Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] read it and drool
From: Kai Vehmanen (kaiv_AT_wakkanet.fi)
Date: Sun Dec 03 2000 - 22:57:04 EET
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:
> actually, when the task at hand it *not* something that existing h/w
> does, i'm really in favor of innovative interfaces. but for a piece of
> s/w that does precisely what a piece of h/w does, i'm very happy
> (drooling, even :) to see the same UI model.
Ah, the task at hand, now this is something I think we are often
forgetting. Or not actually forgetting the task itself, but forgetting to
mention about it. For instance, there's a big difference between tasks a)
"you're a studio engineer, and you need to record a rock band that has
bought recording time from your studio", and b) "you are a musician doing
everything from recording to production in your home studio, and well, you
are going to make some grooves :)" This affects lots of things, especially
the requirements that an audio app must fulfil.
Now my studio engineering experience is mainly from recording myself, or
people who work on the same project, so I admit that I have limited
knowledge of requirements and limitations when faced with task (a). But I
do have lots of experience in doing music in a smaller studio.
Ok, talking from musician's point of view, imitating HW user-interfaces in
computer software, as someone already said, just combines the bad sides.
One nice thing in audio hardware is that it's quite easy to understand how
it works. This again opens up unlimited possibilities for experimenting.
So for instance, for most musicians, a mixer is not _just_ for mixing
inputs. Who hasn't made feedback loops inside the mixer, abused the
eq-controls and faders. It is not the same when you imitate these
interfaces in software. You don't exactly know how the thing works under
the hood, so your experiments are mostly random. Sure you can abuse it in
ways the app writer has thought about, that this doesn't sound very
appealing.
You could compare this to for instance using csound. Once you learn how it
works, you're ready to start experimenting, and more you do it, the better
you'll get at it. And you really don't have to understand every little
detail about csound's implementation. Just like I don't have to be an
electrician to understand how a hw mixer works.
-- . http://www.eca.cx ... [ audio software for linux ] /\ . . http://www.eca.cx/aivastus ... [ aivastus net radio ] /\ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sun Dec 03 2000 - 22:47:47 EET