[LAU] off topic (was: Re: ableton live in vmware)

[Hartmut Noack]

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Rob schrieb:
> On Thursday 03 September 2009 06:29 am, cunnilinux himself wrote:
>> what makes existing win/mac solutions unbeatable are thousands of VSTs
>> with thousands of presets working just out of the box.
>
> While you and those who posted followups to your post have piled about 50
> pounds of snark on the idea, presets are indeed extremely important.

To have a handfull presets, that demonstrate, how an app works, ist
important. But just to choose an entry in a given list of "cool
killer-leads" and record it, yields in 9/10 cases to those boring
Cubase-beginner tracks, we all have heared before and  nobody is really
interested in.

Jaron Lanier (I know, he is controversal and I do not consider him a
"guru" or something... still he is brilliant sometimes) has told an
anecdote in a speech he gave in the 1990ies, that sums up the matter
quite well. In short it says:

A industry-guy said to him:
"Well, take a violin, for instance. I mean, a violin has a crummy user
interface. It's so hard to play. With computers we can build a better
user interface for the violin, and then kids will be able to play it,
everyone will be happy..."

Lanier commented this lengthily but came to a brillant conclusion in the
end:

"Playing the violin is actually that mystery, it's the end of the line,
it's not for any other reason."

get the whole story:
http://www.exhibitresearch.com/kevin/nyc/jaron/index.html

Music is a complex work of art and it demands care and effort and most
music-loving people like it exactly because of that. It does not need to
be a Mahler-symphony or a Bach-partita - a simple structured song can be
the same as worthwile listening to but it needs to be made with passion
and care and inspiration and it will never be easy.

Still I agree, that software made for complex work should be as usable
as possible. But there is a difference between usability and cheap
shortcuts to standard-sounds.


best regs

HZN

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