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

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2013-02-11 at 09:44 -0500, drew Roberts wrote:
> So get a removable drive setup and let the person who knows what they are 
> doing set up two drives for you. One optimized as an 8 track recorder and one 
> as a daily driver. Swap and boot as needed. Right?

Maybe, but I don't think so. The clueless person always will experience
strange behaviour of a computer, something similar to
"I'm using foo for around a year now, but since last week there always
opens a window and ask me to report a bug, but I never experienced a
bug". This does cause fear, if the LEDs of a stand alone device start to
flash and they'll stop after a slap, it does cause some worries, but not
fear. The difference is, that the computer user guesses that he made a
mistake, that makes the software unstable, while the stand alone device
user is without doubts, he simply thinks that the gear is broken, but
not regarding to a faulty operation.

Btw. I own different stand alone devices, most are much better to use
than a computer, but they were much more expensive too and they are old,
but some stand alone devices are much harder to use than a computer,
I've got a 19" device from Behringer, that isn't that old, but OTOH
wasn't expensive, however, I know one musician who does buy cheap and
new stand alone devices that are still easier to use, than a computer.

Just give a technical noob, but gifted musician some 19" delays and
reverbs and computer plugins for delay and reverb and than ask her/him
to add a ping pong delay to one track, room to another track and hall to
a third track, in a way, that it does sound halfway ok and that the CPU
load won't become an issue. CPU load won't be an issue when using stand
alone devices and handling of stand alone delays and reverbs usually is
much easier.

Give a technical noob a pre-build Linux audio PC and ask her/him to set
up, save and load settings for something like a KORG nanoKONTROL or to
use an real analog synth or mixing console instead.

Regards,
Ralf