[LAU] "Laid to rest is Pro Tools LE"...

[Luke Peterson]

>
> On 02/28/2011 07:22 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>  I wonder how we could evangelize Linux Audio more effectively  to the
>> outside world?
>>
>
>
> I've been thinking about this for a while. Most folks I know who are "power
users" of nonLinux OS environments will hesitate to do anything that might
jeopardize the stability of their tweaked home OS. This is why the Live CD
and various virtualization systems are so powerful in terms of acquiring
converts to the linux platform.

I'd love to be able to distribute a USB thumb drive loaded with a
lightweight (i.e. not Ubuntu Studio) audio environment built around an RT
kernel that's boot-ready and enables the user to access the other drives on
their machine. Target audience would be anyone with a computer and a midi
controller, and at the very least it should come with a bunch of
open-licensed soundfonts and some synths. The user experience would be: 1.
plug in your USB drive, 2. reboot, 3. plug in your headphones and your MIDI
controller 4. rock out with some new sounds and new audio control that your
existing device (be it a hardware synth or another PC or Mac-based
softsynth) isn't capable of producing/handling. The best part is, this new
set of tools is completely open source. And to get back to your home
environment, you simply remove the USB drive after you've shut down.

I think from a musician perspective, you can get a number of new users to at
least understand that the platform has arrived and is not as scary as the MS
and Mac music production conglomerate would have you believe (nor is it
anywhere near as resource-intensive!).

A musician buddy of mine who runs Logic on a 2-year-old Macbook Pro was
absolutely shocked at the near-lack of latency I experience with fluidsynth
and bristol on my netbook. He was told he'd have to buy a new computer or
perform significant upgrades if he wanted to approach the same performance
with his rig. Just that argument alone should get some set of users to dip
their toes in the water, especially if all the custom configuration steps
are eliminated for them.

I played a gig last Friday and a guy come up to me afterwards asking about
my rig: after I explained what I was using, he began to describe money and
time he'd spent on his PC-based system, saying he was afraid to leave the
house with it let alone bring it to a dingy club and risk frying it with a
spilt beer.

I don't know what an engineer would need to have to start cheating on
his/her protools environment, but "easy, cheap, reliable, and good-sounding"
seems to be a good path to the heart of a performing musician.

-----
Luke Peterson
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