Re: [LAU] [RFC] A “poor man’s”, yet professional level studio setup

On 22/02/21 19:37, Paul Davis wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 11:15 AM Francesco Napoleoni
> <mlists@cosmic-odyssey.net <mailto:mlists@cosmic-odyssey.net>> wrote:
>
> Aaahhh, this is the kind of discussion I wanted... :-)
>
>
> Quick take: I think it's really only your insistence on using laptops
> that forces most of this complexity on you.
>
> Get a powerful desktop system. Run everything on one machine.

I really support this. Although I've been happily using (linux only)
laptops for personal computing and music making since a while, _if_ I
had to set-up a studio-like environment I'd go for a 'desktop' system
for various reasons including better upgrade-ability (try to change even
a battery on a laptop these days...), better performance for audio and
multimedia, more fine-grained control over hardware etc.

Also if you were to make an (even small) investment, take into account
laptops are more and more built with 'planned obsolescence' in mind
while you could still build a desktop which (with upgrades) could last
for years.

> As far as synchronizing different applications, is this really a common
> workflow? Yes, once Hydrogen was the goto solution for linux drum stuff
> (and it's still a GREAT application). But with the advent of things like
> DrumGizmo, you can now avoid the multi-application-sync-communication
> issues and do most of each stage of musical production inside a single
> application.

I'm not 100% sure about this one. Or at lest I think it really depends a
lot on personal preference and 'artistic / creative workflow'.

For instance, in this case the OP wants to use mainly music notation and
IMHO the only two FLOSS applications which offer 'usable' music notation
are either Rosegarden for what I'd call 'sequencer notation' (i.e. MIDI
sequencing with good notation), or MuseScore which is leaning more
towards typesetting, although the playback capabilities are quite good
today. Rosegarden theoretically supports audio but it's really
basiccompared to a DAW like Ardour. Musescore, of course, doesn't
support audio. Both support JACK transport and at MIDI clock so I
wouldn't see anything wrong with using them together with Ardour +
xjadeo + Carla etc.

When I had to compose a synth soundtrack I actually liked being able to
be in a more focused environment for idea sketching and then
composition/sequencing (mainly Rosegarden + synths) synced to just a
window with the video (xjadeo). Depending on what I was working on I
used both traditional notation _and_ matrix (aka piano roll) as well as
some MIDI keyboard playing. Then moving to a different environment for
mixing and fine synchronization in Ardour (which for instance also
supports SMTP, important for video).

As said this is my very personal take YMMV.

In relation to the Francesco's original post:

One other aspect would be: why such a focus on a network for audio and
not audio cables and some hardware (mixer(s), monitors, etc.). I
understand network for control (e.g. having a mobile device controlling
play/stop/ transport / record of the DAW), but for audio why not just
use (balanced!) cables and stuff? If as I understand this would be a
relatively small studio (e.g. 2-3 adjacent rooms).

Finally, one thing to keep in mind would be compatibility
(interoperability to use a more fancy word), with the 'outside' world:
while wanting to do a 'FLOSS studio' is commendable, you will inevitably
have to send stuff around, so software which is able e.g. to stem
export, or use decently supported formats (MusicXML for scores?), etc.
(I was surprised to learn from one of the people at the studio during
the scoring that they didn't want a FLAC file I sent them because it
'wouldn't work on a Mac' and only AIFF.. but that's another story).

Lorenzo
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Received on Wed Feb 24 04:15:02 2021