Re: Just Got Back From NAMM. Why so little Linux?

Mike Rivers wrote:

... when you decide to make the commitment to ProTools you buy into
more than just a DAW, you buy into a program that's supported with a
brand name, and third party brand name accessories. ...

Can I get an endorsement deal with that? ;-)

And although none are free (unless you're running Win98 and can find
an old copy of Pro Tools Free) you can buy into "the standard,"
admittedly with limited capability, for just a couple of hundred
bucks.

With Ardour, I can choose to pay to support continued development, either
in a lump sum, or in regular installments (either way, I get to pick the
amount), or I can download the exact same software, with the exact same
feature set, and no limited capabilities, for exactly $0. Given that,
why should someone pay a couple of hundred dollars on a feature-crippled
though branded clone of "the standard" (it's not "the standard" because
the Real Studios aren't using LE, as far as I've been able to understand).

Also, ProTools isn't as hardware-bound as it used to be. There are
M-Audio interfaces that run with it (using a special version of
ProTools) and now there's Mackie hardware. Can others be far behind?

Ok. Ardour on Linux isn't limitted to the RME cards either. In fact,
it never was. There is a selection of other multi-channel interfaces
it will work with. As with Protools, apparently, you need to be sure
before purchasing the interface that it will work with your system.

These licensing arrangements came to be because the hardware
manufacturers believed that they could sell more hardware ...

Yup. So people keep buying proprietary hardware to work with the
proprietary software ...

... There's no reason why they couldn't do the same for Ardour or
other Linux-based DAW programs that come along, and perhaps they will,
when Ardour has market penetration similar to ProTools.

Agreed. It's a chicken and egg problem, that admittedly doesn't look
great for someone advocating Ardour on Linux.

That's fair, but it does lead to the question: other than "brand
recognition", what advantages are we talking about here?

Third party support with more "brand name recognition." And to the
manufacturer, it's the advantage of increased sales. ...

Right, but what's the benefit to the end user? We're talking, in some
cases, not insignificant sums of money. What's the real incentive for a
user who has thoroughly researched available options to spend that money?

.... I won't attempt to guess or research absolute numbers, but I feel
reasonably comfortable with the assessment that there are
significantly more ProTools users who are willing to spend money to
enhance their systems than there are Ardour users willing to spend
money to enhance THEIR systems.

You're right. The proprietary software vendors don't see a potential
market for their products among the Linux community. This benefits end
users how?

I recently read a tale of woe from a reasonably knowledgeable user who
got a new $300 Waves plug-in for his ProTools system. ... The next day
he reported that his ProTools system wouldn't start. After a week of
back-and-forth with both ProTools and Waves support, it turned out
that he had the next-to-last update of Version 6 of whatever it takes
to run Waves plug-ins, and since his new plug-in was a Version 7
plug-in, which was supposed to be back-compatible with Version 6
plug-ins, he needed the update to his Waves Version 6 support, which
he didn't even know existed until he had a problem. Of course
upgrading to Waves Version 7 would have solved his problem, too, but
that would have been an additional cost beyond his new plug-in.

Yes, and this is one of my major peeves with commercial/proprietary
software. It's not enough that this user purchased ProTools and the
plugin, after significant downtime the "solution" seems to be to buy
yet more software. This is less hassle than going with open-source
software??? Perhaps he should have declared the whole thing to be
"not worth the effort"?

Would you, in the days when it was analog tape or nothing, have just
trusted the manufacturer of the tape machine to have properly aligned
and calibrated it?

... I shouldn't, however, expect it to stop working and need some new
parts if I got a new reverb.

That's right. Go back to your anecdote above. The user got a "new
reverb" and his tape machine suddenly stopped working ... He was at
the mercy of the vendors to supply him a solution, which in the end was
"send more money" ...

... I doubt that you can find even an elective on Using Ardour Instead
of Pro Tools.

I've seen them advertised here in Montreal, but more like one-day
workshops than courses of any sort.

... compare the knowledge and effort to go to Guitar Center, buy a
ProTools LE interface, stick the CD in the computer's drive, and push
the "GO" button to researching the various Linux documents to see what
hardware is supported for audio programs, buy that hardware, make sure
your Linux is updated with the appropriate support, get Ardour,
install it, configure Jack, and then maybe it'll work.

It's a valid point, yes. With ProTools LE, you've paid for someone
else to have that knowledge, and in return they let you use (because
they do make sure to clearly indicate that you don't own) a crippled
copy of their software. I'll trade time and effort for more choice and
control any day. I'm also not as good a guitar player as I'd like to be,
probably at least in part for precisely that reason (I spend more time
without a guitar in hand than with).

... I don't have the personal inclination to use Ardour enough to
learn it well enough to write a book about it. How about you?

I'm surprised I've written as much about it as I have in this thread!
Yet I mostly am repeating myself, so not much for a book there. I'm not
a writer, and I certainly don't play one on Netnews ...

... the one or two DAW programs available for Linux and the few (I'll
qualify that with modern) multi-channel interfaces available for them
...

"modern" = "runs on USB" then?

So why hasn't one of those people written the positive version of
the article that I didn't write?

It's a better question than any answer I can come up with ...

Maybe because when they look at it from the perspective of an EM or
Recording reader, they realize that they really can't get anyone
enthused about it.

Maybe. There are other possibilities, but it's just speculation.

Don't want to spend a bucket of money on an RME card or FireFace? Get
an M-Audio Delta, but be sure your computer has a PCI slot. My
neighbor just got a new computer last week and when he tried to move
his M-Audio Audiophile card to it (which he bought just a bit over a
year ago) he found that there was no slot for it.

It's a good thing your neighbor doesn't use Linux, isn't it? ;-)
(uh ... he doesn't use Linux, right?)

So why don't you write an article?

Writing isn't a pleasure for me, let alone any sort of income source.

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Sylvain Robitaille syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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