I was actually defending the use of Abelton Live, since if you know what you are doing, it can be a very powerful FM (with the Operator add-on) and granular synthesizer. Plus, if you know how to take a reciprocal, every delay can be an awesome resonator if you take the time to calculate the pitches and convert them to ms. The thing is, you have to know what these techniques are from a fundamental level to do anything noteworthy. (But that's OK, it thins the competition ;-D)
I agree that it is not WHAT software you use, but what you DO with it. I've seen lots of good programmers make pretty mediocre music, and lots of technological babies churn out some great tunes. Hell, some of my best microsound work was 3 years ago with vanilla Acid 3 and Soundforge--no plug-ins. And I won't even get STARTED on my Impulse Tracker days.
Everyone always disses on Live on this list, but it has the most intuitive interface, optimized algorithms, and versatility that I've seen in a commercial OR open source package. It should be acknowledged as a feat of performance interface design (even if it rips off Star Trek, The Next Generation). Plus, Robert Henke and Gerhard Behles have produced some excellent music (often using Max/MSP).
I'd love to see Pd eventually be able to compete with Live on the levels of sophistication, usability, intuitive interface, documentation, DAW operations, etc. But if everyone sits around and spits spite, then these features seem more like threats than goals to the Pd community.
Sure commercial software costs money and is hegemonic and capitalistic, but let's face it: people getting paid are WAY more organized. Just compare http://cycling74.com to http://puredata.org. This is not meant to offend the generous people who created and maintain the site, but the $$ is an obvious benefit to any software initiative.
~Kyle
On 3/25/06, David McCallum d@mentalfloss.ca wrote:
I think I'm missing something, I'm not quite sure what's wrong with this article--- but everyone here seems to love ripping into it.
Sure, the guy does a complete disservice to laptop music by giving people the impression that all you do is drop in other people's loops; but it seems that what he's being attacked for here is his software choice.
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