[linux-audio-user] CLI vs. GUI and other Linux sound issues

[Paul Davis]

On Wed, 2005-12-21 at 18:12 +0000, c wrote:
> > I'm curious about this. What kind of musical decisions are pre-made by
> > commercial software for the user?
> 
> quite a few. in the case of something like ableton live, the
> composition process is distilled down to turning on and off
> bar-quantized loops, and slathering on FX. the McDonalds equivalent of
> slow food...
> 
> or take something like Fruity Loops, which singlehandedly dictates the
> stylistic signature of many recent UK beat-producers like Ruff
> Sqwad...
> 
> i guess the argument could be made for being able to override the
> defaults, but its sort of like digging a canal, people will put up
> some trees here and there, or paint their boat red...but its still
> going down the canal...
> 

you can a *lot* further than either of these examples. go watch a demo
or actual use of the Stylus RMX plugin. you can generate roughly 16-20
channel rythmn mix for a track in a few minutes by just pressing buttons
that pick certain style constraints. it made me puke, but i know that
there are people who write music for a living, not as a means of
creative expression, and for them, tools like this are actually
incredibly helpful.

--p