[linux-audio-user] DAW Dillema -- Seeking Advice

[Eric Dantan Rzewnicki]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
>> (disclaimer: take this all with a grain of salt. I've been a bit giddy
>> all week. 8) -edrz)
>> On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 06:02:34PM -0400, Peter Lutek wrote:
>>> thanks for your thoughts, greg!
>>> i am in a very similar position to you, and agree with most of what you
>>> have to say. irrespective of ardour's current status, it IS a shame that
>>> there is not at least one other viable professional
>>> multitracking/editing package nearing completion. 
>> Am I just a complete nut? (which I'm ready to admit is entirely
>> possible ;) ) or does no one else see ecasound as an alternative for 
>> getting work done? it is stable and fairly complete, reasonably well
>> documented ... it's just different ... Why is it that having a "viable
>> professional <foo> package" means having a GUI that looks like something
>> from the commercial world? Just because it's the dominant paradigm for 
>> 96, or whatever, % of computer users doesn't have to mean it has to be 
>> a requirement for "professional" use. I much prefer mutt to any 
>> lookout clone, for example.
>> Paul himself has repeatedly said that the ardour gui is easily twice as
>> much of the codebase as the engine. ecasound has been available to do
>> much of what ardour makes possible for far longer with greater stability
>> in large part specifically because Kai has not burdened himself with 
>> providing a gui. 
> Erik,

just to be clear, I am Eric, not Erik. I have made no where near the 
quantity nor the quality of contributions that Erik de Castro Lopo has 
made to free audio software.

>    I can only speak for myself, but when I work with audio, I'd say 
> about 50% of my work is decising what piece of audio goes where. What 
> take of a certain bridge as played by which bass player is going to 
> during the second bridge in a song, etc. three's a lot that starts 
> happening when you mix togther 50-100 different pieces of audio in a 
> song. Being able to see it in the GUI is important. Being able to 
> visualize the mixing, the crossfades, etc. is important and helps me 
> work faster. This stuff I use all the time and I just cannot imagine how 
> I'd do all of this in a text based application.

Sure, sure. I freely admit that I intend to use ardour in the future 
when I will be working on some projects that I know I won't be able to 
keep straight without having them laid out visually. That said, there 
are a great many things that can be done with ecasound. For instance, 
each take can be it's own file, with it's own name: take1-bassman2.wav, 
take14-drummer0.wav, etc., etc.

With a well thought out file naming scheme I imagine some enterprising 
soul could keep his/her sessions organized and even write scripts to 
audition different mixes of players or whatever.

And for smaller projects, It wouldn't really be so hard to keep things 
straight. So, the point is that for some work the tools are already there.

>    I'm not saying it cannot be done. I just don't know how I'd do it.

<rhetorical>
But, is that because you've only learned to do it visually? What if you 
never had the protools experience you've had? What if you originally 
started working with digital audio on a pdp-11?

Is it natural that so many people can't imagine working with sound 
without being able to see it?
</rhetorical>

>> yes! yes!! yes!!! woohoo! I am not alone. thank goodness! :)
>> /me began to doubt his own sanity.
> Don't. You may be the only sane one. After all. You're happy!

Naw, we're all crazy. ;) but, yes, I am happy and becoming more so 
everyday I produce more of my wonderfully incoherent and non-visualized 
noisy audio compositions and compositional sketches and auto-generated 
randomized proto-sketch audio pallet splatters. (how's that for imagery?)

Take care and take it often,
Eric Rz.