[Pd] active and tot not right in pd-extended

Chuckk Hubbard badmuthahubbard at gmail.com
Fri Sep 15 15:41:20 CEST 2006


On 15 Sep 2006 00:36:50 -0400, Michal Seta <mis at artengine.ca> wrote:
>
> Discalimer:  not really PD related...
>
> "Chuckk Hubbard" <badmuthahubbard at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Unfortunately, professional musicians who aren't programmers can't
> > rely on free open source software at this point.

I apologize, this was an incendiary thing to say.
All I really meant by professional is someone who is working for
deadlines, as opposed to having time to wait for bug fixes and feature
requests.  How fast is the turnaround for sponsored features in LP?
On the other hand, the professional with a good command of Csound has
a great advantage.
Sound production is great in OSS.  I was thinking more of interfaces
and printing music.  I mentioned something once in the Rosegarden
mailing list that would immediately make editing faster (one tool for
adding and editing notes instead of two), and was met with arguments
about 'how hard is it to scroll down on the pop-up menu and select the
edit function?' etc.  Sure it only takes a second, but doing it a
thousand times takes a thousand seconds.
I've never had to write to Finale or Sibelius (my school has both, so
I could compare and choose Sibelius) with an issue.  When I used Ben
Johnston's microtonal accidentals, I had to draw them myself, and they
didn't playback, but in LP I would have had to use another program to
draw them.
Don't get me wrong, I despise both Windows and Mac, but Sibelius and
Finale don't ignore ties that I insert the day before my lesson.
On the other hand, last year I programmed my own interface for
composing in extended tunings in Pure Data.  Pd has things Reaktor and
Max don't that made this possible.  I just can't rely on Lilypond
right now.

-Chuckk

>
> Why not?  I just glanced at the "MacWorld's Music & Sound Bible"
> (1992) and I realize that the state of open-source music software is a
> little like the Mac in the 1992.  Well, granted, some things are a
> little more advanced, other lag a little, but still.  If professional
> musicians were able to produce professional music back then, using a
> Mac with a (quite an impressive, actually) number of applications why
> can't they do that now on linux with OSS?
>
> I mean, there is even a short example of how to edit a sound sample
> with RezEdit!  Common, this is even more hardcore than using SND!
>
> (Side note.  There actually is a mention of Opcode's Max on page 12
> and 77.  Merely mentioning that it is a visual iconic MIDI programming
> language and that visual programming is easier than opject oriented
> programming).
>
> > I tried, though I
> > was leery about Lilypond, I gave it a chance and got pretty interested
> > in it.  Then for whatever reason it began arbitrarily leaving out
> > ties.  Whatever drawbacks Windows and Mac have, I've never had that
> > happen in Finale or Sibelius.
>
> Hmm...  they must have improved a lot.  I found finale the most PITA
> notation software around (but at the same the most flexible at the
> time, which was mid-90s).   Not to mention that often the WYSIWYG of
> finale was more on the WYSIWYG-M (what you see is what you get -
> maybe) side.
>
> Oh, the best notation package (but also the slowest, the most
> crash-prone) was Igor Engraver.  You can still buy it but the company
> does not exist anymore, it seems, and don't count on any support.  A
> few old hardcore users still use it and come up with new workarounds
> to get by.
>
> > but if I need something by tomorrow I need it by tomorrow.
>
> And you can typset a score in Finale for tomorrow?  Wow!
>
> > No open-source programmer wants to spend weeks or months making
> > infinitesimal changes to an interface to shave seconds off some
> > shmoe's production time, for free.
>
> And which proprietary software company wants to do such thing?
> What I found interesting with lilypond is that you can sponsor a
> feature.  the bugs are squished for "free".  If you want a specific
> feature, the programmer gives a price and you walk home happy.  I am
> not too up-to-date with commercial software but I would love to know
> which boxed applications provide such flexibility.
>
> > And that shmoe (me, for instance)
> > is likely to rely on a system that has software designed to shave
> > seconds off his production time.
>
> Or pile up a few more minutes or hours in case you want to do something
> that 99% of users will never do.  And suppose the developers think
> it's a great idea to add to the sofwtare.  How many more days, weeks,
> months will you have to wait for an upgrade?  Oh, and you will most
> likely pay the same price again.
>
> > I suspect this is changing.
>
> I don't know.  I don't think so.  A lot of OSS software is modelled
> after the commercial software and so it usually lags behind.  Some
> software is unique and does not have commercial equivalent.  The thing
> is that just like 14 years ago on a Mac you did what you could with
> what you had (and it was still several thousands of dollars, including
> hardware) you can easily do with what you have and go with 100% OSS.  I
> started using linux for music in 1997 (on a PPC and most audio
> software was not yet bit-order friendly!) and having upgraded from a
> MacOS8.7 loaded with all the lates warez... ehm... sorry... thousands
> of dollars worth of commecial super-slick software, I had to change
> the way I though about music production.  I never liked protools et
> al. anyways.  The commercial software world keeps up with usage trends
> (or sets trends).  OSS software is often an experiment in implementing
> some way of thinking that is not already covered by another
> application.  Sometimes your way of thinking fits, sometimes it
> doesn't.
>
> Now, the question arises: but am I a professional musician?  I guess
> not.  I'm still keeping my day-job.
>
> ./MiS
>
>
>
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