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Goodbye Apple, Hello Music Production On Ubuntu
Adam Wrzeski notes a piece up at Create Digital Music by musician Kim Cascone (artist's bio) on switching from Apple to Linux for audio production: "The [Apple] computer functioned as both sound design studio and stage instrument. I worked this way for ten years, faithfully following the upgrade path set forth by Apple and the various developers of the software I used. Continually upgrading required a substantial financial commitment on my part. ... I loaded up my Dell with a selection of Linux audio applications and brought it with me on tour as an emergency backup to my tottering PowerBook. The Mini 9 could play back four tracks of 24-bit/96 kHz audio with effects — not bad for a netbook. The solution to my financial constraint became clear, and I bought a refurbished Dell Studio 15, installed Ubuntu on it, and set it up for sound production and business administration. The total cost was around $600 for the laptop plus a donation to a software developer — a far cry from the $3000 price tag and weeks of my time it would have cost me to stay locked-in to Apple. After a couple of months of solid use, I have had no problems with my laptop or Ubuntu. Both have performed flawlessly, remaining stable and reliable."
but this sounds a lot like a Dell ad.
See, I'm a seasoned musician and I understand that music has to have a little style. Linux is about as stylish as a garage. That Unbuntu might be okay for making some kind of blooping video game remix, but when you want to impress people with the rock'n'roll, you need a stylish machine like a Mac.
Musicians don't have a "workflow," they just plug shit in and expect it to work. They aren't about commitment, they don't want to shepherd some high-maintenance bird around that has to be hacked into giving a good performance. They want a seasoned pro that's been there before, and knows how to impress! Why, that's the Mac to a T! And when it's over, there are no feelings hurt. Just goodbye stranger, it's been nice. Hope you find your paradise!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
No kidding, but this still.... seems to be a problem. And after that don't mention alsa, pulse, crap, crap, etc...
No, the problem is you literally can't install some software on Macs running a few minor versions behind. I have a 10.3 Mac and I can't update Java.
And it's Apple's fault that Sun (or whoever) doesn't support older releases of the OS in their latest software releases?
... Steve Jobs
Was the "one day it just stopped and has never worked since" around distribution upgrade time, perhaps? Of course a reinstall of linux with a backed up home directory is both faster, easier, and safer than the same under windows...
I used to produce with Cubase VST/32 on OS9, which was an environment I enjoyed working in. When OS9 was abandoned and my mac died I continued with VST/32 on Windows2000, but it wasn't the same. Neither were the new versions of Cubase on OSX.
That would be because Cubase isn't really very good. I use Ableton Live and Reason.
My biggest problem with this situation was my old projects were stuck in this archaic format with nowhere to go
This is one of those Linux-idiot things that always irks the shit out of me. It's not "archaic" just because you changed programs.
Since then I've moved to Ardour on Ubuntu
Ardour works on OS X, too.
Best of all is Jack, there's nothing like it.
Yeah, there's nothing like it. Everyone else works, it doesn't.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
The Linux sound packages are a mess. Also, I would love to learn about Linux solutions that can compete to Apple's professional studio software. These days, the cost of Apple's suite is down to less than a 1000$.
As somebody who writes and performs music professionally, AND as an avid Ubuntu user, I would be hard pressed to find any competent recording engineer using Linux, simply for the fact that competent engineers want to RECORD, not compile device drivers and tweak kernel flags.
You apparently have failed to discover the master bus in most audio software.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.