[LAU] Bitwig: what we can learn from it

[Hartmut Noack]

Am 02.04.2014 17:50, schrieb Robin Gareus:
> On 04/01/2014 03:40 PM, James Harkins wrote:
>> Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine at ...> writes:
> [..]
>>>
>>> Gordon basically summarized (in a rather arguable manner) a point that
>>> we've discussed time and time again: if Linux audio is for geeks or
>>> for full-time musicians.
> 
> apples vs oranges. If you're a casual blues guitarist, linux audio is
> about as useful to you as a Bassoon :)
> 
> 
> [.. description of an algorithmic composition ..]
>>
>> The point being that this sort of geekery a/ comes directly from a musical 
>> impulse (I can hear if the implementation isn't doing what I heard in my head) 
>> and b/ is grounded in a musical understanding of harmony (in fact, it models 
>> part of my thought process when I'm writing harmony by hand). But never mind 
>> that --
> 
> Actually, I do mind.
> 
> This is a very nice real-world example. You have an idea, managed to
> describe it using abstract concepts which in turn can be formulated in a
> language which - in this case - is interpreted by a computer. There's
> nothing *geeky* about it at all.
> 
>> if I were writing dots on paper and debating whether to use 
>> interlocking woodwind voicing or not, THAT sort of geekery would be perfectly 
>> musical, but the fact that this particular music geekery is in SC means that 
>> it's... what was the phrase? "Autistic savant computer genius" territory.
> 
> exactly.
> 
> In some cases can do away with pen and papers, too. Just shout the idea
> to the musicians next to you during a jam-session in whatever language
> they understand.
> 
> I still find it hard to accept that creative people prefer a
> point-and-drool user interface to express and realize their ideas.
> 
> 
> 
>> I don't know Bitwig, so I have no basis to evaluate Robin's assertion that 
>> it's a "toy." 
> 
> I chose the word 'toy' carefully. You can have fun with toys, play with
> toys and use them creatively. However, toys are usually limiting,
> limited and often unreliable.

Bitwig is not that limited. In fact it has more opportunities under the
hood than most musicians will even search for. Of course it can happen,
that a musician does not find one or more opportunities in it, that
he/she would like to have. I do not find a opportunity to edit and
arrange samples as flexible and convenient as I find it in Ardour but I
see opportunities for working with loops and automatisation that surpass
Ardour. Yet I do not need those as much as the former named editing
features, so I see, that Bitwig can do a lot but still choose Ardour for
it suits *me* better(plus: I am a zealot, I use free software
excluselively...).
Others will find the MIDI/Automatisation features more attractive.

In any case: Music should not follow tools, to limit possibilities can
be a sane choice but to make music in a certain way, because a tool
favours that way, is questionable at best.

If a musician with a strong vision uses Bitwig (or Ardour or CSound),
he/she will find the ways in the software, that support his/her vision.

And what LA can learn from Bitwig is IMHO: make a concept, implement it
to the full, make it stable, reliable and give it a understandable
interface. As easy as possible, but not easier....

> 
> Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the Bitwig team to
> pull this off this project.
> 
> 
> Anyway back on subject.
> 
> I think what we learned in this thread is that the expectations of many
> [potential] linux audio users does not match the idea that many
> developers have in mind.

This may or may not be true. It at all, then the free audio scene who
writes software for Linux has a tendency towards some more individuality
than usual. But if the individual pattern between the dev and the
musician match(for me this would be Ardour, Guitarix, AMS, Seq24 and
some others), the musician gets exactly what he/she wants, even more
perfectly than any marketing-crew could find out for Steinberg...

> 
> Now, that's a bold provocative statement, but there you go.
> 
> 2c,
> robin
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