[LAU] Subject: Albums under a label recorded and/or mixed with Linux

[Ken Restivo]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 07:43:32AM +0200, Philipp ??berbacher wrote:
> Excerpts from shanerich's message of 2010-09-23 02:18:52 +0200:
> > >Hi all,
> > >just for curiosity
> > >how many albums (if any) *under a record label*
> > >have been recorded and/or mixed with Linux?
> > 
> > A little OT, but anyhow:
> > 
> > As somebody who has been doing the "major label dance" for the last 6 
> > months, I have found the following:
> > 
> > Major Label Representative: Run a freaking mile. They realise that if 
> > you're a linux user, you have a brain and can see through their crap. 
> > If they don't run, you find they have to "remix" on protools, even if 
> > the end result is the same or worse, they claim it's better.*
> > 
> > Major Label Engineer: Show them a copy of Ardour and they are 
> > immediately comfortable. Show them Jamin and they ask if it runs on 
> > Windows. Engineers are practical people, even the corporate ones. Does 
> > it work? Great!
> > 
> > So I suspect the answer to your question would be both "close to zero" 
> > (Linux distro) and "quite a lot" (Linux embedded), as Paul pointed out.
> > 
> > 
> > *For the record, last engineer sneakily loaded the final two-track, ran 
> > it through the console and bussed it direct to the master outs, whilst 
> > pretending to twiddle by sweeping through the mids before returning it 
> > to zero, and throwing the faders around on the non-bussed tracks, 
> > making A&R guy happy. Lots of "oohs" and "aahs" and "Eso!" ("That's 
> > It!"). Idiota.
> > 
> > That's South America, and generally very Linux friendly here, I suspect 
> > the "developed world" would be a nightmare.
> > 
> > - shane
> 
> "The magic of the console" I guess..
> It's hard to believe that this kind of crap actually happens. Do they
> think it has to be 'recorded' with 'industry standard' gear or is there
> another reason? ("We remixed it, so we have rights on it.")
> 
> My guess is that in the 'developed' world they might know less about
> Linux, but I'm not sure the reaction would be better.
> 

Funny, Jamin got my ProTools-using friend totally excited too.

I guess they're used to eye candy over there in closed software land. Hell, I liked Jamin too until Fons hipped me to the fact that it's a vocoder. 

As for theater and bullshit with the faders, well, that's what a lot of DJ's do for a living. They play records from Ableton, and pretend to be affecting the sound. Also, a lot of musicians too. I remember Keith Emerson's modular Moog had a series of lamps (this was before LEDs) arranged in a pattern of a waveform, and triggered off of the analog sequencer. The lights would blink to make it look like some kind of oscilloscope-type thing. His engineer labelled it "Fake TV" in the system diagram. When I asked him about that useless bit of pantomime, he very calmly and professionally explained, "That's for the visual component of the show".

So, whatever, the engineer got paid to flip some faders that weren't connected to anything. Could be worse, could be this:
http://blog.thomasdolby.com/?p=1144

-ken