Starting with software-based music production

[Peter Korsten]

Op 9-1-2016 om 20:53 schreef Jay Vaughan (ibisum):

> Do not discount, then, the totally free software route, also.  I beg of you, install Ubuntu Studio and spend an evening or two setting it up properly - there is immense amounts of power and - frankly - unique and interesting sounds - in the open source world.  My DAW has 300+ plugins, ranging from your average bodgy student hack to the bazaare and truly unique.  All free.  All sources available.  I’ll dump a list, and you will see the un-tapped potential of this particular route in your quest.

At the risk of contradicting myself, it's not just a monetary issue. I'm 
happy with Windows, and I'm not going to install something else. I don't 
want to reboot to do music, and quite frankly, Linux is still a bugger 
to use for productivity. Try increasing a partition in Windows, and then 
try the same thing in Linux. Not fun.

I'm fighting enough with computers during my job, so I don't really want 
to have the same problem when at home. One reason why I changed jobs 
(apart from the much better pay) was that I was doing too many things in 
my previous one, including maintaining two Linux systems. It's something 
that I can do, that I'm pretty good at, but that I'm not particularly 
inclined to do.

Having said that, setting up audio in Reaper on Windows is baffling me.

> Even if you just get as far as a bit of Hydrogen and ZynAddSubFX and Bristol being driven by seq24 while streaming them into individual tracks in Ardour, remember the cost: you will be having a bit of fun, setting it up, and it won’t cost much but the download time and a bit of patience.
>
> Get to that sweet spot though, and you may achieve true nirvana in this quest.

I like simple things. The Arturia bundle seems like instant 
gratification in that regard. And with my new job, our combined income 
is such that this €200 expense is something that I did discuss with my 
wife, but only briefly.

> I guess you’re not going to be schlepping and EX5’ing into the mix, somehow, then?

Too fucking big, really. :) It's a beautiful instrument, but playing and 
creating music aren't necessarily the same thing for me. A MIDI/USB 
keyboard would fill the gap, though.

Once I figure out what to do with the cat, that is.

- Peter