MOTM

[[for newbies: YAU = Yet Another Update]]

I just completed a full kit OVI (Orders Versus Inventory). This includes all new orders placed as
of yesterday. Of the currently shipping modules, there are about 240 kits ordered or owed on
subscription, or owed for points redeemed. The Top 5:

MOTM-950
MOTM-800
MOTM-190
MOTM-300

The majority of the '950s are 'grouped' with 500/600 Series orders, so these will ship when the
first 600 Series on the same order ships (mainly the uSeq).

Now, there are kits now built to cover just the '190. I'm like 5 short of the '300, but 20 short
on the '800. I just ordered another 50 pc boards, they will arrive on the 24th. Around 12 '800
kits will ship this coming week. I'll not making more '300s until the end of the month.

The other "big" kit I'm short on is the '440, about 6 kits. Most of these are redeemed for
points, and these will also ship in about 3 weeks.

For good news: I plan to ship *100* kits this week. Some of you have received the first batch of
'890s and '950s: many more are going out this week. I spent a LARGE amount of time on the '950
manual, adding several photos.

I'm about 4 total days behind schedule because off-and-on I'm upgrading (?) my entire computer
system/network. Typical hijinx: upgrade to XP, sound card stops working, network printer
remapped, etc.
Now I have some strange timeout on the Linksys router (runs for a while, just idles for 3-5min,
starts right back up again....).

I am entering Mac OSX world as well: I will say this for Apple: their stuff, at least to me, is
10 TIMES more thought-out than WinDoze. No, I don't want to go to Linux :(  And looking inside my
G4 it's obvious that they are very MOTM-like in the way the system is put together (like it was
actually *planned*). Installing a wireless 802.11b LAN in the PowerBook took about 7min and on
the Dell PC about 1 1/2 HOURS (I luckily guessed what Micro$oft was not doing in the Setup
Wizard, then I had to poke around to find out where to edit it).

Why ANYONE wants to constantly mess with VST, TDM, ASIO and all that VA computer nightmare is
beyond me. And, what I find interesting, is I see more and more BACKLASH against 'former' big
synth players (Human League, Depeche Mode, even Herbie Hancock) showing up to "play" a "live set"
with a laptop.

Paul S.
My favorite programming language is solder

Paul S. writes:
>>Why ANYONE wants to constantly mess with VST, TDM, ASIO and all that VA 
computer nightmare is beyond me.<<

Some of us need ASIO so we can make multi-track recordings of our MOTM's!

Also, as you've noticed, sometimes it's the computer platform that turns things 
in major computer nightmares.  Moving away from Windows and going to the Mac 
can make some of those nightmares disappear.

-Elhardt

> >>Why ANYONE wants to constantly mess with VST, TDM, ASIO and all that VA
> computer nightmare is beyond me.<<
> Some of us need ASIO so we can make multi-track recordings of our MOTM's!
>
> Also, as you've noticed, sometimes it's the computer platform that turns things
> in major computer nightmares.  Moving away from Windows and going to the Mac
> can make some of those nightmares disappear.

And conjure up other ones. ;-) Seriously, though, there is no nirvana for
audio recording - PC or Mac. I've had Cubase SX systems perform flawlessly
on the PC (like my own) and I've seen Mac setups be so ungodly unstable
it's sickening.

I like to think the Mac and PC are both equally screwed up in different
ways. ;-) And yes, I own a G4, too...

-->Neil

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Bradley            In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is not
Synthcom Systems, Inc.  king - he's a prisoner.
ICQ #29402898

Neil writes:
>>And conjure up other ones. ;-) Seriously, though, there is no nirvana for
audio recording - PC or Mac. I've had Cubase SX systems perform flawlessly
on the PC (like my own) and I've seen Mac setups be so ungodly unstable
it's sickening.
I like to think the Mac and PC are both equally screwed up in different
ways. ;-) And yes, I own a G4, too...<<

Yes, you're right, I've seen totally idiotic software behavior on the Mac too 
(including some totally stupid problems in Cubase).  But it's usually because 
the applications themselves are buggy and horribly written.  The PC has an 
additional burden of also having a crappy operating system that is so packed 
with bugs and installation headaches that it can maginify the number of 
problems many fold.

Computer recording is pretty much a necessity.  Even if you go out and buy a 
stand alone 24 channel digital recording system like a Macky, I believe all 
they do is build a PC computer into the recorder and you're still in Microsoft 
hell.  It's getting impossible to avoid anymore.

Most computer programmers have no business programming computers. That's the 
main problem.

-Elhardt

> I like to think the Mac and PC are both equally screwed up in different
> ways. ;-) And yes, I own a G4, too...<<

^_^

> Yes, you're right, I've seen totally idiotic software behavior on the 
> Mac too
> (including some totally stupid problems in Cubase).  But it's usually 
> because
> the applications themselves are buggy and horribly written.  The PC 
> has an

It's been my experience that on the PC it's more of a hardware than 
software problem. Windows used to be crap, but they've done a fair job 
of addressing what they can. Down right amazing when you take into 
account the fact that they run on every Ma & Pa home brew PC from here 
to Taiwan. When it comes to audio, which is highly timing sensitive 
most PCs fall short. Combine this with several million possible 
hardware configurations, each with it's own slight variance and 
"quirks" and you have any software developers worst nightmare. For most 
application developers this is no big deal, they're abstracted high 
enough above the hardware platform that rarely do they need to care 
about variances in BIOS behaviors and bridge controllers. When it comes 
to audio, no such luck.

Two other factors come to mind: the platform of origin, and the company 
culture and attitude towards quality. Most DAWs right now are developed 
on two platforms. The platform where that software was originally 
developed will likely be more stable than a ported platform. And let's 
face it, some companies seem to think that crashing mid record is 
perfectly acceptable so long as it happens "rarely"...


> Computer recording is pretty much a necessity.  Even if you go out and 
> buy a
> stand alone 24 channel digital recording system like a Macky, I 
> believe all
> they do is build a PC computer into the recorder and you're still in 
> Microsoft
> hell.  It's getting impossible to avoid anymore.

But if you use a mackie 24 you notice it's rather stable. Why? Because 
the designers where faced with a much smaller problem space. This 
effect is most noticeable on console games. How often do you crash a 
video game? Not very often. Is this because video game engineers are 
such hot shit that they don't write bugs? No, quite the opposite 
actually, but what they do have is a very limited problem space. They 
know exactly what kind of hardware and limitations they'll be running 
into, and most importantly: they know that the end user will be running 
*exactly* the same hardware they're running. That makes a *huge* 
difference. Some audio companies even go so far as to advertise a 
recommended system on their website, this is advice well taken. 
Ideally, you want the same hardware used by the development team ;)

> Most computer programmers have no business programming computers. 
> That's the
> main problem.

Software programs are no smarter than the idiots who program them.

^_^

--mikes

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, Michael St <mikest@a...> wrote:
> 
> It's been my experience that on the PC it's more of a hardware than 
> software problem. Windows used to be crap, but they've done a fair
> job of addressing what they can [...]

Used to be crap, might be less crap now, but isn't necessarily 
improving!  :)

Just today I helped someone with an XP box suffering from "reboot over 
and over" syndrome.  (Each time very briefly flashing the famous blue 
screen that Microsoft doesn't want you to see anymore with XP.)  
Anyway, corrupt registry - I was able to boot the machine from the XP 
install CD and whack the registry files from the system recovery 
console.  (Had to read through a number of Microsoft tech notes to 
figure out how to get the required security privilege to copy a known 
good registry file out of the "System Volume Information" folder.)



> > Computer recording is pretty much a necessity.  Even if you go
> > out and buy a stand alone 24 channel digital recording system
> > like a Macky, I believe all they do is build a PC computer into
> > the recorder and you're still in Microsoft hell.
> 
> But if you use a mackie 24 you notice it's rather stable.  Why?
> [...]

Hmmm...it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Mackie 
digital recorder (and console) DO NOT run on Windows, could it?  In 
fact, these products run the SMX RTOS.  (See www.smxinfo.com and take 
a look at the customer product page.)  The Mackie digital stuff does 
use some PC hardware (something like a Pentium 166) combined with 
custom hardware for the audio.  (In the d8b, it is a bunch of TI DSPs 
that do the heavy lifting.  The PC is just for the GUI and disk 
storage.)

Certainly being faced with a reduced problem space helps - though it 
might be more accurate to say using the PC platform with RTOS allowed 
them concentrate their development effort on the core app (and custom 
audio hardware) piece of the puzzle.


Seth

The periodic "Yet Another Update" Paul sends out, which have recently
focused on progress toward shipping and backlog reduction.

Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark <mark@...>
To: J. Larry Hendry <jlarryh@...>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 2:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ Buchla Low-Pass Gate



>No!  I sure did not remember that.  I would not have "one coming" if I did.
>Maybe it's time for Y.A.U. focused on new stuff coming with progress
reports
>and such on things like 500 and 600 series and other goodies like the LPG
>that some of us (like me) may have forgotten about .

Y.A.U.???