is useless.

The point the original poster was trying to make is that CPU speed is the bottleneck in only a minority of current uses for computers.

I understand, but with MP3 and DVD encoding, Video Editing, and Gaming I wouldn't say that the minority of users don't need a fast CPU.

And if CPU usage causes your audio to clip, then the software and/or the audio interface sucks.

No, you are talking about simple hard disk audio recording. Of course I can do that on an iMac G3. I'm talking about software synthesis (physical modeling, software sampling, DSP, etc.) which can eat up a LOT of CPU when using multiple instruments and effects simultaneously and in realtime from a MIDI controller. For the specific app I'm talking about (which is nicely optimised for OS X and dual proc operation), check out Reason.

But other forms of music require a bit more than a four track and a couple of cheap guitars. Into techno/electronic music? Expect to spend more $$$ getting that to sound right.

The price you quoted for Reason sounds rather expensive. I bought my copy for US$270 at my local music store (Guitar Center). I also got a MIDI keyboard and a cheap USB MIDI interface (Midiman Midisport 2x2) and a copy of Sound Forge. You should download the latest demo version of Reason and also listen to the example songs.

Forget using the built in sounds on your SoundBlaster. Reason, or any other software synth, is going to blow away those sounds. Plus they can play back samples as well. The synths are really synths, they're just in software instead of hardware. I personally don't see any reason to buy more hardware synths unless you are going to be performing live. One thing you will want to look at when choosing a sounds card is to make sure it has ASIO drivers. If not then the latency on the sound card will be too high. The bottom line on this is that there will be a delay between the time you press a key on your MIDI keyboard and when you hear the sound from the computer.

My software studio controlled by Cubase SX from Steinberg. By having lots of power in your PC, you can emulate more VST instruments and sound effects.

In this business, you can't get enough GHz!

Reason software? You mean like this product from Propellerheads?

Although not explicitly a game, programs such as Reason that have synthesizers and samplers of various sorts organized as rackmount synthesizers are as entertaining as any game, and are indeed used to make real music too. propellerheads.se. Just looking at the screenshots should be enough to get you hooked. For example, you can flip the synthesizers around and rewire them and every single knob is tweakable.

Also, Mac/MSP (only available for Mac) is a music program that has been likened to legos, for one puts together various tone generators and input devices to create complex digital synthesizers. For an analogous game, try Widget Workshop from Maxis.

For games, don't forget SimCity 4 and the rest of the Sim games, which are still being churned out at a good clip.

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