[LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[david]

On 02/06/2013 10:30 PM, Raffaele Morelli wrote:
> 2013/2/7 david <gnome at hawaii.rr.com <mailto:gnome at hawaii.rr.com>>
>
>     On 02/06/2013 03:19 AM, Raffaele Morelli wrote:
>
>         2013/2/5 Dave Phillips
>
>
>              Greetings,
>
>              I've been reading a lot of negative (read: vitriolic)
>         commentary
>              about the world of Linux audio development and
>         applications. I won't
>              bother to say where, just "the usual places" will have to
>         suffice.
>              Of greater interest to me is the commentary itself - it
>         seems to
>              boil down to the following plaints and lamentations (in no
>              particular order) :
>
>              Too many distros.
>              Too many audio-optimized distros.
>              Not enough native plugins, esp. instruments.
>              Inconsistent support for VST/VSTi plugins.
>              Too many unstable/unfinished applications.
>              Too many  "standards" (esp. wrt plugins).
>              Poor external/internal session management.
>              Poor support for certain modes of composition (think
>         Ableton Live).
>              Lack of support for contemporary hardware.
>              Confusion re: desktops, and GUI toolkits.
>              Too difficult to set up audio system.
>              JACK is a pain.
>              Too much conflict/fragmentation within the development
>         community.
>
>         One could be a professional with/without skills and/or an hobbyist
>         with/without skills, no matter who you are you need apps which
>         doesn't
>         turn sound engineer or a guitar player or composer into a *nix
>         OS student.
>
>
>     I'm sorry, but if you're a professional, *you know how to use your
>     tools*. Would you hire a carpenter who didn't know which end of a
>     hammer to use for driving a nail, or hauled out a chainsaw for doing
>     some fine veneer work while building a cabinet? What would you think
>     of a guitarist who never learned to set up their Fancy Big Stomp Box
>     because of all those "technical" things like sustain or reverb, etc?
>     "I just want to make sounds! Why do I have to know the difference
>     between sustain and reverb? I should be able to get what I want
>     without having to do anything!" ;-)
>
> Disagree, good musicians know or not how to use a fuzz box, a
> compressor, eq, delay or even learn the workflow of a console.

Because they've set out to learn it. They've learned to use their tools.

> On the opposite, the knowledge of these things doesn't turn you in a
> good guitarist, and many good ones don't need/use this stuff at all.
> Your carpenter is the equivalent of a bad musician... I would never get
> in touch with him, but he should learn music first (not an OS).
>
> There's absolutely no relation in being professional musician and the
> knowledge of the "standard" linux audio workflow (setup jack, understand
> the client/server thing, get rid of pulse, write .asoundrc, MIDI stuff...).

They're part of the tool set. Just like a Windows user might have to 
learn to do some arcane non-music thing to make it work. A professional 
learns how to do them. A smart professional learns how to do them in 
such a way that they don't have to do them again. ;-)

A lot of that setup stuff is already dealt with by audio distributions 
now. The only "setup" I had to do with Musix on my little effects box 
was tell JACK which audio interface I wanted it to use. I fiddled with 
period and such settings until I got a latency that works for me without 
xruns. That was just experimenting a bit. Gave me an excuse to play with 
stuff along the way. ;-)

> We must admit that win and mac "music-woriking-curve" is musch easier
> than our penguin.

Having watched my musically-capable but technologically-inept friend try 
three times to get and keep professionally-setup Windows audio systems 
working ... no. It's not easy on the other platforms, either.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/