1970's again? (was Re: [sdiy] pro EQs)

[Kenneth Elhardt]

Paul Maddox writes:
>>For me, I enjoying building synths, far more than buying them. The same is
true for my wife who enjoys 'crafts', why shoudl she spend 8 hours making a
single card when she can buy one for a couple of quid? Why should she enjoy
painting when she can go and buy something better and not have the hassle?
As has been said, why should you play synths? why not just go and play a
CD?<<

The Peasant writes:
>>Well Kenneth, this is a *DIY* list, we do these things because we WANT to,
and no other justification is required. I could go into the numerous
excellent reasons to DIY these things, but if you just don't get it, then I
really cannot help you.  As others have suggested, why don't you get rid of
your synths and instead buy some "professional" music?<<

Buying a CD of music instead of composing and performing new music isn't at
all an equal analogy here.  And an artist that paints a picture is hopefully
creating something new.  I was pointing out that going the DIY route to do
something that's already been done many times seems rather wasteful.
Especially when done in a more primitive way ei. underpowered 6502
processors, awful sounding 8 bit DAC's, ROM multiplication lookup tables,
external RAM, and so forth.  A single cheap chip these days will do all of
that, better, faster, and easier.

I've also always considered being into synthesis meant first and foremost
people wanted to use synths.  Spending lots of time building yet another
oscillator because you don't want to buy one takes away from that first
goal.  That might explain why I've never heard a single composition (or
sound or note) from most of the DIY community.  Building yet another
wavetable oscillator may be fun to some, but isn't that supposed to lead to
actually using it?

Glen writes:
>>That's nothing. Where I come from, people still dig holes in the ground
with shovels!  :)
If the technology is affordable and does exactly what you want, why not use
it?<<

On this list is seems like some are digging holes with rakes.  I've never
known 8 bit digital to be adequate for processing analog audio.

Sven Windisch writes:
>>I don't want to destroy your world-view, but say this: Get you some event
technicians and studio engineers and ask them about Behringer. I tell you
what they'll say: Behringer gear is not good for anthing but noise
generation.<<

I was waiting for some comment like this.  Seeing how Behringer has
different levels of quality and both analog and digital devices I don't see
how anyone can catagorize them all the same way.  I have some Behringer
gear, and it isn't any more noisy than any of my other gear.  I've also
bought some of it because it does some things not available elsewhere.

-Elhardt