linuxaudio.org

On 3/11/06, Rob  wrote:

quoted text
> On Sat March 11 2006 03:45, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> > With Common Music, Lilypond, Pd, Csound, Supercollider, every

> > programming languange you want, and with the ability, to run

> > the occasional foreign software through Wine, Linux is a very

> > good platform for Composers IMO.

>

> And by "composers", of course, you mean "composers who are also

> computer programmers".  None of the people I know in real life

> who compose music are going to be writing Csound, CM or

> Supercollider code to do what they want.  The programs they do

> use, like Live, Fruityloops and Cakewalk, are still way beyond

> any compositional tools we have available to us under Linux,

> with all apologies to the Pd, SSM and Rosegarden guys.

>

> I might use code-based compositional tools (well, the ones that

> can be programmed without using Lisp-like languages, which are

> evil and must be destroyed), but then, I'm a composer who's also

> a computer programmer.

>

> My advice to the parent poster is to get an Intel Mac (either a

> Macbook or one of the new Mac Minis) unless one of your specific

> goals as a musician is to create your music using free software.

> That's one of my own goals, or I'd already have a Mac myself.

>

> Even then, some popular compositional tools (like Fruityloops)

> are Windows-only at this point.  The musicians I know who work

> professionally are about a 50/50 split between OSX and Windows.

> I'm the only fool I know who's trying to do everything under

> Linux.

>

> Rob

>

Rob,

   Just chiming in to say I agree. No composer I ever met is

interested in actually language-based programming to get sound. I

think that's the purview of subset of folks, such as university

oriented people, etc. I'm sure it's rewarding for some but it doesn't

even approach being mildly interesting to a guitar player like me.
   I can use Linux successfully for very specific things - audio

recording using Ardour and a few soft synths. Wine is mostly a

curiosity. It works OK for Quicken but beyond that it's more of a

frustration than it's worth to me. I understand that VSTs under Wine

are a relal plus for Linux only folks, but for those with multiple

platforms why bother is my general decision. I'm not intersted

(personally) in being that much of a trail blazer.
   Mostly I still compose in Windows and more on the Mac since I

bought my first machine a few months ago. I'm an Acid Pro guy vs.

FL/Ableton, but they all allow me to put ideas together far faster and

more accurately than I can with any of the tools on Linux.
   I enjoy audio recording using Ardour. It works as well or better

than Pro Tools did for that. I'm not much of a MIDI guy, really, but I

do miss having a real audio/MIDI platform in Linux like I had in

Windows and do have on the Mac. Loop recording would be my biggest

miss in the Ardour area, and somethign to replace ALL of Acid Pro is

only a dream after 4 years and no developer interest.
   Anyway, I write to you from my Linux machine where I'm playing

around with VMware type solutions. Maybe one day, right? ;-)
Cheers,

Mark