Yep I agree with this. I hear people complain about Windows 10 all the time and I really don’t get what all the fuss is about. I’ll be running big projects in my DAW, mixing and stuff and come to find out that Windows was running updates the whole time when I try to put it to sleep…So I update and restart.
Disabling auto updates just seems a bit tin-foil hat wearing to me at this point. Maybe it was a terrible problem in the past and there were weird bugs, but I haven’t had a single problem with my DAW, plugins, or any other software after staying up-to-date.
You mean value on the second hand market ? True, but since it’s incredibly cheap in the first place I don’t think it matters much. Take Renoise for example… at 68€ it’s an incredible price/value ratio for a complete self-contained music software.
I think I’m just ultimately a hardware person and I like that I can always recoup a big chunk of my outlay (almost all if bought used) if/when I get bored of something or if I don’t gel with it. I get that many people find software really attractive, but I know that I’m just not that type (although I’m probably in the minority).
For instance, if Maschine were hardware I would have unloaded it ages ago on the auctions. Figuring out how to unregister the device and having to worry about whether someone else would have problems registering it just made it too much of a pain for me to deal with.
I’ll give it go when I get my new computer but a couple of people have told me that it doesn’t work for them on Mojave, perhaps there is a workaround (NI says that OSX no longer supports non-class compliant devices, so the drivers no longer work).
I understand this. These days I only use the pc for sample editing or tracks editing… tasks where a computer really shine. I’m not a fan of hybrid solutions like Maschine…
Crazy story!
But you are giving an example of the user interface being hacked, not the same thing.
It’s more like overbridge for nuclear plant!
not the same thing
They hacked windows, to run software which destroyed hardware!
Anyhoo I just wanted to point out that nuclear power stations do indeed run windows. Probably massively out of date windows, too.
There are some great talks from the CCC events over the years about hacking SCADA systems of power stations and trains and more. We are so so bad at IT security!
Hardware devices run on propreritary or specialized os (higly stable)–> “this is your Elektron music box”
Hardawre devices are monitored by Windows (highly opened and hackable)–> “this is overbridge”.
Now, you could make it more reliable by closing it completely to external interfacing (usb drives, internet, installing new programs, updates…)
this is of course hardly feasible for a complete nuclear plant but feasible for a single musician who wants to ensure the stability/reliability of his computer related setup.
your remark was not off topic and I hope you get my point because I have hard time to explain what I think in English, very frustrating
I believe that I understand what you mean! And you make a good distinction; you can use the elektron box without the Overbridge.
In the case of the nuclear power plant, I would not draw a strong line between the windows machines and the hardware devices, because the hardware devices are programmed (and controlled) by the windows devices! They are unable to operate one without the other.
That’d be like an electron box, where Overbridge is a required component o_O
Definitely off topic mini-rant about IT security
Which is honestly ridiculous, isn’t it? Of course it appears that sadly you are right, and this is partly what I mean by “we are so so bad at IT security!”
If there’s anywhere that should have top class security practices, it’s a fucking nuclear power station, capable of creating an international disaster. Yet Stuxnet exists, and worked, because of very basic IT security failings.
yes! although from my perspective, the practice of NOT updating your software for years often leaves you with a big gap to jump over, when you are finally required to update your software.
(eg, new software X won’t work without macOS 14, but I’m still on macOS 10, which is a huuuuge update that could break many things…) so it is better to do it incrementally IMHO. Technical debt is hard to pay off.
Unless you’ve got multiple computers, of course! Then you can install from scratch all your new software and use it as your prototype, knowing that you’ve still got your old machine to fall back on.
^ and this is why I personally find hardware machines much more attractive (at least for the creative part of composing.) I am not required to manage their complexity myself. Whereas with windows/macos/linux, I absolutely AM required to manage all the complexity.
I hope I understood and responded appropriately to your point! Forgive me if I didn’t.
(I am a native english speaker, but after living quite a few years in germany, english often feels like my second language!)
but having said that, the laptop with max and live and chuck and csound and whatever else is much more flexible
So I’m saying that more flexible is often more complex. I completely agree with @AdamJay that complexity does not HAVE to mean unreliability. I would add a coment, that when it’s the musician who is the one building and managing the complexity, who is not a software engineer or a computer specialist, I would say it is certainly a contributing factor! It’s very easy to build unreliable complexity. (You should see my terrifying max patches, and I am a computer specialist!)
as a person with few years of csound / supercollider background, i can say that those subcultures have very little to do with music.
doing things in csound / supercollider / similar environments is fun, but that’s absolutely separate, all-sufficient kind of fun. people involved in csound or supercollider mostly solve problems that just never exist outside of csound or supercollider
this actually leads away from music, and even from sound design. that’s what happened to me, for example.
I find max to be inspirational, musically. I especially like making weird long multi multi multi tap delay chains and recording the results for use in other places.
It’s so easy to get swept up into the Tool itself though!
what i found inspirational and very useful is Axoloti, which ideologically is very similar to csound, but — surprise! — has hardware part thus much more restrictive.
in my rig, Axoloti boards do MIDI routing and a plenty of MIDI jobs that other my gear can’t do well. very stable and ultra low latency. loving this little thing
I strongly believe that musician who turns into computer music must be prepared to manage the complexity of a computer himself. Computer can be stable enough for any critical tasks (mac, linux or Windows or …) if well handeled, but the responsability partly relies on the user.One have to accept that.
Whereas someone who buys hardware shouldn’t worry, the box by itself should work as advertised.
If think this is often why we hear people complaining about computer stability, espacially for a musician coming from hardware.
