Re: computers suck creative energy

[van Sinn <vansinn@post.cybercity.dk>]

Matthias Grob wrote:
> I am impressed, depressed...
> I spent a lot of time switching from HW to SW myself, and I still  dont 
> feel at home as you could see and hear at y2k7.
> I had almost the same system for 15 years before, only upgrading  effect 
> units, soldering arround in my fixed wiring sometimes to allow  some new 
> control or combination, so that worked very intuitively to me.
> But was it bug free? No! many times there was a bad contact  somewhere, 
> usually coming up before the show, but sometimes during,  as well...
> Sometimes some setting was changed and not as easy to find as in the  
> computer, where everything is preset, just open the right file and  all 
> is the way you saved it...
> 
> I see the effort some musicians make from plain accoustic playing to  
> using HW effects. You did that step long time ago, possibly while  
> learning to play, so you dont even remember that.
> 
> There are a lot of side conditions of how you set up the computer. I  am 
> using the same macbook pro for everything in my life, which is not  so 
> serious. I should have a unit just for live playing and leave it  the 
> way it is, until some change which is well tested on another  machine 
> can be moved to the live computer - a week or so before the  next gig...

Couldn't agree more; see my comments further down.

> And this live computer could be a box with a touch screen and pedal  
> connected. A main drawback of the laptops are the exposed connectors  on 
> its side. I think the whole setup should be ready wired in a save  box 
> (I see that most loopers dont do this and spend a time hooking up  all 
> their pedals and testing them each time they play).

Agreed. I wrote something semilar in a previous post; i.e. having all 
prewired and organized as a standalone concept, using a USB touchpanel 
to prevent being able to mess with a _production_ environment.
Again, more related comments below.

> I actually  tried 
> this with a mini mac in the same box as the pedal and the audio  
> interface, but failed, because the it has the video memory shared  with 
> the main memory which produces clicks.
> 
> ** always buy computers with video cards that have physical memory on  
> it (carefull, they try to cheat in specs!) **

Points taken! though I wonder which OS you used to have audible clicks?
You do mention trying a Mac Mini, still with audiable clicks, which is a 
Bit surpricing to me. I've been thinking of using such. Rethinking..
Actually, video is a problem, as most SFF computers use shared vid mem.


> So I think we should
> - learn how to do it best on what there is arround now
> - not touch the solution when we have one and play it over a longer time
> - hope for faster and smaller (no HD) machines in the future
> - hope for more realtime oriented music OS (as the Linux guys are  
> working on, while Vista goes the other direction...)
> - hope (or work) for better looping software...
> 
>>> difficult to just do what's needed and say "yup, it works, now  close 
>>> the toolbox"
>>>
>> Yup, I follow you. My problem, at least in the PC world, is that  the 
>> damn technology
>> never lets you close the toolbox. :)
> 
> 
> thats because you are not done with it yet. I bet we can come to a  
> arrangement we like so much that we stop looking at each plug that  
> comes out for a while and then make another upgrade when we feel like  - 
> on a different machine...

Agreed. This is exactly like doing software or service development in 
IT; you need a development and a productin environment.
At this point of looping hardware/software development, AFAICT solutions 
aren't completely ready, so we _are_ into a development process.

-- 
rgds,
van Sinn