[linux-audio-dev] Read this after your first cup of coffee

[John Check]

On Friday 20 August 2004 03:06 pm, Julien Claassen wrote:
> Hello John!
>   I'm writing, because I think, that with one of your points you are wrong.
>   You said, that ecasound and cecilia (and perhaps you also meant
> fluidsynth, csound...) aren't really interesting to pros. They are SO DAMN
> Important to a few users (pros and nonpros) and they are specific to linux
> in their design). They are import for blind and otherwise visually impaired
> people. You wouldn't find such apps - so suited to the visually impaireds'
> needs - on either windows nor MAC. On mac there is no braille-support at
> all (the blind's way of writing and reading) and on windows, using good
> commercial soundapps is much too difficult, too. So in that way, those -
> somewhat ancient or esoteric looking - programs are unique to unix and
> highly important to improve "barriere free" usage.

I didn't say they were useless, they just aren't going to be popular with the 
mainstream.  I never had to set the Csound players level at a sound check ;)
I specifically said Cecilia because it's a GUI. IIRC correctly, the ecasound 
originator coded it up because he found the interface to GUI systems to be 
dense, which doesn't give me confidence he'd have been able to find his way 
around an analog studio.
The main feature of ecasound on which I base my opinion is it's signal path 
from scratch nature. Basically, it's a virtual kit and you have to put 
together what you want. That's extremely useful, but if an average musician 
never used ecasound before and awoke at 2am with a great melody, (?|s)he'd 
never get it tracked because ecasound is too different from the traditional 
interface paradigm.

Case in point: I met a guy on the train yesterday with a studio he uses for 
TV work. He was telling a friend about the movie A Clockwork Orange, and since 
I think thats one of the best movies ever made, I stuck my 2 cents in. I was 
telling him about Burgess' Enderby books and he was shaking his head and 
saying things like "Book? No, no thanks". Somebody else made a similar 
reference with a similar result. Perhaps the guy was dyslexic, or possibly 
even illiterate. I don't know, or particularly care, but there are a lot more 
people like this than there are like us and just because somebody has an AES
card, doesn't mean they know jack about engineering as we normally define it.


>   Btw.: They are unique, because there are text-based, but technically
> up-to-date (which isn't the case with dos-programs). - And if you were to
> argue now, that this group is neglectible, I should tell you, that
> especially in the US such matters could be killer-matters for a company. -

>From which perspective? Are you saying for a company to provide braille DAWs?
Or are you saying for OSHA compliance? I agree with the former, but that's 
something for later. The latter is a dubious argument.

> Besides I started out a complete idiot in the field of audio and now do my
> best to create high quality productions. I didn't know about a mixer, or
> how to use effects (what were they anyway?) and I learned all that with
> ecasound. Ways of learning and working can be quite different if you are
> impaired or disabled in anyway.

Yes, but my above example should give you pause for consideration about the
definition of impaired. When it got time to be talking about what I was doing 
here with this guy on the train, I mention my audio career arc, which ended 
with due to major back problems (AS) and he said "Yer telling me my own 
story!". Not exactly, he blew out a disk or something, but there are a lot of 
gimps and uneducated people at the mid and low level who do regional stuff. 

FWIW, (Paul Davis should get a kick out of this, if he's reading) when I 
mentioned ProTools, the guy said it wasn't for him, because dollar for 
dollar, the hardware is too expensive. That's when I took his phone # to 
arrange a tour of his place. What I can see that nobody really knows about 
unless they've experienced it, is the perspective of the in the trenches, do 
it because it beats flipping burgers even if the money is the same types. 
Really, they have a lot of the same mentality as free software hackers, but 
took a path away from academia at some point. When I mentioned in an earlier 
email about a hit coming out of a mid level place, this is exactly the kind 
of people to target as end users.

Case in point: Marcy Playground recorded "Sex & Candy" at Sabella Studio in 
Roslyn, NY. At the time Sabella was the lower part of a split level home and 
when I interviewed there it was $10/hr off the books. Get out the yellow 
pages and flip to "Re". Unless you're in Manhattan or LA, or someplace quiet
with really,really nice scenery, most of the studios are $35/hr dumps that 
have to compete with $15|20 hr project studios is somebody's rumpus room.
They will always let you come down for a free demo when no session is 
scheduled. It's a normal part of booking gigs for studios open to the public.

>   Kindest regards
>         Julien
>
> --------
> Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)

An apropos sig, if ever there was one.

>
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