[PlanetCCRMA] Re: PlanetCCRMA vs the mainstream

[Mike Mazarick]

Jonathan, it is not the end of the world if we don't get an article in
Electronic Musician immediately;  I'd recommend that you file it for a few
weeks/months and dust it off when the time is right for publication (like
when we get a "live cd" version of the planet working and available or
something like that).

One thing that would be useful for musicians trying out the Planet would be
a "Rosetta Stone" type of translation between ProTools, Cubase, Radar, and
Linux.  This could include categories like "preferred hardware", Plug-Ins,
Drums, Midi-mixing, Sampling, Equalization, Tracking, PostProduction, etc.
It would be especially interesting to see the investment required in $ for a
complete solution.  This would make a good basis for an article that would
put the Planet on the correct "playing field" for comparison.   If there are
a few gaps in the Linux world for the Pros and semi-pros, that's ok.  Most
of the people that I know who want to mainly play/record music work in the
ProTools arena, but they are completely familiar with its drawbacks and are
always interested in alternatives.

One of the strongest things going for the linux effort has nothing to do
with the technology, but everything to do with the community that is being
built around PlanetCCRMA, not to mention the long and strong history in
digital music that everyone owes to Stanford University.  It always pays to
remember your "roots".  I know we all spend more time dealing with new
operating systems, new tools, recompiles, etc than my ProTools friends, but
that is the nature of experimentation.  Some of these experiments will pan
out and be very useful.

If there is one thing that gives electronic musicians credibility, it is
recording music and posting it somewhere.   There are several sites for
posting music, but if there is an active one for Linux based music (or music
created with PlanetCCRMA), I've forgotten where it is an am not reminded
often enough.  A couple of years ago I was becoming aware of Internet Music
Collaboration approaches (near 'real time' jamming, etc.), however, I don't
think that there was a place for Linux based musicians to collaborate.

So, to summarize (and add a few points):
1) Don't worry about publicity right now, we're still "woodsheding"
2) If you wanted to be prepared with some comparison categories when we get
outta da shed, that would be useful to others trying to understand "what
Linux Audio is"
3) There can be an "event" created that is newsworthy if the Planet decides
to do it (timing is up to the participants) - this would be a good time to
dust off the article.
4) The Planet has some real underlying strengths that are hard to beat, but
5) Musicians judge collaboration by the quantity and quality of music
produced
6) PlanetCCRMA would be well served by having a place to store the results
(maybe not the Planet)
7) Unix/Linux has always been "the glue" - internet musical collaboration is
an area that is ripe for showing what the Linux tools can do (see
Collaboration Central, Rocketears-online.net, SonicGarden, 96decibels.com,
and a host of others).  If you don't want to play, just accept other
people's .wav files, introduce people to each other, and mix down the
results.

Anybody in favor of a Linux "Open Mic Night"?

Regards,

Mike Mazarick



===
snip, snip

On 10/18/05, Jonathan Segel <jsegel@magneticmotorworks.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 16, 2005, at 12:00 PM, planetccrma-request@ccrma.Stanford.EDU
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> thanks for the positive feedback. I hope the secretarial work
> >>> done by me
> >>> helps linux audio to become more and more main stream.
>
> sadly, an article on the current state of Linux Audio that I wrote
> this past summer for Electronic Musician Magazine was just killed.
> the editors seemed to think that not enough was "new" since alan
> metts' article on planet-ccrma from jan 2004, and that only 1% of
> their readers used linux anyway. (well, if you only publish one
> article on it every few years...)
> i've been arguing with them for the past few days.
>

=Bummer. I would have enjoyed reading it.
=
=I think from a pure marketing POV he's probably right. There isn't a
=lot new in terms of app names in the last year. There are now much
=more stable apps, but that probably doesn't sell magazines.

=Linux Audio is so fragmented it's hard for new people to get their
=hands around it, and so many of the apps are so obscure that they are
=likely not well understood in a few paragraphs. And still we do not
=have a single 'go to' app to replace Pro Tools/Cubase/etc. so many
=people wouldn't even attempt to use this as a platform. It's FAR too
=hard from a new user perspective.

=That said, we need more articles out there to attract more people. I
=hope you don't give up.

- Mark