[sdiy] Moogey jitter

[Richard Wentk]

At 12:22 21/04/2006, David J. Hughes wrote:
>Richard,
>
>on 21/4/06 11:28 am, Richard Wentk at richard at skydancer.com wrote:
>
> > You mean apart from the fact that the VSTi market is buzzing, while
> > hardware synths are limping along?
>
>Says who? ;)

Everyone at Korg, Yamaha and Roland. Hardware sales are only so-so at best. 
They're hanging in there but business is hardly booming.

>imho, they're more important for the simple reason that they're easier to
>download for free, thanks to the activities of the hacking community. What's
>the ratio of hacked copies of Reason to legitimately purchased versions? 10
>to 1? 100 to 1?

Reason is not quite the softsynth poster child.

>And how many people are doing something truly unique and valueable with
>Reason and how many are just doing cheesy rip-off dance tunes?

As above. Who cares what people are doing with Reason? Reason is a toy. 
It's very good as a toy, but it's 100% retro. In terms of technology it's 
really not all that interesting.

>And have you ever seriously tried to use Reason, Absynth et al together in
>one system without seriously spending more time resolving conflicts and
>reinstalling drivers than you have writing music?

Have you ever tried gigging with a room full of keyboards as opposed to 
having everything in a laptop?

I've never had to deal with conflicts and only exceptionally have I had to 
reinstall drivers. Usually the worst thing that happens is that I have to 
wait while the driver for my external Firewire interface loads. This takes 
all of about 45 seconds.

Compare this with hours (best case) to a day or so (worst case) to a day to 
break down and set up and large hardware rig.

Also, Absynth sounds better and has a *much* wider timbral space than any 
hardware synth I've used in the last ten years.

As for hardware sequencers - why bother when you can create your own spec 
to order in Reaktor, using whatever control surface you want?

People don't get this fact and it's really important - hardware is always a 
closed box. A good software environment is an open one. It's the difference 
between automating/sequencing two or three parameters and automating 
*everything* in a sound with no limitations.

Richard