It's all computers. That's what sucks!

[LFOT]

Just to bring it up, but has anyone noticed that this is all computer gear. All of it. We're lucky it's not all replaced every year.

Sure, you spent 3 large on your Mac 9600, but who wanted to burn down Apple when they tried advancing technology a bit and ditched a lot of backward compatible stuff. (you know, great things like 5mb per second SCSI busses, floppy drives that hold next to nothing, ADB and serial connectors) Well, some of you did. I welcomed the change.

So as for your DSP farms... gone the way of the floppy. Mix cards... going the way of the soon to be obselete Compact Disc. Just be happy that you'll still be able to use your ****e sounding 888/24's and your G4 (or for you 3 other guys, your Wintel).

Not that I'm thrilled by all of this. Actually, it really is a total pain in the arse... and the wallet. I just wanted to bring it up.


It's all computers, and all of your gear will be obselete. Sorry. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[zaraz]

You do have a point about old technology. The floppy and SCSI bus were not needed and removed for a good reason. I don't know about anyone else, but I have had a lot more bad floppies than bad CD-R's. I still know people that bottleneck expensive Ultra 160 SCSI drives through old 5 MB/sec SCSI interfaces because "it's just better" because it's SCSI. I love SCSI, my system has an Ultra 2 interface that is running three hard drives and two CD-Rom's. Of course the stuff the mac used to include is nowhere near this. I'm glad they don't include it anymore. It lets me put in what I want.

[Park Seward]

You can avoid the "computer" by buying a specific purpose DAW like the Fairlight or some of the Roland and Korg boxes. They use microprocessors but have them running in a dedicated fashion. They rarely crash!

Dedicated workstations usually cost more and don't have the upgradeability. Also, you don't have the third-party products to add to your system.

Digi could make a dedicated system but it would cost more than most would want to pay.

[john a]

Philthy-
I'm there. Maybe I need Oxford EQ ( and so perhaps a little more dsp) and Reverb One,etc... but basically I'm pretty happy with my rig- it's more about the music and good recording/mixing technique than 192.

[Extreme Mixing]

I think I'll wait until june and see what happens, too. I can't remember when the last time was that my system crashed and I actually lost something. I don't think I need 96 or 192, so I'm left with track count ( too scarey to even think about 128 tracks with a mouse) and better sounding interfaces to motivate my purchase. Besides, I have 3 farm cards. What do I do with the extra farm and expansion chassis in the upgrade to an HD 3 system?

Steve

[Philthy]

Amen. I'd be happy to be at a point where I could honestly claim that I was being limited by 48 k instead of by my own incompetance... (I think lots of people here aren't being honest with themselves about where their weaknesses truly lie... but hey, in a way they're literally paying the price by continually hunting for gear that will magically fix their shortcomings! ) Oh dear reader, don't think I mean you personally! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Philthy]

On one hand, I completely agree. There's almost no point in debating. Except for one thought which has been nagging at me-

Is there a point in time when a system is perfectly good enough to do what I need?

I imagine that such a point would be reached when the effort needed to upgrade is greater than the effort that could be saved by using such an upgraded system.

I'm feeling like that now, actually. I have few complaints about my Mix +++. I can open more plug-ins than I need, and if I run out I don't mind printing the wacky ones. 64 voices is enough, and if I run out, I don't mind bouncing stacked parts. Working at 48/24, I feel like the system is doing a good job of reproducing what I feed it. And the software is what all programmers should aspire to.

So, I think I'm going to spend some time making music. [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[C Roberts]

it's more about the music and good recording/mixing technique than 192.
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That's got to be the smartest thing I've read on these PTHD posts. In the end it ends up at 44.1/16bit / FM broadcast / NTSC Broadcast or DTS-compressed or optically printed, ect...
Unless your working with Steely Dan ( who would probably track on 2" w/ Dolby SR ) 24/48 is fine. There will always be a reason to complain about upgrading - more horsepower/dsp what have you. That's why Euphonix / SSL / Sony are still in the game. You get what you pay for.
For my money ( Actually the studio's ) 24/48 is good enough for me. All these people complaining about sound quality but they still use these crappy plug-ins?Don' tell me that Maxim or L-2 sounds anywhere near a GML 8900 or that reverb One is as good as a 480 L.

[john a]

I'm pretty sure the dan's last, multi grammy winning effort was 16 bit.

[lwilliam]

I recently read something by Roger Nichols where he stated that some of his best-sounding recordings were done on a blackface ADAT.

I'd be glad to feel 44.1 or 48K was MY limiting factor, too.