computers suck creative energy

[Matthias Grob <matilists@atarde.com.br>]

I am impressed, depressed...
I spent a lot of time switching from HW to SW myself, and I still  
dont feel at home as you could see and hear at y2k7.
I had almost the same system for 15 years before, only upgrading  
effect units, soldering arround in my fixed wiring sometimes to allow  
some new control or combination, so that worked very intuitively to me.
But was it bug free? No! many times there was a bad contact  
somewhere, usually coming up before the show, but sometimes during,  
as well...
Sometimes some setting was changed and not as easy to find as in the  
computer, where everything is preset, just open the right file and  
all is the way you saved it...

I see the effort some musicians make from plain accoustic playing to  
using HW effects. You did that step long time ago, possibly while  
learning to play, so you dont even remember that.

There are a lot of side conditions of how you set up the computer. I  
am using the same macbook pro for everything in my life, which is not  
so serious. I should have a unit just for live playing and leave it  
the way it is, until some change which is well tested on another  
machine can be moved to the live computer - a week or so before the  
next gig...

And this live computer could be a box with a touch screen and pedal  
connected. A main drawback of the laptops are the exposed connectors  
on its side. I think the whole setup should be ready wired in a save  
box (I see that most loopers dont do this and spend a time hooking up  
all their pedals and testing them each time they play). I actually  
tried this with a mini mac in the same box as the pedal and the audio  
interface, but failed, because the it has the video memory shared  
with the main memory which produces clicks.

** always buy computers with video cards that have physical memory on  
it (carefull, they try to cheat in specs!) **

Also, for the preliminary Mathons Polyphonic plugins, I spend over  
50% of the processor power, so any accidental additional load can  
create a click - or a gap, as I had 4 times at y2k7, and never  
before... also, I was stupid enough to not even reboot the computer  
before playing...

So I think we should
- learn how to do it best on what there is arround now
- not touch the solution when we have one and play it over a longer time
- hope for faster and smaller (no HD) machines in the future
- hope for more realtime oriented music OS (as the Linux guys are  
working on, while Vista goes the other direction...)
- hope (or work) for better looping software...

>> difficult to just do what's needed and say "yup, it works, now  
>> close the toolbox"
>>
> Yup, I follow you. My problem, at least in the PC world, is that  
> the damn technology
> never lets you close the toolbox. :)

thats because you are not done with it yet. I bet we can come to a  
arrangement we like so much that we stop looking at each plug that  
comes out for a while and then make another upgrade when we feel like  
- on a different machine...
Plus, you knew when you started using Max, that you were choosing the  
steep way, but you wanted it because you want unlimited optinons. So  
since the machine does not give you limits (as a RC20 would ;-) you  
have to put a limit!

So yes, all this sucks creative energy, but its because we are really  
creating something new and in the end can create new music with it,  
so the sucked energy is fed back, in a way, no?

yeah, dont stop to play because of the computer, but dont just trash  
what holds so much of your energy!

Matthias

On 11 Nov 2007, at 17:21, Krispen Hartung wrote:

> I'm just confused as the pragmatic difference between lugging a  
> desktop computer box around, with a touch screen connected to it,  
> maybe an external audio interface, and a MIDI controller....and  
> simply bringing a laptop and an interface and MIDI controller. Not  
> much difference to me...both revolve around the PC, which is what  
> has been sucking the artistic energy out of me
>
> Remember the sci-fi movie, Lifeforce?   Remember that beautiful  
> brunet/alien who was walking around, baring her breasts, seducing  
> men, and sucking the life out of them? Yeah, that's the laptop/max/ 
> reaktor for me. It's just so damn seductive I can't say no, but it  
> drains me. :)
>
> Kris
>