Anyone know why FORTH, specifically, was chosen as the language of choice for OpenBIOS? Did it have anything to do with data layout, or something like that?
Just curious, I know its off-topic, and I guess I could go and google for myself to find out...
Sorry, but I'm a 'real surfer', having grown up in Margaret River, and I'd love to have a go on one of these boards, if only to see how well it would do on some breaks I know of... not to mention that with this thing, I should be able to give my mates a good tow out to the really looooong breaks, and vice versa.
Of course, we could already get to those breaks with jet-ski's too, but I think having a full-length board is more useful/easier to tow someone who has their own board...
Add a table, bowl of fruit and a violin and you're set.
Such frippery!! Frills!!!
But yeah... you have to have a deep respect for any man who is capable of admitting to himself, and encouraging others to admit it too, that in the end it all comes down to diet.
$100 is nothing, dude, if you're a programmer capable of making a videogame, you should be able to come up with $100 somewhere along the line.
Especially if you think your game is worth the effort of 'competing' in a globally organized (okay, westernized countries only) competition.
Consider the prestige of participating in this event with yoru peers. Consider the costs that the organizers must bear in order to provide a very nice platform for promotion of ones work.
$100 is not much of an investment, if you've invested time, already, in making a videogame, especially if you consider it a 'promotional expense', as you should be doing...
... one would expect of the MAFIA, for crying out loud!
Set up huge precedence with a FUD-campaign, some 'heads on a pike' (typical PR bullshit term) with press coverage of 'criminal downloaders' being interspersed on nightly Reality Television, and then... when the free and the brave wise up and start counter-attacking, reduce the effort down to a 'street-level' series of 'personal, one-on-one' conversations with 'potential illegal downloaders', before the fact.
Next we'll be seeing an effort by the RIAA to have you sign over 'recording/consumer rights' to your 'kid sister, your mom, and cousin' for use in the back alleys...
I just wanted to followup your suggestions for people who are interested in getting started in music production - on ampfea.org (ampfea means 'a meeting place for electronic artists'), we have a mailing list called 'the music-bar', and if you ever need to find other musicians with whom to chat or 'borrow advice' from, this is a pretty good list to be on.
Its not a web-forum like studio-central or whatever, but as a community it is very supportive of newbies and professionals who need help, alike. Anyone with questions regarding their attempts to get into music production is very welcome in this 1000+ community of musicians from around the planet...
I like it that you've managed to get yourself a fully working and stable Ardour/Jack installation for your setup, incidentally... that direction holds a lot (I mean a LOT) of promise for Linux in the audio world...
I'm calling "professinal music" anything that's recorded in a purpose-built studio and processed using "real" (read expensive) audio equipment and software - not placing any judgement on the music itself, just the quality of production.
Quality of the output, regardless of the process, is the only thing that matters.
There is no such thing as a 'professional' process, except in the eyes of those who would work to keep that process out of the hands of their competition!;)
I'll leave you with this last quote, from a very famous contemporary popular musician with whom I once spoke about her vocals:
"You'd never guess I recorded it in my bathroom..."
I dunno, I've done okay with just an 8-channel MOTU 828, recording my friends bands at their gigs, each band member getting their own channels (2 for the keyboard guy) - admittedly, I was able to patch into the live outputs from the house mixing console, but hey - I didn't need to bring that mixer with me, just the 828 interface.
And, while your scenario is valid, its not the only way to do things... professionally.
I think that the point of the Wired article was that pro-level music technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, and more people are now able to use this technology to pull off results which used to require massive budgets, big heads, and a studio in some elite neighborhood.
Well, the point is that with more and more people having access to more and more of the 'traditionally pro' style equipment, we will have greater and greater chance to hear really unique and interesting stuff coming from creative minds around the planet.
Well, when I say 'once faced' I of course mean in the 80's, not the 90's "LAN out front, ops center out back" style. You know, the "PC's are killing the Mainframe" argument...
"Real Studios" are not required for anything other than to satisfy the physical whims of those who built them. (Silence, Privacy, creative space to concentrate in, etc)
But I can do true 'professional music' (what is that anyway?) with my tiBook and Indigo2 here in my living room, and you personally wouldn't even know the difference, as a music consumer, whether it was recorded at Powerplant or what.
Don't get me wrong - studios still have their place, and their very vital role in the music business. But, if you want to talk about 'quality', I think you're going to have to take another look at the situation. A tiBook with MOTU 828 interface ($2000 investment) is about all you need in a "professional studio" these days in order to deliver the kinds of quality recordings of music which music consumers have come to expect.
The tools you need to deliver that Quality have gotten cheaper, lighter, smaller and faster.
Where Big Studios may be able to compete is in the Privacy department...
Well, speaking from an industry-insider perspective, I'm sorry but "generally speaking", the people who crack their plugins are *anyone* who wants to run those plugins.
The 'cant afford it anyway' argument is a tired one - fact is, if a person can afford a $2000 PC, they can 'generally' afford a $200 or so investment in software. And, even with $25-plugins, 95% of all users are *STILL* cracked. This figure doesn't come out of nowhere - I've talked (in my industry) to a lot of software guys, and it hurts them believe me! People crack because they *can*, not because they can justify it by complaining about the high prices...
Doesn't matter if they're 'professionals' or 'amateur hackers', its still a lost sale, and very very much a detriment to the health of the software synthesizer business.
Problem is, the softsynth guys are stuck in an awful feedback loop - they have to price things high to make up for the 95% losses on sales they're going to encounter through cracks, and since the price is higher than most people find 'acceptable' for software, this leads to more cracks.
You can't say the same for our customers. Nobody has copied/cracked a Virus yet and gotten away with it... and most everyone who is a Virus user is extremely happy with the product - we have a lot of happy customers (and those who aren't, just sell their Virus -an investment which maintains its value pretty well, incidentally, unlike software- on to someone who wants to be...)
Soft-synth guys would do well to lower their prices to the sub-$100 mark. But, its a tough game to play, for sure. Lets hope they keep playing, anyway, and stay out of the hardware business...;)
"It used to be that hardware synths sold like crazy, but those guys would kill to make decent sales on hardware synths today. The sales of hardware aren't what they used to be, and they're not going to come back. It adds up to big trouble for hardware manufacturers."
I take issue with this (but then, I would, consider where I work), and here is why:
There is *NO* profit in software synthesis.
There is not a single mainstream producer of software synthesizers who currently has drawn profit from sales of those synths.
The reason: cracks.
It is a very, very, very tough business to be in, when 90% of your primary users are simply stealing your product, not buying it.
Soft-synths is one market that may benefit from the whole "Trusted Computing" initiative, but in my opinion - being a hardware synth developer - the only truly "trusted computing" platform is one I built myself.
Hardware synthesizers will *still* be around, and there will still be a huge market for them (we do okay, thanks very much)... its just that they have to evolve into better and better musical *instruments* and not just computers-in-boxes-with-knobs-on. Software guys don't ever get a chance to know what its like to be held and played, heh heh...
... I can say that things are getting smaller, cheaper, lighter and faster. Duh. Of course.
The days when a pro recording needed a 24-channel mixing desk, ProTools TDM hardware, a quiet room and a team of engineers are... say it after me kids... OVER!
With my tiBook and a Firewire Audio interface, I can record any band, anywhere in the world, produce their tracks live at the gig, and by the end of it have some polished material ready for distribution.
The whole "pro studio" machine is well and truly facing the same reality that "computer rooms" once faced from the PC onslaught.
Most of the reasoning for big-studio budgets these days is just dick-waving. Fact is, you can do with a $2000 collection of gear what most 'pros' would've charged $15,000 to do 'for cheap'... in their big haughty studios.
Amen, I say. There are far too many good artists out there (every single human can write a song) and its high time a lot of them were heard. The current 'music industry' is too elitist.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone know why FORTH, specifically, was chosen as the language of choice for OpenBIOS? Did it have anything to do with data layout, or something like that?
...
Just curious, I know its off-topic, and I guess I could go and google for myself to find out
Sorry, but I'm a 'real surfer', having grown up in Margaret River, and I'd love to have a go on one of these boards, if only to see how well it would do on some breaks I know of ... not to mention that with this thing, I should be able to give my mates a good tow out to the really looooong breaks, and vice versa.
...
Of course, we could already get to those breaks with jet-ski's too, but I think having a full-length board is more useful/easier to tow someone who has their own board
Add a table, bowl of fruit and a violin and you're set.
... you have to have a deep respect for any man who is capable of admitting to himself, and encouraging others to admit it too, that in the end it all comes down to diet.
Such frippery!! Frills!!!
But yeah
I mean, if its not going to be available until next year, who is going to buy a PS2 these days?
... its just like the short-lived days of MSX, oddly enough.
Bone-heads
Slashdot is not *all* entertainment, and hypocricy is nothing to be ashamed of ... after all, every human is guilty of it.
$100 is nothing, dude, if you're a programmer capable of making a videogame, you should be able to come up with $100 somewhere along the line.
Especially if you think your game is worth the effort of 'competing' in a globally organized (okay, westernized countries only) competition.
Consider the prestige of participating in this event with yoru peers. Consider the costs that the organizers must bear in order to provide a very nice platform for promotion of ones work.
$100 is not much of an investment, if you've invested time, already, in making a videogame, especially if you consider it a 'promotional expense', as you should be doing...
... one would expect of the MAFIA, for crying out loud!
... when the free and the brave wise up and start counter-attacking, reduce the effort down to a 'street-level' series of 'personal, one-on-one' conversations with 'potential illegal downloaders', before the fact.
...
Set up huge precedence with a FUD-campaign, some 'heads on a pike' (typical PR bullshit term) with press coverage of 'criminal downloaders' being interspersed on nightly Reality Television, and then
Next we'll be seeing an effort by the RIAA to have you sign over 'recording/consumer rights' to your 'kid sister, your mom, and cousin' for use in the back alleys
I'd say its more like the seriously kick-ass nature of Linux, lately, in the embedded world.
Dude, PageRank is passe...
"SCO Headline" is the new de rigeur!
Frankly, I feel that way about any video gamers, students or not.
... and ... utter ... waste ... of time.
... what ... its entertainment, then?
Video games are a complete
Nothing else. Nothing more.
At the end of it, there will be: nothing.
No burgers flipped. No code tweaked.
Zilch.
So
So much in the world to do and see, and all you want is to be entertained.
Kudo's to America for creating another Matrix.
Excellent details!
...
...
I just wanted to followup your suggestions for people who are interested in getting started in music production - on ampfea.org (ampfea means 'a meeting place for electronic artists'), we have a mailing list called 'the music-bar', and if you ever need to find other musicians with whom to chat or 'borrow advice' from, this is a pretty good list to be on.
Details here.
Its not a web-forum like studio-central or whatever, but as a community it is very supportive of newbies and professionals who need help, alike. Anyone with questions regarding their attempts to get into music production is very welcome in this 1000+ community of musicians from around the planet
I like it that you've managed to get yourself a fully working and stable Ardour/Jack installation for your setup, incidentally... that direction holds a lot (I mean a LOT) of promise for Linux in the audio world
Repeat after me: FULL LOGIC CRACKS DO EXIST.
...
If you can't find them, well
A computer is not a magic bullet.
:)
I firmly agree with you.
I'm calling "professinal music" anything that's recorded in a purpose-built studio and processed using "real" (read expensive) audio equipment and software - not placing any judgement on the music itself, just the quality of production.
;)
..."
Quality of the output, regardless of the process, is the only thing that matters.
There is no such thing as a 'professional' process, except in the eyes of those who would work to keep that process out of the hands of their competition!
I'll leave you with this last quote, from a very famous contemporary popular musician with whom I once spoke about her vocals:
"You'd never guess I recorded it in my bathroom
Heh heh proj... very funny. You know very well that that discount is just a simple 'subscribe music-bar@ampfea.org' post away for anyone ... ;)
No, I'm personally not responsible for the wonderful Virus, that would be Christoph Kemper, our illustrious leader.
I work for Access, in r&d, specifically new product development.
Yeah really, 'music quality' has no place in this discussion.
...
There will always be music of varying quality, good or bad - no matter the tools used to make it!
That said, I've seen 13-year olds write stuff in Reactor for which I would happily delete my Radiohead albums for space on the ol' iPod
I dunno, I've done okay with just an 8-channel MOTU 828, recording my friends bands at their gigs, each band member getting their own channels (2 for the keyboard guy) - admittedly, I was able to patch into the live outputs from the house mixing console, but hey - I didn't need to bring that mixer with me, just the 828 interface.
... professionally.
And, while your scenario is valid, its not the only way to do things
I think that the point of the Wired article was that pro-level music technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, and more people are now able to use this technology to pull off results which used to require massive budgets, big heads, and a studio in some elite neighborhood.
Not so any more.
Well, the point is that with more and more people having access to more and more of the 'traditionally pro' style equipment, we will have greater and greater chance to hear really unique and interesting stuff coming from creative minds around the planet.
Sure, musicians can sometimes get so mixed up in the technology that they forget to write tunes... but then, having cheap access to new 'pro-style' quality technology leads to improved skills, and subsequently, interesting results from creative musicians who are able to see past all that and do really nice things with those tools...
Well, when I say 'once faced' I of course mean in the 80's, not the 90's "LAN out front, ops center out back" style. You know, the "PC's are killing the Mainframe" argument
"Real Studios" are not required for anything other than to satisfy the physical whims of those who built them. (Silence, Privacy, creative space to concentrate in, etc)
But I can do true 'professional music' (what is that anyway?) with my tiBook and Indigo2 here in my living room, and you personally wouldn't even know the difference, as a music consumer, whether it was recorded at Powerplant or what.
Don't get me wrong - studios still have their place, and their very vital role in the music business. But, if you want to talk about 'quality', I think you're going to have to take another look at the situation. A tiBook with MOTU 828 interface ($2000 investment) is about all you need in a "professional studio" these days in order to deliver the kinds of quality recordings of music which music consumers have come to expect.
The tools you need to deliver that Quality have gotten cheaper, lighter, smaller and faster.
Where Big Studios may be able to compete is in the Privacy department...
Well, speaking from an industry-insider perspective, I'm sorry but "generally speaking", the people who crack their plugins are *anyone* who wants to run those plugins.
... and most everyone who is a Virus user is extremely happy with the product - we have a lot of happy customers (and those who aren't, just sell their Virus -an investment which maintains its value pretty well, incidentally, unlike software- on to someone who wants to be...)
... ;)
The 'cant afford it anyway' argument is a tired one - fact is, if a person can afford a $2000 PC, they can 'generally' afford a $200 or so investment in software. And, even with $25-plugins, 95% of all users are *STILL* cracked. This figure doesn't come out of nowhere - I've talked (in my industry) to a lot of software guys, and it hurts them believe me! People crack because they *can*, not because they can justify it by complaining about the high prices...
Doesn't matter if they're 'professionals' or 'amateur hackers', its still a lost sale, and very very much a detriment to the health of the software synthesizer business.
Problem is, the softsynth guys are stuck in an awful feedback loop - they have to price things high to make up for the 95% losses on sales they're going to encounter through cracks, and since the price is higher than most people find 'acceptable' for software, this leads to more cracks.
You can't say the same for our customers. Nobody has copied/cracked a Virus yet and gotten away with it
Soft-synth guys would do well to lower their prices to the sub-$100 mark. But, its a tough game to play, for sure. Lets hope they keep playing, anyway, and stay out of the hardware business
Ummm... sorry. EMagic Logic 6 was cracked the day it was released.
... that's your problem, and good for EMagic.
If you can't find the crack, well
You're clearly baiting me, but yes, I actually am a professional music system developer.
In addition to this, I am responsible for founding a large community of musicians from around the world, and frequently deal with pro's and amateurs alike.
So, Mr. Karma Sucks, bully for you...
Oppenheimer said this:
... its just that they have to evolve into better and better musical *instruments* and not just computers-in-boxes-with-knobs-on. Software guys don't ever get a chance to know what its like to be held and played, heh heh ...
"It used to be that hardware synths sold like crazy, but those guys would kill to make decent sales on hardware synths today. The sales of hardware aren't what they used to be, and they're not going to come back. It adds up to big trouble for hardware manufacturers."
I take issue with this (but then, I would, consider where I work), and here is why:
There is *NO* profit in software synthesis.
There is not a single mainstream producer of software synthesizers who currently has drawn profit from sales of those synths.
The reason: cracks.
It is a very, very, very tough business to be in, when 90% of your primary users are simply stealing your product, not buying it.
Soft-synths is one market that may benefit from the whole "Trusted Computing" initiative, but in my opinion - being a hardware synth developer - the only truly "trusted computing" platform is one I built myself.
Hardware synthesizers will *still* be around, and there will still be a huge market for them (we do okay, thanks very much)
... I can say that things are getting smaller, cheaper, lighter and faster. Duh. Of course.
... say it after me kids ... OVER!
... in their big haughty studios.
:)
The days when a pro recording needed a 24-channel mixing desk, ProTools TDM hardware, a quiet room and a team of engineers are
With my tiBook and a Firewire Audio interface, I can record any band, anywhere in the world, produce their tracks live at the gig, and by the end of it have some polished material ready for distribution.
The whole "pro studio" machine is well and truly facing the same reality that "computer rooms" once faced from the PC onslaught.
Most of the reasoning for big-studio budgets these days is just dick-waving. Fact is, you can do with a $2000 collection of gear what most 'pros' would've charged $15,000 to do 'for cheap'
Amen, I say. There are far too many good artists out there (every single human can write a song) and its high time a lot of them were heard. The current 'music industry' is too elitist.
RIP, Pro Tools. Long live CoreAudio!