Re: [LAU] LV2, DSSI and the future of plugins

On 01/16/2011 08:38 PM, Louigi Verona wrote: certainly. i guess my point is this: being a gearhead doesn't make you a good musician, composer, arranger or mixing engineer. most of the commercial audio world is targetted at gearheads. it has to be, because audio technology has been "good enough" now for a few years, so what can we do to sell new stuff? invent bs. opensource is no less quirky, but it's closer to a do-it-yourself mindset, which requires the user to understand the problem, understand possible approaches to solve it, and then apply those approaches. for that type of user, our toolset in linux audio is mostly complete, although streamlining is always possible (and necessary). true. but this is somewhat rare in open source plugins. i think guitarix is a good representative example of the open source mindset: it certainly wastes way too many pixels to look like some actual piece of gear (for my taste), but: all knobs are labelled with their function, not some fancy fantasy name. the plugin /wants/ /you/ to understand what /you/ are doing. many closed source plugins /don't/ /want/ /you/ to understand what /they/ are doing. /you/ don't get to do much in the first place. well, vst by itself is nothing more than an api. i have nothing to say of its technical merits. true. heck, i wish i had a really good room simulator, almost every time i start a new project. but that's a matter of convenience, not a fundamental obstacle. i tend to think of the entire set of plugins and tools i have (and know how to use) as my instrument. at times, it might be tempting to desire extensions of the instrument, but often it's more effective to just hone my skills (yeah, mixing engineers have to practice, too, and a lot!) and get better on what i have. actually, i pity the "namm show" kids who go crazy over each new trend, shell out money, tweak a few knobs, and still can't finish their debut album for lack of artistic vision. it's of course not the fault of any one plugin or manufacturer, but the overabundance of toys makes it very easy to fall into that trap. and the market pretty much consists of people sitting in this very trap, or how else would you reconcile the gear sales figures with the actual musical reality out there? i guess there's probably five mastering plugins sold for every album that comes out... heck, even highly respected tonmeisters fall for "bogus toys" bs. just a few weeks ago, i had someone rave to me about 384khz sampling rate and why sacd is so great. this guy had no idea of 24bit pcm vs. 1bit delta-sigma, nor did he know about lipshitz and vanderkooy having effectively buried the entire sacd technology years ago. he was (and is) a true believer. he's also a very skilled mixing engineer, but he doesn't know that he makes great albums despite sacd technology, not because of it :) absolutely. i'm a very ironic person - in face-to-face talk, people usually gather from my tone of voice that i'm being a bit cynical and take it accordingly. but if i were to use winkies each time i should, my mails would double in size...