Did you know the website you're posting to belongs to a proprietary profit-driven entity (OSTG...this place is corporate-owned and the editors are its employees)? Did you know Linux companies like Red Hat are profit-driven entities?
If their products are better than "F/OSS," then that's what people are going to root for.
Lots of people don't realize that submissions get quietly changed like this ALL the time.
Michael had an incident once where he added sarcastic quotations around a phrase in a submission that weren't there originally. It was in the Politics section, and the addition of quotes made the submission look critical of Bush, essentially putting words in the submitters' mouth as well as editorializing right on the front page.
It's not trying to replace Photoshop. Although, I guarantee it will be used by photo professionals. Photoshop, designed before the true era of digital photography, can be quite cumbersome.
I take Apple product predictions on Slashdot with lots of salt, considering how the original iPod was received, the iPod mini, the Mac mini, etc....
Linux's biggest problem is that it requires any "package management" at all. Because of the scattered directory structure, files are littered all over the place, so you have to run a program to install the program, and run a program to remove the program.
If people were really serious about desktop Linux, they would have long ago standardized a bundled package format like NeXTStep's.app bundles that allows you to install a program simply by copying to your programs folder. Remove it by deleting it.
These kinds of things, along with the lack of true standardized API foundations (see Cocoa,.NET, which cover everything from installation/uninstallation to networking to sound to graphics) with instead a reliance on QT on top of KDE on top of X11, are what hold desktop Linux back.
The mantra of "choice" that people use to justify the incredible fragmentation in the OSS world doesn't justify the lack of a standardized, vertical solution--there should be a desktop environment with its own sound and graphics engine and APIs (built using OpenGL and OpenAL), not relying on X11 and various extensions after the fact. It should provide its own APIs that tie into its internal engines. And most importantly, it should be designed with actual aesthetics and creativity in mind--no more of this amateurish K-this and K-that crap.
Just my opinion. I think many people gave up hope for desktop Linux and moved to OS X. Seriously, some of us have been waiting for almost ten years. Windows is more dominant than ever.
As for "you can't write XML to OSX and...", I'm quite sure you're wrong.
And you would be, of course, completely wrong.
If it's possible for an application installer to take over file types, add startup items, and etc, it's just as possible for a malicious program to do it.
No, it's not. OS X always requires authentication for any of those kinds of system changes.
Whether it is in those XML files or elsewhere doesn't matter. Those settings are stored somewhere, and they are changable by an installation program. And there is nothing requiring a program to tell you that it is doing those things, how else would unattended installs and network managed applications work?
Wrong. Programs always tell you, because they pop up a big password box.
If you really want to get serious about it, all the UNIX package management systems suck, because the default file structure sucks. Files are written to all sorts of various directories, directories in directories, and so forth.
There needs to be a self-contained package format like OS X's.app bundles. No using a program to install a program or a program to uninstall a program. Just copy it to install it or delete it to uninstall it.
someone posted a link in this discussion to a great paper by lavry, the guy who designs high end audio converters. although his argument was about sample rate, not mixer design, i am fairly certain that he would call digi, cakewalk and you out on this issue. if you internal mixes never exceed 0dB, the format and structure of the mixer makes no difference. if they go above 0dB, the loss of resolution when using a 32 bit float does *not* have frequency specific effects. claims to the contrary are, AFAIK, utter marketing BS, just like the claims that lavry demolishes about 192kHz SR.
Cakewalk provided a whitepaper at AES detailing the 64-bit signal path and providing a concrete example in code of summation errors alleviated by the new data width. Anecdotally, you can often hear the difference.
No, live instruments (large drum rigs + multiperson bands + room mics). Real music:)
Okay, then.
Absolutely! It requires hardly any CPU power at all! Recording live acoustic instruments is totally disk i/o bound. Its recording all those virtual instruments that costs so much in DSP terms.
I mistyped and was referring to virtual instruments, like Synthogy, GPO, etc.
This is just ludicrous. It suggests you are a user and consumer of plugins, not a DSP programmer.
I suggest you take a look at Cakewalk's AES white paper.
If the registry were XML files, they'd be easy to locate and destroy. And you can't just write XML to OS X's/Library file and suddenly take over file types, startup items, and so on.
Individual keys and branches in the registry can have permissions applied to them. Its possible to give an account read permissions to some areas of the registry, update permissions to some and none to the rest. With flat files you'd have to split your settings into multiple files to get the same result.
Yet, OS X somehow manages it.
Also, lots of people are bitching about the danger of "registry corruption". I've been using windows before the registry came along (in win 95), and I've never seen a corrupted registry.
Ah, the classic "I've been using so-and-so for this long and never saw this common problem happen." That doesn't change the fact that registry corruption is real. Your computer can even stop booting because of it.
Windows keeps several copies of the registry around to fall back on incase the main copy goes bad, but I can't recall ever even needing that.
Which means Windows is working overtime to nurse the gaping wound that is the registry.
What makes your opinion any more valid than the parent poster? I'm another windows developer who "defends the crumbling Windows architecture". I imagine if you took a survey of windows developers you'd find the majority of people who actually know the system don't condem it.
The majority of developers not only condemn it, but Microsoft does as well. They are recommending the use of XML configuration files and the use of.NET. The registry is a dead idea that will be phased out.
Yes, windows does have its problems. What OS doesn't? Any good developer should be able to see the good and bad side of windows.
All systems have bad things, but boy, Windows' bad things sure can cripple your system.
The Registry was a grand idea, which has some real-world drawbacks. Its hard to move settings from one machine to another, and crap from deleted applications etc builds up over time. And Microsoft is moving on -.Net Apps usually use XML configuration files, not the registry....so you're proving my point for me, that even Microsoft is abandoning the crappy registry.
If a developer doesn't want to use the registry, then they don't have to. Its not a requirement, not even for "militant" developers. Some things are best stored in the registry, some things are better in XML files or even flat files.
OS X manages to use XML files for everything. No spyware or registry problems at all.
Firstly, malware can only manipulate the registry and system because its running as admin.
Which Windows accounts almost always are.
The registry isn't the cause of windows insecurity, the fact that everyone runs as Admin is. A normal user account has read-only access to system-wide settings in the registry.
It doesn't matter. A simple IE exploit means a program can easily bury itself in the registry. The flaws in Windows work together to form the perfect delivery medium for malware.
And also when it comes to cleaning out malware etc. then having everything in the registry actually makes things easier.
You have got to be joking.
Rather than looking in dozens of "plugins" directories and/or dozens of seperate configuration files everything is nicely organised in the registry and can be quickly checked.
How is it better and more nicely organized? What "dozens of plugins directories?" In OS X, everything's there in/~Library and/Library in clean XML property lists. In the registry, it's buried in thousands of hierarchy trees.
Applications like Autoruns (from sysinternals) and HijackThis will examine your registry and show you what apps are running on startup or caputring system hooks.
Yep...need for them arose because of all the malware taking advantage of the broken registry. Even Microsoft is abandoning it. OS X never had it. The registry is a dead concept.
You plug them into those cards. Digital data moves between them. The sound is phenomenal (mostly because 95% of audio quality issues arise from the sample clock and related issues, and apogee have probably the best clock in the business.
My point is that if you're the type to be out buying prosumer M-Audio cards, you're not also buying Apogee converters. If you're buying Apogee converters, your budget is clearly much higher and you will have already purchased way higher-end audio equipment.
i never saw a single review of HD that was really glowing about the sound quality unless it was clearly just pulling from the PR. people like it, but nobody in Mix, EQ, TapeOP or SoundOnSound thought it was that compelling, at either 96 or 192 kHz, especially when compared to other systems at the same SR.
Look, I don't want you to think I'm a Digidesign shill, and I too wonder why so many clients request Pro Tools when other DAWs will produce the same kind of sound. The quality of Pro Tools comes when it's combined with hardware that frees up the CPU as a host sequencer.
Pro Tools uses a 48-bit internal mixer, optimized to preserve certain high- and low-end frequencies, and this will contribute to sonic clarity. I also have been noticing reviews raving about Sonar's new 64-bit engine which does the same. If you have a lot of tracks and buses, you will hear a difference.
One of our beta testers regularly records 32 tracks live on a small laptop, and runs sessions with 80 tracks.
With full virtual instruments and effects?
On a laptop, I can completely understand the role of the CPU-based host sequencer. But in a studio...would you record a full-piece orchestra entirely with your CPU?
People have used Ardour to record 100 tracks simultaneously onto a RAID5. Simultaneous track count for recording is disk-io limited, not DSP related. For playback, it obviously depends on the FX level, but see below for a link to my take on this.
I read your link, and your argument basically amounts to "CPUs have gotten faster." Yes, they have, but they still can't match a hardware-based solution in a great number of cases, especially as plug-ins go 64-bit and eventually 128-bit for unparalleled sonic clarity You also wonder aloud why Digidesign supports RTAS if their hardware TDM solution is so great, and the answer is simple--their prosumer line of Pro Tools LE/M-Powered software/hardware is CPU-based.
A lot of studios simply like the idea of offloading all that processing. Even Logic, one of the great CPU-based DAWs, has node functionality to chain together other Macs and offload CPU processing so that you can keep working.
I never called you a junkie or a shill, and I actually regret the tone this has taken on.
Several have, and if you defend anything regarding Pro Tools, you get attacked by the Cubase-loving crowd who think you're a sheep for using the industry standard.
I don't deny Pro Tools lacks several features other DAWs lack, but the same could be said for, say, Adobe Photoshop, also an industry standard. Most people simply augment Pro Tools with another sequencer for, say, MIDI (as you probably know).
There's a lot of bitterness from a lot of amateur bedroom recorders because Pro Tools is the big standard, and I don't get why they don't like it.
But seriously, PT h/w is nothing particularly special, and everyone I've spoken too who knows anything about their technology agrees. In fact I find it interesting that I've never met anyone who actually likes PT at all, even though I've met many people who use it.
I can't speak for your experience, but I've met several people who swear by Pro Tools--including Steve Vai. Below that, they tend to prefer Nuendo or Logic for post and MIDI.
What's wrong with the registry? Sure there are better ways to do it from an end-user point of view, but you can't blame the registry for all of windows problems. All the registry is is a database of configuration options for applications, system, etc.
What would you rather have, a mess of unorganized and inconsistent files in/etc and ~/.appname?
And the registry isn't unorganized and inconsistent?
Somehow, OS X manages without it. Its use of/Library and ~/Library using XML property lists is clean and very manageable.
In either case, the registry has NOTHING to do with spyware infection.
Complete and utter bullshit. Autostart entires, DSO attacks, and more...malware takes full advantage of the Windows registry to hook itself into Windows. Honestly, I can't believe this got modded up, and if you said the registry has "NOTHING" to do with spyware infection on the more advanced spyware removal forums, you'd get laughed off. Or are apps like Hijack-this just scanning nothing?
It's merely the underlying system that gets edited once a malicious program gets in. SOMETHING has to contain system and application configuration options, and whatever it is will be called a registry. The actual implementation is irrelevant.
Wrong. Storing all configuration files all over the system everywhere in one single object introduces the possibility of corruption, of keeping things hidden from the user, and greatly makes it difficult to back things up.
When spyware buries something in the registry, you get to dig through regedit to find it. On a UNIX or OS X system, it can't hide itself. It can't set magic values that take over the system.
Whatever Dvorak would like to see replace it (notice that he didn't make a suggestion for improvement, just that "there has to be something better") will suffer the same problems as the registry if the security holes allowing unauthorized programs to edit it aren't fixed.
Have you taken a look at OS X? Somehow, it manages with both a registry or software installers (though they're available if you need one for advanced installation options).
Honestly, seeing people defend the Windows registry--on Slashdot of all places--is highly amusing. But if you don't believe me, why don't you believe Microsoft? Microsoft is recommending against the use of the registry and wants people to start using XML configuration files, especially for.NET apps.
If windows is so craptastic then why the hell is everyone using it?
Answer: The abusive monopoly Microsoft imposed when cheap commodity PCs exploded in the 90s.
Because its the easiest and best OS out there
Ha...hahaha. Easiest? Have you ever done tech support for Windows? God, Personalized Menus confuses non-geeks so often, as does the idea that deleting an item from the Start menu doesn't uninstall the program, right-clicking in general, and the whole way Microsoft uses a bunch of wizards as a layer between the user and the difficult interface, which just increases the amount of clicking and hunting around. Microsoft's solution is to pack more and more hyperlinks into their webpage-resembling Explorer.exe window, which confuses users even more.
The best OS? This is purely subjective, but my nomination goes to OS X, which manages to be more functional yet more simple.
if your software was as complicated and widely run as windows it would as well.
That's bogus. First, my software wouldn't be as complicated, and second, it would be widely run because of it.
People didn't choose Windows and make it the monopoly. They chose cheap PCs, and Windows just came on them. Microsoft still makes the vast majority of its Windows sales through OEM installs. It's why Longhorn's requirements are so bloated, to get people to buy new PCs to run it.
Even Microsoft is recommending the use of XML configuration files in.NET and not the registry. So is Microsoft wrong? Or have they seen the error of their ways?
Somehow, OS X development is so much nicer without the use of a registry. I like being able to back up all my settings, make multiple copies, easily edit them myself, etc. A registry just seems so ancient.
As someone who write code and manipulates the registry everday, I for one love it. ...says every malware author on the planet.
You claim the registry is "100x" more secure and robust but then don't explain why. Permissions? Flat-files have that. Robust? If one flat file goes, the whole thing doesn't corrupt.
And for the user, you can see, manipulate, and back up your configuration files. Please see OS X. Somehow, it manages without your crappy registry and uses slick XML property lists to do it.
If the rest of you would prefer to have a million ini files instead of a branching registry, then more power to you.
Hello, OS X.
Geez, what's next. Are you going to call up MS and say "The who idea of SQL databases sucks.. you should change that to a flatfile to so that I can use my text editor!".
I hate when people apply one situation to another. No, in the case of application configuration values, a central database isn't ideal. The registry blows, and just because you're one of those militant Windows developers who defends the crumbling Windows architecture doesn't make your loud opinion any more correct. It's not.
Or go on supporting a design that lets malware bury anything it wants and manipulate the system. A single store of the entire computer's configuration values in one object is completely ridiculous.
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Or the same PT HD setup that can't touch apogee converters with a 10 foot pole?
What do Apogee converters have to do with the prosumer cards that were listed?
Or the same PT HD setup that most reviewers don't think is actually that much better than a mid-level A/D-D/A setup?
Oh...okay, I'll believe what "most reviewers" say.:) Let me know when you name them.
Oh, and is this same PT HD that is marketed to waste 2 times the disk space without a single verifiable double blind test showing 192kHz SR's to be detectably different from 96kHz?
So now we're criticizing the marketing of a higher frequency rate? Who's forcing you to use 192khz? You're just grasping for things to criticize here.
Yeah, probably the same PT HD setup that you paid US$10-20,000 for, to get some overpriced DSP power that a dual opteron can walk over in its sleep?
Haha. Try recording 80 simultaneous live tracks as someone else posted about. Your dual opteron will never "walk over in its sleep" hardware-based DSP. Or do you play your 3D games entirely on CPU? No, you use a dedicated 3D card.
Pro Tools doesn't even have a "freeze track" feature. It doesn't need one, like the other DAWs do. DSP is processed off the CPU so you can keep working without having to stop what you're doing and keep your computer from coughing blood when you're pushing Ivory, Rebirth, BFD, Ozone, etc.
The "prosumer" cards (coupled with appropriate A/D-D/A converters, of course) that you dismiss with a wave match or exceed the quality and specifications in use in any top end studio worldwide as of 5 years ago; they match what almost all but the most capital-rich studios have today. Stop being such a junkie for Digi's marketing BS, and do some research.
I love how anyone who points out that cheesy little prosumer products don't compare with the high-end stuff are suddenly "junkies" or "shills," which tells me you don't know how to argue in a debate. Ended with the classic "Do some research." Why don't you offer me some research? You're the one claiming I'm wrong.
If all those cards have really exceeded and matched today's top studios, nobody would be using Pro Tools as the industry standard. You just can't beat Pro Tools, and it's a standard for a reason...get over it.
I especially like it's loop recording function - the existing tracks will continue to loop over and over while you record as many 'takes' as you like in a new track.
Been in every other major DAW for years and years.
This is why Pro Tools owns the market. The other apps run all their processing on the CPU, while Digidesign does what gamers have been doing for the past ten years, use dedicated hardware to run all that processing and free up the CPU as a host. Back when Pro Tools was getting big, this was really the only way to do the kind of recording that is done in the pro audio world.
There may be a way to cluster some slave workstations or something to provide the required horsepower, but some time-sensitive situations are going to require that such a system be very, very stable.
Logic is good about this. You can chain together a bunch of Macs and use them as Logic Nodes.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you know the website you're posting to belongs to a proprietary profit-driven entity (OSTG...this place is corporate-owned and the editors are its employees)? Did you know Linux companies like Red Hat are profit-driven entities?
If their products are better than "F/OSS," then that's what people are going to root for.
Lots of people don't realize that submissions get quietly changed like this ALL the time.
Michael had an incident once where he added sarcastic quotations around a phrase in a submission that weren't there originally. It was in the Politics section, and the addition of quotes made the submission look critical of Bush, essentially putting words in the submitters' mouth as well as editorializing right on the front page.
It's not trying to replace Photoshop. Although, I guarantee it will be used by photo professionals. Photoshop, designed before the true era of digital photography, can be quite cumbersome.
I take Apple product predictions on Slashdot with lots of salt, considering how the original iPod was received, the iPod mini, the Mac mini, etc....
Anecdotes are the fuel of Slashdot commentary.
Linux's biggest problem is that it requires any "package management" at all. Because of the scattered directory structure, files are littered all over the place, so you have to run a program to install the program, and run a program to remove the program.
.app bundles that allows you to install a program simply by copying to your programs folder. Remove it by deleting it.
.NET, which cover everything from installation/uninstallation to networking to sound to graphics) with instead a reliance on QT on top of KDE on top of X11, are what hold desktop Linux back.
If people were really serious about desktop Linux, they would have long ago standardized a bundled package format like NeXTStep's
These kinds of things, along with the lack of true standardized API foundations (see Cocoa,
The mantra of "choice" that people use to justify the incredible fragmentation in the OSS world doesn't justify the lack of a standardized, vertical solution--there should be a desktop environment with its own sound and graphics engine and APIs (built using OpenGL and OpenAL), not relying on X11 and various extensions after the fact. It should provide its own APIs that tie into its internal engines. And most importantly, it should be designed with actual aesthetics and creativity in mind--no more of this amateurish K-this and K-that crap.
Just my opinion. I think many people gave up hope for desktop Linux and moved to OS X. Seriously, some of us have been waiting for almost ten years. Windows is more dominant than ever.
And, no, there is no such thing as a NATURAL monopoly. Nature abhors monopolies.
Yes, there is. No, nature does not abhor monopolies. Nature doesn't "abhor" anything; it's just a system that exists.
I hate to tell you this, but humanity itself is a natural monopoly species on planet Earth.
Meanwhile, it still provably sucks. Having a reason for it doesn't suddenly make it not suck.
As for "you can't write XML to OSX and...", I'm quite sure you're wrong.
And you would be, of course, completely wrong.
If it's possible for an application installer to take over file types, add startup items, and etc, it's just as possible for a malicious program to do it.
No, it's not. OS X always requires authentication for any of those kinds of system changes.
Whether it is in those XML files or elsewhere doesn't matter. Those settings are stored somewhere, and they are changable by an installation program. And there is nothing requiring a program to tell you that it is doing those things, how else would unattended installs and network managed applications work?
Wrong. Programs always tell you, because they pop up a big password box.
Get back to me when you're informed. Next.
If you really want to get serious about it, all the UNIX package management systems suck, because the default file structure sucks. Files are written to all sorts of various directories, directories in directories, and so forth.
.app bundles. No using a program to install a program or a program to uninstall a program. Just copy it to install it or delete it to uninstall it.
There needs to be a self-contained package format like OS X's
So we're supposed to ignore it? If this was IE, you'd be screaming blood.
someone posted a link in this discussion to a great paper by lavry, the guy who designs high end audio converters. although his argument was about sample rate, not mixer design, i am fairly certain that he would call digi, cakewalk and you out on this issue. if you internal mixes never exceed 0dB, the format and structure of the mixer makes no difference. if they go above 0dB, the loss of resolution when using a 32 bit float does *not* have frequency specific effects. claims to the contrary are, AFAIK, utter marketing BS, just like the claims that lavry demolishes about 192kHz SR.
:)
Cakewalk provided a whitepaper at AES detailing the 64-bit signal path and providing a concrete example in code of summation errors alleviated by the new data width. Anecdotally, you can often hear the difference.
No, live instruments (large drum rigs + multiperson bands + room mics). Real music
Okay, then.
Absolutely! It requires hardly any CPU power at all! Recording live acoustic instruments is totally disk i/o bound. Its recording all those virtual instruments that costs so much in DSP terms.
I mistyped and was referring to virtual instruments, like Synthogy, GPO, etc.
This is just ludicrous. It suggests you are a user and consumer of plugins, not a DSP programmer.
I suggest you take a look at Cakewalk's AES white paper.
If the registry were XML files, they'd be easy to locate and destroy. And you can't just write XML to OS X's /Library file and suddenly take over file types, startup items, and so on.
Face it, the registry sucks. MS is abandoning it.
Individual keys and branches in the registry can have permissions applied to them. Its possible to give an account read permissions to some areas of the registry, update permissions to some and none to the rest. With flat files you'd have to split your settings into multiple files to get the same result.
.NET. The registry is a dead idea that will be phased out.
.Net Apps usually use XML configuration files, not the registry. ...so you're proving my point for me, that even Microsoft is abandoning the crappy registry.
/~Library and /Library in clean XML property lists. In the registry, it's buried in thousands of hierarchy trees.
Yet, OS X somehow manages it.
Also, lots of people are bitching about the danger of "registry corruption". I've been using windows before the registry came along (in win 95), and I've never seen a corrupted registry.
Ah, the classic "I've been using so-and-so for this long and never saw this common problem happen." That doesn't change the fact that registry corruption is real. Your computer can even stop booting because of it.
Windows keeps several copies of the registry around to fall back on incase the main copy goes bad, but I can't recall ever even needing that.
Which means Windows is working overtime to nurse the gaping wound that is the registry.
What makes your opinion any more valid than the parent poster? I'm another windows developer who "defends the crumbling Windows architecture". I imagine if you took a survey of windows developers you'd find the majority of people who actually know the system don't condem it.
The majority of developers not only condemn it, but Microsoft does as well. They are recommending the use of XML configuration files and the use of
Yes, windows does have its problems. What OS doesn't? Any good developer should be able to see the good and bad side of windows.
All systems have bad things, but boy, Windows' bad things sure can cripple your system.
The Registry was a grand idea, which has some real-world drawbacks. Its hard to move settings from one machine to another, and crap from deleted applications etc builds up over time. And Microsoft is moving on -
If a developer doesn't want to use the registry, then they don't have to. Its not a requirement, not even for "militant" developers. Some things are best stored in the registry, some things are better in XML files or even flat files.
OS X manages to use XML files for everything. No spyware or registry problems at all.
Firstly, malware can only manipulate the registry and system because its running as admin.
Which Windows accounts almost always are.
The registry isn't the cause of windows insecurity, the fact that everyone runs as Admin is. A normal user account has read-only access to system-wide settings in the registry.
It doesn't matter. A simple IE exploit means a program can easily bury itself in the registry. The flaws in Windows work together to form the perfect delivery medium for malware.
And also when it comes to cleaning out malware etc. then having everything in the registry actually makes things easier.
You have got to be joking.
Rather than looking in dozens of "plugins" directories and/or dozens of seperate configuration files everything is nicely organised in the registry and can be quickly checked.
How is it better and more nicely organized? What "dozens of plugins directories?" In OS X, everything's there in
Applications like Autoruns (from sysinternals) and HijackThis will examine your registry and show you what apps are running on startup or caputring system hooks.
Yep...need for them arose because of all the malware taking advantage of the broken registry. Even Microsoft is abandoning it. OS X never had it. The registry is a dead concept.
You plug them into those cards. Digital data moves between them. The sound is phenomenal (mostly because 95% of audio quality issues arise from the sample clock and related issues, and apogee have probably the best clock in the business.
My point is that if you're the type to be out buying prosumer M-Audio cards, you're not also buying Apogee converters. If you're buying Apogee converters, your budget is clearly much higher and you will have already purchased way higher-end audio equipment.
i never saw a single review of HD that was really glowing about the sound quality unless it was clearly just pulling from the PR. people like it, but nobody in Mix, EQ, TapeOP or SoundOnSound thought it was that compelling, at either 96 or 192 kHz, especially when compared to other systems at the same SR.
Look, I don't want you to think I'm a Digidesign shill, and I too wonder why so many clients request Pro Tools when other DAWs will produce the same kind of sound. The quality of Pro Tools comes when it's combined with hardware that frees up the CPU as a host sequencer.
Pro Tools uses a 48-bit internal mixer, optimized to preserve certain high- and low-end frequencies, and this will contribute to sonic clarity. I also have been noticing reviews raving about Sonar's new 64-bit engine which does the same. If you have a lot of tracks and buses, you will hear a difference.
One of our beta testers regularly records 32 tracks live on a small laptop, and runs sessions with 80 tracks.
With full virtual instruments and effects?
On a laptop, I can completely understand the role of the CPU-based host sequencer. But in a studio...would you record a full-piece orchestra entirely with your CPU?
People have used Ardour to record 100 tracks simultaneously onto a RAID5. Simultaneous track count for recording is disk-io limited, not DSP related. For playback, it obviously depends on the FX level, but see below for a link to my take on this.
I read your link, and your argument basically amounts to "CPUs have gotten faster." Yes, they have, but they still can't match a hardware-based solution in a great number of cases, especially as plug-ins go 64-bit and eventually 128-bit for unparalleled sonic clarity You also wonder aloud why Digidesign supports RTAS if their hardware TDM solution is so great, and the answer is simple--their prosumer line of Pro Tools LE/M-Powered software/hardware is CPU-based.
A lot of studios simply like the idea of offloading all that processing. Even Logic, one of the great CPU-based DAWs, has node functionality to chain together other Macs and offload CPU processing so that you can keep working.
I never called you a junkie or a shill, and I actually regret the tone this has taken on.
Several have, and if you defend anything regarding Pro Tools, you get attacked by the Cubase-loving crowd who think you're a sheep for using the industry standard.
I don't deny Pro Tools lacks several features other DAWs lack, but the same could be said for, say, Adobe Photoshop, also an industry standard. Most people simply augment Pro Tools with another sequencer for, say, MIDI (as you probably know).
There's a lot of bitterness from a lot of amateur bedroom recorders because Pro Tools is the big standard, and I don't get why they don't like it.
But seriously, PT h/w is nothing particularly special, and everyone I've spoken too who knows anything about their technology agrees. In fact I find it interesting that I've never met anyone who actually likes PT at all, even though I've met many people who use it.
I can't speak for your experience, but I've met several people who swear by Pro Tools--including Steve Vai. Below that, they tend to prefer Nuendo or Logic for post and MIDI.
What's wrong with the registry? Sure there are better ways to do it from an end-user point of view, but you can't blame the registry for all of windows problems. All the registry is is a database of configuration options for applications, system, etc.
/etc and ~/.appname?
/Library and ~/Library using XML property lists is clean and very manageable.
.NET apps.
What would you rather have, a mess of unorganized and inconsistent files in
And the registry isn't unorganized and inconsistent?
Somehow, OS X manages without it. Its use of
In either case, the registry has NOTHING to do with spyware infection.
Complete and utter bullshit. Autostart entires, DSO attacks, and more...malware takes full advantage of the Windows registry to hook itself into Windows. Honestly, I can't believe this got modded up, and if you said the registry has "NOTHING" to do with spyware infection on the more advanced spyware removal forums, you'd get laughed off. Or are apps like Hijack-this just scanning nothing?
It's merely the underlying system that gets edited once a malicious program gets in. SOMETHING has to contain system and application configuration options, and whatever it is will be called a registry. The actual implementation is irrelevant.
Wrong. Storing all configuration files all over the system everywhere in one single object introduces the possibility of corruption, of keeping things hidden from the user, and greatly makes it difficult to back things up.
When spyware buries something in the registry, you get to dig through regedit to find it. On a UNIX or OS X system, it can't hide itself. It can't set magic values that take over the system.
Whatever Dvorak would like to see replace it (notice that he didn't make a suggestion for improvement, just that "there has to be something better") will suffer the same problems as the registry if the security holes allowing unauthorized programs to edit it aren't fixed.
Have you taken a look at OS X? Somehow, it manages with both a registry or software installers (though they're available if you need one for advanced installation options).
Honestly, seeing people defend the Windows registry--on Slashdot of all places--is highly amusing. But if you don't believe me, why don't you believe Microsoft? Microsoft is recommending against the use of the registry and wants people to start using XML configuration files, especially for
While ProTools has its place in recording, that place isn't usually in the high-end production studios.
Over 95% of the music you hear was recorded in Pro Tools.
If windows is so craptastic then why the hell is everyone using it?
Answer: The abusive monopoly Microsoft imposed when cheap commodity PCs exploded in the 90s.
Because its the easiest and best OS out there
Ha...hahaha. Easiest? Have you ever done tech support for Windows? God, Personalized Menus confuses non-geeks so often, as does the idea that deleting an item from the Start menu doesn't uninstall the program, right-clicking in general, and the whole way Microsoft uses a bunch of wizards as a layer between the user and the difficult interface, which just increases the amount of clicking and hunting around. Microsoft's solution is to pack more and more hyperlinks into their webpage-resembling Explorer.exe window, which confuses users even more.
The best OS? This is purely subjective, but my nomination goes to OS X, which manages to be more functional yet more simple.
if your software was as complicated and widely run as windows it would as well.
That's bogus. First, my software wouldn't be as complicated, and second, it would be widely run because of it.
People didn't choose Windows and make it the monopoly. They chose cheap PCs, and Windows just came on them. Microsoft still makes the vast majority of its Windows sales through OEM installs. It's why Longhorn's requirements are so bloated, to get people to buy new PCs to run it.
Even Microsoft is recommending the use of XML configuration files in .NET and not the registry. So is Microsoft wrong? Or have they seen the error of their ways?
Somehow, OS X development is so much nicer without the use of a registry. I like being able to back up all my settings, make multiple copies, easily edit them myself, etc. A registry just seems so ancient.
As someone who write code and manipulates the registry everday, I for one love it. ...says every malware author on the planet.
You claim the registry is "100x" more secure and robust but then don't explain why. Permissions? Flat-files have that. Robust? If one flat file goes, the whole thing doesn't corrupt.
And for the user, you can see, manipulate, and back up your configuration files. Please see OS X. Somehow, it manages without your crappy registry and uses slick XML property lists to do it.
If the rest of you would prefer to have a million ini files instead of a branching registry, then more power to you.
Hello, OS X.
Geez, what's next. Are you going to call up MS and say "The who idea of SQL databases sucks.. you should change that to a flatfile to so that I can use my text editor!".
I hate when people apply one situation to another. No, in the case of application configuration values, a central database isn't ideal. The registry blows, and just because you're one of those militant Windows developers who defends the crumbling Windows architecture doesn't make your loud opinion any more correct. It's not.
Or go on supporting a design that lets malware bury anything it wants and manipulate the system. A single store of the entire computer's configuration values in one object is completely ridiculous.
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Or the same PT HD setup that can't touch apogee converters with a 10 foot pole?
:) Let me know when you name them.
What do Apogee converters have to do with the prosumer cards that were listed?
Or the same PT HD setup that most reviewers don't think is actually that much better than a mid-level A/D-D/A setup?
Oh...okay, I'll believe what "most reviewers" say.
Oh, and is this same PT HD that is marketed to waste 2 times the disk space without a single verifiable double blind test showing 192kHz SR's to be detectably different from 96kHz?
So now we're criticizing the marketing of a higher frequency rate? Who's forcing you to use 192khz? You're just grasping for things to criticize here.
Yeah, probably the same PT HD setup that you paid US$10-20,000 for, to get some overpriced DSP power that a dual opteron can walk over in its sleep?
Haha. Try recording 80 simultaneous live tracks as someone else posted about. Your dual opteron will never "walk over in its sleep" hardware-based DSP. Or do you play your 3D games entirely on CPU? No, you use a dedicated 3D card.
Pro Tools doesn't even have a "freeze track" feature. It doesn't need one, like the other DAWs do. DSP is processed off the CPU so you can keep working without having to stop what you're doing and keep your computer from coughing blood when you're pushing Ivory, Rebirth, BFD, Ozone, etc.
The "prosumer" cards (coupled with appropriate A/D-D/A converters, of course) that you dismiss with a wave match or exceed the quality and specifications in use in any top end studio worldwide as of 5 years ago; they match what almost all but the most capital-rich studios have today. Stop being such a junkie for Digi's marketing BS, and do some research.
I love how anyone who points out that cheesy little prosumer products don't compare with the high-end stuff are suddenly "junkies" or "shills," which tells me you don't know how to argue in a debate. Ended with the classic "Do some research." Why don't you offer me some research? You're the one claiming I'm wrong.
If all those cards have really exceeded and matched today's top studios, nobody would be using Pro Tools as the industry standard. You just can't beat Pro Tools, and it's a standard for a reason...get over it.
Hey, a moron who doesn't know the difference between CPU-based DSP and hardware-based DSP. Have fun freezing your synth tracks to free up resources.
I especially like it's loop recording function - the existing tracks will continue to loop over and over while you record as many 'takes' as you like in a new track.
Been in every other major DAW for years and years.
t's clearly a Cubase/Logic inspired design and layout
No, Ardour looks nothing at all like Cubase or Logic. Its interface is almost a 1:1 riff on Pro Tools.
I'd love for a freeware app to look like Cubase/Nuendo. Still the best DAW interface out there, in my opinion.
This is why Pro Tools owns the market. The other apps run all their processing on the CPU, while Digidesign does what gamers have been doing for the past ten years, use dedicated hardware to run all that processing and free up the CPU as a host. Back when Pro Tools was getting big, this was really the only way to do the kind of recording that is done in the pro audio world.
There may be a way to cluster some slave workstations or something to provide the required horsepower, but some time-sensitive situations are going to require that such a system be very, very stable.
Logic is good about this. You can chain together a bunch of Macs and use them as Logic Nodes.