29 Sep
2004
29 Sep
'04
8:56 p.m.
(disclaimer: take this all with a grain of salt. I've been a bit giddy
all week. 8) -edrz)
On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 06:02:34PM -0400, Peter Lutek wrote:
thanks for your thoughts, greg!
i am in a very similar position to you, and agree with most of what you
have to say. irrespective of ardour's current status, it IS a shame that
there is not at least one other viable professional
multitracking/editing package nearing completion.
Am I just a complete nut? (which I'm ready to admit is entirely
possible ;) ) or does no one else see ecasound as an alternative for
getting work done? it is stable and fairly complete, reasonably well
documented ... it's just different ... Why is it that having a "viable
professional <foo> package" means having a GUI that looks like something
from the commercial world? Just because it's the dominant paradigm for
96, or whatever, % of computer users doesn't have to mean it has to be a
requirement for "professional" use. I much prefer mutt to any lookout
clone, for example.
Paul himself has repeatedly said that the ardour gui is easily twice as
much of the codebase as the engine. ecasound has been available to do
much of what ardour makes possible for far longer with greater stability
in large part specifically because Kai has not burdened himself with
providing a gui.
having said all that, if one adopts a different
working methodology
linux may, even now, offer a more flexible overall solution. there are
numerous, varied, tools available, with various strengths, weaknesses,
and styles. i've begun to come around to the idea of using a variety of
tools in any given project, rather than expecting any single, big
application to be the "virtual studio" which does it all. think more in
terms of the OS as the virtual studio.
HOORAY!!! there IS light in this forest after all. :)
one package which i must not leave unnamed is bill
schottstaedt's SND.
it is an extremely rich and robust tool which CAN do just about
everything i'm looking for. HOWEVER (and so far i have not come to terms
with this) it is a destructive editor -- sounds are loaded into RAM,
worked on, and then saved in their modified form back to disk. it is
near-impossible to step back and tweak an EQ you adjusted a few days ago
on a particular component of your mix. but still, take a look if you're
not familiar with it. http://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/snd/
can't one simply back up a file and work on a copy? ... just because
there isn't an option in a drop down menu doesn't mean you don't have
the power. disk space is cheap. file systems make great filing systems.
another one that's very much worth investigating,
especially if you are
into some coding (just to provide a friendlier UI if you need it) is
ecasound. it is deeper than a lot of people realize.
yes! yes!! yes!!! woohoo! I am not alone. thank goodness! :)
/me began to doubt his own sanity.
-Eric Rz.